But the worst part was the fact that my face had been carefully made up—and my lips were painted a bright, glossy, familiar color.
Heartbreaker red.
• • •
I blinked and blinked, staring at myself in the mirror as if I could somehow change my own horrible reflection. My stomach roiled again, and hot, sour bile rose in my throat. Of all the things that I’d been subjected to over the years, all the beatings, all the fights, all the deadly duels, this was one of the worst things that I’d ever experienced.
I felt violated in a way that I never had before.
I wasn’t Gin Blanco right now. I wasn’t the assassin the Spider. I wasn’t even a person anymore. I was a canvas, a doll, a plaything, primped and painted to Damian Rivera’s exact specifications.
Bile rose in my throat again, but I swallowed it down, along with the primal scream of rage that went with it. I might have rescued Elissa, but it was obvious that Rivera was determined to make me his next victim. And since he’d already transformed me into his perfect woman, it didn’t seem like he was going to keep me around for nearly as long as he had kept the others. That was me, Gin Blanco, classic overachiever, always on the fast track to death.
I had to get out of here before he came back. Since I couldn’t break through the ropes myself, I looked around the cottage again, but my knives weren’t in here, and I didn’t see anything else that I could use to saw through my thick, heavy bonds. Even if I could have scooted myself all the way around the couch and over to the kitchen table, the china there looked far too old and delicate to be of any use. It would probably crumble to dust if I broke it.
Well, if I couldn’t slice through the ropes, then I’d just break the damn chair and get out of my bonds that way. So I started swaying back and forth, trying to judge exactly how sturdy the chair was. The wood was thick, but it creak-creak-creaked with every move I made, telling me that it would break if I put enough force into it. Now, how to do that? I could either use my Ice magic to freeze and crack the wood, or I could try to lurch to my feet, stagger over to the fireplace, and dash the side of the chair against the stone.
I decided on the second option, not wanting to waste my magic on something as simple as getting out of a chair. I had far better plans for my power tonight.
I’d used up some of my magic taking out the guards at the mansion, but Rivera had foolishly left my spider rune ring on my finger, and my matching pendant still hung from my neck, glimmering against the black fabric of my vest. He wasn’t an elemental, so he hadn’t sensed the reserves of Ice and Stone power rippling through the silverstone jewelry.
That mistake was going to cost him dearly. I was going to use every single drop of magic that I had left to kill him dead, dead, dead.
But first, I had to get out of the chair, so I drew in a breath and tensed my muscles, getting ready to surge to my feet—
A beam of light flashed across one of the windows. My head snapped in that direction, and I looked at the window, wondering if I’d imagined the light. But I hadn’t. A second later, another beam of light appeared, and several sets of heavy footsteps thump-thump-thumped on what seemed to be an old, creaky wooden porch attached to the front of the cottage.
The footsteps whipped back and forth, back and forth, from one side of the porch to the other, almost as if someone outside was pacing out his anger, anxiety, and frustration.
“. . . bitch killed all my men . . .”
“. . . can’t believe you captured her . . .”
“ . . . giving her exactly what she deserves . . .”
Muffled voices sounded outside, drowned out by the whistling winter wind. I couldn’t make out all the words, but I recognized one of the voices as belonging to Rivera. Of course he was outside. He’d spent far too much time and effort turning me into his pretty little plaything not to want to finish acting out his delusional fantasy.
The voices stopped, the knob turned on the front door, and Rivera stepped into the cottage. He was still wearing the same expensive suit he’d had on before, and he looked as handsome as ever, right down to the stubble that darkened his jaw.
He studied me from head to toe, his black eyebrows arching in his face, as if what he saw surprised him. After a few seconds, he pulled a small silver flask out of his jacket pocket, unscrewed the top, and took a long, healthy swig of the contents. I could smell the caustic burn of alcohol all the way across the room, even stronger than the hair dye.
“Well,” he slurred. “I see that you’ve been busy. You’ve only had her, what, three hours? And you’ve already got her all dolled up just the way you like ’em. That’s quick work. Even for you.”
I frowned, wondering who he was talking to. The things he was saying made it almost sound like . . . like he hadn’t done this to me. Like he wasn’t the one who’d dyed my hair, painted my face, and tied me down.
I thought back over everything that had happened over the past few days and all the clues that had pointed to Rivera—the lipstick, the men he’d sent to Jade’s house, the threats that Tucker had made against him about dealing with his mysterious problem. And I realized that while those clues pointed to Rivera, they also led to another person. Someone else who also had access to all of those things.
All along, I’d thought that this whole thing was like two separate but connected jigsaw puzzles that I’d been trying to work at the same time. Well, all of the pieces had just snapped into place on one of them, and my heart dropped as I realized just how wrong I’d been about the Dollmaker.
Rivera turned toward the open door. “Aren’t you going to come in and admire your handiwork?”
A shadow appeared in the doorway, and a man slowly stepped inside. The person who was the real Dollmaker.
Bruce Porter.
25
Suddenly, everything made sense. Why Rivera’s credit card had been used to purchase the Heartbreaker lipstick. Why there hadn’t been any trace of Elissa in Rivera’s office or bedroom. Why the stones of the caretaker’s cottage—Porter’s home—had shrieked and wailed with such violent agony instead of Rivera’s mansion.
