Sharpest Sting

by Jennifer Estep

  Crack!

  My aim was true, and the metal spun through the air and beaned the giant in the side of his head, making him growl and stagger away from Fletcher. I ran around the couch, charged past the coffee table, and plowed my shoulder into the giant, knocking him even farther away from Fletcher.

  Billings growled again and stumbled back against the desk. He hit the wooden surface, bounced off, and fell to his knees. He tried to get up, but he slipped on the piles of books the other giant had tossed onto the floor.

  “Get her, you idiots!” Billings yelled.

  The other two giants scrambled to follow his orders, but Mike had to step over his boss, while the other man had to wade through the piles of books. That gave me a few precious seconds of space and freedom to sprint over to Fletcher. I palmed a knife, leaned down, and sliced through the ropes that bound his arms to the chair.

  He flashed me a grateful smile and shot to his feet. His green gaze flicked past me, and his eyes widened. “Watch out!”

  Fletcher grabbed me by the arms and spun me around, shielding me. A second later, Billings punched a letter opener he’d swiped off the desk into Fletcher’s back. The old man yelped, and Billings shoved him away. Fletcher hit the floor hard, and he didn’t move after that.

  For one horrible, heart-stopping moment, I thought Billings had killed Fletcher, that he was dead.

  Then Fletcher let out a low groan, reached around, and yanked the letter opener out of his back. He was down but not out.

  Billings advanced on me, along with the other two giants. I darted to my left, heading for the man who was still wading through books. He stopped, cursed, and fumbled for the gun under his suit jacket.

  I leaped over the books, braced my free hand on the edge of the desk, and kicked out, catching the giant square in the chest. My kick was hard enough to throw him backward into the glass doors in the rear of the office. The glass and wood exploded with a thunderous roar, showering debris everywhere. The giant screamed and tumbled to the ground.

  I hurried over to finish him off with my knife, but I didn’t have to. Several shards of glass had punched into the giant’s back, and a long, thin piece of wood was sticking out of his throat like a kebab skewer. Blood gushed down the giant’s neck, and he was already gasping for breath. It wouldn’t be long before he bled out, so I turned my attention back to the other two men.

  Mike was quicker than the first giant, and he grabbed his gun, snapped it up, and started firing at me.

  Crack!

  Crack! Crack!

  Crack!

  I hardened my skin with my Stone magic an instant before the bullets slammed into my chest, although the force of the projectiles still made me stagger into a bookcase along the wall. My body rocked the entire case from top to bottom, and the remaining volumes slipped off their shelves and joined the other books littering the floor.

  Click.

  Click-click.

  Click.

  Mike kept firing until his gun was empty, then cursed and stopped to reload. I sucked down a breath, ran forward, and threw myself feet first onto the desk. I easily slid across the top of the slick wood and plowed into him.

  The giant cursed again and tried to lurch away, but his feet got tangled up in the books covering the floor, and his legs flew out from under him. I raised my knife high and threw myself forward again.

  Mike hit the floor, and I landed on top of him. I put the full force of my body weight behind my blade, which punched into his chest all the way up to the hilt. Mike screamed and lashed out, slamming his fist into my face.

  The blow knocked me off him, and my head clipped the side of the desk. The one-two punch of the giant hitting me and then me plowing into the furniture made my head spin and white stars explode in my eyes. I lost my grip on my Stone magic, and my skin reverted back to its normal, vulnerable texture. I also hit the floor hard, making even more pain explode in my back to go with what was pounding through my face and skull.

  I groaned, but I forced myself to roll over onto my hands and knees. There was one giant left, and I needed to finish off Billings before he came at me again—

  A hand dug into my hair and yanked me upright, making me yelp. Billings spun me around, grabbed my shoulder, and drew back his fist to punch me. Through the white stars filling my vision, I spotted a blur of movement behind the giant. Suddenly, Billings screamed.

  Fletcher ripped the letter opener out of Billings’s back, then snapped it up and stabbed it deep into the giant’s neck. Billings screamed again and staggered forward. He hit me, and the two of us tumbled down to the floor.

