I wanted to argue with his logic—but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. He was right. Alone, I’d be spotted sooner rather than later. With Owen, I would at least have a chance to get close to Mab, even if the whole thing was a trap.
So I tried another tactic. “You don’t have to do this, Owen,” I said in a soft voice. “You don’t have to put yourself out there on the hook with me. Think of Eva. Think of how devastated she’d be to lose you.”
Owen’s face darkened, filling up with stormy emotion. “I’m also thinking of my parents, and how Mab killed them, how she burned them to death in their own house with her Fire magic, just as she did your family, Gin. I’m thinking about all the nights that Eva and I were cold and hungry living on the streets. I’ve already talked things over with Eva, and she agrees with me. I’m going with you to the country club, and I’m watching your back whether you like it or not.”
In that moment, without a doubt, I knew that I loved Owen—loved him with every bent piece and warped shard of my heart, black, brittle, and broken though they might be. The knowledge left me dizzy and breathless, and I had to grip the counter to keep from falling off my stool.
Owen’s mouth crooked up into a grin. “Besides,” he rumbled, not noticing my reaction to his words, “it’ll give you an excuse to wear some sexy little costume, which I will be all too happy to help you slip out of later.”
The hot promise in his eyes took away what little breath I had left, and heat exploded in my stomach like fireworks streaking up into the night sky. Mmm. Sounded like a plan to me. Provided, of course, that I managed to slip through the swarm of giants sure to be at the country club. That I could corner Mab in the first place. That I could somehow survive the Fire elemental’s incendiary magic. And the dozen or so other things that could go wrong.
But Owen’s absolute, unwavering trust in me made me trust in myself. I could do this. I had to do this. I had to kill Mab. For me, for Bria, for Owen, for everyone else that I cared about.
“All right,” I said, giving in. “You can be my date for the evening. But if things go bad, you are getting the hell out of there—immediately, no matter what I’m doing or how much trouble I’m in. Understand?”
After a moment, Owen nodded.
“As for you,” I said, stabbing my finger at Finn. “You will go to Fletcher’s house and stay with Bria tonight. Just in case any of our bounty hunters decide to show up there for whatever reason.”
Owen going with me to the party would be bad enough. I didn’t want Finn in the line of fire too. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to either one of them, but I’d already failed to save Fletcher from being brutally tortured and murdered in this very restaurant. I didn’t want Finn to meet the same bad fate that his father had.
Finn grinned at me. “It will be my pleasure to keep tabs on sweet, sweet Bria.”
His lecherous tone made me sigh once more. “I do hope that the two of you can keep your hands off each other, at least until after I kill Mab.”
“It will be tough,” Finn admitted. “Given how crazy your sister is about me.”
I snorted. “You mean given how much she’d like to slap that smug smile off your face.”
“Every woman I meet wants to do that at one point or another, but most of them get over it pretty quick,” Finn said, dismissing my concern with an airy, arrogant wave of his hand.
I shook my head. Owen laughed, but there was a hollow note in his chuckle, just the way there was in mine. All three of us knew that we were about to undertake the Spider’s most dangerous mission yet—to kill Mab Monroe in a room full of people and get away with it. I didn’t know if I could do it, if I could kill Mab, but I was sure as hell going to try.
And probably die later on tonight for my trouble.
Finn and Owen finished their food and left to start getting things ready, but I stayed at the Pork Pit with Sophia. I kept right on working—cooking, dishing up food, waiting tables, wiping them down after customers left. But my mind was already focused on tonight and the things that I would need to do to get close enough to Mab to kill her—and then get away clean afterward. Assuming, of course, that the Fire elemental didn’t just blast me straight to hell with her magic. But at this point, I was determined to at least try to think positive.
I recognized what I was doing, of course. The mindset that I was getting into. It was something Fletcher had taught me—how to leave myself, Gin Blanco, completely behind and morph into the cold, hard entity known as the Spider, whose only desire was getting to her target and whose aim was always deadly and true. Tonight, I knew that I’d need that separation, that mental toughness, more than I ever had before. Especially if I wanted to live to see the dawn.
