Bitter Bite (Elemental Assassin #14)

by Jennifer Estep

  My troubled thoughts made me slam some more dishes into the sink, and I glared at the bowls and plates for making so much noise.

  “You know,” Silvio said, “I think that maybe I’ll go on home for the evening.”

  I sighed. “Sorry I’m being such a bear right now.”

  He shrugged. “It happens, even to the best of us. You shouldn’t worry so much. Ms. Shaw will turn up sooner or later, and you’ll deal with her when she does.”

  “Thank you, Silvio.”

  He nodded at me. I smiled and nodded back.

  Silvio packed up his gear and left. I shut and locked the front door behind him, then turned the sign over to Closed. The rest of the waitstaff had already left, and I thought about heading home for the night. But I had some leftover food from a take-out order that hadn’t gotten picked up—hot dogs with all the fixings, another one of Finn’s favorites—so I pulled out my phone and texted him.

  Want to come over to the Pit, have some food, and talk?

  I waited, but there was no response. No surprise. He was probably stuck in another crisis-containment meeting with Mosley and the rest of the bank staff. I decided to give him some time to get back to me, so I mopped the floor and did several other chores, getting the restaurant ready to open up again in the morning. Then I sat down on my stool behind the cash register, pulled out all five of my knives, and set them out on some dish towels on the counter. The knives could use a good cleaning, and I might as well be productive while I waited to see if Finn would text me back or show up here.

  I was about to get started when I realized that Catalina had forgotten to take out the last of the trash before she’d left. I didn’t want it to stink up the restaurant overnight, so I grabbed the bag and pushed through the double doors. I cracked open the back door, looking and listening, just in case someone was lying in wait to try to kill me, but the alley was empty. Still, I was cautious as I stepped outside and heaved the trash into the closest Dumpster. I looked around the alley again, but it was as deserted as before, except for the snow, which was picking up speed.

  I locked the back door behind me. My phone chimed, so I pulled it out, thinking that Finn had texted me back, but it was Bria.

  Found something BIG on Deirdre’s rune. Call me when you get home. Need to come over and show you in person.

  I frowned, wondering why Bria couldn’t just call and tell me right now. I hit reply, then pushed through the double doors and stepped into the storefront. I was so preoccupied with my phone that I didn’t hear the warning rumbles of the bricks around me until it was too late.

  Three giants were waiting for me inside.

  They must have picked the front-door lock, because I hadn’t heard them slip in, and they were clustered around the double doors, not giving me any room to maneuver. Since I’d foolishly left my knives lying on the counter, I raised my hands to blast them with my Ice magic, but they were quicker than I was.

  A fist cracked into the side of my face, and the world went black.

  * * *

  Paul and his two vampire friends were going to rape me.

  Out of all the bad things that had happened to me living on the streets, that was one horror that I’d managed to avoid. But now it was going to happen, ironically enough, at Fletcher’s house, the one place where I had always felt safe.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but Paul fell on top of me, covering my mouth with his hot, sweaty hand. His breath washed over my face, bringing the stench of pepperoni along with it. Smelled like he’d grabbed a slice from the pizzas that some of the kids had brought over before he’d decided to rob the house.

  Paul started fumbling with his pants. A scream rose in my throat, but I couldn’t let it out, not with his hand clamped over my mouth. Fear surged through me, paralyzing me, freezing me in place. But then he started fumbling with my pants, and cold rage flooded me instead, overpowering my fear. I’d already been through so many bad things. I wasn’t going to suffer through this too.

  Not without a fight.

  I jerked my head to the side, wrenching free of Paul’s disgusting hand. Then I opened my mouth, snapped my teeth forward, and bit his fingers as hard as I could. He howled with pain and managed to yank his hand free of my tearing teeth. I reached for my Stone magic, making my skin as hard as a rock, then head-butted the bastard. It was an awkward blow, and I saw just as many white stars as he did, but it got him to scream, fall off me, and cradle his aching head in his hands.