Damian Rivera wasn’t the one who’d abducted Elissa and killed all those other women. It had been Bruce Porter all along. He’d just used his boss’s money, resources, credit cards, and manpower to help him do it and then cover his tracks after the fact.
The one thing that I still didn’t understand, though, was Porter and his motivations. But it was obvious that he was the Dollmaker and that Rivera was indulging him, covering up his messes just the way Porter had covered up Rivera’s drunken disasters for so many years. It wasn’t even a real partnership as much as the two of them seemed to be codependent in a desperate, diseased way, each unable to function without the other.
“Aw, don’t be shy, Bruce.” Rivera took another hit from his flask and stepped aside so that Porter could walk closer to me. “You certainly weren’t when you were making her look like that. You were smiling the whole time. Well, except for all the grumbling about having to dye her hair. I told you that you should have just slapped a wig on her and been done with things.”
I shivered at the thought of the dwarf bending over me, his fingers in my hair, him touching my face, him carefully painting my lips the way he had done to so many other women before he killed them.
Porter crossed his arms over his chest and eyed me, disappointment flashing in his pale blue gaze. “A wig wouldn’t have been the same.” He shook his head. “The dye’s not the same either. You know that they have to be natural blondes.”
“So sorry to disappoint,” I snarked. “Although I think that I can safely say in this case that blondes don’t have more fun.”
His eyes glittered with a hard, angry light. “I had a nice girl all picked out, and you just had to come along and ruin everything.”
I bared my teeth at him. “What can I say? I’m an evi
l bitch that way.”
“Yes, yes, you are,” a third, familiar voice called out.
More footsteps sounded, and Hugh Tucker strolled into the cottage.
For once, I was almost happy to see him. The vampire might be a cold-blooded killer, but he wasn’t the worst thing in the room. Not by a long shot. Rivera and Porter were tied for that dubious distinction.
Tucker moved over to the fireplace, away from the other two men, creating a clear divide between himself and the combined sickness that was Damian Rivera and Bruce Porter. Couldn’t blame him for that. Then again, Tucker was his own special kind of disease.
As I studied the vampire, I once again thought back over everything that had happened the past few days, and another small puzzle piece clicked into place in my mind, one that made everything else snap into focus. Red-hot anger sizzled through me, and I grabbed onto that burning heat, riding the wave of searing emotion and slowly letting it cool, congeal, and harden into an icy block of rage, hate, and determination in my heart.
Tucker shook his head. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you, Gin?”
“I could say the exact same thing about you.”
His black eyes narrowed, but I didn’t say anything else to fill in the real meaning behind my words. After a few seconds, Tucker snapped his fingers at the other two men.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
Rivera straightened up to his full height and glared at the vampire, although his drunken wobble ruined his attempt to be intimidating. “You don’t get to order me around, Hugh.”
The vampire gave him a cold, thin smile. “Oh, I do tonight, Damian, when you’ve brought such unwanted attention to the group. He’s not happy with you, letting your assistant go around town and murder all those innocent women. And he’s especially not happy that the two of you were stupid enough to get caught and he had to send men to bail you out.”
His words made me think about those three SUVs full of men that had showed up at Rivera’s estate, the ones that had seemingly come out of nowhere, since they weren’t part of his regular security team. The alarm that I’d tripped at Porter’s cottage had signaled another alarm up at the mansion. That second alarm must have triggered some sort of Circle security protocol. That’s where all the extra men had come from. I was sure of it. But the knowledge couldn’t help me right now, so I filed the information away for another time.
Rivera airily waved his hand, dismissing Tucker’s concerns. “Mason will get over it. He always does, just as soon as I line his pockets with more of my mother’s money.”
Once again, my ears perked up at that name. Mason had to be their boss, the man behind this sick, twisted curtain that was the Circle. For a moment, I savored the fact that I finally—finally—had his name. In fairy tales, names often had great power, like the miller’s daughter saving her child by guessing Rumpelstiltskin’s moniker. Well, names had power in Ashland too. Names led to records, and records led to homes, bank accounts, and businesses, all of which would eventually lead to a real, live person who I could find, drag out into the light, and kill.
But the longer I thought about it, the more the name Mason bothered me. A little warning bell chimed in the back of my mind. I’d heard that name before. I knew that I had. But where? When? Was he some Ashland mover and shaker Fletcher had mentioned to me? Some bigwig my mother had done business with? Or someone even closer and more personal than that?
Try as I might, I couldn’t find the answer in the dregs of my mind, so I let it go—for now. Besides, at the moment, I did have the slightly more pressing problem of getting out of this cottage alive.
Rivera waved his hand again, as if he were going to keep talking about the mysterious Mason, but Tucker stared the other man down. The vampire didn’t look at me, but his lips pressed into a hard, unhappy line. He realized how sloppy Rivera had just been, saying his boss’s name out loud in front of me.
“Get out,” Tucker snapped. “Now.”