Around six o’clock, though, I got the first of what would turn out to be many nasty little surprises during the night—when Ruth Gentry and Sydney strolled into the Pork Pit.
The door opened, making the bell chime, and I looked up from my paperback copy of Medea. The two of them stepped inside, and Sydney pulled the door shut behind them, cutting off the cold air that blasted into the restaurant. How polite of her.
While the girl fiddled with the door, Gentry’s pale blue eyes scanned the Pit, taking in everything from the clean, worn booths to the blue and pink pig tracks that covered the shiny floor. There was nothing overtly threatening in Gentry’s gaze, but I got the sense that she was making a mental checklist. Doors, windows, number of people inside, who might make trouble, who might make a good meat shield. It was probably the same little ritual that she did whenever she went somewhere new. Just like I did.
Gentry was the only one of the bounty hunters who’d seen me and lived to tell the tale, but I wasn’t worried about being recognized or Gentry identifying my voice. I’d been wearing a ski mask the last time we’d met in the dark, snowy woods that ringed Mab’s mansion, and we’d spent more time fighting than talking. Hell, if Gentry could somehow connect that person to Gin Blanco as I was now in my jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, and blue work apron, then the bounty hunter deserved to nab me. Still, I wasn’t going to be so foolish as to not keep an eye on her.
“Code red,” I murmured to Sophia, walking past her to get some menus. “Bounty hunters at two o’clock. The ones who winged me the other night.”
Sophia grunted, and her black eyes cut in their direction, but the dwarf didn’t stop ladling up bowls full of baked beans for the current crop of customers. Still, I knew that Sophia had my back. If Gentry had come here looking for trouble, then the bounty hunter was going to get more of it than she’d ever dreamed of.
Menus in hand, I plastered my best, biggest, friendliest, most charming southern smile on my face and headed toward them. “Hi, there. Y’all want something good and hot to eat?”
Gentry looked at me and the menus in my hand, sizing me up just the way she had the other folks in the Pit. “Sure.”
I led the two of them over to one of the booths that looked out through the storefront windows, put the menus down on the table, and stepped back, taking my order pad and pen out of the back pocket of my jeans.
“So, what’ll it be?” I asked, as if they were just another pair of anonymous customers who’d walked in off the street instead of a couple of bounty hunters who’d love nothing more than to drag me off by my hair and dump me at Mab’s feet.
“I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a raspberry lemonade,” Gentry said, glancing over the menu.
“The same,” the girl said in a soft voice.
I scribbled down their orders, collected the menus, and went to the back counter where Sophia was dishing up the latest order of baked beans.
“Trouble?” the Goth dwarf asked in her raspy, broken voice.
“We’ll see. I can handle those two. You keep an eye out for any others who might come strolling in.”
She nodded. We fixed their food, and ten minutes later, I put everything on the table in front of them.
Sydney immediately reached for her cheeseburger and s
ank her teeth into it. She chewed, swallowed, and let out a little sigh of happiness. Despite the bulky sweater that covered her frame, I could see how painfully thin she was. Her big, hazel eyes were sunken into her face, and the high, sharp edges of her cheekbones would have made a model jealous. The girl put down her burger long enough to push her sleeves back, revealing wrist bones that stuck out like doorknobs.
I knew the look and what it meant—that Sydney hadn’t been eating well lately. For a while, probably. I wondered exactly what she was doing with Gentry and why the two of them were here in the Pork Pit to start with. I had a feeling that it just wasn’t for the food, no matter how much the girl seemed to be enjoying hers.
“Can I ask you a question?” Gentry said, looking up at me instead of digging into her food.
“Sure.”
She reached into the pocket of her quilted jacket, which looked just as old and well worn as the dress she’d sported at Mab’s dinner party. A lesser woman, a lesser assassin, would have tensed at the suspicious movement, but not me.
