Chapter 20
“Mother?” I repeated.
I hadn’t heard from her since the summer Superbia had been struck by an aggressive ash storm. The memory of it was blurred by time and youth’s amnesia.
The little I recalled was that everything had been coated in grey and black flakes, the result of an incident the Concord declared an “unfortunate mishap.” The official story broadcast across the media suggested a disgruntled employee at the central power station had disposed of bodies bound for the mortuary.
On its face, it had seemed harmless. However, given the variety of supernatural entities in the city, one mishandled corpse easily exploded into an entire fucking weather disaster.
If you’d ever seen phoenix shit tossed into a bonfire, you’d know just how quickly one goes from roasting marshmallows to celebrating with a light show for a month.
During the unprecedented ash storm, Mother had taken off without looking back. As the door had been closing behind her, she’d pitched some lame excuse about the storm being detrimental to her work.
Whatever life calling she possessed, she never spoke of it. When pressed on the topic, she went out of her way to evade straightforward responses. Instead, Mother preferred to speak in riddles. A touch of this. A touch of that.
I could only assume she spent her time chasing clouds and attempting to capture dreams. Glamorous, but pointless. She probably sold her so-called inventory as though she was spinning straw into gold. Who was to say she hadn’t woven a nimbus into a nightmare and sold it as a prophecy?
Her absence left Tighe and me unsupervised while our father maintained strict order amongst tormented souls in the eighth circle of Hell.
Now here I stood, in a place known to be more horrifying than any of Hell’s rings of everlasting torture.
The gaunt-looking man before me—my brother, or what had become of him—stood behind steadfast bars. No inkling of jest in his demeanor. Only truth remained in those pale blue eyes of his.
“She came to see you?” I asked in complete disbelief. “What did she say?”
Despite her absurd business ventures, since when had Mother ever come to see her second-favorite child before visiting me? It was unfathomable. At least I pretended that her little potions smelled tolerable.
Tighe shifted on bare feet. The threadbare tunic he wore came to his knees and passed for the latest in prison-attire fashion, making scratchy noises with the slightest movement.
Hesitation twitched at the corners of his mouth. His eyes shifted, observing Ace’s foreboding presence. The stubborn bastard stood far enough behind me to give a modicum of privacy, his fingers never breaking contact with my spine that he occasionally stroked.
Ace read Tighe’s suspicion straight off the bat. He stepped forward. The heat of him radiated against me as his hand slid up the center of my back and settled on my shoulder with undisguised protectiveness.
“You’re right to be wary of me. I would be too if our situations were reversed. Trust me or don’t, but I’m your only shot at getting the fuck out of this shithole.”
My brother tilted his head, taking in how this particular Knight of Hell didn’t sugarcoat and cut straight to the damn point.
“I know who you are. I’ve heard stories—not all of them in your favor. Some of which make me question why my sister is here with you.”
Tighe didn’t sound impressed, far from it. Given his rounds on the party circuit where everybody shared gossip and bodily fluids alike, it didn’t surprise me that he had encountered stories about Sevenfold’s owner.
The two of them stood there locked in a staring contest, each measuring up the other. My brother the incubus thought he had a chance against someone like Ace.
Tighe broke eye contact first, returning his attention to me.
“Mother didn’t say much. Didn’t apologize, if that’s what you want to know.” A bitter scoff escaped him.
Of course she didn’t apologize for abandoning her children. Mother always believed she knew best. Whether it was best for her or for us remained unclear.
I folded my arms in front of me, hip cocked out to one side, looking at this unkempt version of my brother. The image was a far cry from the preppy frat-bro aesthetic he’d embraced before getting nailed on distribution of Glayze charges.
“She didn’t say much,” I repeated. “But she said something.”
Tighe’s knuckles popped as his grip tightened on the bars separating us. His jaw worked through the tension, clenching and releasing several times.
“You know how Mother is. Her words cost her. She offered a few pitiful attempts at reassurance, said that everything happens for a reason.”
My eyes rolled in knowing frustration. “Sounds like her. Always selling the grander picture,” I grumbled.
“Any other visitors?” Ace’s voice cut in.
With a roll of his shoulders, Tighe shrugged. “My attorney.”
Unsatisfied with ambiguity, Ace pushed for more like a greedy bastard. “He got a name?”
