Then again, so was I.
Lorelei was here because she actually owned the coin laundries in question and was more than willing to sell them—to the highest bidder, of course. I didn’t know if she’d approached Dimitri and Luiz about buying the front businesses or if they’d come to her, and I hadn’t had the chance to ask any questions, since the gangsters had been screaming at each other the entire six minutes that I’d been on the riverboat. Either way, the men just couldn’t agree on who was getting what, and things had escalated to the point that Dimitri and Luiz were about to declare war on each other. That would mean shootings, stabbings, kneecappings, and lots of other messy crimes.
Don’t get me wrong. As the Spider, I’d made plenty of bloody messes in my time. It was sort of my specialty.
But a few weeks ago, I’d taken down Madeline Magda Monroe, an acid elemental who’d declared herself the new queen of the Ashland underworld, following in the footsteps of her mother, Mab.
Just as I had done to her mother several months ago, I managed to kill Madeline with my Ice and Stone magic, and with no more Monroes left to try to take control of the underworld, the other bosses had made me their de facto leader. At least until they started plotting how they could murder me and one of them could seize the throne that they all coveted so very much.
I almost wished that one of them would succeed in putting me out of my misery.
Contrary to popular belief, being the head of the Ashland underworld was not a bed of roses. It wasn’t even a bed of thorns. It was just a giant headache—like the one throbbing in my temples right now. I’d thought I’d been a popular target before, but now the bosses sought me out more than ever before. And they actually wanted to talk to me. Incessantly. About business deals and treaties and who was letting their gang members spray-paint rune graffiti in someone else’s territory. As if I actually cared about any of those things. But being the big boss now, it was apparently my job to listen. At least, according to Silvio.
I would have been happy to stab people until they got the message to shut up, solve their own problems, and leave me alone already.
Lorelei was the one who’d requested this meeting, although she’d actually approached Phillip about settling the dispute instead of me. Apparently, Lorelei didn’t want to acknowledge my new authority or involve me in her affairs. That, or she just hated me for some reason. Didn’t much matter either way, since I had as little regard for her as she did for me.
But Phillip was my friend, and he’d told me about the meeting. So here I was, about to mediate my first big dispute as Gin Blanco, the Spider, new queen of the Ashland underworld. Yeah, me.
Still, I would have been perfectly happy to skip the meeting and let Dimitri and Luiz duke it out until one of them killed the other, but Silvio had correctly pointed out that if I resolved their feud today, they wouldn’t show up at my restaurant, the Pork Pit, tomorrow. Since I didn’t want the criminals scaring my customers, I’d decided to be a good boss and show up at the meeting.
Everyone had been sitting at the conference table when I walked on board with Silvio. But at the sight of me, Dimitri and Luiz had immediately shot to their feet and started shouting accusations at each other, as if they thought that I would side with whoever yelled the longest and the loudest.
Now Dimitri was cursing at Luiz in Russian, and Luiz was returning the favor in Spanish. Since it didn’t look like they were going to stop anytime soon, not even to take a breath, I tuned them out as best I could and looked out over the brass railing.
The Aneirin River flowed by the white riverboat, the swift current causing the enormous vessel to sway ever so slightly. The November sun glinted off the surface of the blue-gray water, making it sparkle like a sheet of diamonds, while a faint breeze brought the smell of fish along with it. I wrinkled my nose at the wet stench. A few crimson and burnt-orange leaves clung to the trees that lined the far side of the river, although the breeze would soon send them spiraling down to the ground—
Something flashed in the trees directly across from me.
I frowned, leaned to the side, and focused on that spot. Sure enough, a second later, a small flash of light caught my eye, the sun reflecting off something hidden back in the trees—
Silvio nudged me with his elbow again, and I realized that Dimitri and Luiz had stopped their shouting and were staring at me with expectant faces, their arms crossed over their chests. On either side of the deck, their guards wore similarly hostile expressions, their hands still clenched into fists.
“Well, Blanco?” Dimitri demanded in a low, gravelly voice. “What is your decision?”
“Yeah,” Luiz chimed in, his tone much higher. “Who gets the laundries?”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Um . . .”
Dimitri frowned, and anger sparked in his dark eyes. “You weren’t even listening to us!”
“Well, it was kind of hard to follow,” I admitted. “Especially since I don’t speak Russian, and my Spanish is rudimentary, at best.”
Dimitri threw his hands up in the air and let loose with a string of Russian words, many of which sounded like curses.
Phillip leaned over. “I think he just insulted your mother.”
