"You're welcome," the dwarf said, before getting to her feet, going over to the sink, and washing her hands again.
Vinnie sat up in his chair, his gaze flicking around the room, taking in all the beauty supplies, obviously wondering how he'd gotten from the park to Jo-Jo's salon. He froze when he spotted Xavier and Roslyn sitting together on a loveseat against the far wall. After a moment, his blue eyes cut to me, lingering on all the blood on my clothes, before going back to his vampire boss and her giant bouncer.
Vinnie opened his mouth, but I beat him to the punch.
"Before you start spouting some lame-ass lie about what you've been up to these past few days, let me tell you what we know," I said in a cold voice. "We know that you've been spying on Roslyn for Mab Monroe. We know that an assassin who goes by the name LaFleur came to see you at Northern Aggression tonight and that it wasn't the first time that you've talked to her. We know that she told you to tell everyone about a shipment of drugs that were coming in down at the docks, in hopes that the Spider would show up and LaFleur could take her out. How am I doing so far?"
Vinnie didn't say anything, but he swallowed once and nodded his head.
"Good. You've decided to be reasonable." I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a hard stare. "Here's the deal. You tell us everything that you've told LaFleur and Mab, and everything that they've said to you or threatened you with. And, at the end of your story, if I like what I hear, I may just let you live. So start talking."
Vinnie just kept staring at me, his eyes wide in his face.
"Now!" I barked.
The Ice elemental looked at his boss again, but Roslyn's face was even harder and colder than mine. So was Xavier's. After a moment, Vinnie slumped back against his chair.
"I didn't want to do it, Roslyn." Vinnie's Russian accent was even more pronounced than before, probably from all the stress he was feeling right now. "You have to believe me. You've been so good to me. I never wanted to betray you like this."
"I know, Vinnie," Roslyn said in a soft voice. "Now tell us what you know."
He drew in a shaky breath. "A week ago, I'm at the club, working the bar like usual. I go outside to take out the trash, and this woman comes up to me. At first I think she's just drunk or outside smoking something she shouldn't, you know? But she calls out to me, calls me by my name. And she starts telling me all these ... things. Like what time I get off work every night, and where Natasha and I like to eat dinner. Where Natasha goes to school."
Vinnie's voice dropped to a whisper. He swallowed again and forced himself to continue.
"And then she tells me that her name is LaFleur and asks me if I've heard of her. I say no. And she says that after tonight I'll never forget her. She turns and calls out to someone, and this guy steps forward. He was just a guy, somebody that I'd never seen before. She stares at him a second and starts smiling. And then she raises her hand up, and she-and she just-"
"Electrocuted him," I finished. "Right there in front of you."
Vinnie stared at me in surprise. "Yeah, how did you know?"
I gave him a grim smile. "Because unlike you, I have heard of her. Go on."
Vinnie nodded. "Anyway, LaFleur tells me that she's working for Mab Monroe on a special assignment. To find and kill the Spider. And that I'm going to help her do this. At this point, I am freaking out. But I can't exactly leave, not without her killing me too."
He shuddered at the memory of the other assassin threatening him. Couldn't blame him for that. Not when LaFleur had thrown in a demo of her electrical magic right there on the spot.
"So she approached you about working for her. Then what happened?" I asked.
Vinnie swallowed again. "This woman, LaFleur, said that unless I wanted to end up like her friend, I was going to start watching Roslyn for her. Going to see who Roslyn was hanging out with, who she talked to at the club every night. She wanted me to make a list of every woman that I saw Roslyn with. She said that one of them had to be the Spider, and it was just a matter of narrowing it down."
Well, he'd just confirmed what Brown, the vampire, had said in the park. I didn't know if LaFleur had been ordered to do all this by Mab or if the assassin had come up with the plan all on her own. Either way, it wasn't good news for me.
"I told her that I was just a bartender, that I didn't know about anything that had happened with Roslyn or Elliot Slater or the Spider or any of it. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. LaFleur said that if I didn't do exactly what she said, she'd kill Natasha and make me watch while she did it. And then she'd kill me."
