Chapter 32
The Trickster
T he man reeks of fear. It’s in the piss soaking his trousers, in the sweat beading across his scalp, in the way his eyes skitter anywhere but me. I’ve seen men broken in the cage he runs, beaten bloody for sport. None of them looked this pathetic. Then again, they didn’t have me to answer to.
I crouch in front of him, resting the knife flat against his thigh, not piercing, not yet. He flinches anyway, jerks against the ropes binding him to the chair. His lip splits wider when he tries to speak, teeth slick with blood.
“P-please… I d-don’t—”
I drive the blade in slowly, inch by inch, right above the knee. His scream cracks against the concrete walls of my basement, high and desperate, before dissolving into a sob.
“You’ve seen them,” I murmur, quiet enough that he has to strain past his pain to hear. “I’ll say their names one more time. Caleb and Shelby. They were there at the last fight.”
“B-but—” The man howls when I retrieve the blade and run it across an exposed rib.
“Don’t waste my time,” I warn.
He shakes his head, ragged gasps tearing through hi m. “I-I don’t know w-where they a-are.”
“Liar.” The word hisses from between my teeth. Rage coils tight in my chest, choking, suffocating. My blade twists deeper before I can stop it, his scream ripping raw through the air.
Nick’s hand clamps down on my shoulder. Not to stop me—just to keep me tethered. “Easy,” he mutters, though there’s nothing easy about the heat rolling off me.
“If you don’t remember or know anything, I have no use for you,” I state coldly.
He sobs, shudders, piss dribbling fresh down his leg. Useless. I want to tear him apart piece by piece.
“O-okay,” he screams. “I-I heard s-some talk about s-screaming. T-that’s all I know.”
“Screaming?” Nick steps closer, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck does that mean?”
The man’s teeth chatter around the word, spit and blood dribbling down his chin. “A… tunnel…”
Nick’s gaze flicks to mine, a dark glint beneath his lashes. His voice drops, flat with recognition. “Tunnel of Screams.”
The Sanctuary of Shadows. I taste the name before it forms, copper on the back of my tongue. That place where spectacle and silence share the same mask. Of course, Shelby would be there.
The man wheezes, chest buckling, ropes groaning as he thrashes weakly. Hope trembles in his eyes—hope that naming it might buy him mercy. I let him keep it for one beat, let it swell in him like air in a drowning lung.
Then I pull my knife out and straighten. “You did good.”
“T-thank y-you,” he sobs.
Before he can register what I’m doing, I stab the blade into his abdomen and drive it upward deep under his ribs, angling toward the heart. His body bows hard against the ropes, a shudder rattling through him.
The sound is less scream than strangled gasp, cut off by the wet gurgle of blood flooding his throat. His body spasms once, twice, then collapses inward on itself, eyes glassy, mouth open ar ound the silence I’ve forced into him.
I hold the knife there until the heat leaves him, until I’m certain there’s nothing left to crawl back.
Only then do I ease it free, slow and unhurried, the wet scrape of steel against bone louder than his dying breath.
For a moment, I just watch him sag lifeless in the chair, a ruin of what passes for a man. Violence always ends in quiet.
“What do you want to do?” Nick asks, and I’m surprised he’s been able to keep pretending this long.
My big brother thrives on control, yet he’s let me run the show since I sliced my palm open in his home. I know it’s his way of showing he cares, that he supports me. But it’s not going to be enough to keep me around once Eve’s back with me.
“I want out,” I say, my tone grave.
“Out of what?” Nick asks, perplexed.
Together, we leave the basement of my house, and when he pulls his phone out, I know it’s to order a cleanup.
“Have them burn it down,” I say as I take the last stair. “The entire house. The property, whatever it takes.”
Nick stops short, glare sharp enough to cut. His voice roughens, half fury, half disbelief. “What the fuck’s gotten into you?” He stalks after me into the bathroom, the sound of his boots hard against the floor, as I wash my hands thoroughly.
