Cold Burn of Magic (22 page)

T
he next few days were quiet, if tense.

I stuck to my routine of getting up, stuffing myself with breakfast, and going wherever the day took me. Mostly, I hung out with Felix in the greenlab, helping him and Angelo prune the stitch-sting bushes so they could make more healing liquid. I also went down to the Razzle Dazzle every chance I got, but Mo hadn't found out anything about either one of the attacks, although he said that one of his contacts might have something for him soon.

I also did everything I could think of to find the mystery man. I kept chatting up folks about Devon, trying to figure out who might know about his compulsion magic and want it for himself. I also wandered through the Midway, eavesdropping on the guards from the other Families and picking up what gossip I could.

I even broke back into the brownstone of the accountant where I'd swiped the ruby necklace, since his guards had attacked Devon the first time in the pawnshop. But there were no incriminating papers or other clues in the accountant's office that told me anything I didn't already know.

All that effort, and I didn't learn anything new. The mystery man was still, well, a mystery.

The one person I didn't see much of was Devon. I didn't have to guard him at the mansion, and he stayed put on the grounds. Supposedly, he was busy with Family obligations, including some new training for the guards, but he was avoiding me, and I did the same to him. Every time I saw him walking through the mansion, I made sure I was going in the opposite direction, and I absolutely did not look into his eyes. I didn't want my soulsight to show me how much he regretted almost kissing me. Especially since part of me wanted to pick right back up where we'd left off.

But the night of the dinner for all the Families finally arrived, and Devon came over to me long enough in the dining hall at breakfast to tell me that Claudia wanted me to go.

“Why?” I asked. “There will be plenty of guards. She doesn't need me there, too. Besides, your mom has made it pretty clear that she hates me.”

“She doesn't hate you,” he said. “No one here does.”

“Well, at the very least, she doesn't trust me.”

Devon shrugged. “Well, she still wants you to go. She didn't tell me why.”

He walked away before I could ask him anything else. Maybe that was for the best.

Oscar had come into my bedroom an hour earlier, carrying a garment bag. I'd unzipped it to find a black pantsuit and a matching shirt, similar to the ones Claudia always wore, along with a pair of low-heeled black pumps and a small black purse. I'd grumbled at the clothes, but I supposed I couldn't show up to a Family dinner wearing my usual T-shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers.

So I'd taken a shower, slicked my hair back into a high ponytail, and even went through the drudgery of putting on a little makeup. But I also made sure that I had all of my usual tools with me. My belt with its hidden slots and three throwing stars, my chopstick lock picks stuck in my hair, my phone and several quarters that I dropped into the bottom of the purse. As a final touch, I slipped my mom's star-shaped sapphire ring onto my finger.

The only thing missing was the black blade belted around my waist, but no one was allowed to have weapons at a Family dinner. At least, not any obvious ones.

Now I was standing in front of my vanity table, peering at my reflection in the mirror. And I realized something. Black suit, black shirt, black heels. I looked like a mobster—and I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

“Nice,” Oscar called out from the front porch of his trailer. “You clean up real good, Lila.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, pulling down the suit jacket a little more.

He cleared his throat. “Just . . . be careful tonight, okay? These dang Family dinners can be brutal, especially on the nerves.”

I winked at him. “Always.”

Oscar nodded, but his smile was more sad than happy as he got up and headed into his trailer, as if he already knew that I wasn't coming back after the dinner.

For some reason, I felt that way, too.

 

I joined the other Family members who were already gathered in the library. Claudia, Devon, Felix, Grant, Reginald, Angelo. Everyone wore the same sort of black suit and shirt that I had on, along with serious expressions that matched their dark clothes.

“Now that we are all finally here,” Claudia said, arching an eyebrow at me. “We should leave. We don't want to be late.”

She swept out of the library, followed by Reginald and Angelo. Grant nodded his head as he passed me, and I did the same. That left me standing with Felix and Devon, who still wasn't looking at me. Not that I noticed, since I was extremely busy not staring back at him.

“Not bad, Merriweather.” Felix let out a low whistle. “Not bad at all. Don't you think so, Devon?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, Lila looks nice.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “There goes Mr. Understatement again.”

“Anyway, we should go,” Devon continued. “We don't want to keep the others waiting.”

We headed outside. Claudia, Reginald, and Angelo were already in one car. Felix said that he was going to ride with his dad and headed in that direction. That left me, Devon, and Grant to follow in the second SUV. We rode in silence down the mountain and over to the Midway. Grant parked in the lot reserved for the Families, and the three of us got out and walked over to the restaurant where the dinner was being held. I stopped on the sidewalk and stared up at the neon sign burning a bloody red. Then I started laughing.

