Deadly Sting (5 page)

“That’s sort of strange, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “It just sounds like Mab to me. She probably thought that if she put her collection on view, they’d rename the museum after her. Or one of the wings, at the very least. Although I doubt she realized just how soon she’d be requesting that honor.”

I grinned. “I was more than happy to help her with that.”

“I know you were.” Finn returned my evil grin. “Either way, I still want to know what’s going to happen to the rest of her estate. Mab had to leave all of her stuff to
somebody
, didn’t she?”

It was a conversation we’d had more than once since Mab’s death—wondering what was going to become of all of her earthly possessions. Oh, most of her business interests—especially the illegal ones—had already been snapped up by the other crime bosses. But her Northtown mansion was just sitting there, with all of her things still inside it. I was mildly surprised that no one had gotten it into his or her head to loot the mansion yet, but I supposed the specter of Mab still loomed too large for that.

Mab didn’t have any family that I was aware of, but that didn’t mean much. For all I knew, there might be a cousin or two lurking around somewhere, maybe even another, closer relative. But so far, Finn hadn’t been able to find out anything about what was going to become of her things.

“But we might not have to wait too much longer to learn who Mab left what to,” Finn continued. “Rumor has it that the museum director is going to read a statement that Mab had written about the exhibit—along with her will.”

“That’s strange too, isn’t it?” I asked. “Shouldn’t McAllister have done whatever he needed to do with Mab’s will by now? Why would she arrange it so the contents were announced here?”

He shrugged. “Maybe so she could have one last hurrah, even if she’s not around to actually enjoy it.”

“Or maybe she didn’t fully trust McAllister to see that her wishes were carried out.”

“Would you?”

“Good point.”

“But enough about all that,” Finn said, straightening his bow tie just a bit. “We’re at a party, the night is young, and I look fabulous.” He paused a moment. “And so do you.”

“Good to know where I stand in your list of priorities. Although I don’t know if
fabulous
is the word I would use,” I muttered, and crossed my arms over my chest. “I told you that I at least wanted something with sleeves.”

“And I told you that sometimes you just have to suffer for fashion.”

I gave him a sour look, which he totally ignored.

Still, I had to admit he was right. I had cleaned up pretty well tonight, thanks to the dress Finn had picked out. The scarlet gown had a tight fitted top that emphasized the smooth skin of my arms and shoulders, while the front of the bodice swooped down to show off what assets I had there. Scarlet teardrop-shaped crystals decorated the seams that cinched in around my waist, adding some sparkle to the gown, before the fabric fell away into a long, flowing skirt, also dotted here and there with crystals. As I walked, the skirt swirled out around me, the slits in it showing teasing flashes of my legs. Finn had even insisted on my buying shoes the same color to match, although I’d held my ground and had picked a pair with a relatively low, two-inch heel instead of the sky-high pumps he’d tried to browbeat me into getting.

The gown was beautiful—certainly more beautiful than I was—but I couldn’t help but feel exposed it in. The top left my arms bare, which meant that I couldn’t carry knives up my sleeves like I usually did. Still, I hadn’t come to the museum completely weaponless: two blades were strapped to my thighs underneath the long skirt, just in case. I would have preferred to be carrying my full five-point arsenal, so to speak, but two knives were usually enough to get the job done, especially when I was the one wielding them.

Still, I couldn’t help but listen to the tense, worried mutters of the stone around me—mutters that had only gotten louder and sharper since we’d entered the rotunda.

And it wasn’t just the stone’s whispers that made me wary. There were increasingly more giants inside the museum than there had been outside, until it seemed like they were everywhere I turned in the rotunda. Most of the giants were dressed as waiters, but really, they were just glorified guards in black bow ties. They’d be ready to deal quickly, brutally, and efficiently with any problems that might arise. In fact, there were more giant waiters in the room than there were personal bodyguards. I supposed that some of the movers and shakers thought they’d be safe enough at such a public event and had left their muscle at home for the night.

Even so, the giants didn’t bother me as much as the stares, snubs, and whispers. Opal wasn’t the only person who recognized me, and more than one person turned in my direction to gawk. Apparently, an assassin attending such a high-society event was something of a shock. Please. I’d snuck into my share of their fancy parties over the years to get close to a target—and more than one person had died before the last bit of bubbly was drunk. Or perhaps they thought it was gauche of me to show my face at an event commemorating the woman I’d killed. As if they all hadn’t wanted Mab dead for years.

