Authors: Jennifer Estep
“I can’t
believe
that you agreed to kill Benson for him.”
I sighed, crossed my arms over my chest, and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Really? Why not?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Finn said, his green eyes wide and accusing. “Because you didn’t even talk price!”
Owen chuckled, far more amused by Finn than I was. The two of them were sitting at the table in the breakfast nook off the kitchen. As soon as Silvio had left, I’d called and asked them to come over to Fletcher’s house for a powwow. Now I almost wished that I hadn’t, given Finn’s incessant whining about the fact that I hadn’t negotiated payment for the job.
I hadn’t called Bria at all—for obvious reasons.
“I mean,
really
, Gin,” he muttered. “You can’t just keep killing people for
free
.
Pro bono
is not a phrase that is in the Finnegan Lane vocabulary.”
“Oh, no,” I drawled. “But
greedy, shameless hustler
certainly is.”
“Damn skippy.”
Owen chuckled again. There was no use arguing with Finn, so I grabbed a spoon off the counter and went back to the pan on the stove. I’d already been through Silvio’s file while I was waiting for them to show up, and I’d decided to make us all some dinner while Finn and Owen reviewed the info. After the emotional roller coaster of the day, I needed some serious comfort food, and I’d decided on good, old-fashioned sloppy joes.
I’d melted a little butter in the bottom of the pan, before browning up some ground sirloin, adding ketchup, and letting everything bubble away together. I leaned over the pan and breathed in, enjoying the spicy tickle of chili powder and black pepper steaming up from the simmering mixture. I gave my sloppy joe filling a final stir, then turned off the stove.
While Finn and Owen flipped through the papers and photos, I sliced up a loaf of Sophia’s sourdough bread and started making sandwiches. I covered one piece of bread with a bit of mayonnaise, along with a thick layer of my spicy sloppy joe mix, then topped that off with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese and another piece of bread. I made six sandwiches, two for each of us, then grabbed the parmesan-dill potatoes I’d been roasting in the oven, along with parfait glasses filled with dark chocolate mousse I’d made earlier in the week. I put everything on a tray and carried it over to the table.
My stomach gurgled with happiness as we all dug into
the food. The warm, hearty potatoes pleasantly offset the slow burn of the spices in the sloppy joes, while the mousse was a rich cocoa concoction. I washed everything down with tart, crisp lemonade.
Owen and Finn must have been as hungry as I was, because we all finished our food in record time. Owen cleared the dishes away, while Finn and I stayed at the table.
“We should get started. No rest for the wicked and all that,” Finn said in a cheery voice.
“Or the weary,” I muttered, but he didn’t hear me.
Finn grabbed the file, dragged it over in front of him, flipped it open, and started perusing the contents. “I have to hand it to Silvio. He knows what he’s doing. There’s thorough, and then there is what is in this folder. Photos, blueprints, dates, times, routes, contacts. It’s all in here, along with every corner, alley, and parked car where Benson’s dealers set up. Silvio even included what Benson’s favorite meal is at Underwood’s. The veal cutlets, in case you were wondering.” He shook his head. “This is as good as any file in Dad’s office—and better than some.”
I’d thought the same thing, although I would never say so out loud. It felt . . . disloyal.
“Yeah,” Owen called out, washing the dishes in the sink. “But is the information accurate? Or is he setting Gin up for some kind of fall?”
“It’s accurate,” I said, pointing to another folder on the table. “I dug out Fletcher’s file on Benson. All of Silvio’s info matches up with the old man’s.”
Some of Fletcher’s information was out of date, since it was more than a year old, given his death last fall. But
the important things he had noted about Benson corresponded with Silvio’s file.
Finn let out a low whistle. “Well, it certainly seems like Silvio is serious about wanting Benson dead.”
“Wouldn’t you be, if Catalina was your niece?” Owen asked. “And how did you miss the fact that Silvio was her uncle?”
Finn shook his head. “I did a background check on Catalina, like I do with all the employees at the Pork Pit, but she started working there last year, well before—”
“Before I outed myself as the Spider by killing Mab,” I finished.