Vinnie's voice dropped to a whisper and was so soft that I had to strain to hear him. "I just-I didn't have a choice. You didn't see what she did to that man. You didn't smell it or hear him scream. So yeah, I did what she said. I started watching Roslyn. And when LaFleur came back to the club a few days ago and told me to start talking about the drug shipment, I did that too."
"Why didn't you come to me, Vinnie?" Roslyn asked. "I would have believed you. I would have helped you."
The Ice elemental gave her a wan smile. "I know that you would have tried. But Elliot Slater almost killed you, and this woman makes him look like Santa Claus. And Natasha, she comes first with me. She always has. I couldn't risk her. I'm sorry, Roslyn. So very sorry."
The vampire nodded, accepting his apology. "I know, Vinnie. Believe me, I know."
"So what did LaFleur say to you tonight?" I asked. "When she came into the club?"
Vinnie looked back at me. "She told me that no one had shown up at the drug meeting last night, which meant that I must not have done what she asked me to. She said that she was going to dance for a few minutes before she left to go over to my apartment, and kill Natasha and her babysitter. I was just-desperate. I didn't know what to do, so I left to go home and try to get to my daughter before LaFleur did. But she had men inside the club waiting for me."
"I know," I said in a wry tone. "I'm wearing little bits and pieces of them right now."
Vinnie stared at me, his blue eyes once again taking in the blood on my clothes, hands, and face. "What's going on?" he asked. "Who are you? Why were you in the park tonight?"
The bartender had been pretty out of it when I'd shown myself to Mab's men earlier, all of his attention focused on taking down Brown, the vampire, not with who I was.
So I stared at him, letting him see just how cold, flat, and hard my gray eyes really were, and made the introduction once more. "I'm the woman you're looking for, Vinnie. I'm the person LaFleur wanted you to find. I'm the Spider."
Chapter 9
Vinnie looked at me a second more, then bolted out of his chair and headed for the hallway that led into the front part of the house. I sighed. As much as I liked the fact that the mere mention of my assassin name was enough to inspire abject terror in people, it was inconvenient right now. Because I needed to talk to Vinnie, not kill him. Not yet anyway.
But Vinnie didn't get far. By that point, Finn had finished his coffee run and was strolling back down the hallway, a mug of his steaming chicory brew in his left hand. He saw Vinnie heading toward him, sighed, and reached around behind his back with his right hand. Finn came up with a gun, which he leveled at Vinnie's head.
The Ice elemental froze in the doorway.
"Why don't you be a good boy, Vinnie, and go sit down," Finn said in a pleasant voice before taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes never left the other man, and his gun never wavered. Finn could be a badass when he had to, just like me.
Xavier got to his feet, walked over, and clamped his hand on Vinnie's shoulder, as a little added incentive. "If we wanted you dead, Vinnie, we would have left you in the sandbox. Relax, man. Nobody here is going to hurt you."
The giant didn't add the not yet part. He didn't have to.
Xavier maneuvered Vinnie back over to his original chair. The Ice elemental sank into the padded seat, a dazed expression on his face. Xavier hovered over his shoulder, in case he decided to run again.
"You're the Spider. The Spider," Vinnie muttered, his eyes flicking back to me.
"That's my name," I drawled.
He leaned forward and buried his head in his hands. Bits of golden sand fell out of his dirty brown hair and glinted on the floor. "Dead. I'm so dead. You're going to kill me, aren't you? That's why you brought me here. That's why you healed me. To question me before you kill me."
Admittedly, that had been my first plan, but now I was reconsidering things. Even assassins could be swayed from time to time.
I tilted my head to one side and gave him a thoughtful look. "Not necessarily. What I really want to know about right now is your little girl."
Vinnie raised his head out of his hands and looked at me. "Natasha?"
I nodded. "Natasha. Tell me about her."
The Ice elemental shifted in his chair. "You can do whatever you want to me. I know that I deserve it, for spying on Roslyn like I did, for setting you up like I did. But please, leave Natasha out of it. Please. I'll do anything you want, tell you anything you want, give you anything you want, if you'll just let her go."