I groaned, but I held my hands up, trying to placate the Russian mobster. “Okay, okay. That’s enough. Stop. Please.”
Dimitri finally finished his cursing, but he still gave me a disgusted look. “I knew this would be a waste of time. I should have just killed Lorelei and taken the laundries for myself. Just like I should have put a bullet in your head the night of Madeline’s party and taken control of the underworld myself. Just like I should do right now.”
Silence descended over the deck, and the only sound was the steady rush-rush-rush of the water flowing alongside the riverboat.
I put my hands flat on the table, then slowly got to my feet. The scrape-scrape-scrape of my chair against the deck was as loud as a machine gun.
I stared at Dimitri. “That was exactly the wrong thing to say.”
Everyone could hear the chill in my words and see the ice in my wintry gray eyes.
Dimitri swallowed, knowing that he’d made a mistake, but he wasn’t about to back down in front of everyone else, so he raised his chin and squared his shoulders. “I don’t think so. There’s only one of you. I have three men with me.”
I smiled, but there was no warmth in my expression. “That’s because you need guards. I don’t. I never have. So if I were you, I’d start apologizing to me. Pronto.”
Dimitri wet his lips. “Or else?”
I shrugged. “Or else your men will be dragging what’s left of you off this boat, and Phillip will be sending me the cleaning bill.”
Dimitri sucked in a ragged breath, but anger stained his cheeks a bloody red. “Nobody threatens me.”
“Oh, sugar,” I drawled. “It’s not a threat.”
Dimitri kept staring at me, his breath puffing out of his open mouth like he was a bull about to charge me. Beside me, Phillip and Silvio both got to their feet.
“Try to show a little restraint,” Silvio whispered as he passed me.
Restraint wasn’t a popular word in my vocabulary, but I nodded, acknowledging his point. If I killed Dimitri and Luiz, it would just convince the other bosses that I wanted them all dead and they would probably start trying to murder me again. I’d fought hard for my relative peace and quiet, and I wasn’t going to throw it away on a couple of minor mobsters.
Even if I did feel like stabbing both of them. Violently. Viciously. Repeatedly.
Phillip and Silvio moved over to where Lorelei Parker was still sitting at the far end of the table. Lorelei had quit texting and was now staring at me, but she remained in her seat, with Jack Corbin still standing by her side. The two of them weren’t dumb enough to take me on, at least not face-to-face, but the same couldn’t be said for the other two bosses.
Dimitri wasn’t brave enough to fight me on his own, so he turned to Lui
z. “You help me with Blanco, and I’ll let you have the coin laundries. All of them.”
Luiz narrowed his eyes. “I want the laundries and that deli you own on Carver Street.”
Dimitri sighed and nodded his head.
I rolled my eyes. A minute ago, they would have been happy to murder each other, and now they were going to work together to try to kill me. Well, at least Luiz had the good sense to try to squeeze everything he could out of the other gangster. Had to admire him for that. Even if he’d picked the wrong side.
Dimitri and Luiz shook hands, sealing their hasty deal, then they both turned to face me, with their guards standing behind them, glaring at me and cracking their knuckles in anticipation of the beat-down they thought they were going to give me. Fools.
“Now what are you going to do?” Dimitri sneered. “Against all of us?”
“Me? I’m finally going to have some fun. I certainly deserve it, after listening to you two whine like a couple of kids fighting over the same ice-cream cone.”
Apparently, my insult was the last straw, because Dimitri’s cheeks burned even hotter, and he stabbed his finger at me.
“Get her!” Dimitri roared.
“Kill Blanco!” Luiz yelled out.
The two bosses and their guards surged toward me, with Dimitri leaning over the conference table and reaching out with his hands, as though he wanted to strangle me to death.
I kicked my foot into the table leg, making the whole thing slam forward, right into the Russian’s potbelly. He gasped and doubled over, causing his very bad, very obvious, very shaggy black toupee to almost slide off his head.
But I was already moving on to the next threat. I leaned down, snatched up the metal chair I’d been sitting in, and slammed it into the face of the closest giant guard. He yelped and staggered away, clasping his hands over his bloody broken nose. He lurched past Silvio, and the vampire stuck his foot out and tripped him. The giant’s head hit the top part of the railing, and the brass let out a loud, pealing note, as if it were a bell that had just been rung. The giant slumped to the deck unconscious. Ding. Down for the count already.
Silvio flashed me a smile and a thumbs-up. I grinned back at him, then turned to the next guard.
