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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.