  The other two vamps were still holding down my arms and legs, and one of them clamped his hand over my mouth before I could scream. I tried to jerk my mouth out from under his hand, but he dug his fingers into my face, leaned down, and gave me an evil grin.

  “Feisty, huh? We’re going to have some fun with you—”

  Crack!

  A baseball bat slammed into the side of the guy’s head. The hard blow knocked him out cold, and he slumped over on top of me.

  Mouth gaping, the second vamp turned to see who had attacked his friend.

  Crack!

  And he too got a bat upside the head.

  I blinked away the white stars, and suddenly, Finn was there. He threw his baseball bat down onto the porch, then knelt by my side, shoved the two vamps off me, and helped me sit up against the porch railing.

  “Gin! Are you okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, although I couldn’t stop the tears from streaking down my face. My entire body started shaking harder than a leaf in the wind. I curled my hands into fists to try to stop the tremors, but it didn’t work.

  “Don’t cry,” Finn said, a stricken look on his face. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry I was such a jackass before, but I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay—”

  “Losers,” a voice jeered. “You’re all a bunch of fucking losers.”

  The boards creaked, and Ella, the pretty blond girl Finn had been talking to in the den, stepped out of the shadows and into the center of the porch, right behind Paul, who was still moaning softly and cradling his aching head in his hands.

  Only Ella didn’t look so pretty now. Instead, her face was twisted in disgust, the anger staining her cheeks a perfect match to her cherry-red lip gloss.

  “You idiots,” she snarled. “You couldn’t handle breaking into one dumb kid’s house, could you?”

  Ella drew back her foot and kicked Paul in the ribs. The motion snapped his head back, and his skull hit the railing with a sickening crack. He too slumped to the porch, unconscious.

  “Ella?” Finn said. “You asked these guys here?”

  “Of course I did.” She sneered. “Did you really think that I came to your lame-ass party just to flirt with you? Please.” She laughed, but it was an ugly, ugly sound.

  Finn’s face hardened, and he got to his feet, his hands clenching into fists. Ella glared right back at him. Neither one of them noticed me as I grabbed Finn’s baseball bat, took hold of the porch railing, and pulled myself onto my feet.

  “You were just pretending to like me so your friends could come to my house and steal from my dad.” Finn’s voice was cold and harsh, but I could hear the hurt in it. He’d really liked this girl.

  Ella raised her eyebrows. “So you’re not a complete idiot after all. Good for you. Too bad you’re not going to get the chance to rat me out to anyone.”

  She reached into her back pocket and came out with a switchblade, then flipped the weapon open with practiced ease. The sharp edges of the blade glinted a dull silver in the light streaming from the windows.

  Ella grinned and stepped over her vampire friends, slicing the weapon through the air as she drew closer and closer to Finn—

  But I stepped in front of him, raised the bat, and hit her across the face with it.

  Crack!

  Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she dropped to the porch without another sound. I stood over her, making sure that she wasn’t faking, but she was out cold, just like the three vamps.

  “Home ru
n, bitch,” I muttered.

  Finn touched my shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that. I could have disarmed her.”

  “I know you could have, but I wanted to take care of her.” My hand tightened around the bat. Even though Ella and her friends were out of the fight, I wanted to keep right on hitting them. I wanted to make them hurt just as much as they’d planned on hurting me. But I swallowed down my screams of rage and focused on Finn.

  “I’m sorry, Gin. So sorry. I had no idea what she was up to.” His shoulders slumped. “I thought . . . I thought she really liked me.”

  This time, I reached out and touched his shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not. I would promise you that it won’t happen again . . .”

  “But?”

  “But we all know that I’m a sucker for a pretty face.” Finn grinned, then winked at me.

  He was trying to charm me again, trying to get me to smile and laugh and forget about the horrible thing that had almost happened. It shouldn’t have worked, but his grin and the light in his eyes were both too infectious to ignore, and I found myself snickering, just a little bit.