Instead of that pearl-handled revolver that I’d seen her with before, Gentry drew a slim piece of paper out of her pocket. She held it out to me, and I took it from her. I wasn’t too surprised to see that it was a head-and-shoulders shot of Detective Bria Coolidge, probably taken off the Ashland Police Department’s website. So that’s what Gentry was doing here, trolling for clues as to Bria’s whereabouts. Smart, very, very smart.
“You ever seen that woman in here before?” she asked. “She’s a detective. Name’s Bria Coolidge. I hear that she likes to come in here with her partner, a giant named Xavier. The two of them usually eat lunch over at the counter, right next to that old cash register of yours.”
Damn and double damn. Not only did Gentry know that Bria came in here on a regular basis, but she also knew where my baby sister liked to sit. The bounty hunter had done her homework. So much so that I wondered how much trouble it would be to lure Gentry into the alley behind the restaurant and introduce her to the sharp ends of my silverstone knives. My eyes cut to Sydney, who was still eating her cheeseburger. But then, I’d have the girl to deal with, and that was a line even I wouldn’t cross.
I shrugged and handed the photo back to her. “Yeah, she comes in here—her and half the cops on the force. The food happens to be excellent. At least she’s a better tipper than most of those other crooked, black-hearted sons of bitches. So what?”
“Has she been in here today?” Gentry asked, her pale blue eyes locked onto my face. “Will she be in tomorrow?”
I arched an eyebrow and gave her an amused look. “Sugar, I’ve got too many people wanting barbecue on a daily basis to keep up with one person’s schedule. But no, I don’t think that she’s been in here today, and she probably won’t be because we’re going to close a little early because of the weather. What’s your interest in her, anyway?”
Gentry tucked the picture back into her coat pocket. “No reason.”
I gave her a bored look, as though I couldn’t have cared less about whatever she was up to, and went back behind the counter. For the next thirty minutes, I went through the motions, seeing to my other customers, refilling drinks, swiping credit cards, giving change. But I kept one eye on Gentry and Sydney.
The bounty hunter looked over everyone in the restaurant in between bites, her eyes moving from one face, one body, to the next in a slow, deliberate way. Sydney was much more interested in her food. The girl wolfed down her cheeseburger and fries in three minutes flat, so Gentry had me bring her another plate of food. Sydney might have gone hungry, but I didn’t think that Gentry was the one who had starved her. The girl gave the bounty hunter an adoring, grateful look for ordering her the second burger and made a visible effort to eat it a little slower than she had the first one. A sad, weary smile creased Gentry’s face at Sydney’s obvious efforts to please her.
The two of them reminded me of Fletcher and the relationship I’d had with the old man when he’d first taken me in. I’d been so grateful to Fletcher for rescuing me from the cold, hard streets that I would have done anything for him—anything. Sydney had the same sort of obsessive, fawning gratitude toward Gentry. I wondered why; what bad thing had happened to the girl that Gentry had rescued her from. Maybe Finn could find out for me, since I’d asked him to look into the bounty hunter.
Curiosity. It was what was staying my hand now and keeping me from dragging Gentry into the alley and stabbing her to death. Ah, curiosity. It always got the best of me, even when I should have known better.
I should just have gutted Ruth Gentry where she sat. The bounty hunter had already proven that she was smart and dangerous. Instead of doing something stupid and pointless like staking out the police station or Bria’s house, Gentry had thought to come to the Pork Pit instead—a place where my sister was known to hang out. That showed me the bounty hunter was definitely someone to be wary of.
I let Gentry and Sydney finish their meal in peace. Eventually, they came over to the counter to pay up and leave. Somewhere along the way, Gentry had found a toothpick in one of her pockets that she’d stuck in one corner of her mouth, giving her a hillbilly air.
“That was a fine meal,” Gentry said, digging into her jeans and coming up with some small, crumpled bills.
The motion pushed back her jacket, and I spied the pearl revolver sitting in a holster on her black leather belt.