Most folks limited themselves to whispering about me or turning their backs to me, but a few of the underworld figures had more interesting reactions. Ron Donaldson openly pouted at the fact that I was still breathing. I’d killed three of his men last month when they’d ambushed me outside the Pork Pit. Lorelei Parker was another petulant pouter. She’d sent two of her men after me just last week, and I had Sophia send them back to her in pieces.

Oh, yes. Tension rippled through the crowd with every move I made. But even beyond that, a nervous edge crackled in the air. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the source of it, but I felt it all the same, buzzing around like lightning getting ready to streak down from the sky and fry someone to a crisp—me, most likely.

“Well, I think you look fabulous,” Finn repeated. “Now, what do you say we get some champagne and have a look at Mab’s loot?”

I snorted. “You’re just trying to butter me up so you can get your way.”

“Is it working?”

I sighed. “Doesn’t it always?”

Finn grinned at me.

So I shut the stones’ murmurs out of my mind and ignored the folks whispering about me, determined at least to try to have a good time.

We grabbed some champagne and spent the next few minutes wandering around the rotunda. Actually, Finn dragged me from one group of people to the next, cozying up to all of his clients, saying hello to everyone he knew, and introducing himself to the few folks who hadn’t yet had the supreme pleasure of his acquaintance.

Finnegan Lane was one of the best investment bankers in Ashland, and he’d made a lot of people in this room a lot of money. We wouldn’t take more than three steps before Finn would wave at someone he knew or a woman would sidle up and plant a coy, perfumed kiss on his cheek. Finally, after the fifth time that happened, I motioned at Finn that I was going on without him. He absently waved his hand at me and turned back to his apparently riveting conversation about tax shelters with a wizened dwarf wearing a dozen ropes of black pearls.

While Finn held court, I moved off into the crowd. I wandered from one display to the next, ignoring the awed whispers about my being the Spider and disappointed mutters about why I wasn’t dead yet. Instead, I concentrated on all of the things Mab had collected over the years. Most of the items were exactly what I’d expected: pricey paintings, large sculptures, small, detailed carvings, even a few silk wall tapestries. Nothing too exciting or interesting. In fact, I was rather disappointed by the whole thing. Given how cruel and vicious Mab had been, I’d expected there to be
something
noteworthy on display, maybe a gun she’d used to kneecap someone, a knife she’d chopped off an enemy’s fingers with, a bit of rope she’d wrapped around someone’s throat and choked them into compliance with.

But I should have known that Mab wouldn’t have had anything like that. She’d preferred using her Fire magic to hurt, torture, burn, and kill people. She hadn’t needed anything else. No props, no weapons, no help from her giant guards. Just the mention of her name had been enough to inspire abject terror—and rightly so.

“What, exactly, are
you
doing here?” a low voice snapped.

I turned to find Jonah McAllister standing behind me, his fingers clenched around a champagne glass and his mouth pinched down with as much surprise and displeasure as his tight features would allow him to show.

“Why, hello, Jonah,” I drawled. “Lovely to see you again too.”

His cold brown eyes flicked up and down my body, carefully studying my gown as if he expected to find bloodstains on the expensive fabric. Maybe later. Like Finn had said, the night was still young.

“I told the guards to keep the riffraff out, but apparently, they didn’t understand the meaning of the word,” he said in a haughty, condescending tone.

I laughed in his face. McAllister had called me trash—and worse—on more than one occasion, but his insults didn’t bother me in the slightest. In fact, I idly considered reaching out, grabbing the lawyer’s lapels, and dragging him back into a dark corner so I could stab him to death with one of my knives. But alas, there were too many people, too many cameras, and too many giant guards posing as waiters in here for me to get away with murdering McAllister.

Still, the lawyer’s days were numbered. I’d make sure of that.

An angry, mottled flush stained McAllister’s cheeks at my light, happy, mocking laughter, and I could almost see the wheels furiously spinning in his mind as he thought about how he could get the better of me. He took another long, careful look at me, intently eyeing me from head to toe, then pivoted on his heel and strode away. I watched him for a few moments, but instead of going over to a couple of the giants and demanding that they escort me out, he pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket and started texting on it. Maybe he was sending his demands to someone higher up the museum food chain than the guards.

