But Enne felt far away as she studied the scene around her, as though watching from a distance. Too much tonight didn’t make sense. Harrison had killed his mother, ensuring that the carriers of her three omertas survived, but he’d also done it in a crowded room. He still held his gun, in fact. Yet no one moved against him. None of the guests even spoke at all.
She opened her mouth to ask, “What’s going on?” but she didn’t know if the words came out. She didn’t trust her own senses.
She must’ve spoken, though, because Bryce responded, “This is a game.Mygame. And tonight, everyone in this casino is going to play.” He licked his lips as he turned back to the crowd. “If everyone would reach into your pockets, you should all have a card.”
Hesitantly, every person searched themselves, and Enne watched numbly as the guests each pulled out a plain, typical playing card.
“Would those with the Shadow Cards please join me up here?” Bryce asked impatiently, meeting Enne’s gaze. With a start, Enne realized that his eyes were scarlet, like a story plucked from one of Grace’s legends.
She felt foolish now for never suspecting. Bryce’s eyes, Enne recalled, had always looked bloodshot. He’d been wearing contacts, just like her.
The Balfour family doesn’t have a talent, Lola had once told her, but even then, of course, Enne had known that couldn’t be true. When she and Bryce had shaken hands for the first time, she’d felt a power in him, the same power of the Shadow Game. But, like all things that reminded her of that night, she’d locked the memory away, buried it beneath anger and ambition, all—so she told herself—to make herself stronger.
She’d been a fool.
Enne climbed onto the stage and stood at Levi’s side, Harrison behind them. The relief in Levi’s eyes when he looked at her was nearly enough to make her break down again. He reached for her hand, but she wrapped her arms around herself.
“What happened?” Levi asked her.
But Bryce’s next actions drew her attention away. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a long red cloth, then unfolded it and threw it into the air. As the cloth billowed and drifted down, it rested around the shape of something large and circular, though there’d been nothing there before.
Bryce smiled. “And the game begins.”
He tore away the cloth to reveal a lottery wheel, alternating red and black like a game of roulette. The crowd gasped—a few people even clapped, as though this were some sort of show, as though Vianca’s bleeding body didn’t lie at Bryce’s feet.
“Don’t do this,” Harrison said, stepping forward. He laid a protective, almost paternal hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “I know what you’re doing, and you can’t—”
Bryce swatted him away. “Ican. And if you do know, then you also know you can’t stop me.”
Bryce turned back to the crowd. “In my game, there’s only one rule—survival,” he told the room. The clapping abruptly died. “This roulette wheel contains a number for every card from two to ace. You’d better hope it doesn’t fall on yours.”
He spun the wheel, and the metal pegs on the table whirled.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Enne saw the glimmer of strings in the air, and she frantically grasped for Levi’s hand, despite herself. For a moment, she was back at that card table, facing those who had killed her mother. The strings hummed around them as the board spun, plucking an eerie song as though playing a harp. The hairs on Enne’s neck standing on end.
The wheel stopped on the number ten.
A dozen people across the room crumpled to the floor. At first, it only seemed like a trick, and it wasn’t until the guests around them began to scream that Enne realized those people were dead.
She watched in shock as many of the guests rose and fled for the doors, only to find them locked. They pounded on them, threw themselves against them. But still, they remained closed.
The rules of the world had broken, and with that realization, Enne regained the last shreds of her composure. She didn’t know this game, but as she clutched Levi’s hand beside her, she knew she still had things to lose. And so she couldn’t afford to break, too.
This night had already claimed too many lives.
She reached into her dress and pulled out her gun. Her hand trembled as she clutched it—it was the same gun that had killed Jac. But still, she aimed it at Bryce’s chest.
“Stop this,” Enne growled. Beside her, Levi squeezed her other hand, but made no move to stop her. Many of the guests, too, had stopped their escape attempts to watch.
“Why so angry?” Bryce asked her. He kicked Vianca’s body in the side, and Enne winced. No matter how wretched Vianca had been, there was something unsettling about how carelessly he wounded her corpse. “The three of us should be celebrating.”
The three of us.Enne’s hand shook, though she made no move to lower her gun.Brycehad been Vianca’s third omerta? But of course it made sense. Vianca was the one who’d suggested Enne visit him—she’d even referred to Bryce as “dear.” And then there was the way Bryce had always spat out the name of this casino.
“You didn’t know?” Bryce asked, letting out a strangled laugh. “How do you think she knew about the words spoken at our meetings?”
Bryce took a step closer to them, and even if he claimed to be their ally, Enne and Levi both backed away. The crimson glint in his eyes matched the blood he had spilled.