“Thanks,” I murmured, careful not to stare at the gun. “But I can’t take all the credit. Most of it goes to my cook over there.”
Gentry’s eyes flicked to Sophia, lingering on the spiked, black leather collar around her neck. She tipped her head to the dwarf. “My thanks then.”
Sophia just grunted and turned back to the stove.
While I totaled the order and made change, my eyes strayed to Sydney. She stared at one of the glass cake stands full of sinfully sweet sugar cookies that sat on the counter. Hunger and longing filled her hazel eyes, but she bit her lip and looked away from the treats.
Her small, wistful gaze hurt worse than a knife ripping into my heart.
I remembered feeling that way once upon a time, back when I’d been living on the Ashland streets. I’d spent hours staring in through restaurant windows and longing for all the food I saw inside—food that was hot, clean, and free of the worms and maggots that littered the scraps I’d been eating out of the Dumpsters. Oh yes, I’d stood outside those restaurants, and I’d stared in, hunger twisting my stomach into knots so hard and tight that I thought they would never straighten out again.
Some sort of wild, crazy emotion seized me then, and I put Gentry’s change down on the counter. Before I knew quite what I was doing, I’d lifted the glass lid on the stand of cookies, gathered them all up, and dropped them into a white paper bag, which I shoved into the girl’s thin chest. Sydney stared down at the pig logo printed on the side of the bag, the longing in her eyes so bright and hard that it took my breath away.
“Take ’em,” I said in a thick voice. “We’re getting ready to close, and they won’t be eaten tonight.”
Surprise filled the girl’s thin face, followed by a more tremulous emotion—hope. Her hands tightened around the bag, making the paper crack and crinkle. I wondered how long it had been since she’d had something as simple as a cookie. I wondered how long it had been since someone besides Gentry had done something nice for her. I wondered—I wondered too fucking much. Saw too much of myself in her, in Gentry. They were hunting me, hunting Bria. That made them my enemies, nothing more.
“Can I, Gentry?” the girl asked in a faint, whispered voice, looking over at her mentor. “Please?”
Another sad smile creased Gentry’s face, making her look old, small, and tired. “Of course, Sydney. Just remember your manners to the nice lady.”
Nice lady? If Gentry only knew that I was the one that she was looking for—that I was the Spider. The wanted assassin who could net her upward of five million dollars. Gentry would snatch those cook
ies out of Sydney’s hands and draw her revolver faster than I could palm one of my silverstone knives.
Sydney beamed at her, then me. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“It’s Gin,” I quipped. “Like the liquor. Not ma’am. I hate it when people call me ma’am.”
Sydney mumbled an apology around the cookie that she’d already stuffed into her mouth. I picked up Gentry’s change from the counter and passed it over to her. The bounty hunter took it and stared at me, her sharp eyes searching my face for something that only she knew or could even see.
For a moment, I wondered if she’d figured it out. If she realized exactly who I was.
But then, when she didn’t draw her revolver, I knew that she hadn’t and that she wouldn’t. Because how could an assassin like the Spider, a cold-hearted killer, ever do something as good as give food to a hungry girl?
“Thank you, Gin,” Gentry said in a soft voice. “For everything.”
“No problem,” I replied in a mild tone, playing the part of the simple restaurant owner once more. “Y’all come back now.”
Gentry gave me a small smile. “We will.”
Then she put her arm around Sydney, who was on her third cookie, and the bounty hunter and her apprentice left the Pork Pit.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Is it too much?”
Finn tilted his head and gave me a critical once-over. “You’re dressed up as an ice queen dominatrix. I don’t think there is such a thing as too much.”
I stared at myself in the floor-length mirror that had been set up in the den in Fletcher’s house. Trust Finn to perfectly describe my garish getup. I wore a pair of ice blue leather pants that laced all the way up my legs on both sides. A leather bustier done in the same color and trimmed with silver thread covered my chest, pushing my breasts up to new and spectacular heights. A matching collar set with silverstone squares ringed my neck.