The grand ball

[Ryker]

Ryker braced himself. An ordinary street detective wouldn't miss the signs. The note-bearer transformed. Though, really, he had been tensed the entire time. Displeased to carry a message. An enemy unknown, perhaps? Someone wronged by Ryker's past acts come to collect vengeance?

Then he gave himself away. The venom dripping from his teeth. "Your friend, The spider." Yun herself was the enemy.

Then the flare of power erupted around the man like fore shocks to the eruption of a volcano. Ryker worked to not react; but the flinch to his eyes was almost impossible to hide. On sheer instinct, he attempted to seize the power for himself, but nothing came. There was little possibility this man could beat him in a one-to-one confrontation, but Ryker knew that the power changed everything. The power was a threat he could not defend so confidently.

"You've been coerced into working for her?"
He guessed, holding the man's gaze, moderately confident he was right. He was betting his life on it.