Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (17 page)

Cold rage filled me at his words. It was one thing to come into my restaurant, Fletcher’s restaurant, and threaten me. I’d expected nothing less from the father-and-son duo. I knew I’d brought it on myself by having Jake McAllister arrested in the first place. But I’d be damned if the Fire elemental punk was going to talk trash about my family—or threaten them in any way. And Sophia Deveraux was family. So were Jo-Jo and Finn.

Fletcher Lane had been murdered five feet from where we were sitting. Been horribly, brutally tortured by a sadistic Air elemental. Nothing like that was ever going to happen to my family again. Not as long as I was still breathing. Especially not in here.

It was time to let Jake McAllister know I wasn’t afraid of him and his petty threats—and exactly what I was capable of if push came to shove.

“You weren’t man enough to take me out by yourself, Jakie,” I snapped. “So what? Now, you’re going to get Daddy and his guards to help you? Pathetic.”

Evidently, Jake McAllister couldn’t take a little criticism because he surged to his feet. Fire flashed in his eyes, and orange-red flames spurted out between his clenched fists. He charged at me.

For a second, I sat there and considered my options, something I probably should have done before I opened my smart mouth and started antagonizing the McAllisters.

But somebody needed to wipe that bullying sneer off Jake McAllister’s face, and I’d wanted to be the one to do it. I’d succeeded too, because now, hot anger filled Jake’s eyes. If I let him put his hands on me, I was going to be in for a painful beat-down. One that might not stop until I was dead, especially with Jonah’s giant bodyguards in the restaurant. Only one thing to do now. Fight back and make Jake think twice before he messed with me again. It was the only thing I knew how to do anyway.

Just before Jake hit me, I got to my feet, grabbed my plate off the table, stepped forward, and slammed the whole thing into his face as hard as I could.

Food splattered into Jake’s eyes, and the cumin, red pepper, and other spices in the barbecue sauce caused him to scream. He stumbled back, flipped over a chair, and landed on his ass—hard. Jake cursed and tried to claw the mess off his face. He was too busy doing that to hold on to his magic, and the flames dancing on his fists snuffed out.

I turned back to Jonah McAllister and the two giant guards. Waiting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sophia come out from around the counter. The dwarf held a metal spoon in her hand. With her strength, it might as well have been a baseball bat. Sophia would back me up just like she had the other night. That’s what family did.

Jonah McAllister saw her too and realized the odds had slipped to four on two. He looked through the storefront windows. People moved back and forth on the street outside, going out to lunch and back to work. More than one glanced inside the Pork Pit as they passed. A few slowed down long enough to get a good long gawk.

I could see the wheels turning in the lawyer’s mind, as he considered the benefits of ordering his giant bodyguards to kill us now versus the possibility of folks witnessing it and more people potentially causing problems for him. His boss, Mab Monroe, might run Ashland, but I imagined she liked her flunkies to take care of their own business without involving her or being implicated in something unseemly themselves.

Jake threw aside a glop of coleslaw and scrambled to his feet. But before the Fire elemental could charge me again, Jonah McAllister shook his head. One of the giants stepped forward and put a restraining hand on Jake’s shoulder, holding him in place. His neck almost snapped from the abrupt stop. The skin around his eyes was red and irritated from the spicy food, but it didn’t compare to the sparks of hot magic that flickered in his hate-filled gaze.

“C’mon, Dad,” Jake said, looking around the giant’s arm and pleading with his father. “Let’s do the bitch. She’s not going to play ball with us.”

Jonah McAllister looked at his son, then at me. He got to his feet and buttoned his suit jacket. “What have I told you about ruining people, Jake?”

“That it’s more fun to do it slowly,” Jake muttered.

Jonah nodded. “That’s right. We’ll see how Ms. Blanco feels in a few more days when she hasn’t gotten any customers, and she has bills to pay. Until then, Ms. Blanco.”

So Jonah McAllister had decided to stick to his specialty—squeezing people through somewhat legal means.

“Until then, Mr. McAllister.” My eyes cut to Jake. “Just because you’ve gotten your daddy involved doesn’t negate my threat. You come near me or my restaurant again, and I’ll break more than just your wrist. You understand me?”