As I watch the blood that isn’t mine curl down the drain in pink threads, I’m reminded of seeing mine and Eve’s blood. When I took care of both our cuts. I never admitted it, but I felt it even then—the truth that her pain and mine were already tied. That Eve Mortis is mine.
“Look, man, I know the timing is terrible,” I rasp, drying my hands and spinning back to Nick. “But I mean it. This isn’t me, and I don’t want it to be my life.”
Nick crosses his arms over his chest, his expression grim. “Tell me what you want, Jack.”
Exhaling audibly, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I just fucking did, but you’re not listening.”
He curses under his breath and follows me as I walk into the living room. I don’t have time for this shit. I shou ld be out there, in the streets, looking for Eve.
But Nick’s not just going to let me brush him off, so now that I’ve opened this topic, I need to get through it as fast as possible. Too exhausted to continue pacing and standing, I flop down on the couch.
“The Knight legacy is yours, brother—”
“You can have it.” His jaw snaps tight, words cutting like teeth. “Take the fucking crown.”
I shake my head slowly. “That’s not the point. This isn’t about wanting what you have, it’s about wanting what I don’t have. Freedom. Choices.”
He takes a seat in the closest chair and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s about Eve.”
I nod since there’s no point in denying it. “I want to… I don’t fucking know. Live life to the fullest and all that shit that comes with it.”
Explaining what’s in my head is a hell of a lot harder than thinking it, but after what feels like hours, I think I’ve finally managed to make Nick understand that this isn’t a tantrum. It’s something I need.
“I thought about it before,” I explain. “But there was Ruby to consider. And then I got blinded by revenge.”
Nick nods.
“Something fucking changed when Dad had me killed. I can’t explain it better than that. But I don’t want this life anymore.”
I stop talking, waiting for the judgment of my older brother, but it never comes.
“Carolina once asked me if I’d walk away from it all if she asked me to,” he confesses as he stands and shoves his hands into the pockets on his suit pants.
“And—”
“And I would leave it behind in a heartbeat,” he says, tone stern. “So if your happiness is elsewhere, go fucking get it, brother.”
I let out a strained breath. “Wait, really? You’ll let me?”
He snorts. “You think I want your sourpuss ass around all the time? Fuck off, Jack.”
Tilting my head to the side, I watch him. Like, really watch him. I see the cost setting me free is taking on him. Not in a bad way. But in the way that we were meant to always stick together, but now I have things of my own I want—and he refuses to stand in my way.
“Thank you.” Instead of waiting for him to brush it off, or for me to make a stupid joke, I stand and pull him in for a hug. “I mean it.”
At first the hug feels stiff, unfamiliar. Then, after a beat, it settles—solid, grounding, years of bruises and silence folding into the press of his hand on my back and mine on his. For once, there’s no dominance to prove, no legacy choking the air between us. Just blood. Just family.
When we pull apart, Nick exhales sharply, almost like he had been holding it in. He scrubs a hand over his face, then fixes me with the kind of look he usually saves for strategy. “Then the Tunnel of Screams. That’s where we start.”
The name sits heavy on my tongue when I repeat it. “I guess so.” Shelby would thrive in a place where terror is currency and spectacle is cover.
But even as I speak, something unsettles low in my gut. Not doubt exactly—more like the echo of it. A faint coil tightening where conviction should sit steady.
The more I let the words hang between us, the more I feel the thread tug tight in my chest. A gut-deep coil, subtle at first, then insistent. My certainty begins to blur at the edges, like blood thinning in water.
Nick notices. He always does. “You believe it, don’t you?”
I nod slowly. “I’m not sure.” A pause. My jaw works, grinding the words. “There’s something off about it. She’s too smart to let herself be found because some coward croaked out her hiding place.”
“True,” Nick agrees.