  The giant coughed and coughed, and his blood splattered all over my face, neck, and hands, coating me in its wet, sticky, coppery warmth. Billings coughed a final time, and then his head dropped, and his body went slack and still on top of mine.

  “Gin!” Fletcher dropped to his knees, grabbed Billings’s shoulder, and shoved the dead giant off me. Then he leaned forward, a concerned look on his face. “Are you okay?”

  I blinked the last of the white stars out of my eyes and nodded. At least, I started to nod, but that made even more pain ripple through my face and skull, so I stopped.

  “Yeah,” I rasped. “I’m okay. Just a little banged up.”

  Fletcher offered me his hand and helped me to my feet, and we stood there, wobbling and holding on to each other for support. I wasn’t the only one who was banged up. Billings had really done a number on Fletcher’s face, and he looked as bruised and battered as I felt—

  A phone rang. At first, I thought it was the house landline, but then I realized that the sound was coming from Billings’s pants pocket. Fletcher leaned down, pulled out the phone, and stared at the number on the screen. A disgusted sneer twisted his bruised, bloody face, and his fingers curled around the phone like he wanted to hurl it across the room.

  “Who is it?” I rasped again. “Their boss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The man you’re working for too,” I said, an accusing note in my voice.

  Fletcher grimaced, but he didn’t deny it. “Yeah.”

  His index finger hovered over the phone, as though he was tempted to answer the call, but he threw the device down onto Billings’s body instead. Fletcher opened his mouth to say something, but he froze and cocked his head to the side, as though a noise had caught his ear.

  The rumble of a car engine sounded outside. And not just one engine—multiple engines, as though a whole convoy of vehicles had pulled up to the front of the house.

  Fletcher grimaced again. “We need to leave. Now.”

  He staggered out of the office and hurried into the back of the house. I yanked my knife out of the giant I’d killed, then followed him. Fletcher cracked open the back door and looked around, but the coast was clear, and he stepped outside and crossed the porch. I was right behind him.

  The second we were off the old weathered boards, Fletcher picked up the pace, running across the grass and heading toward the woods. He rarely moved so quickly, especially when he was injured, which told me just how worried he was.

  We reached the edge of the woods. I expected Fletcher to keep going, but instead, he slid behind a large maple and peered around the trunk. I stopped beside him.

  “What are we waiting for?” I whispered. “I thought you wanted to get out of here. My car is parked on the far side of the woods.”

  “I do want to get out of here,” Fletcher whispered back. “But I need to see him first.”

  He must be talking about Billings’s boss. I had no idea why Fletcher wanted to see the man who’d set him up to die, but I wasn’t leaving my mentor.

  The two of us fell silent. It was full-on dark now, but thanks to the moonlight, I could easily make out the three black SUVs parked in front of the house. The vehicles’ headlights were still on, and the bright, steady glows illuminated the lawn. I didn’t see anyone sitting in the SUVs. Those people must have gone into the front of the house while Fletcher and I had been s
neaking out the back.

  A few more lights clicked on inside the house, then several shouts and curses drifted outside. The giants’ bodies must have been discovered.

  “Gin,” Fletcher asked in a low, urgent voice. “Did you bring your usual supplies?”

  “Yeah. I left the bag out here in the woods.”

  “Bring me your rifle,” he said.

  I hurried over and grabbed the bag. Then I unzipped the top, reached inside, and handed him the weapon. Fletcher hefted the rifle, checking to make sure it was loaded and getting a feel for it, even though it belonged to him, and he’d used it countless times before. When he was satisfied, he stood up, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and pointed it at the back door.

  “Come on, you bastard,” Fletcher muttered. “Step outside and show yourself so I can finally put a bullet between your eyes.”

  I stayed still and silent by his side. I didn’t know who he was talking about, but I wholeheartedly agreed with his sentiment. Billings’s boss had tried to have Fletcher tortured and killed. The mystery man deserved to die for that, as far as I was concerned.