Strange, even for McAllister. Usually, he had some sort of devious plan in mind when it came to me, one that involved my untimely demise. It wasn’t like him just to walk away after merely one insult. I’d have to keep an eye on him—

“A fresh glass of champagne, ma’am?”

A silver tray appeared at my elbow, and I stared up at the person holding it, a giant about seven and a half feet tall. She looked to be in her mid-fifties, judging from the wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the deep laugh lines grooving in and around her mouth, and the long crease slashing across her forehead.

She wore the same starched white shirt and matching black tuxedo vest, bow tie, and pants that all of the other waiters did, but her features were quite striking. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was a mass of tight, wild curls, while her hazel eyes were just a shade darker than her tan skin. Her understated makeup highlighted her full mouth, sharp nose, and high cheekbones, and even the waiter uniform couldn’t disguise her generous breasts or how long her legs were. Put a gown on her, and she’d turn her fair share of heads in the room.

She also seemed vaguely familiar to me, like I’d seen her before, although I couldn’t quite place when or where. I’d probably noticed her at some other event, serving as a waiter or maybe even as a bodyguard to one of the underworld bosses. As the Spider, I’d met a lot of giants in my time. Well,
killed
was more like it.

“Ma’am?” she repeated, moving the tray closer to my elbow. “More champagne?”

“No, thank you,” I said, putting my still-full glass on her tray. “I seem to have lost my thirst for it.”

“Men will do that to you, won’t they?” she agreed.

Her voice was pure country twang, although the hard, knowing smile on her face told me that she was much smarter than the aw-shucks demeanor she radiated.

Before I could tell her that Jonah McAllister was in no way my sort of man, she moved on to the next person. I shook my head. First, the woman working the door had frozen up at my appearance, and now a waiter was giving me tips on my supposed love life with the smarmy lawyer. The night just kept getting weirder and weirder.

I’d just started to wade back into the crowd in search of Finn when a sly wink of silverstone caught my eye, and I noticed one more display tucked away in a recess in the back wall of the rotunda. Curious, I wandered over and finally found something noteworthy after all.

Two silverstone rune pendants lay on a bed of blue velvet behind a sheet of glass. One pendant was shaped like a snowflake, the symbol for icy calm. The other was a curling ivy vine, representing elegance.

I knew the symbols, knew exactly what they meant.

I’d once had a pendant just like them, one shaped like a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune, the symbol for patience.

The symbol that was branded into my palms to this day.

My hands balled into fists, my nails digging into the spider rune scars there.

Mab had put the marks there the night she’d tortured me, using her Fire magic to melt my silverstone pendant into my palms. It had been one of the most excruciating things I’d ever endured, but it was nothing compared with the utter shock I was feeling right now.

Because the snowflake was my mother Eira’s rune. And the ivy vine had belonged to my older sister, Annabella.

4

I leaned forward, until my nose was almost pressed against the glass, and studied every single millimeter of the runes. The pendants weren’t polished to a high gloss like everything else on view was. Rather, the chains they hung on were blackened, and what looked like streaks of soot and bits of ash clung to the surface of the silverstone runes, as though they’d once been in a fire and had never been properly cleaned.

They’d been in fire, all right—Mab’s murderous elemental blaze.

Mab . . . Mab must have taken my mother and my sister’s rune necklaces after she’d killed them that horrible night. I’d thought that the pendants had been buried in the rubble after I’d used my Ice and Stone magic to collapse the mansion on top of us all; or perhaps they had been pilfered by looters later on. But somehow Mab had gotten her grubby, greedy hands on them. She’d had the runes all these years, and now here they were, on display for everyone in Ashland to see, like a—like a damn
trophy
celebrating my family’s murder.

I’d thought by killing Mab that I was finally free of her, that I was finally
done
with her, and that she couldn’t shock, surprise, or hurt me anymore. I’d even gone to her funeral and said my piece to her ebony casket. But once again, the Fire elemental had managed to reach out from beyond the grave and mess with me.

Shock, anger, rage, hate. Those emotions surged through my body, matching the sudden, rapid, painful thump of my heart. For a moment, I considered using my magic to harden my fist so I could punch right through the thick glass. It would feel good, so fucking
good,
to smash the glass and grab the runes. Because they were
mine
—mine and Bria’s—and I’d be damned if Mab or the museum was keeping them.

