Gin and Bria stopped a safe distance away from Finn's car. Gin remotely unlocked the doors and started the engine. Then the sisters waited, in case someone had planted a bomb on the car while they'd been inside the club. It broke my heart that Gin had to take such elaborate precautions, that she had to be so vigilant all the time, even when she was just out trying to have a drink with her sister. But it was part of her being the Spider now, and it probably always would be.
A minute passed, and the engine rumbled along smoothly. Bria headed over to the passenger's side to get in, while Gin went over to the driver's door. She reached for the handle but then stopped. Gin frowned, bent down, and touched part of the pavement next to the car. Then she brought her fingers up into the light.
I could see the blood shining on them from here.
I bit back a curse. We'd moved the bodies out of sight, but I hadn't thought to clean up all of the blood on the pavement. Maybe I hadn't spent enough time with Gin after all. Or with Sophia Deveraux, the dwarf who got rid of some of the bodies that Gin left behind.
Gin frowned as she studied the blood on her fingers, and then her gaze flicked to the door in front of her - and the dent in it, the one that Richie had put there with his foot. Her frown deepened, and she slowly turned her head left and right, peering into every shadow on the street, including the one that Phillip and I were crouched in.
I thought about rising to my feet, calling out to her, and explaining what had happened, but in the end, I stayed where I was, hidden in the shadows.
Gin looked past us once, but her gaze drifted back to our location, and her eyes narrowed as she tried to see into the darkness. Phillip started to show himself to her, but I put my hand on his shoulder, silently telling him to stay where he was.
"Something wrong?" Bria's voice drifted over to me.
After a moment, Gin rose to her feet and shook her head. She pulled a tissue out of her jacket pocket and used it to wipe the blood off her fingers. "Nah. Nothing important. Looks like somebody dinged Finn's car. Probably some fight gone wrong."
Bria sighed. "Great. He'll never let us hear the end of that."
"I know," Gin replied, stuffing the tissue back into her pocket. "And that's why we're not going to tell him about it until at least tomorrow morning. Now, let's get out of here."
They both got into the car, and Gin drove off. I waited until the car's taillights had disappeared into the night before I got to my feet and stepped back out into the street.
"What was that about?" Phillip asked. "Why didn't you go over and tell her what happened? I felt like a teenager again, hiding in the bushes outside my girlfriend's house, hoping that her dad wouldn't come and knock me around."
"I didn't want to ruin her night," I said in a soft voice.
"How would this ruin her night? You killed the bad guys for her. She didn't even have to get her knives bloody. We did all the work."
I shook my head. Phillip didn't understand how tired Gin was of being everyone's target, but I did. She deserved at least one night where she didn't have to worry about blood, bad guys, and bodies, and I was determined to give it to her.
"Besides," Phillip continued, "as far as grand romantic gestures go, I can't think of a better one for an assassin than a couple of dead bodies."
"What happened to all your talk about flowers, candy, and jewelry?"
He shrugged. "Like you pointed out, Gin's not exactly that kind of woman."
I stared down the street at the corner where Finn's car had disappeared. "No, she's not. Now, come on. Help me finish getting rid of the bodies."
By the time Phillip and I had heaved the bodies into the Dumpsters, wiped some of the blood and dirt of the fight off us, and gone back inside the club to tell Xavier that Sierra wasn't quite what she seemed, it was after midnight. Xavier took us back to Roslyn's office, where she looked through some records. It turned out that Sierra had only been working at the club a few days, probably just as a cover job. Roslyn and Xavier promised to find out what they could about Sierra, but I doubted that they'd come up with much. Northern Aggression wasn't exactly the kind of place that was conducive to truth telling, either by the patrons or by the employees.
Phillip and I left the club, got into my car, and drove over to the Delta Queen, which was docked downtown on the Aneirin River. The casino was closed for the night, and the strings of lights that swooped down from one deck to another were all dark, although the whitewashed wood and brass railing still glimmered in the moonlight.