  “There we go,” he said. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

  And it was. Not a lot, not enough, but it was better than before.

  Finn’s gaze moved slowly, from me to Ella and the three vamps sprawled across the porch to the party inside, which was still going strong. He winced. “How are we going to explain this to Dad?”

  “We?” I snorted. “There is no we in this equation. There is only you, being a jackass over a pretty girl.”

  Finn glared at me a moment, and then his face melted into a sheepish smile again. “Yeah, you’re right. Just do me a favor, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t forget about me, since Dad will probably banish me to my room for the next ten years.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I couldn’t forget about you even if I tried.”

  “Cross your heart and hope to die?” he asked, making an X over his chest.

  I rolled my eyes again, but I mimicked his motion. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Now, that’s what a guy likes to hear.”

  Finn slung his arm around my shoulders, grinning at me again—

  Cold water hit me square in the face, snapping me out of my dream, my memory. I gasped and opened my eyes . . .

  Just in time to get hit in the face by another round of cold water.

  Some of the water went up my nose, while still more trickled down my throat, and I doubled over, sneezing and coughing at the uncomfortable sensations. When I’d finally gotten the worst of the water out of my lungs, I reached up to wipe the rest of it off my face.

  That’s when I realized that I was shackled to a chair, with silverstone handcuffs glinting on both my wrists. I rattled the cuffs, but they were securely anchored to the metal chair.

  “Well, that finally woke her up,” a familiar voice called out.

  I raised my head.

  Deirdre Shaw was sitting across from me.

  For a second, I thought she was the one taunting me. Then I noticed the gleam of silver on her wrists and ankles. It took me a moment to process that they weren’t heavy bracelets. They were handcuffs.

  Deirdre was shackled to a chair just like I was.

  29

  My muddled mind struggled to catch up to my eyes and process what was going on.

  Deirdre a prisoner, just like me? Then that meant . . . that meant that she was in serious trouble too. That she wasn’t the one in charge.

  That she was working for someone else—and had been this whole time.

  Surprise flashed through me, burning the cobwebs out of my mind. And I realized that not only was Deirdre handcuffed, but she looked far worse for wear than I did.

  Her gray coveralls were gone, although she still wore the same purple pantsuit and black boots she’d sported during the bank robbery. But her appearance was anything but elegant. Her jacket and pants were covered in blood and grime and torn in more than a dozen places. I didn’t know how long she’d been chained to that chair, but it must have been a while, given the stench of urine that surrounded her and the puddles of liquid on the floor.

  Her blond hair was a sweaty, frizzy mess, and her blue eyes were dull and glassy with pain. Cuts, burns, and bruises covered her face and exposed skin, along with several puncture wounds, as though a vampire had taken a bite or two out of her. She’d been thoroughly tortured, the same way she’d tortured Finn.

  Good.

  Deirdre realized that I was staring at her. She snarled and jerked forward, although the silverstone cuffs on her wrists kept her as securely shackled to her chair as I was with the ones on my wrists. Her ankles had also been chained down, and all she could do was rock her chair back and forth, since it was on rollers. My chair also had rollers, but my feet were free and not tied down.

  I ignored her hissy fit and studied my surroundings. Bare bulbs hanging down from the ceiling. Stacks of crates and shrink-wrapped boxes everywhere. Concrete floor and walls. The metal cage in one corner where I’d woken up the last time I was here. I was back in Dimitri Barkov’s warehouse.

  And I was surrounded.

  Several giants stood in a loose circle around Deirdre and me. They were all carrying guns under their suits, and one of them was holding a metal bucket with a leaky water hose curled up at his feet like a snake dripping venom. Nothing unusual there, but the longer I looked at them, the more worried I got. I didn’t recognize any of their faces, not a single one. This wasn’t Barkov’s crew—it was someone else’s.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding,” I said, turning my attention back to Deirdre. “What charming accommodations. Bet you wish you were back in your penthouse right now, honey.”

