"Who hits on fourteen against a dealer showing garbage?!"

"It was a seven showing! Basic strategy—"

"Basic strategy says you’re mad!" Sarah threw her hands up. "If you had stood, that six goes to Lilianna. She busts at twenty-two. We all win."

"That’s not how the game—"

"Don’t you ’how the game blah blah blah’ me, Bryan Stewart. You and your smiling stone face took that six like it was a gift from the cosmos and handed Lilianna a twenty-one on a silver platter."

Bryan looked to Iris for help. But the other was perched on the arm of the large sofa, watching with an amused expression. She offered him nothing but a shrug and a sip of her drink.

"Traitor," Bryan muttered, indignantly.

Having exhausted Bryan as a target, the mob turned their head to find their next target.

"And you." Ciel swiveled toward Neville, his youthful face twisted with exaggerated betrayal. "Two seven. You split two seven."

Neville blinked innocently, "It was a pair of seven, fourteen. Why wouldn’t I split?"

"Because if you hadn’t split, your total would’ve been twelve! You take one more card, five or six, you would be sitting pretty at eighteen or nineteen. Instead, you split, soak up two cards on each hand, and the whole distribution goes sideways!"

"It’s a pair of sevens," Neville repeated, slower, as if explaining gravity to a toddler. "Every blackjack guide in the known to the galaxy says you split pairs. It’s the most basic—"

"Well, look where all these ’basics’ got us!" Ciel gestured grandly at the carnage of his lost chips. "Seven-hand blackjack, Neville! Seven!"

Neville opened his mouth to argue, then was stopped by Grayson.

Next thing he knew, Grayson had already slammed Ciel’s head onto the soft felt to shut him up.

It didn’t look like Grayson slammed him that hard to bruise, but it must’ve hurt.

Grayson looked at Neville apologetically as he resumed standing at the back of his seat.

Neville nodded in understanding.

There was no winning this madness; they’re all being irrational.

Neville leaned back and folded his arms. "Fine. Blame me. Blame me all you want. We still lost."

"And we will, thank you," Sarah said primly.

"Hang on," Julius interjected, raising a hand in his measured tone. "Neville’s split was textbook. You can’t fault someone for playing the correct strategy just because the outcome was—"

"Oh, speaking of you—" Bryan’s head snapped toward Julius with the speed of a man who had found a new target to latch on to. "You took the ten."

Julius went very still and said stiffly as he explained, "I had five."

"Exactly! You had five, Lilianna was showing a seven. I get it, you hit on five, but you could’ve hit more when you got the ten, can’t you? "

"That was fifteen, Bryan. What do you expect me to do? Risk—"

Ciel, who barely lifted his dizzy head out of the felt of the table, quickly ran his mouth.

"If you hadn’t hit in the first place, that ten goes to Lilianna. Seven plus five plus ten—she busts at twenty-two! But no, you had to play damsel in distress with your pitiful five and now—"

"Are you people out of your minds?" Julius’s composure cracked completely.

He looked around the table with genuine disbelief, as if he had suddenly found himself surrounded by strangers.

"You’re blaming me for hitting on five? Are you even hearing yourselves—"

"Of course we’re out of our minds!" Sarah slapped the table again. "That was a seven-hand blackjack, Julius. A seven-hand blackjack!"

Bryan nodded in agreement.

"The second impossibly rare event tonight, right after Neville’s lucky diamond seven earlier. Two statistically impossible cards to appear, just showed itself at the same time in one session."

Ciel ran both hands through his hair, messing it into a bird’s nest.

"Who wouldn’t lose their minds witnessing both at the same time? That’s nuts!"

Sarah, who was lost staring at the empty table, wide-eyed as she recalled the cards in there. Her eyes glinted as her gaze wandered to Ciel’s seat.

"And you—" She suddenly turned on Ciel with renewed fury.

Ciel’s eyes went wide, pointing at himself, startled. "Me? What did I do?!"

"Ten and a jack. Ten and a jack. And you didn’t think of splitting?!"

Ciel’s jaw dropped, and he explained, "It’s twenty! Who splits on twenty?!"

"You had a ten and a face card—technically, that’s a pair. If you had split it, the card distribution changes completely!"

Her eyes were bloodshot as she began to simulate the fictional scenario in her head.

"It’s also a win-win when you think about it, you would get twenty-one on both sets, and Lily would never get that five!"

"That’s—How could I even know that there would still be four aces after Neville split the two sevens and had two aces?" 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Ciel sputtered frantically and quickly looked back at Thiago for backup.

"Either way, that’s insane logic! Julius, you tell her!"

Julius pinched the bridge of his nose.

"A ten and a jack wasn’t really a standard pair for splitting purposes, but even if they did, splitting a twenty is—"

"See?!" Sarah crowed. "Even Julius admits you could have split!"

"That is not what I said—"

Thiago stepped forward, both hands raised, trying to prevent the fight from escalating.

"Guys. Guys. Calm down. It’s just a game. The chips are just chips."

Julius helped to reason with them.

"We already allotted enough amount to play. Even if we lost it all, at the end of the day, we won’t go bankrupt. So, don’t stress it out."

Thiago swept a glance at everyone on the table and asked, "Do you still want to play, or take a break?"

"Of course, we’re still going to play!" Sarah said instantly, as if the question itself was offensive.

Ciel slumped back in his chair, blowing out a long breath.

"Yeah. Yeah, I want to keep going. But it’s going to take me a minute to get over a seven-hand blackjack. That kind of thing haunts you."

"It’s already haunting me," Bryan confirmed, gathering his remaining chips into a defensive formation. "I think I’m going to see that five of hearts and four aces in my nightmares."