Rivera opened his mouth to protest, but Porter laid a warning hand on his shoulder, and the two men left the cottage, shutting the door behind them. Tucker tilted his head to the side, listening to the sounds of their footsteps on the porch. I thought back to the memory I’d had of him in the woods the night Mab killed my mother, how he’d been able to see and hear me even in the dark. He seemed to have more finely tuned senses than any other vampire I’d ever met. I wondered if it was a natural ability or if it came from all the blood he drank. Or maybe it was even a combination of the two.
Rivera and Porter must have stepped away from the cottage, because the sound of their muffled conversation faded away altogether. Only then did Tucker look over at me. I stared right back at him.
I thought that he would make some dismissive, cutting remark, but instead, he carefully studied me, as if comparing me with some other image in his mind. The prolonged silent scrutiny made me uncomfortable, although it didn’t creep me out nearly as much as Porter’s examination had. Then again, Tucker just killed people. I could understand that. But Porter’s sadistic ritual? That was as strange to me as little green aliens falling from the sky.
After several seconds, Tucker shook his head, as if trying to clear away a bad, bad memory—or a ghost that haunted him still. But I knew from personal experience that ghosts didn’t disappear that easily, and he couldn’t help himself from staring at my dyed blond hair again.
“I never really noticed before now, but you look just like Eira. Even more than Bria does, in a way.” He tried to make his voice low and emotionless, but he didn’t quite succeed.
I thought back to what I’d overheard, how Damian had mocked the vampire about his feelings for my mother. I decided to twist that knife in even deeper.
“Well,” I drawled. “You would know, since you were apparently in love with her.”
Once again, Tucker’s lips pressed into that thin, unhappy line at my exposing one of his deep, dark secrets, but he didn’t ask me how I’d found out about his feelings for my mother. I didn’t mind his silence, though. It was just more confirmation about what was really going on here.
And I realized something else. Damian Rivera had been right. No matter what had happened between them, no matter that she’d been murdered years ago, Tucker still carried a torch for my mother. I wanted to know why and exactly what there had been between them. But more than that, right now, I wanted to hurt him the same way that he’d hurt me by not saving her.
I glanced at the mirror again, my gaze fixed on my unnaturally blond hair. “You’re right. I do look like her.” I turned back to him. “Although I don’t remember my mother looking like this. Do you know what I remember about how she looked? The one thing that sticks out in my mind above all others?”
“What’s that?” Tucker asked, genuinely curious.
I stared him straight in the eyes. “Her dead, charred, ashy body the night Mab burned her to death. That’s what I remember about how my mother looked, you son of a bitch.”
Tucker flinched and actually swayed on his feet the slightest bit, as though I’d slapped him across the face and then punched him in the gut for good measure. I itched to do both of those things and more. So much more, including ramming one of my knives straight through his pitch-black heart over and over again, until there was nothing left of it and him but tiny bloody ribbons.
“My mother was a beautiful woman,” I said. “Long blond hair, blue eyes, pretty features. So you can imagine how horrible it was to see all of that reduced to ash in an instant. Her hair, eyes, face, all gone and replaced by blackened skin and charred bits of bone. But do you know what the worst thing was? The one thing that still haunts me to this day? The one thing that still appears in my nightmares over and over again?”
For a moment, I thought that Tucker wouldn’t ask me the inevitable question, but he slowly wet his lips, and I got the feeling that he just couldn’t help himself.
“What?”
“The charred stench of her burned, blistered skin. The ashy aroma that replaced her sweet perfume. The choking clouds of smoke that slithered down my throat and coated my lungs. You can’t even fucking imagine it. Like a slaughterhouse that had caught fire and burned to the ground with all the animals trapped inside.”
My voice was matter-of-fact and emotionless, but Tucker actually shuddered and turned away, as if he suddenly couldn’t stand to see me looking so much like my mother. That cold rage in my heart thrummed with satisfaction. For the first time, I’d actually put a crack in Tucker’s cool, detached armor.
I glanced at the mirror, which was angled so that I could still see his face. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, as if trying to banish the horrible images that my words called up in his mind. But he’d been there that night. He might not have seen my mother’s body, but he’d witnessed the aftermath of Mab’s Fire scorching through the mansion.
I wanted him to remember. I wanted him to think about it. I wanted the memories to haunt the bastard the same way they haunted me.
A long silence followed. Neither one of us spoke. If only I’d had one of my knives, I would have cut through my ropes, risen from the chair, and stabbed him in the back.
But if wishes were horses, I’d have a yard full of prancing ponies by now.
Finally, Tucker opened his eyes, cleared his throat, and faced me again. “I tried to save your mother. Truly, I did. I gave her every opportunity.”
“To do what? Fall in line with the rest of your Circle cronies? Do all the horrible things that they ordered her to? To be their little lapdog, just like you are?” I barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Doesn’t seem like much of an opportunity to me. More like a prison. But then, you would know, wouldn’t you, Tuck?”
My cruel words finally snapped him out of his memories and his soft sentiments, whatever they were, and his face hardened back into its usual detached mask.
“You’re the one who’s tied to a chair, Gin. Not me. I’d say that you’re the prisoner here.”
Snared Page 24