He nodded. “So I didn’t dig as deep as I should have. But Silvio is the one who paid for Catalina’s car, her apartment, all of it. He actually set everything up through my bank, if you can believe that. On paper, it looks like a monthly life insurance payout, but it’s actually a trust that he established in Catalina’s name when she was born. She’s had access to it since she was eighteen, but she didn’t touch a penny of the money—”
“Until after her mom died.” I finished his thought again.
“Well, you can’t blame her for that, can you?” Owen murmured. “Wanting to get away from Southtown and all the memories there, good and bad.”
“No, I can’t.”
We all fell silent, and the only sound was the hissing of the water as Owen kept washing and rinsing off the dishes.
Finn shook his head again. “And I still can’t believe that Silvio just up and gave you all of this information on
Benson. It’s better than a Christmas present. Why can’t people ever make things this easy for me?”
“What can I say? I’m special,” I quipped. “People throw things at me wherever I go.”
He snorted. “You mean they pull out guns and try to shoot you with them. Knives, rune bombs, and the like.”
“Well, I suppose that people wanting me dead is its own form of flattery. At least it makes me popular.” I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “So how does it look to you?”
Finn shuffled through the information again. “Doing it up close and personal is out of the question. There’s a lot of open space around the mansion, and his guards would be all over you the second you set foot on the grounds. But let’s say that you managed to slip inside his mansion. Guess what? There are more guards on every single floor. Even if you got Benson, I don’t think you could get out again. At least not without making a whole lot of noise and alerting the exterior guards.”
“Providing that I could even get Benson in the first place,” I muttered.
Something I wasn’t so sure about, given his Air magic. Sneaking up on people was one of the things I did best, but if Benson knew I was coming, if his magic whispered to him that I was there, then I would lose the element of surprise. And I had a feeling that I would need every single advantage I could get to take him down.
Owen didn’t hear me over the rush of the water, but Finn did, and he raised his eyebrows in obvious concern. I ignored his worry and waved my hand, telling him to continue.
“Sniping him from a distance is the best option,” Finn said. “There are a couple of buildings close to his mansion that have good sight lines. If I were you, I’d wait until he goes out to his Bentley and put a bullet through his head.”
He tapped his finger on a photo that showed Benson’s baby-blue Bentley parked by itself on the street outside his mansion. “He never rides in anything else, and the car is always parked right there, according to Silvio’s file.”
“It’s a wonder somebody doesn’t steal it, if it’s just sitting out there in the open,” Owen said.
“No one would dare to steal Benson’s car, because everyone in Southtown knows exactly who it belongs to and what he would do to them once he caught them,” I said. “And he
would
catch them. A car like that would be hard to fence without word getting back to Benson.”
“Yeah,” Finn said in a dreamy tone. “But ain’t she a beauty?”
He stroked his fingers over the photo, as if he could actually feel the perfect paint and polished chrome.
Owen finished with the dishes, slung a towel over his shoulder, and leaned against the counter. “But are you going to do it, Gin? That’s the real question.”
Benson had certainly given me reason enough by taking Roslyn hostage and menacing Bria. I’d killed people for less—
far
less—and anybody who threatened my friends or my family was fair game, as far as I was concerned. Not to mention my guilt that Roslyn had been targeted in the first place solely because of her friendship with me. I felt like I’d failed her, even though there was
no way I could have predicted that Benson would use her to get to me.
“Well, Gin?” Finn asked. “What do you say?”
They both looked at me, Owen’s face calm and accepting, Finn’s bright and eager. Owen didn’t have a stake in whether Benson lived or died, but Finn certainly did: Bria.
Benson couldn’t hurt her if he was dead, and if I didn’t kill him, I wouldn’t put it past Finn to attempt the deed himself. But my killing the vamp—or even Finn doing the job—wouldn’t satisfy Bria. Not really. Not with her burning need for revenge for her informant’s death. That was the kind of poison promise that you had to fulfill yourself—by twisting a knife into your enemy’s heart, feeling his warm blood coat your hands, and watching the fire flare out of his eyes.
“Gin?” This time, Owen asked the question.
Instead of answering, I dropped my gaze back down to the table, locking on a particular photo, the one of Silvio, Laura, and Catalina.