“What's so funny?” Grant asked.

I pointed up at the sign. “The Red Cannoli? Really?”

“What about it?” Devon asked.

“Don't you find that just a little ironic?”

Devon and Grant both shrugged. Apparently, I was the only one around here who watched mob movies where bad things happened in Italian restaurants. With its oh-so-appropriate name, the Red Cannoli could have come right out of a gangster flick.

The inside of the restaurant was exactly what I expected. The walls were made of a dark cherry wood and flanked by red leather booths, while thick white cloths covered all the tables. A bar lined the back wall, the bottles of liquor shining like polished gems underneath the muted white lights. An enormous painting of an old Spanish hacienda that was a mix of reds, oranges, yellows, and greens took up most of the wall behind the bar. The hacienda could also be seen stamped into the bronze cuffs the bartender and the wait staff were wearing, since it was the crest of the Salazar Family.

“This is one of the Salazars' joints, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Devon answered. “The Families rotate who hosts the dinner as well as the location. It was the Salazars' turn this time. So here we are.”

We moved deeper into the restaurant. Devon, Grant, and I joined Claudia, Angelo, Felix, and Reginald, who were standing in front of the booths on the right side of the restaurant. The smells of garlic, seared onions, and crushed red pepper tickled my nose, and my stomach rumbled in anticipation.

Felix eyed me. “You cannot possibly be hungry again. We just had dinner, like, two hours ago. And you ate twice as much as I did.”

I grinned. “I could always eat. Besides, it smells fantastic.”

Everyone from the other Families kept more or less to themselves, all of them standing in tightly clustered groups like we were. Everyone had on a black suit, and the only real differences between folks were the color of their shirts and the cuffs on their right wrists. I spotted Poppy standing close to her father. She waved at me, and I waved back.

A large circular table stood in the center of the room, with several other, smaller circular tables spiraling out from it. The table in the middle was for the heads of the Families, some of whom had already taken their seats. Hiroshi Ito, Roberto Salazar, Nikolai Volkov, and a few others from the less powerful Families. Only two empty seats remained at the table. One of those had to be for Claudia, who was moving around the restaurant, shaking hands with members of all the other Families. The other had to be for Victor Draconi, but he wasn't here yet—

The restaurant doors banged open, and several people strode inside. A hush fell over the room, and everyone turned to face the new arrivals.

The Draconi Family.

They wore black suits with red shirts and gold cuffs, all of which were stamped with that snarling dragon crest. Every single one of them looked either tall, angry, and vaguely threatening, or short, mean, and openly hostile. The guards came in first, followed by Blake, who swaggered in as if he owned the joint. Deah followed her brother, looking cold, beautiful, and only slightly less menacing than the rest of her Family.

Beside me, Felix sucked in a breath. Deah scanned the room, and her eyes met his for a second before skittering away.

Blake and Deah moved about halfway into the room, then stopped, turned, and faced each other. The rest of the guards formed two lines, one behind Blake, and the other behind Deah.

Blake, Deah, and the guards each snapped to attention and took three steps back, and a man strode into the restaurant, walking through the center of the aisle they'd created for him.

He was handsome, with a lean, trim figure, thick, wavy blond hair, and eyes that were more gold than brown. He wasn't as large and beefy as the other men, but it was easy to tell that he was the most powerful. He just had that sort of commanding presence about him, and practically everyone in the restaurant bowed their heads to him. I could feel the chill of magic rolling off him from all the way across the room. I wondered what his Talent was—and if he had more than one, given the cold crush of power he wore like a crown perched on top of a king's head.

Victor Draconi, the big cannoli himself.

The man who'd murdered my mom.

S
ince my mom's death, I had seen Victor Draconi several times over the years, moving through the crowds in the Midway, cruising around town in some dark, expensive car, even once through the window of a fancy steakhouse where he was eating. And I'd known that he was going to be here tonight.

But knowing that and seeing him were two different things. He stopped in between Blake and Deah, and that solid wall of white swept through my mind, blotting out everything else, except the horrible memories of that day . . .

Was?
My stomach clenched even tighter.

“Lila ?” Devon whispered in my ear. “Is everything okay?”

I blinked, and the blood and the memories vanished, and I was back in the Red Cannoli again, watching Victor slap Blake on the shoulder as though nothing was wrong. As if he hadn't been the architect of my own personal nightmare. As if he wasn't more of a monster than anything that lived in the alleys of Cloudburst Falls.

“Lila?” Devon whispered.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “Everything's fine.”