The Sanctuary is the perfect setting if you want to rattle your opponent. The fog, shadows, sounds, and people milling about makes it easy to use for whatever you want. But…
“It’s uncontrollable,” I say, giving voice to the thought the second it hits me. “There are too many factors. She wouldn’t know who’s hiding behind masks, robes, or corners.”
Catching on, Nick adds, “We could have our people stashed there and she wouldn’t even know it.”
Now, I’m even surer she’s not at the Tunnel. “This is personal.” I repeat that phrase to myself over and over. “The Sanctuary is personal to Carolina, but it’s not…”
“What?” Nick asks, stepping closer.
“It’s personal,” I repeat. “There’s only one place it could be.”
Nick doesn’t move. His eyes narrow, arms folding across his chest, his silence heavier than accusation.
Then he runs a hand down his face, tone like gravel. “If you’re sure you know where it is, we should get it staked out. I’ll get men at every entrance. Five inside, five out. We can get the three in, and—”
Holding up my hand, I cut him off. “No.”
“No?” he parrots, quirking an eyebrow. “You’re not going in there alone.”
“I am.”
“Jack.” My name is a warning, sharp as a blade. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. We can end this clean if we plan it right.”
I push off the wall I’m leaning against, rolling my shoulders back, stillness bleeding into my bones. “Shelby wants me, not a fucking circus of men with guns. You put anyone else in that room, you ruin the point.”
Nick’s jaw tightens. “The point is keeping you alive.”
“The point is saving Eve!” I roar. “That’s the only thing that fucking matters.”
He stands now too, chest to chest, his heat colliding with mine. His breath ghosts my face, the sharpness of it like we’re seconds from tearing each other apart. The tension between us stretches taut enough to bleed.
“You think you’re untouchable? You think she won’t gut you if you give her the chance?”
Air leaves me, and I feel lightheaded, like my skull’s too tight for what’s forcing its way in. Memories don’t come one by one—they crash in fragments, stitched together by something I’ve refused to see. Ruby… Valentine… I get it. I finally fucking get it.
This was my sister’s last stand, wasn’t it? She wasn’t coerced or forced. She ended things on her terms. And she did it while being loved by the man she had fallen so deeply for.
Fuck.
The more I allow myself to see the even ts of the past without the haze of hatred skewering the images, the clearer it becomes. And… I think I finally know who I’ve been so pissed at. It’s not Eve. It’s Ruby.
“You’d die for Carolina, wouldn’t you?” I ask my brother, interrupting whatever he’s saying.
“Of course,” he says.
I nod. “And Ruby… I don’t think she died for Valentine.” Pausing, I lick my lips. “She did it for herself, Nick. She couldn’t take living anymore, so she ended things on her own terms.”
He huffs out a soft laugh. “Are you finally getting what I’ve been trying to tell you all these months?” When I roll my eyes, he continues. “Yes, you shot Ruby. But what you did was end her suffering. She was already dying, man. That was her path to take.”
Yeah, I never believed him or understood it until now. But now… now I do get it. Because I need to get rid of Nick and go to the one place Shelby can hurt me just from making me go there.
“Okay,” I agree, dragging the word out like it tastes sour. “Why don’t we go to your place and make a plan with Marco?”
Nick eyes me suspiciously. “Yeah?”
“I just need to shower and change first. Carolina will have my fucking balls if I turn up in blood-soaked clothes.”
“Don’t ever use my wife’s name and your balls in the same sentence,” my brother growls, playfully punching my arm.
I rub the spot on my arm where he hit me, shaking my head with a rough exhale. “Noted.”
Nick grins, quick and sharp, already reaching for his phone. “I’ll call Marco and meet you at mine in an hour.”
“You got it.” I grab the hem of my shirt, peeling the blood-stiff fabric off my skin.
He mutters something under his breath, distracted, pacing toward the door with his phone to his ear. I stand there, shirt dangling from my fist, heart steady as stone. He thinks I’m right behind him. Thinks I’ll play along.
But I’m already choosing a different road.