Alston "Ace" Dillingham

Eight-year defending champion of the Birchingham Club's charity poker tournament, professional card sharp, and the man whose poker face finally cracked in the Quiet Room. Ace Dillingham walked into that parlor believing he was untouchable. He walked out owing the room a confession: four hundred thousand dollars owed to the Syndicate from a bad investment, the kind of number that turns a Winchester gentleman into a Winchester liability. In a district where money is power and debt is death, Ace's secret makes him the most compromised card player in the Heights. The Syndicate holds his marker. The Quiet Room has his confession. And the charity tournament that funded his reputation sends its proceeds to a youth athletics program that hasn't fielded a team in eleven years. The house always wins, and in Winchester, the house is rotten.