  “You bitch!” Deirdre hissed, spittle flying out of her bloody, swollen lips. “This is all your fault! I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  “Oh, yeah. You absolutely should have. I’m just sorry that I wasn’t the one who got to work you over. They did a half-assed job, if you ask me. Considering that you’re still breathing.”

  Deirdre snarled at me again, and I bared my teeth right back at her.

  “Now, ladies,” that same voice I’d first heard called out again, a voice that I now realized wasn’t Deirdre’s. “There’s no need to be so nasty.”

  Footsteps scuffed on the concrete, and Deirdre stopped snarling at me. A mulish look settled over her face, but she couldn’t quite hide the fear flickering in her eyes. She’d failed to rob the bank for her employers, whoever they were, and now there was to be a reckoning. One that included me, since I was the reason her scheme had gone sideways. Lucky me.

  The footsteps grew louder and closer, until they stopped right behind me. Whoever was standing there wanted me to turn around, to strain and struggle to try to see him, but I stayed still and faced front. He’d step into the light. Every cockroach did, eventually.

  I started counting off the seconds in my head. One . . . two . . . three . . . five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . .

  I hadn’t even made it to thirty before a man walked past me, stepping into the space between Deirdre and me.

  Black hair, black eyes, trimmed goatee, snazzy suit. He looked the same as always, except for the fact that he wasn’t obsessively checking his phone. Instead, for once, he looked straight at me.

  “Hello, Ms. Blanco,” Hugh Tucker said. “So nice of you to join us.”

  * * *

  I looked at Tucker, then at Deirdre, then back at Tucker.

  “So you’re the man behind the curtain,” I said. “Hiding in plain sight all along.”

  He shrugged. “Something like that.”

  I’d wondered why he didn’t act like a typical assistant, and now I knew. Deirdre had been working for Tucker this whole time, not the other way around like they’d led everyone to believe. But even more interesting was Deirdre’s reaction to her boss. Her body trem
bled, her fingers curled tightly around the arms of her chair, and her tongue darted out to wet her lips. Whoever Tucker really was, Deirdre was practically shaking in her boots at the sight of him. Then again, he’d been torturing her for the last few days. Prolonged pain was enough to break just about anyone.

  “You’re probably wondering why I brought you here, Ms. Blanco.”

  Instead of the bland, polite murmur I remembered, Tucker’s voice was rich and deep, with a sophisticated slant and the faintest hint of a Southern drawl. Not only that, but he seemed taller, more interesting and vibrant than before. Even his suit was brighter, a royal blue that brought out the bronze color of his skin. He’d been playing the part of the harmless assistant this whole time, and now the snake was shedding its skin to reveal its true, venomous nature.

  “Not particularly. I imagine that you want to kill me for fucking up your ice heist.”

  He arched an eyebrow at my snarky tone. “Yes, well, I did warn Deirdre about the dangers of involving Mr. Lane and, by extension, you in her scheme. Repeatedly, I might add. Of course, Deirdre and I have already had a long discussion about that.”

  Deirdre couldn’t hide the shudder that wracked her body.

  “Despite my many warnings, Deirdre insisted that she could handle you. Obviously, she was wrong about that.”

  I grinned. “Why, Tuck, you flatterer. Are you saying that I’m a badass? Because I totally am. I told Deirdre as much the first day she sashayed into the Pork Pit, but she didn’t believe me. And now look where she is. Why, you couldn’t have ended up in a better spot, Mama Dee.”

  I smirked at Deirdre, who struggled against her handcuffs again. “You bitch! This is all your fault!” She looked at Tucker. “My plan was solid. It would have worked, if not for her.”

  The vamp arched his eyebrow again. “Would haves are for other people, Deirdre. Not you, and especially not us. All you got from the bank was a lousy two million in cash, not the hundreds of millions that you promised us, that you owed us. You risked everything on this plan, and it has blown up quite spectacularly in your face. You know what that means.”