Phillip got out of the car and came around to my side. I rolled down the driver's window, and he propped his forearms on the frame.
"Well," he drawled, staring down at the blood spatters on his jacket sleeves. "I suppose that this suit is officially ruined."
Mud, blood, and grime covered just about every inch of his white suit. Wisps of blond hair had escaped his ponytail, dirt smudged his chin, and the left side of his face had already started to bruise and puff up from where the giant had hit him. Phillip looked terrible, and it was my fault - again. He'd taken a beating because of my desire to protect Gin, and we were both extremely lucky that things hadn't been a whole lot worse.
Guilt surged through me, but I made my voice light. "Well, feel free to send me the dry-cleaning bill," I said, trying to make a joke.
"Oh, I intend to." His face was dead serious.
I winced. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you into the middle of my fight like that. Next time, maybe we'll have a better guys' night out. Or at least a less violent one."
"Oh, I don't know," he drawled. "You. Me. Out on the street. Facing down some punks and getting the best of them. You were right. It was just like old times - good times."
His face creased into a wide smile, his blue eyes bright with victory. For a moment, it was like the years melted away, and I saw the scrawny kid he had once been, grinning like a fool because he'd managed to steal a couple of apples for him, Eva, and me to eat.
My chest tightened, the sensation even more painful than when Sierra used her stun gun on me. It had been so long since I'd seen him smile like that. It had been so long since he'd looked at me like that, without a trace of anger, hurt, or bitterness marring his features.
Phillip had been my best friend, the person I depended on more than anyone else, but I'd thrown that all away when I'd believed Salina and her lies over him.
Once again, I cursed my own foolishness, and I couldn't get rid of the hollow ache in my chest either. Because as the weeks had passed, and I got more perspective about Salina and all the horrible things that she'd done, I'd realized something else. Salina hadn't just cost me my friendship with Phillip - she'd also stolen my time with him.
Phillip and I had been estranged for years because of her, and Cooper and I hadn't fared much better, at least not after Salina had first left Ashland. I'd missed out on so much with them. Phillip growing up and making a name for himself as the owner of the Delta Queen. Cooper and all of his blacksmith projects. Not to mention Eva and all of the happy, sweet childhood innocence that Salina had taken from her.
It made me sick, thinking about all of those wasted years, all that precious time that I could have spent with people who truly cared about me. But instead, I'd squandered it by wondering where Salina had gone and why.
And now the same thing was happening with Gin.
The days were turning into weeks, and I was still no closer to figuring out how to set things right between the two of us than I had been the night that Salina had died -
"What are you thinking about?" Phillip asked, interrupting my thoughts. "You look so serious all of a sudden."
I stared at him, and once again, I thought of all the quiet moments like this one that I'd lost with him because of Salina and her lies.
And in that second, I vowed that it wasn't going to happen again. Not with Phillip, Cooper, or Eva - and not with Gin either. Salina had already taken so much from me. She wasn't getting anything else. Not one more damn second of my time.
"Owen?"
I made myself smile at him, as though I had nothing important on my mind. "I was just wondering how you're going to make me pay for this later."
"We'll start with a new suit." Phillip grinned again. "Although I'm sure that I can come up with some other acts of contrition that you can complete to atone for your sins. Tell you what. Come by tomorrow for lunch, and I'll tell you what you can do to complete your penance."
If only he knew that was exactly what I was planning on doing. Making it up to him. Making things up to everyone. Cooper, Eva, Gin. I couldn't undo what Salina had done. But I could sure as shooting try my best to let them know how sorry I was for everything that had happened - and how much I loved them.
Especially Gin.
"Owen?" Phillip said. "There you go, looking all serious again."
I gave him the same saucy wink he'd been using on all the women at the club tonight. "It's a date. See you then."
He shook his head. "It's so sad that you have no game. That's something else we'll have to talk about tomorrow. Later."