  So we stood there and waited—and waited and waited.

  Fletcher never moved, never faltered, never wavered, even though he was injured and his arms had to be aching from holding the rifle for so long.

  A minute passed. Then two, then three, then five.

  More shouts and curses rang out from inside the house, but no one stepped out onto the back porch.

  “Maybe he won’t come back here,” I whispered.

  “Oh, he’ll come,” Fletcher muttered again. “He’ll want to know if I escaped.”

  We kept standing there, still waiting for this mystery man to appear. A dozen questions crowded into my mind, mainly who this man was and why Fletcher hated him so much, but I didn’t want to ruin the old man’s concentration, so I kept quiet.

  Finally, after about five more minutes, shadows started moving past the windows, heading toward the back of the house.

  “That’s it,” Fletcher murmured. “Open the door and step outside. You know you want to check and see if I’m lying dead in the yard.”

  The back door eased open, almost in answer to his whispered words. Fletcher shifted on his feet and took more careful aim with his rifle. I stood beside him, not moving a muscle and scarcely daring to breathe for fear of ruining his shot.

  The door opened, and a man stepped out onto the back porch.

  Crack!

  Fletcher fired, and the man dropped to the porch, dead from the bullet that had punched into his skull.

  The echoes of the shot faded away, replaced by eerie, utter silence. For several long, tense seconds, nothing happened. No shouts, no screams, no people moving around inside the house. Nothing.

  Then the back porch light snapped on, clearly illuminating the dead man—another giant.

  “Dammit!” Fletcher snarled. “He used one of his men as bait. We need to move. Follow me. Hurry, Gin, hurry!”

  Still clutching the rifle, he whirled around and rushed deeper into the woods. I kept staring at the house, but no one else stepped out onto the back porch, and the lone light burned like a single golden eye smugly mocking us both.

  “Come on, Gin!” Fletcher hissed. “Before he sends the rest of his men after us!”

  He wasn’t one to run from a fight, which made me even more curious about who was inside the house. Billings’s boss must be truly powerful to make Fletcher retreat. I stared at the house a moment longer, then turned and followed the old man into the shadows…

  My eyes fluttered open. For a second, I thought I was back there in the woods, darting around trees, skirting past boulders, and jumping over fallen logs with Fletcher. Then I blinked a few times, and I realized that I was safe in bed with Owen.

  As far as my nightmares went, that one had been pretty mild, so I snuggled closer to Owen, shut my eyes, and tried to go back to sleep. But after about ten minutes, I gave up. I just couldn’t sleep right now, so I slipped out of bed, threw on a robe and some slippers, and left my bedroom.

  I tiptoed down the hallway and stopped outside Silvio’s room. Light spilled out from underneath the crack at the bottom of the door, and the faint murmur of conversation drifted through the wood.

  “I don’t know why I’m calling you,” Silvio said.

  A pause, as though he was listening to someone.

  Then a snort from Silvio. “Do you flirt with every man you meet this way?”

  Another pause.

  Then a low, surprised laugh from my assistant. “You have a horrible sense of humor.”

  I smiled. It seemed as though Silvio had finally given in and called Liam Carter. Good for him. Silvio deserved someone special in his life. I didn’t know if Liam would make Silvio happy in the long run, but at least the vampire was getting back out into the dating world. I just hoped Liam was the true, trustworthy ally I needed him to be—for everyone’s sake.

  I didn’t want to disturb Silvio’s call, so I crept past his door and headed downstairs. I ended up in Fletcher’s office and flipped on the lights. The broken glasses and bottle of gin were still lying on the floor, along with the folders, papers, and photos I’d shoved off the desk last night. I sighed, but I went into the kitchen, got a broom, a dustpan, and a trash can, and returned to the office.

  I quickly swept up the glass, although it took me a few minutes to peel the folders, papers, and photos off the floor, since they had gotten drenched in gin and were stuck to the wood. After I got a few photos loose, the others peeled up much more easily, and a minute later, I grabbed the last one—the picture of Fletcher and Mason standing in the woods.

