Chapter 28 #2
The air around us shifted, and when we finally surfaced, both of us left breathless with kiss-swollen lips, the overhead sprinkler system had stopped raining down on everything.
The resulting sight was a soggy mess of debris and clutter, diluted puddles of red, and saturated remnants of Sevenfold’s lavish interior.
“Get your hands off me!” My mother’s indignant voice broke the moment, and I turned towards the sound of her protest to find Grier escorting her towards us with an ironclad grip on her arm.
“You found the cowardly stray,” Ace commented with an icy tone.
The man nodded. “Couldn’t let her get too far. When you asked me to get you a visit with the Bechette kid, I had a rather interesting conversation with the administration at Blackscale. Seems that the Bechette name has a reputation there.”
I blinked in surprise, looking at my mother in a new light.
Grier continued to inform us of his discovery. “It seems she’s responsible for aiding in the distribution of Glayze within the prison. She bribed several guards, defrauded a handful of visitors, and inadvertently caused a cafeteria worker to fall ill from accidental ingestion.”
“Glayze?” I looked at Ace, then back to my mother, pinching my brows together.
She had the gall to pretend she held some level of remorse.
“Sweetheart, I know this sounds bad. But you have to believe me that everything I did was in the best interest of you and your brother. The only thing I am guilty of is trusting that Rip was competent enough to follow through on his end of things.”
Had we managed to land in some alternate reality? Disbelief washed over me at the mention of her working with Rip of all people. The feeling was quickly replaced by bitter betrayal.
“Rip let Tighe take the fall for him, and you want to stand there and say that it was in his best interest?” I took half a step forward before Ace’s arm wrapped around my waist, preventing me from getting any closer.
However, it didn’t stop me from unleashing my anger in a series of choice words.
“How fucking dare you. You let your own son suffer in Blackscale this whole time. Tell me, Mirra—” I spat out her first name like it was a curse upon the world.
“—did you even give a shit that he almost got sent before the Board of Execution? Or would that have been in his best interest too? Did you even care how he looked when you saw him and told him everything would work out?”
I could have laid into her for her every fault for the next century, and I hadn’t even touched on what she had done moments ago, trying to take me away from Ace.
Grier cleared his throat, halting my evisceration of the woman whom I no longer saw as anything but a speck of dust on a memory erased.
“If I may, I have negotiated permanent arrangements for Ms. Bechette’s future accommodations.”
Ace’s intrigue came out as a callous and hopeful question. “The belly of a starved Vorarian?”
My mother narrowed her eyes at Ace, mustering up a scathing look at the thought of such a torturous ending.
“Better. I will be escorting her to an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to Malebolge.” Grier let that fate settle between us.
The eighth circle. A delicious sense of karma filled my chest. Arguably, the worst of the circles of Hell, Malebolge was designed for the most offensive of manipulators, fraudsters, and seducers.
It got even better when he added, “In exchange for her delivery to Malebolge, I’ve made arrangements with the Concord and Blackscale’s administration to facilitate your brother’s immediate release.”
A sharp hitch of my breath sent me swaying toward Ace. Tighe would finally have the freedom he deserved. That was everything.
Against my back, Ace’s gravelly rumble vibrated through me. “Then there’s no time to waste. We wouldn’t want Mirra to be late for her date with an eternity of torment.”
My mother looked stricken in a way that revealed the core of her worst fears.
“Don’t worry, Mother. It’s what’s in your best interest,” I said with all the warmth of a glacier.
With that, Grier gave us both a respectful nod, and my mother’s protests landed on deaf ears as he hauled her away.
Daddy would know she was coming, and that thought tugged a wicked little smile across my lips.
She’d fucked with the crown, and now she’d find out.
How long did it take to haul someone to the eighth circle and coordinate a release from Blackscale? Too fucking long in my book. Each day that had passed felt like hope dwindling into despair.
Grier had given his word that Tighe would be released today. But it didn’t stop me as I paced back and forth, my movements growing more and more uneasy. Behind me, Ace stood stoically by his helicopter as we waited on the outskirts of Blackscale’s compound.
Next to him, Iggy looked dazzling, likely his own doing through his abilities as a glamor demon.
His movements were still stiff, speaking to the damage lying underneath the facade he crafted around himself.
During the onslaught inside the casino, he had managed to glamor himself into a lifeless body until the threat had passed.
He had insisted that he tag along today to give Tighe a mini-makeover, insisting it was the least he could do after his sister had aided in Crestpin’s deception.
Ace, for once, didn’t argue.
Something buzzed past my ear.
“Eep! Is it on me?!” I flailed in a tight circle. Lava roaches were foul flying insects, and the fact that one had flown so close? Fucking terrifying. “Ace, get it off!”
Both his brows lifted above the top of his sunglasses. “Elder Knight of Hell and your psychotic mother, and a bug is where you draw the line?” There wasn’t just a hint of amusement in his tone. There was an obnoxious, neon-light level of amusement in it.
He stepped forward, his hands settling on my shoulders as he kissed my forehead. “It’s gone. If it comes back again, I will personally see to it that it faces the wrath of Superbia’s most revered Knight of Hell.”
I shifted on my feet, hands brushing my arms at imaginary sensations of creepy-crawly legs.
Ace looked past me over the top of my head. “Little Spade, look.”
He jerked his chin in the direction of the bridge that led out of Blackscale.
I turned, and there was my brother. Tighe hobbled across the planks, still wearing the same tattered clothes I’d seen him in the last time we were here. But he wore something new now.
A relieved smile, one that spoke to how sweet freedom tasted.
When he finally crossed the final threshold that designated Blackscale property, I launched myself at him. My arms wrapped around his neck, squeezing tightly and ignoring the pained grunt from him.