But I forced myself to slow my ragged breathing and calm my racing heart. No, I couldn’t do that. There were too many security cameras in here for me to get away with such a crude smash-and-grab job. The guards would swarm me en masse, and I’d end up like the dwarf at the Posh boutique—bloody, beaten, handcuffed, and escorted off the premises by the esteemed members of the po-po.

No, this would require a different approach—a nice, quiet, after-hours visit to the museum. I wasn’t leaving these last few precious pieces of my family behind.

I turned around to find Finn and tell him about the runes—and came face-to-face with Owen Grayson.

* * *

My breath caught in my throat.

Perhaps absence really did make the heart grow fonder, because I couldn’t stop staring at my former lover. Black hair, intense violet eyes, a slightly crooked nose, a faint scar on his chin. I drank in the sight of his rugged features before my eyes traced over his broad shoulders and then down his muscled chest. The tuxedo he wore only made him look even more handsome and perfectly outlined the raw strength of his body.

Owen’s eyes widened, and he almost lost his grip on his champagne flute before he clenched his fingers around it once more. He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

“Hi,” he finally said in a soft, cautious voice.

“Hi yourself.”

We stood there staring at each other for what seemed like forever, although I was ticking off the seconds in my head the way I always did. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . .

Finally, at the forty-five-second mark, Owen cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

“Finn dragged me along. He said he wanted to come see all of Mab’s treasures, but really, I think he just wanted to socialize with his clients. He’s here somewhere, schmoozing the night away.”

Owen smiled a little at that, and we fell silent again. The other guests swirled around us like dancers, talking, laughing, and drinking champagne, but the trill of their voices and the
clink-clink-clink
of glasses seemed distant and far away. All I was aware of was Owen. The way the soft white lights brought out the sheen of blue in his dark hair. The faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. The warmth of his body reaching out toward my own. Even his rich scent, the one that always made me think of metal. I noticed all that and more—so much more.

We hadn’t spoken since that day at the Pork Pit when we’d agreed to take a break, and there were so many things I wanted to say to him, so many things I wanted to tell him. It wasn’t only our romance we’d put on hold, but our friendship too. I loved Owen, but I also loved just talking to him—telling him about my day, hearing about his, sharing a laugh or a joke or a funny story one of us had heard. I’d lost not only my lover but also one of my best friends and confidants. I missed him, terribly.

“So . . . how have you been?” he asked. “Because you look—you look
amazing
.”

His gaze trailed down my scarlet dress, and a bit of heat flashed in his eyes. I was suddenly very glad that Finn had dragged me out shopping and made me come here tonight.

“Thank you,” I said. “You look good too. Better than good, actually. It’s nice just to . . . see you.”

Another smile flickered across his face, this one a little brighter. “Well, it’s good to be seen, especially by you.”

We fell silent once more, still staring at each other, both of us wondering what to say, wondering how to break through the polite chitchat and talk about the things that really mattered, the problems we had, and where we went from here—

“Owen!” a voice called out. “There you are!”

A woman emerged from the crowd and strode over to us. She shot Owen a dazzling smile, then smoothly threaded her arm through his like it was something she’d done a dozen times before. My heart clenched at the sight, but I forced myself to stay calm and study her. She wasn’t as beautiful as some of the other women here tonight, but she knew how to play up her features. Smoke-black shadow rimmed her eyes, making them seem darker and larger than they really were, while the soft waves of her dark brown hair just tickled her shoulders, drawing attention to her toned arms and back.

“I thought I’d lost you. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She smiled up at him again, then turned toward me. “Who are you talking to? You’ll have to introduce me—”

Her words died on her red lips, and she did a double take, her eyes widening with surprise. It took me a second to realize that she wasn’t reacting to how close I was standing to Owen or the tension simmering between us. Oh, no. There was a far more serious reason for her horrified expression.

I had on the exact same dress she did.

Fitted top, cinched waist, flowing skirt. Her scarlet gown was identical to mine, right down to the teardrop-shaped crystals that sparked and flashed beneath the white lights. My gaze dropped to her feet, which were peeking out from beneath the edge of her skirt. She even had on the same color shoes as I did, although she’d gone all out and opted for the four-inch stilettos.

“Owen?” the woman asked.

“Sorry,” he said, finally glancing away from me. “I got . . . distracted and lost sight of you. I’ve been looking for you too.”

