“We will now resume the game,” the dealer announced, her voice slicing cleanly through the electric hush of the hall.She shuffled once, twice—cards flipping and snapping like knives through silence. Then, with precise hands and a blank expression, she dealt five cards to each player.A beat passed.Then another.Peter reached for his cards. So did Naomi.They lifted them simultaneously.And as they did, Logan leaned forward in his seat.He saw it.Not in the cards.Not in the chips.In Peter.Sweat glistened faintly on Peter’s brow. His chest rose and fell faster than it should. His hand trembled—just once, barely noticeable. A shallow inhale, a twitch at the edge of his eye. It wasn’t visible to most, but Logan had seen it before.“Will you redraw?” the dealer asked, her tone professional.“Two cards, please,” Naomi replied, sliding forward the 5 of Hearts and 2 of Diamonds. Her face was relaxed. Almost lazy. Like none of this mattered.Peter looked at his hand. Quietly.And smiled.

The world stopped.The air was sucked out of the room.Even Naomi, for the first time in the entire game… blinked.The audience didn’t just react.They exploded.Voices collided like clashing cymbals. The walls seemed to shake beneath the sheer chaos of disbelief, confusion, and morbid excitement.“WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!”“Is he—did he also just try to SELL HIS LIFE?!”“This guy’s actually gone insane—completely off the rails!”“What kind of game is this?! What kind of school allows this?”"What the fuck?!”“He’s insane!”“He’s matching Naomi’s move?! Is this a joke?!”“He’s going to put his life on the line too?!”Even the dealer hesitated, unsure if she should intervene.But the rules… the twisted, convoluted rules of Monte Carlo allowed such madness. As long as the party involved was of sound mind and legally of age — a person could offer anything they deemed fair value.Even their own soul.Gasps overlapped like crashing waves. One spectator dropped their drink. Another clutched t

“So Ace,” Peter said as he flipped a card—9 of Diamonds—and scanned the grid for its match, “you said your superpower is luck?”“Yeah, you bet,” Ace grinned, wiggling his eyebrows like he’d just revealed a deep cosmic truth.“I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a superpower,” Chloe muttered under her breath as she leaned over and flipped her card. 9 of Clubs. “Match,” she said flatly, collecting the pair.“Don’t mind her,” Ace said with a shrug. “She’s just a hater.”“Forgive me,” Chloe fired back, “for not indulging your delusional fantasy.”Peter chuckled as he stared at the board, his fingers hovering over two cards. “It’s not a fantasy if it’s true,” Ace added with faux gravity.The twins launched into their familiar rhythm of bickering. Peter let it play out like background music, only half-listening—until he asked:“And you, Chloe? What’s yours?”She looked up from the board, blinking. “Pardon?”“Your gambling superpower. What is it?”Chloe stared at him like he’d just asked her

The game continued, a quiet ritual of motion and memory. The soft rustle of card flips, the occasional muttered curse, and the rhythmic patter of fingertips brushing cardboard. The grid on the table had thinned — only six cards left. Three pairs. It was the final stretch.Ace reached across the table with a lazy grin, flipping over a card. 4 of Spades.Peter followed, matching it with a 4 of Spades just to his right. A match.“That’s mine,” Peter muttered.Chloe narrowed her eyes but said nothing, flipping two cards that didn’t match — a Queen and a 9. She sighed and leaned back. “Your turn.”Ace rubbed his hands together. “Man, this is freaking mind-blowing. You’re like Kronos but with playing cards — the god of time, Peter! Like, do you rewind five minutes? Five hours? How the hell does that even work?”Peter smiled — not with amusement, but with the worn-out expression of someone carrying too much. His eyes, still heavy with lingering fatigue, didn’t quite meet theirs.“If you win…

Two days.It had been two days since Peter had left the hospital.The doctors told him to rest, to recover — to take it easy.But how do you take it easy after gambling your sanity across shattered timelines?How do you sleep when you’ve lost track of which version of yourself crawled out alive?Peter stood now at the edge of the Monte Carlo Academy’s east plaza — the same place where it had all started. Where the gates loomed tall and gilded, where students once brushed past him without a second glance. Back when he was just another debt-ridden nobody in a wrinkled suit and scuffed shoes.Now, they all turned to look.Eyes followed him. Voices lowered. The air itself seemed to ripple around him.> “That’s him.”“Peter Donovan.”“The kid who beat Naomi.”“Survived Viktor.”“Bet his soul, they say.”“Didn’t he die? Twice?”“Is it true he rewrote the rules?”“Who is he?”Peter didn’t flinch.He didn’t slow.He kept his gaze forward, shoulders squared, posture unshakable — like he hadn’t