I reached out and traced my index finger over Silvio’s arm as it curved around his sister’s shoulder, his hand resting close to Catalina’s smiling face. I thought of everything Catalina had already gone through with her mother’s death, then witnessing Troy’s murder. And everything that Silvio had endured over the years, all the bits and pieces of himself that had been sanded down and sucked away, not because of Benson’s vampiric Air magic but just by Silvio working for him. The two of them didn’t deserve to lose anything else. Not to the likes of Benson.
I picked up the photo and set it over on the far side
of the table where it would be out of the way. Then I grabbed the pictures that showed the exterior of Benson’s mansion, before looking up at Owen and Finn in turn.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to kill Benson.”
• • •
We finished our powwow. Before leaving, Finn promised to come by the restaurant tomorrow to help me start scouting out the best location to snipe Benson from. Owen offered to stay the night, but I sent him home too. It had been a long day, and the next few would be longer still, at least until Benson was dead, and I was determined to get every bit of rest I could.
For once, I didn’t fall into my dreams and memories of the past, and I woke up feeling refreshed. Or perhaps my good mood was because I’d finally made the choice to take out the vampire. I’d been indecisive the past few days, wimpy, wishy-washy, and just plain whiny. I always felt better when I had a plan of attack.
But before I killed Benson, I had to get through another day at the Pork Pit.
I opened the restaurant right on time, keeping an eye out in case Benson had posted any of his men around the restaurant to watch me, but the street out front was clear, and so was the alley out back. And none of the customers who came and went was interested in anything but how much barbecue they could stuff themselves with. I savored the quiet. It wouldn’t last.
At around three o’clock, I had enough time to take a break, so I sat on my stool, pulled the file of information on Benson out from a slot in the counter below the cash
register, and read through it. I’d already reviewed it once last night before going to bed, but I was hoping that a fresh look today would help me figure things out.
Finn was right. Trying to get anywhere near Benson on his home turf would be suicide, but I didn’t trust that I could take him out with a sniper rifle either. With his Air magic and the precognition that went along with it, he might be able to dodge a bullet at the last second.
No, I was going to do the hit face-to-face, with one of my knives, so I could be sure that he died. So I’d have to figure out another place to approach Benson, like maybe outside Underwood’s when he went there for his usual Sunday-night dinner of veal cutlets. He liked them rare and bloody, according to Silvio—
My cell phone rang, cutting into my murderous musings. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and stared at the caller ID. I frowned. I wouldn’t have expected him to call. Not after what had happened at the club yesterday. Not when he was supposed to be taking some time off.
“Hello?”
“Gin?” Xavier’s voice rumbled in my ear.
“Hey, man, what’s up? How are you?”
After Owen and Finn had left the night before, I’d phoned Roslyn to check on her. She’d sounded okay, and Xavier had been at her house, but I hadn’t spoken to him. Xavier needed some space from Bria and everything related to Benson right now—including me.
“I just heard from a buddy of mine on the force,” he said. “He gave me a heads-up about something.”
The dark note of worry in his voice made me sit up straighter. “What?”
He let out a breath. “Bria told the higher-ups that she would be bringing in the witness to Troy’s murder this afternoon. She’s supposed to be at the station with Catalina by five o’clock.”
I let out a curse so loud that an old woman sitting in one of the booths sniffed and shook her finger at me in disapproval.
“Bria actually told them when she was showing up with Catalina?” I asked in a much lower voice. “She knows how dangerous that is, right? Benson is sure to hear about it. He’ll try to stop them before they get to the station.”
“I’m sure she stalled as long as she could, but she had to tell them.” Xavier paused. “And I don’t think she cares at this point, Gin. About anything other than getting Benson.”
I cursed again, because he was right. The old lady gave me another disapproving sniff, but a cold glare from me had her ducking her head and examining the ketchup smears on her plate.
I’d hoped that Bria would spend a few more days dotting her i’s and crossing her t’s before she went ahead with her plan to use Catalina’s testimony against Benson. Or at least until I could kill him and make everything else moot. But I should have known better. My sister could be as stubborn as I was when it came to people who hurt the folks she cared about. Bria had promised Max, her informant, that she would have his back, that she would watch out for him, that she would protect him, so I could understand her need to avenge him, even if that meant putting herself and Catalina in danger instead.