Black Widow (40 page)

“Don't worry, Gin,” Silvio piped up, texting on his
phone. “I'm already reaching out to my contacts to track her.”

Finn slapped his hands on his hips. “
Your
contacts? And what makes you think that
your
contacts will find her faster than
my
contacts will?”

Silvio gave him a patronizing look. Finn glowered back at the vampire. I was too tired to even roll my eyes, much less snicker at their rivalry—

“Who are you people?”

Every single one of us froze. Me. Owen. Finn. Silvio. Jo-Jo. Even Bria, Xavier, Sophia, Roslyn, and Phillip on the other side of the ballroom.

Then, with one thought, we all whirled around, fists and weapons raised, looking for the source of that soft, hesitant voice.

A little girl stood at the edge of the dance floor.

She was dressed in soft, pale blue footie pajamas patterned with penguins and clutched an even softer-looking blue rabbit to her chest. Her hair was mussed with sleep, but I could see the auburn highlights glinting in the dark brown strands.

She looked at all of us in turn, not really afraid, but her green eyes were big and curious.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “And where's my mommy?”

29

All the air left my lungs in a ragged rush. I blinked and blinked and blinked, as if that would change who and what was before me.

But it didn't.

A little girl. In the Monroe mansion. Staring at me with Madeline's eyes. Wondering where her mommy was.

I didn't have to look at the others to know that they were just as shocked and surprised as I was. In all the intel that Finn and Silvio had gathered on Madeline, in all my spying on her, in all my confrontations with her, there had never been so much as a whisper that she had a child. Then again, I'd never known that Mab had had a daughter either. But now here I was, confronted by the next little girl in the Monroe family. I couldn't help but wonder if she had the same kind of acid magic that her mother did, or perhaps even her grandmother's Fire power.

Jo-Jo was quicker and kinder than the rest of us. The dwarf got to her feet, plastered a smile on her face, and slowly approached the girl.

“Hi, there, darling,” Jo-Jo crooned in a soft, easy voice. “What's your name?”

“Moira. Moira Monroe.”

She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Moira. I'm Jo-Jo.”

The two of them shook hands, the little girl as serious as she could be. Jo-Jo gestured over her shoulder at the rest of us.

“And these are my friends.”

Moira looked us over, her green gaze moving from one of us to the next, even as my friends shuffled forward and sidled sideways, trying to hide as much of the blood and as many of the bodies as they could from her.

Finally, her eyes met mine. Her tiny face creased in thought, and I realized that she was staring at my spider rune necklace.

“Oh,” she said, her face clearing. “You're the spider lady, the one that my mommy doesn't like. What are you doing here? I thought that you were dead.”

I heard her words, even though they all sounded like gibberish at the moment. But I forced myself to get to my feet and slowly walk over to her, not wanting to scare her. It was a good thing Jo-Jo had healed all the burns and blisters on my skin already, or I would have looked like even more of a monster than I already did.

Up close, Moira was as pretty as a picture. She couldn't have been more than three or four, but I could already tell that she would grow up to look just like Madeline.
I imagined that she'd be even more beautiful than her mother had been.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I didn't know what to even
think
right now, much less say to her. I wet my lips and tried again, but I still couldn't utter so much as a single sound. My silence must have scared Moira, because she backed away from me. A pale green light began to flicker around her fingers.

And the stuffed rabbit began to smoke and burn in her hands.

Small drops of acid spattered onto the rabbit's face, melting it in an instant, as Moira looked up at me with round, scared eyes. I sucked in another breath, and I finally managed to plaster a tight, miserable smile on my face. Well, that answered my question about what kind of magic she might have. As for her power level, it was hard to tell since she was still so young, but if she had even half of Madeline's strength, then she would be an elemental to be reckoned with.

Still, as I looked at the girl, trying to seem as nonthreatening as possible, I almost felt as if I were . . .
Mab
.

I could see it all so clearly, just the way that she no doubt had all those years ago. How this one innocent girl could one day grow up to be a threat to me. How she could destroy everything I'd built. How she could kill everyone I loved, before she finally murdered me herself.

In that moment, I could almost . . .
understand
why Mab had murdered my mother and Annabelle and had tried to do the same to me and Bria all those years ago. How, in her mind, she'd simply been trying to protect herself and her empire. How she'd wanted to nip this potential threat in the bud, since it was by far the most
dangerous one that she would ever encounter. And how all she had done was set in motion her own destruction with her attack on my family.

Yes, I could almost understand Mab's reasoning back then, but that didn't mean that I could do what she had done. Because no matter how ruthless I was, no matter how cold or tough or brutal of an assassin, Fletcher had taught me a few simple rules, ones that held firm even now, when I was confronted by the next generation of the Snow-Monroe family feud in the making.

No kids—
ever.

So I cleared my throat, plastered a more genuine smile on my face, and crouched down on my knees so that my face was level with hers.

“Hi, there, sweetheart. My name is Gin.”