 

Victor Draconi didn't deign to look at anyone else in the room as he headed for the table in the center. Everyone sitting there got to their feet as he approached. Victor smiled, which made his face seem more cruel than handsome, as he went around the table, shaking hands with the heads of the other Families. He laughed and joked with many of them, but his meeting with Claudia was decidedly cold. They shook hands, barely managing to hide their dislike for each other long enough to give the perfunctory handshakes.

“Victor.”

“Claudia.”

And that was as far as their pleasantries went.

Now that the Draconis had arrived, the dinner finally began. Roberto Salazar snapped his fingers, and the bartender went into the back of the restaurant. A few seconds later, an army of waiters appeared, carrying trays of white and red wine, along with sparkling water.

“And now, we mingle,” Devon muttered.

The waiters circulated through the restaurant, offering drinks to everyone. And slowly, folks began to leave their Family members behind and mix with people from the other Families. Grant was the first one to leave the Sinclairs, moving from one group to the next, laughing, smiling, and talking with everyone. I shook my head. Maybe he really did know everyone in all the Families.

Devon moved off as well, standing next to Claudia as she walked from group to group. Felix wandered off to talk to Poppy, but I stayed where I was. I didn't trust myself not to do something stupid, like grab one of the throwing stars on my belt and try to kill Victor.

I'd thought about trying to avenge my mom's murder hundreds of times over the years—dreamed about it, longed for it,
ached
to do it. But in the end, I'd had to let the fantasy go. Victor Draconi had too much money, too much magic, and too many guards for someone like me to ever touch him. I doubted that I could even get close enough to key one of his cars, much less run him through with my sword. Besides, I liked living a little too much to throw my life away on some suicide revenge mission. Still, every time I heard his name, every time I saw him, every time I thought about him, I wondered what I could do to make him pay for murdering my mom.

Now, I was in the same room with him, closer than I'd ever been before, and I
still
couldn't touch him. Because the second I tried, his guards would be all over me. They'd take me in the alley out back, execute me, and leave my body for the monsters to fight over. And they'd probably do the same thing to Devon, Felix, Claudia, and the rest of the Sinclairs.

So I stood there, rage smoldering in my heart, and watched the man I hated more than anything else hold court.

Victor was the only one who didn't make any effort to move around. He stayed in his seat and made everyone come to him instead. It was an obvious show of his power, but more than one person came forward. It was a wonder that some fawning Family members didn't bend down and kiss the gold cuff on his wrist.

I grabbed a bottle of water from one of the waiters, just so it would look like I had something to do, and noticed Deah heading in my direction. Wonderful.

Her blue eyes scanned the crowd, as if she was looking for someone. Felix, probably. She looked at me and did a double-take. Instead of walking on, she actually came over to me.

“You again,” she said.

“Yeah. Me again.”

Instead of making some snide comment and moving on, Deah glanced around, as if she was afraid someone would overhear her. “Look, I'm sorry about what happened at the arcade with Poppy. Blake was way out of line.”

“No. Really?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. That would be Poppy.”

Deah stared across the room, where Poppy was standing with Hiroshi, Felix, Devon, and Claudia.

“I tried,” she admitted. “I've been trying ever since that day. But she won't speak to me or even answer my texts.”

I blinked, surprised she would make the effort. No one else in her miserable Family would—

“Well, well, well, if it isn't the little girl from the arcade,” a snide voice cut in.

Blake loomed up in front of me, looking particularly sinister in his black suit and red shirt. His blond hair gleamed like dirty gold underneath the lights, making his face seem that much darker. Blake looked me up and down, giving me the same lecherous gaze he had Poppy at the arcade.

“You're lucky that all of the Families are here tonight,” he sneered. “Or I'd take you out back and make you show me what you're wearing underneath that cute little suit.”

I smiled sweetly at him. “And I'd shove my knee into your balls. That's what you'll get if you touch me, Poppy, or any other girl ever again.”

His hands curled into fists, and his brown eyes locked with mine. His anger was like a red-hot knife slamming into my stomach. Blake wouldn't just make me strip—he'd do a whole lot worse. My eyes narrowed. Let him try. I'd enjoy showing him that he wasn't the only one here who could be cruel and ruthless.

Blake grinned, but his expression was as cold as a monster's about to strike its prey. “You want to go out back and see what's what? I might have to follow the rules in here, but out there? My Family
runs
this town. And it won't be too much longer before we own Cloudburst Falls and everyone and everything in it.”

I would have brushed off his words as just a wiseguy mouthing off, but the cold certainty blazing in his eyes made my own stomach twist with worry. Were the Draconis planning a move against the other Families? If so, what? And when?