He gave me a much saucier wink, then straightened up and waved at me before walking up the gangplank and disappearing from view.
I put the car in gear and drove away from the riverboat, thinking about everything that had happened tonight. Talking with Phillip, laughing with him, fighting side-by-side with him. For the first time since we'd reconnected, it felt almost . . . natural. Like we were finally starting to get back to where we'd once been as friends. My lips pulled up into another smile.
Good times, indeed. And I hoped there were many more to come.
I drove home. Eva was spending the night with Violet Fox, her best friend, so the mansion was dark and quiet when I went inside. I took a long, hot shower to wash Richie's and Sierra's blood off me, then changed into a T-shirt and some jeans, along with a pair of boots and some heavy blue coveralls. I also retrieved the hammers from the trunk and cleaned the blood off them.
Even though it was after two in the morning now, I felt energized - galvanized, even - so I grabbed my hammer and went to my forge.
Two stone walls held up the pointed slate roof, but the other two sides were open so the air could flow inside and fuel the fire. It wasn't as large as Cooper's forge - not even close - but it was mine, my own space for me to do my own work.
I flipped the lights on and got started. It didn't take me long to light the fire, arrange my tools, and select a piece of iron to work with. In fact, I found comfort in the familiar routines, just like Gin did with her cooking.
Once the iron was properly heated, I picked up my hammer and reached for my magic, feeling the cold, hard power rising up out of the pit of my stomach, flowing through my shoulders, down my arms, through my hands, and all the way into my fingertips. The hot iron began to whisper in anticipation of how I might shape it, while the other bits of metal in the forge chimed in, wondering what I was going to do next. I drew in a breath, really focusing in on my magic and gathering up more and more of it. The whispers of the metal intensified; it knew what was coming next. When I had a firm grip on my magic, I slowly channeled it into my hammer, until the silverstone was humming with raw power - just like I was.
Then I brought the hammer down.
I hit the iron time and time again, making sparks erupt and zing through the air like fat red bumblebees before the sticky humidity of the night snuffed them out. I ignored the sparks and focused on the metal, until I could feel each and every bit of the iron, down to the smallest shaving. Then I started whispering back to the metal, not with actual words but instead with my magic, coaxing it, molding it, sculpting it into the exact shape that I wanted.
A couple of hours later, when I was finished, I looked down at the piece I'd created, examining it from every angle. It was good, certainly better than my other attempts to make this particular shape, but I could do better still. I would do better - for Gin.
Because she deserved the absolute best in all things, but especially from me.
I knew what I wanted to do with the shape now, what form I wanted it to take. Phillip had actually given me the idea, with all his talk of flowers, candy, and jewelry tonight. I just hoped that the finished piece would be as meaningful to Gin as it was to me. Either way, I'd spend the next few weeks, maybe even the next few months, working on it. Sketching and resketching. Shaping and reshaping. Forging and reforging until the piece was the best that it could be.
For her, for Gin.
The woman I loved, the one I was determined to win back.
Oh, I knew that I didn't deserve a second chance with her. Not really, not after everything that I'd done, not after all the ways that I'd hurt her. But damned if I didn't want one anyway. Maybe that was selfish of me. Maybe Gin would reject me outright. Maybe she'd say that too much had happened and we could never get back what I'd made us lose.
If so, I wouldn't like it, but I'd live with it. Just like I'd live with the memories of what Salina had done and how I'd failed to stop her. Jillian's death. And all the other things that haunted me these days. But penance was about atoning for your sins and trying to make things right. That was all that I could do.
I just hoped that it would be enough for everyone - Phillip, Cooper, Eva, and especially Gin.
I reached up and grabbed the horseshoe that I'd hung over the entrance for luck when I'd first built the forge years ago. I replaced the horseshoe with the piece that I'd made tonight, stepped back, and admired it. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. Such a simple shape but so powerful at the same time. It looked good hanging there, just like I'd known it would.