I shook my head. "I hate to disappoint you, Vinnie, but I don't have your daughter. I have no idea where Natasha is."
Vinnie's face fell. "But you-you killed those men at the park. The giants. I saw you do it. And you brought me here, you healed me. Surely, you must have Natasha here too."
"I'm sorry," I said and meant it. "But we just found you. We didn't get your daughter as well. Given what I heard the men in the park say, I'm pretty sure that Mab has her now."
Vinnie closed his eyes. His face took on a greenish tint, and a tremor shook his body. He ran a hand through his hair. More sand fell out of his dark locks and dusted the salon floor. After a moment, Vinnie put his face down in his hands again. His shoulders shook, and even though I couldn't see them, I knew that tears ran down his face. He tried to muffle a sob and couldn't. He just couldn't.
Nobody spoke, and the only sound was Vinnie's low, anguished cries.
"Gin?" Roslyn finally asked in a soft voice.
I glanced over at the vampire. She looked so cool, calm, and professional in her suit, but that wasn't the image of her I was really seeing. Instead, I flashed back to that night at Slater's cabin when I'd found her beaten and tied down to the giant's bed, about to be raped and murdered. All of that had been horrible enough for Roslyn, a former hooker who knew what the score was and just how twisted things could get in Ashland. I could only imagine the damage that sort of thing would do to an innocent young girl like Natasha.
"Gin?" This time, Jo-Jo was the one who murmured my name.
Gin. The shortened, bastardized version of my real name, the one I'd adopted for myself so many years ago when Fletcher had first taken me in. Three letters, one syllable. A simple name. But now, somehow, full of so many questions, so many things asked, and so much hanging in the balance-including Natasha's life.
I sighed and nodded at the other two women.
Then I leaned forward and put my hand on Vinnie's shaking shoulder. "Vinnie, I know that you're upset right now. That you've been through a lot, but I need you to focus for a little while longer. Do you think you can do that?"
I didn't know if it was fear of me or something else, but Vinnie flinched at my touch. I dropped my hand, wondering if he'd even heard me. But after a moment, his shoulders quit shaking. He wiped the tears out of his eyes and slowly raised and nodded his head.
"Good," I said. "Now, I want you to think back. This new club that Mab's opening, the one the vampire said that Natasha could be the star of. Did you hear the men say anything else about it? Where it was going to be? When it was going to open? Anything at all?"
"Why do you care?" Vinnie said. "She's not your daughter. You don't even know her-or me."
No, I didn't know Vinnie or his daughter. Didn't know them the least little bit or really care to. But I knew exactly what the Ice elemental was going through right now. All the emotions that he was feeling-and how helpless they all made him.
Instead of telling him that I understood what it was like to lose your family, I just stared at Vinnie, my mouth a flat line in my face. "Humor me."
Still, something of my pain must have flickered in my eyes, because after a moment, Vinnie slowly nodded his head.
"All right," he said. "Two nights after LaFleur first approached me, she told me to meet her at Underwood's before my shift started. She was there eating dinner with a couple of giants, Mab Monroe, and Jonah McAllister."
Underwood's was one of Ashland's most exclusive restaurants-a place that Mab liked to frequent, along with her lawyer, Jonah McAllister. Someone else I'd been having problems with recently.
"Anyway, I went inside, but LaFleur didn't want to see me right away, so I had to hang out by the bar for a while. But their table was close by, and I heard them talking. It's true. Mab is opening up her own nightclub. Some kind of underground place where anything goes-anything. Kids, cutting up women, whatever sick things that people would pay for. Mab kept saying how it was time for Northern Aggression to disappear-for good."
My gaze cut to Roslyn. The vampire sat on the couch, a hard look on her face, but I could see the worry flickering in her eyes. Northern Aggression was her livelihood, the way that she supported herself, her sister, Lisa, and young niece, Catherine, the way that Roslyn was providing a better life for them. Not to mention all the people who worked for her. All the vamps who might be hooking on the streets in the midst of all the dangers connected with that profession in Ashland, instead of being in the safer environment that Roslyn provided.
