Page 90 of Pride: Kneel Before None

I ground my teeth together. Everything was being taken out of context. “The waters amplify existing bonds, yes. But they also stabilize abilities that⁠—”

The elevator dinged.

I turned to look as the doors parted.

Out stepped a figure I hadn’t expected to see. The fucking icing on top of Superbian Chaos Special, the type the local diners served at three A.M. that had you scrambling to keep your inner organs inside where they belonged.

“Ace!” Rip bellowed, raising his arms like he was greeting an old acquaintance. His smile showed too many teeth and was too large for one belonging to a dead man.

Things were going from bad to worse. Losing control over a situation in my own fucking casino was unacceptable. Yet here we were, surrounded by overwhelming odds in favor of Sevenfold becoming a warzone.

The unkempt bastard approached at a leisurely pace, unhurried as if he had already won a race that no one else had participated in. His gait remained uneven from whatever injury plagued him.

“I heard it on good word that you were put out of your misery, Rip. Who did you end up bribing to stop you from rotting?”

If Felix had served me false information, I’d sever his limbs in the most painful way imaginable.

Ignatius shifted, attempting to sit up as he gestured at Rip and shook his head. Words came out in a strained warning. “Not… him.”

Not Rip?

Glancing down at one of my most loyal acquaintances, there was nothing but truth in his statement. Even lying there broken, he used what little strength remained to warn me.

Taking advantage of my divided attention, Mirra pulled Eve into her arms. She held my Little Spade like she were a small child too fragile to bear witness to whatever reckoning was about to happen.

The lingering seeds of doubt Mirra planted with expertise left Eve looking torn between her mother and me.

“Not so fast, Mirra,” Rip—or whoever had his face on—warned. “You’ll wait until we’re done here. Then you can run off with your precious little pet project.”

He waved his hands, a motion reminiscent of a conductor before an orchestra. The sweep of his hands prompted all the bodies that had remained stationary this whole time to move in unison.

They mindlessly crept towards us, forming a wall of flesh and bone between the nearest exits and us. My mind ran through a slew of potential strategies that weren’t annihilating the whole building and everybody in it. At least not until I understood all the stakes.

Mirra shook her head. “That wasn’t the deal! She’s none of your concern.”

A sharp ache traveled from my clenched jaw right into my temples.

“Brilliant, Mirra. Making a deal using your daughter as a poker chip?” The bitter sarcasm in my voice cut through, undisguised. I didn’t give a fuck what the deal had been. Nobody used my Little Spade as collateral.

Meanwhile, Eve pushed away from her mother at the mention of being treated as something to negotiate over.

One couldn’t barter the crown when it had already been claimed.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, already stepping closer to me without being told.

I searched the face of the man who had managed to control a crowd of people with a few flicks of his wrists. There had to be a clue as to who existed beneath the mask.

“You’re not Rip. Who are you?” I asked.

A sinister smirk curled across his face.

“Do you not recognize me, Barnabel?” He tutted in disappointment.

With a specific sequence of finger movements, sulfuric smoke rained down over him, erasing the illusion of Rip’s presence.

Once the glamor was gone, an elderly man in a black robe with sparse white hair remained. Stitched onto the breast of the ceremonial garment was a patch, a familiar symbol of the realm. The crest of the Knights of Hell.

It felt like searching through an eternity of memories as I racked my brain for recognition of who this imposter was.