Page 84 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two

I took a breath, centering myself and focusing. If my read on him was right, not asking the guard who was inside hadn’t been strategy—it had been confidence.

It was a gamble.

He was playing a game.

While I hated giving Ace control over anything, I couldn’t deny he knew this place best, and it did give me an opportunity to test my hypothesis on what his primary drive was.

He almost immediately confirmed it, too.

He turned back to us, tugging out the gun that had been tucked into his waistband, and tossing it to Rogue.

“What are you doing?” Rogue growled, almost fumbling the catch.

“You have my back, don’t you, big guy?” he asked.

I almost laughed, but caught myself, not wanting to give him a reason for more smugness.

But—yup.

Thiswasa game.

He poked around the edges of the foyer, examining several suits of armour—real, actual suits of armour. Finally, from one particularly decorated one made of black and gold metal, he plucked a… sceptre. It was gold and black with a dark, glinting claw at the end.

Jesus Christ,I hated him.

He turned it in his hands as if he were weighing it, then, apparently satisfied, made for the grand staircase ahead.

Again, I looked at Rogue, who was left with a second gun. He appeared as blindsided as I felt.

“He’s… as mad as she is, isn’t he?” Rogue muttered, turning the second gun in his hand before following.

“Performative bastard,” I muttered.

Since Ace was the only one who knew the place, we were stuck following him. And since he clearly had no intention of playing it safe or subtle (banging the sceptre on the walls and balustrades as he passed), Rogue and I were both extra tense with our guns out. It made me feel like a bodyguard, which dialled my annoyance up to fifteen.

Down a dim hall, Ace slowed, and I almost walked into him. I realised he’d stopped and was staring up at a huge painting on the wall.

In it were three people. A younger-looking Ace, another man around his age with silver hair, though with the same pale face and sharp features—his brother, Zed Maverick, I guessed. And lastly, sitting between them was a much older man, though despite the age lines and sharp goatee, his piercing blue eyes made it clear he was their father.

The fact that Ace’s family was the portrait type didn’t surprise me in the least. What made it odd—and rather amusing—was the vandalism. Red spray paint obstructed Ace’s eyes and mouth, painting over them with a cartoonish frown. Above his brother’s head, in the same red, was a shoddily drawn crown.

“The new owner doesn’t like you very much,” I noted.

Ace let out a bitter snort. “Unless Kyan Quinn Beaumont ran into a lot of money far too quickly, the new owner of my estate isn’t the one who did this.”

The name rang a distant bell in my mind, but I couldn’t place it.

“New owner left it up, though,” Rogue noted, peering at the portrait with interest.

“He did.”

“Does that narrow it down?” I asked.

“It means they knew who the place belonged to,” Ace said. “But that’s no surprise.”

Ace was still staring at the piece, though, and there was a shadow in his eyes as if he were etching it into memory.

It was past the next hallway that we finally ran into a sign of life.