“Rowan Byrne. Why?” The wariness in my brother’s tone made it clear he refused to fully trust Ace. I couldn’t blame him. Even with our current dynamic, I didn’t put all my trust in him either.
A soft sound escaped the man protectively hovering behind me. It might have passed for something of amusement if not for the fact that we were standing in one of Superbia’s most dangerous penitentiaries.
“Needed to know who hasn’t been able to baffle the penal system with legal bullshit. Byrne’s a decent lawyer. You’ve got that going for you at least.”
Ace leaned down, his mouth coming to my ear. “Wrap things up, Little Spade. We are on borrowed time.”
Frowning, I nodded in acknowledgment.
Looking back at Tighe, my arms fell to my sides as I straightened my posture. “You’re going to get out of here, and when you do, we’re going to have a huge party. Bigger than the bash held at what’s-his-face’s two years ago.”
The first spark of my brother I remembered returned to his eyes. A fond recollection of a point in time where all we had to worry about was who bought the next round.
“Fane does know how to host a killer party,” he admitted, a quiet sadness in how he spoke.
My voice lowered to the gravest oath I’d ever give. ”Rip isn’t going to get away with what he did.”
There was something in my brother’s eyes at the mention of the demon who bore responsibility that had never been Tighe’s to serve for a crime he didn’t commit. It was the weight of guilt with a dose of self-loathing that could eat away at one’s soul.
“Eve, don’t get yourself mixed up with that son of a bitch.”
“Too late for that,” Ace unhelpfully added.
I shot a warning look over my shoulder that went ignored. Turning back to Tighe, I put on my bravest face as my hands wrapped around the bars just below where his were. “You’ll be hitting up the clubs in no time. We’ll rent out one of the floors at Acedia for you.”
“The whole club.” The offer came from Ace with a surprising amount of genuine generosity.
My brother’s hands slid down, his palms covering the back of my hands. On contact, his face lit up. His eyes stared at me as if he had just discovered a missing puzzle piece lodged between couch cushions.
Before he could say a word, Ace’s hand fell to my waist and tugged me back against his chest. The contact between my sibling and me was severed.
“Time to go.” All demand, no warmth.
I opened my mouth to protest but got cut off by his sharp tone.
“Now, Genevieve.”
Despite being guided away, I got one final glimpse of Tighe when I looked back. He remained standing there in his cell, watching as Ace escorted me down the path.
“Ace!” he barked, his face pressed against the bars to maintain eye contact. “Make sure you know what the hell you’re dealing with! She’s not stable!”
The corridor swallowed up the echo of his words behind us.
Several attempts to reply to Tighe about his warning were met with Ace being a stubborn asshole who frog-marched me straight back the way we had come.
“Keep moving.” Another brusque order from him.
Once we were back through the archway that represented the barrier between this cell block and the main building, the reptilian guard stood waiting for us with a stopwatch in his hand.
It clicked louder than something so small should have.
“Shame. The tides were shifting in favor of Wassagor’s snack time. Suppose he’ll have to suffer hunger another day,” he stated with cold indifference as he pocketed the watch.
I gawked at the guard. “Snack time?”
The question went unanswered. Ace’s hand anchored itself to my upper arm and kept pulling.
In passing, he gave the guard his false gratitude.
“Thank you for your hospitality and patience. Send our regards to the warden.”
By the time we were back in the helicopter, my hand rubbed along the top of my arm.
“What the hell was that?!” I glared at him.
Ace reached over and gave another tug of my harness to ensure it was secure. “While you were having your family reunion, I was monitoring how much time we had left before Blackscale’s favorite beast decided to keep us.”
He sat back in his seat, unfazed by my scowling.
“The ledge in your brother’s cell? The fog you saw? It stopped. When it began rising again, there was an amber hue to it. Wassagor’s breath turns sulfuric when he’s preparing to feed.”
All my anger bled out of me, giving way to an immediate sense of panic.
“Tighe! We left him there. We have to go back!” My fingers struggled with the buckle that locked me in place.
The trembling attempts to undo the straps stopped when Ace clamped his hand down over mine.
“Your brother will be fine. Wassagor only feeds on prisoners when they try to make a jailbreak.” He took a thoughtful pause before he added a morbid alternative, “Or they lose all hope and pitch themselves into his den. In that case, he takes his time consuming pieces of them.”