  I started to set the photo aside with the others, but the grim set of Fletcher’s mouth and the absolute blankness in his eyes made me take another look at the image. The old man seemed…exhausted, as though Mason had used his Stone magic to grind all the fight out of Fletcher’s bones, and it was all he could do to remain upright.

  My gaze lingered on Fletcher’s suit, and I wondered if the photo had been taken at someone’s funeral—maybe even my father’s funeral. If so, that would certainly explain why Mason looked so smug and Fletcher so miserable.

  Once again, I started to set the photo aside, but I found myself plopping down in the desk chair, grabbing the magnifying glass, and examining the image. Mason’s smile. Fletcher’s anguish. The two men and their expressions were as different as they could be, right down to the way Mason had his arm slung around Fletcher’s shoulders, while the old man was clutching his tie as though it was strangling him.

  For the third time, I started to set the photo aside, but once again, I peered a little more closely at it. My gaze snagged on the pin in the center of Fletcher’s tie. When I’d looked at it last night, I’d thought it was a spider rune, but the ends seemed a little too sharp and pointed for that. A thought occurred to me, and I started counting the slightly blurry rays. One, two, three…

  Nine. The pin featured nine rays, not eight. Fletcher wasn’t wearing my spider rune—he was sporting the Circle’s ring of swords.

  I rocked back in the chair, my mind churning. Then I dug my phone out of the pocket of my robe and pulled up the pictures I’d taken at Blue Ridge Cemetery earlier tonight. I laid my phone on the desktop, next to the photo of Fletcher, and compared the various pictures.

  I wasn’t imagining things. The symbol Fletcher had scratched into Tristan’s tombstone was the same Circle ring-of-swords rune he was wearing in the photo with Mason. My mind kept churning. Mason had probably given Fletcher the tie pin, maybe even ordered Fletcher to wear the symbol he hated so very much. But why would Fletcher carve the rune into my father’s tombstone? What kind of message was he trying to send me?

  And it was a message. I was certain of it. Everything else Fletcher had left behind about the Circle had been a message, and this was no different. I just had to figure out what it meant.

  The longer I stared at the photo of Fletcher and Mason, the less
I focused on the tie pin and the more I examined Fletcher’s suit. He’d only had a couple of them, and I recognized this one as his funeral suit.

  My mind kept churning. Mason, Fletcher, the old man’s funeral suit. They all got me to thinking about where else I had seen the ring-of-swords rune recently…

  The answer hit me like, well, a sword through the gut.

  Fletcher hadn’t been toying with me by carving the Circle rune onto my father’s tombstone—he’d been telling me where to look. Suddenly, I realized where he had hidden the missing ledger.

  “You sly fox,” I whispered, a grin spreading across my face.

  I picked up the photo and kissed the old man’s gin-soaked face. Maybe it was my imagination, but the anguish in Fletcher’s features seemed to ease a bit, as if his ghost was happy I’d solved the mystery.

  Now all that was left to do was figure out how exactly I could get my hands on Mason’s precious ledger.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I stayed in the office another hour, planning the best way to get the ledger. When I was finished, I turned off the lights and went to bed, happier than I’d been in days.

  Plotting against my enemies always invigorated me.

  At breakfast the next morning, Friday, I didn’t say anything to Owen and Silvio about my plan, since they probably would have tried to talk me out of it. Besides, they couldn’t help with it, and the fewer people who were involved, the less dangerous it would be.

  “You’re in a good mood,” Silvio said.

  I slid a plate with a stack of blueberry pancakes, a mound of scrambled eggs, and several strips of bacon onto the table in front of him. “Am I?”

  His gray eyes narrowed. “Yes, a much better mood. What are you up to, Gin?”

  I shrugged off his suspicious question. “I’ve decided that instead of moping around and wondering where Fletcher might have hidden the ledger, I’m going to fully enjoy today, especially Mallory’s bridal shower at Northern Aggression.”