Phillip had had the good sense to make sure that no one had come onto the riverboat armed, except for me, so I wasn’t worried about getting shot. Even if someone had managed to sneak a gun or knife on board, I could always use my Stone magic to harden my skin and protect myself from any bullets or blades.
Using that same chair, I whacked my way through two more guards, opening up cuts and bruises on their faces, necks, and arms. By the time I got done with those giants, the plastic seat had cracked apart in my hands, so I ripped two of the metal legs off the chair and swung them around like batons.
Whack-whack-whack-whack.
I slammed the metal poles into every guard I could reach, cracking the chair legs into knees and throats and temples and groins. Moans and groans blasted out like fog horns across the deck, and more than a little blood arced through the air and spattered onto the glossy wood and gleaming brass rails.
“Restraint!” Silvio called out after I jabbed the end of one of the poles into the face of the giant closest to me. “Restraint, please, Gin!”
“What?” I yelled back. “I’m not stabbing them to death . . . yet!”
At my words, the giant I’d been fighting froze, his fists drawn back to punch me. But apparently, he took my warning seriously, because instead of hitting me, he whirled around and made a beeline for the gangplank on the other side of the boat. I let him go, since he was the last guard standing. All the others were huddled on the deck, trying to find the strength to hoist themselves upright and will their eyes to stop spinning around in their heads.
“You!” Dimitri roared, having finally gotten his breath back, and shoved his toupee up onto his head where it belonged. “I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”
With a loud roar, the crime boss charged at me. But instead of hitting him with the chair legs like I had all the guards, I simply squatted down. Then, when he was right on top of me, I surged up and tossed him over the side of the railing.
“Ahhh . . .” Dimitri screamed on the way down.
Splash!
Footsteps pounded on the deck, and I saw Luiz rushing at me out of the corner of my eye. I squatted down again quickly and then, when he was right on top of me, surged up and tossed him over the side as well.
Another loud scream, another satisfying splash!
My eyes cut left and right, but there were no more enemies to fight. So I looked at Lorelei Parker and Jack Corbin, who were in the same positions as before.
“You two don’t want to join in the fun?” I drawled, twirling the metal chair legs around in my hands again. “I was just getting warmed up.”
Lorelei let out a disgusted snort and shook her head, while Corbin held up his hands in mock surrender.
Faint cries sounded—“Help! Help! Help!”—and I went over to the railing. Phillip and Silvio came to stand on either side of me, and we all looked down.
In the river, Dimitri and Luiz were clinging to each other, both of them thrashing around and trying to stay afloat by drowning the other man. Dimitri had somehow held on to to his toupee, which he was now beating against Luiz’s face. They both looked like the wet, slimy rats that they were.
I grinned at Phillip. “You were absolutely right. Throwing people overboard is tons of fun. I feel better already.”
“Told you so,” Phillip said in a smug voice, his blue eyes bright with mischief and merriment.
Silvio sighed. “Don’t encourage her.”
More moans and groans came from the fallen giants on the deck. I tossed my metal poles aside, turned around, and leaned back against the railing. All the guards stopped and looked at me, wondering what I was going to do next.
“So,” I called out, and jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Anyone else want to go for a swim?”
Strangely enough, no one stepped forward to take me up on my offer.
PHOTO © ANDRE TEAGUE
JENNIFER ESTEP is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea. Spider’s Bite, Web of Lies, Venom, Tangled Threads, Spider’s Revenge, By a Thread, Widow’s Web, Deadly Sting, Heart of Venom, The Spider, and Poison Promise, along with the e-shorts Thread of Death, Parlor Tricks, and Kiss of Venom, are the other works in her red-hot Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series. Jennifer is also the author of the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series and the Bigtime paranormal romance series. For more on Jennifer and her books, visit her at www.JenniferEstep.com and @Jennifer_Estep.
FOR MORE ON THSIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Jennifer-Estep
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BOOKS IN THE ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN SERIES BY JENNIFER ESTEP
Spider’s Bite
Web of Lies
Venom
Tangled Threads
Spider’s Revenge
By a Thread
Widow’s Web
Deadly Sting
Heart of Venom
The Spider
Poison Promise
Black Widow
NOVELLAS
Thread of Death
Parlor Tricks (from the Carniepunk anthology)
Kiss of Venom
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Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Estep
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First Pocket Books paperback edition December 2014
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Cover design and photo illustration by Tony Mauro
ISBN 978-1-4767-7454-1
ISBN 978-1-4767-7338-4 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Black Widow Page 30