Jake surged against the giant. “You’re dead, bitch! Dead! Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Dead!”

Jonah gave his son a disgusted look and swept out of the Pork Pit. The giants flanked the still-struggling Jake, picked him up by his arms, and hauled him outside.

His hoarse screams reverberated all the way down the street—and so did his threats. The other night, I’d just insulted Jake by getting the upper hand. Now, I’d humiliated him in front of his father. The Fire elemental couldn’t allow that to slide. Not if he wanted the old man to at least pretend to respect him.

Daddy’s orders or not, Jake McAllister was going to come for me, sooner rather than later, with all his Fire elemental-fueled rage.

And when he did, I’d gut the bastard—once and for all. No matter how many problems it might cause me.

14

Once Jake McAllister’s screams faded away, I glanced over my shoulder at Sophia. “Was it good for you too?”

“Hmph.” The dwarf gave me her usual grunt and headed toward the mop and bucket in the far corner.

“Leave the food where it is,” I said. “It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up later. Besides, we’re not going to have any more customers today. Go home, Sophia. Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Sophia’s black eyes met mine. She grunted again and got the mop anyway. I sighed. Brick was more talkative and responsive than the Goth dwarf. So I got on my knees and picked up the broken dish and smashed bits of food. I’d just thrown everything away and washed my hands in the sink when the bell over the front door chimed again. I turned, a silverstone knife already sliding into my hand.

But this time it was just Finn.

His green eyes went to Sophia and the mess she was mopping up. “Did I miss something?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Jake McAllister just dropped by— and he had his daddy with him.”

Finn blinked. “Jonah McAllister came to the restaurant? What did he want? What did he say?”

I shrugged. “Drop the charges against his son or else. It went downhill from there. Attempted bribery, threats of violence, the promise of my own murder. The Ashland special.”

Finn sighed. “And let me guess; you told the McAllisters exactly what they could do with their threats.”

I grinned. “You know me.”

Finn shook his head. “Gin, do you really want to start a family feud with the McAllisters? I thought you wanted to enjoy your retirement, live a nice, clean, simple life.”

“No, I don’t want to start a war with the McAllisters.”

Finn raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “C’mon, Gin. Just admit it. You like thumbing your nose at bad guys and showing everyone exactly how strong and capable you are. You always have. That’s why you pushed the McAllisters so hard today.”

“All right, all right,” I muttered. “So maybe my retirement’s been a little more boring than I thought it would be. So maybe it felt good to knock Jake’s nose out of joint when he made the stupid mistake of trying to rob me. Maybe it felt even better to do the same to his old man. But if I’d let Jake go that night, I’d have a dozen Jake McAllisters in here today, all thinking they could knock over my joint for a quick wad of cash. You know it. Ashland’s all about survival of the toughest. It always has been. Word gets out you’re weak or an easy mark, and you’re finished, no matter what business you’re in.”

Finn shrugged his agreement.

“Besides, if I give in to the McAllisters now, they’ll think they own me, that they actually
frightened
me today.

Jake would start coming in here all the time, just to lord it over me. He’d think the restaurant was his own personal little fiefdom, take my money, and terrorize my customers.

And I just couldn’t stand that. Not in Fletcher’s restaurant.

Not when he worked so hard for so long to keep from paying protection money to anyone.” I sighed. “Besides, it’s too late for all that now anyway. I pissed off Jake McAllister again, embarrassed him in front of his father. He’s not going to forget that. He’s going to kill me—or at least try. He has to, or he’ll never have his father’s respect again. What little of it there was to start with.”

“And then what are you going to do?” Finn asked.

“You kill Jake, and Jonah will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Hell, he might even get Mab Monroe involved at that point.”

A few weeks ago, someone had set me up to be killed as part of a larger power play against Mab Monroe, to try to wrest control of Ashland away from her. I’d gotten caught in the middle, which meant I was already more involved with the Fire elemental than I’d ever wanted to be.

I thought of that piece of paper in the file Fletcher had compiled about my family’s murder, the one with Mab’s name on it. Maybe I’d always been involved with the Fire elemental—I just hadn’t known it. “I’ll deal with Jake McAllister when he makes his move.”

Finn opened his mouth again, but I held up my hand to cut him off.