Oh. So that’s why he’d been behind me. Some small part of me had thought—no, hoped—that Owen had seen me from across the room and had come over to me on his own. But he’d really been searching for another woman the whole time, and the dress had only fooled him. Well, that and the fact that the mystery woman and I were roughly the same height. I supposed we even looked a little alike from the back, since we both were wearing our dark hair down loose around our shoulders. A simple mistake, but it still made bitterness burn in my throat all the same.

She kept staring at me, and I at her, both of us sizing each other up the way women so often do.

Owen cleared his throat and made the introductions. “Gin, this is Jillian Delancey, a business associate of mine from Atlanta. Jillian, this is Gin Blanco—”

“An old friend,” I interrupted him, and held out my hand to her.

I wasn’t sure what Owen had been about to say about me, whether I was merely a friend or an ex or something else entirely, but I didn’t want to find out. Not like this, anyway.

Still, the irony of the situation cut me like one of my own knives. The last time Owen had introduced me to a woman, it had been Salina, whom I’d had to kill. At the time, he’d failed to mention that she was his ex-fiancée. I wondered what sort of relationship he had with Jillian—if they’d been lovers in the past or if this was new.

Because it was obvious she wanted to start up something with him. I could tell by the way her hand tightened on his arm as she stepped even closer to him. Plus, the shoes were a dead giveaway. Women didn’t wear heels like that because they were comfortable. They wore them because of the way they made their legs look long and lean—and made men salivate over them.

Was Owen—could he be—were they out on a
date
?

My stomach twisted at the thought of Owen with someone else. That he might have already moved on without even telling me. That our relationship might be well and truly dead. The idea hurt so much that I couldn’t even
breathe
for a second.

But the shock of the moment passed, and the jagged, broken pieces of my heart kept right on beating just like they always did, even if every steady
thump-thump-thump
brought a fresh wave of pain along with it.

Despite my treacherous, unwanted, seesawing emotions, I decided to be gracious about things. Acting the bitch wouldn’t help matters. Besides, Jo-Jo had taught me better manners than that.

Gin Blanco. The Spider. Notorious assassin. Polite to a fault.

“Love your dress,” I joked.

Jillian smoothed down the fabric of her skirt. “Oh, yeah. Yours too.”

We both laughed, but my voice sounded hard and brittle—just like my heart.

The three of us stood there, shifting on our feet, not sure what to say to each other to break the silence that was growing more strained and awkward by the second. I glanced around the rotunda, hoping Finn was nearby so I could excuse myself more easily. It took me several seconds, but I finally spotted my foster brother—and he wasn’t alone.

Three other people stood with him. One was a tall, strong-looking man with blond hair that was slicked back into a ponytail. The other two were women, one young, only twenty, with dark hair and blue eyes, the other older
but even more beautiful, with black hair and toffee-
colored eyes and skin. Phillip Kincaid, Eva Grayson, and Roslyn Phillips. Familiar faces, since Phillip was Owen’s best friend, Eva was his younger sister, and Roslyn was another member of my extended family.

Owen noticed me looking past him and turned to see what I was so interested in.

“Eva’s here with me and Jillian,” he explained, facing me once more. “We all rode over together with Phillip and Roslyn.”

I nodded. Finn had told me that Roslyn was coming to the exhibit with someone else, since Xavier, her significant other, had to work tonight along with Bria. I just hadn’t thought that someone else would be Phillip. Then again, Roslyn owned Northern Aggression, the city’s most decadent nightclub. She knew everyone who was anyone in Ashland, including all of the underworld players like Kincaid.

Finn must have felt me staring at him, because he glanced in my direction. He started to look away but stopped and did a double take just as Jillian had. He stared at her a moment, then at me, his eyes flicking back and forth between our identical dresses.

Owen hesitated. “Actually, the reason Eva, Phillip, Jillian, and I are all here is that Finn gave me several extra tickets for the gala. He said that someone had given a bunch of them to him at his bank and he didn’t want us to miss out on the exhibit. He also said to think of it as part of his apology to me for everything that . . . happened between us.”

That
everything
had included Finn holding a gun on Owen while I cut Salina’s throat. Needless to say, Owen had been plenty pissed about that, mostly at me, for asking Finn to do such a thing in the first place. Still, it didn’t surprise me that he’d talked to my foster brother and had taken the tickets from him. Finnegan Lane could be exceptionally persuasive when he put his mind to it. Besides, what had happened that night had been my doing, no one else’s. The responsibility, the burden of that, was mine to bear, and so was the guilt.