Not quite a total reassurance, but enough to find myself relaxing back into my seat one breath at a time.
Taking note of my receding panic, Ace’s hand squeezed mine before withdrawing.
“Wassagor is a Vorarian,” he explained. “A gluttonous beast that thrives on those who enter his domain tasting of freedom and unrestrained power.”
A dry smirk curved over his mouth. “Inmates lack both, making them as appealing as a plate of pickled broccoli left to rot in the sun.”
The imagery twisted my stomach, banishing any appetite that may have lingered.
Arriving back at Sevenfold, Ace offered a hand as I stepped out of the helicopter onto the rooftop. Waiting for us, Monica looked drab and devoid of any personality as ever.
She wore the same type of depressing pantsuit as when I met her on my first day inside Ace’s casino. It reeked of decaying polyester in a shade of tan that screamed color wheel reject. And nobody wanted to get me started on the heels.
“Mr. Reynard, you have a visitor downstairs,” she announced without breaking stride to follow alongside us toward the roof’s access door.
“Who is it?” Ace’s hand locked onto mine, refusing to allow me to stray.
Monica’s response was clipped, efficiency masquerading as competence. “Wouldn’t give a name. Insisted on an audience.”
Lifting his free hand, Ace waved it dismissively. “I don’t take meetings with people off the street on a whim. Tell whoever it is to come back after making an appointment.”
“I’m afraid that offer has already been offered and declined,” she responded.
Releasing my hand, Ace directed his focus back to me. “Eve, return to the penthouse—”
“Actually, sir, he requested to see you both.”
Her statement brought Ace to an abrupt stop.
“Both of us,” he repeated.
She confirmed with a single curt nod.
A vision tore through my mind’s eye unbidden.
Flashes of a conference room, familiar eyes that reminded me of watered-down milk, and a presence that made every bit of my skin crawl so deep that it felt like ants were marching along my bones.
My breath hitched, my free hand automatically grasping onto Ace’s arm to steady myself.
“Rip. He’s downstairs,” I exhaled. “One of the conference rooms.”
“Executive Conference Hall Omega, to be exact,” Monica added.
When Ace’s eyes met mine, the mossy depths were already swirling with streaks of hellfire. Rip’s presence seemed to stir up his possessive claim on me before we even got inside the building.
His stare lingered, assessing something. It could have been conjuring a strategy for handling the unexpected visitor. Or perhaps it wasn’t that at all. He could have been fantasizing about where he wanted to put his dick again.
My eyes dropped down to the fly of his tailored slacks. A bulge, but definitely not full mast. And let’s be honest, if his blood had rushed south thinking of me, that zipper wouldn’t have survived.
“Eyes up here, Little Spade.” The faint edge of a knowing grin slipped free of his otherwise careful composure.
I rolled my eyes but obeyed anyway. My sapphire hues dragged up the center of his body without any desire to rush. After admiring the angle of his jaw currently dusted with an early five o’clock shadow, I cast my best smile, projecting innocence at him.
A flash of feral energy was there and gone again. It promised there would be words—or hands—later. Replacing it was the cold, calculating look of a Knight of Hell prepared to defend his side of the chessboard. To protect his queen—me, obviously.
He turned back to Monica, who was preoccupied glaring at the wind that kept flapping up the lapels of her unfortunate fashion choice.
“Shall—” She smoothed down the fabric on her jacket one last time. “Shall I have security on standby?”
She pulled out her phone, tapping away as if she knew the answer.
Ace waved off the notion. “If it comes to it, security won’t be necessary after I’ve finished with him.”
The dark promise beneath those words was not lost on anybody.
Monica’s fingertips paused against the glass surface of her phone.
“Understood.” She pocketed her phone.
A pause came just long enough for Ace to give her one more order.
“Oh, and Monica? Have Ignatius prepare Box Seventeen and deliver it to the penthouse.”
The bizarre request didn’t seem to faze the woman who had less personality than a yeti’s toenail clippers. She nodded and strode ahead of us to make herself useful elsewhere.
Lifting a brow, unable to help my curiosity, I asked, “Box Seventeen?”
The bastard smirked like he knew what resided in Pandora’s jar, while I was the dumbass who’d sealed it shut and promptly forgotten where I’d put it.
He extended a hand for me to take, palm up.
“Box Seventeen.”