“Enough talk,” I said. “We have other people to deal with today, remember? Warren T. Fox. So let’s go get Violet and see what Grandpa has to say for himself.”

Finn and I left Sophia to clean up the remaining mess and headed over to Jo-Jo’s to pick up Violet Fox. Finn had called ahead to say we were on our way, and the two of them waited on the front porch for us. Both sat in rocking chairs that creaked and cracked with every pass back and forth. Jo-Jo had dragged Rosco’s basket outside, and the fat, lazy basset hound sat at the dwarf ’s feet, snoozing in a patch of sunlight that sliced across the porch slats.

Sophia must have lent Violet some of her clothes, because the girl was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a matching T-shirt with an enormous set of red lips on it. Despite Violet’s full figure, the clothes sagged off her frame. Sophia Deveraux had quite a bit more muscle on her than Violet did.

Jo-Jo wore one of her many pink flowered dresses and a string of pearls that were each as big as a giant’s tooth.

Her bleached white-blond hair was arranged into its typical helmet of curls, and perfect makeup covered her face.

As usual, the dwarf ’s feet were bare, despite the November chill in the air. Jo-Jo hated wearing socks. Said they made her feet hurt.

Finn and I stepped up onto the porch. Violet stood up, but Jo-Jo kept rocking in her chair.

“Sleep well?” I asked.

“As well as could be expected, I suppose. But Jo-Jo re- ally made me feel at home.” Violet gave her hostess a shy smile.

“Jo-Jo’s good at that. We should get going.”

“Say hello to Warren for me,” Jo-Jo told Violet. “Tell him I’ll be up that way for some more honey real soon.”

Violet nodded. “Thank you. For everything.”

Jo-Jo smiled at her. “No problem. Come on back sometime, and we’ll work on your hair, darling.”

Violet frowned, and her hand crept up to her frizzy blond locks. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

Jo-Jo speared her with a hard look. “Nothing a hot-oil treatment and some deep conditioning can’t take care of.”

Violet’s confused frown deepened, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her off the porch before she could think too hard about her split ends. Finn followed us, and we walked out to his car. Since we were going to be tooling up into the mountains today, Finn had decided to drive his oh-so-rugged Cadillac Escalade instead of his Aston Martin.

Violet stopped in front of the SUV and looked at us.

“What about my car? Did you guys drive it somewhere last night?”

Finn and I exchanged a look. Driving Violet Fox’s car to a safer location had been the last thing on my mind.

“We had to leave it in the parking lot,” I said. “We were more concerned with getting you patched up than what to do with your car.”

Violet’s face paled. “You mean—you mean you left it there in that Southtown parking lot? All night?”

Her concern was more than warranted. Leaving a car in that neighborhood was just begging for trouble. By now, the vehicle had probably been stripped of everything but the cigarette lighter. Hell, somebody had probably taken that too. Barracudas couldn’t pick a corpse any cleaner than the white trash and gangbangers in Southtown.

“It might be okay,” Finn replied in a hopeful tone. “It’s just a Honda. Several years old at that. It’s not like I left my Aston Martin down there.”

He shuddered at the thought. Violet chewed her lower lip.

“You have insurance, don’t you?” I asked.

Violet nodded.

“Then you can worry about your car later. Right now we need to go see your grandfather. You still want us to help the two of you, right?”

Violet nodded again. “Of course. Like I said, the Tin Man was my only hope. Now you’re my only hope.”

Only hope? How very
Star Wars.
I grimaced. But I didn’t tell Violet Fox how misplaced her trust in me was, how misguided, how laughable, even. That I only brought death to people, not hope. That I was doing this rare, pro bono good deed out of my own fucking insatiable curiosity more than anything else.

“Come on,” I said, opening the door on the SUV.

“Let’s go.”

———

Finn steered out of Jo-Jo’s subdivision and headed north. Following Violet Fox’s directions, we left the suburbs behind and drove through the heart of Northtown, where the rich, richer, and richest lived. People didn’t have mansions in Northtown—they had estates. If not for the driveways, iron gates, and tasteful brick walls that could be seen from the streets, you might have thought the area was deserted.

Because nobody with real wealth, magic, or power was gauche enough to let their home be seen from the road.