I held out my hand to her. Moira stared at me, still frightened, but I had soothed her enough to get her to release her acid magic. The pale green sparks flickering around her fingers vanished, although her rabbit continued to burn against her chest. She gingerly took my hand in hers. I gritted my teeth, expecting to feel the invisible waves of her magic burning my skin, but her hand was small, warm, and soft, with no trace of her power pulsing on her delicate skin—yet.

“Hey,” she said, perking up for no apparent reason the way that kids so often do. “Would you like to see my room? It's this way!”

Instead of letting go of my hand, Moira started tugging me out of the ballroom. I looked back over my shoulder at my friends. Most of them gave me helpless shrugs, but Bria stepped forward, following us.

Moira led me down the hallway like a general directing a soldier. She didn't let go of my hand until she reached a door that was cracked open at the end of one of the corridors. The door was painted blue, and as soon as she saw it, she barreled ahead into the room. I drew in a breath and followed her, bracing myself for what I knew I was going to find.

An enormous playroom lay before me.

A child-size, white wicker table with four matching seats stood in the center of the room, covered with a white china tea set patterned with delicate blue roses. Real pitchers of lemonade sat on the table, along with a plate of half-eaten sugar cookies and apple slices that had already turned brown. Picture books, dolls, and stuffed animals lined wooden shelves built into one of the walls near a white, padded window seat, while large, open cedar chests in the corners held even more toys. Any little girl could spend hours in this sort of fantasy playground, happily drinking lemonade, eating cookies, and reading books to all her stuffed-animal friends.

At the far side, an archway led to a large bedroom, and I could see a bathroom branching off that area. This was the suite of rooms that Silvio had shown me yesterday, the ones that he'd thought Madeline was remodeling for some guest. Well, now I knew exactly who'd been staying in them.

I just didn't know what to do about it.

Beside me, Bria stood in the doorway and stared at the playroom, memories, heartache, and longing etched in the tight lines around her mouth.

“We used to have a room just like this,” she said in a low voice. “Full of toys and games and dolls and tea sets.
Do you remember, Gin? What it was like, what
we
were like, before . . . Mab?”

I nodded and gripped her hand tight.

Moira plopped her half-melted bunny down in one of the chairs, then skipped over and grabbed my hand again, pulling me forward.

“C'mon, Gin. Let's have a tea party!” Moira stopped, giving Bria a shy look. “The pretty princess lady can come too.”

I looked at Bria, who looked just as stunned as I did. I shrugged at my sister, and she shrugged back. Moira tugged on our hands and led us both over to the white wicker table in the center of the playroom.

Why not. It would be better than the party we'd just been at.

*  *  *

Bria and I sat on the floor next to the table while Moira ran around the playroom, introducing us to all her dolls and stuffed animals. My sister and I made the appropriate noises, but we were both still too stunned to really hear what the little girl was chattering on about.

Jo-Jo came to the playroom a few minutes later, and the dwarf somehow managed to get Moira settled in bed and started reading a book to her. So Bria and I slipped away and went back out to the ballroom.

The rest of my friends were still there, checking the bodies, but I ignored them and marched over to where Jonah McAllister lay in front of the terrace doors. He was still out cold, so I started kicking him in the ribs until the weaselly bastard woke up. It didn't take long before he groaned and rolled over onto his side. I kicked him one more time, then leaned down, grabbed the lapels of his tuxedo, hoisted him
upright, and slammed his body back against the closest door. It took his brown eyes a moment to focus on me, but I was pleased to note the fear that filled them the second he realized that I was looming over him.

“The girl,” I ground out. “Moira. Madeline's daughter. Start talking. How old is she? Where is she from? Who is her father?”

Jonah just stared at me, more and more fear filling his eyes and blocking out everything else, including my pointed questions.

I shook him once, roughly, then leaned forward a little more so that my face was inches away from his. “I'm not going to ask you again.”

His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “I don't know much.”

I leaned forward even more.

“I don't! I swear!” Jonah cried out. “Just that the girl is almost four years old. Madeline had her, but she wanted to focus on building her own business empire, so she left the girl with her father.”

“And who might that be?”

He shrugged. “Some Stone elemental, I think. Apparently, he really loved Moira and was happy to raise her by himself. Then Madeline came around again and told him that she was taking her daughter to Ashland. The father tried to run, tried to take the girl with him, but Madeline had Emery track him down.”

My heart sank. I could imagine exactly what the giant had done to the runaway father. “Is he still alive?”

“I think so. But you know Emery. She could have easily killed him just for spite.”

I dropped McAllister. His head cracked against the marble floor, but he shook off his daze enough to flip over onto his belly like the snake he was and start crawling away from me. For once, I let him. I was too busy thinking about Moira.

Xavier and Bria moved toward McAllister, probably to ask him more questions about Moira and her father, but I stalked back across the ballroom until I was standing in front of Madeline.

“You sly Monroes,” I growled to the acid elemental's still-frozen corpse. “You do delight in fucking with me from beyond the grave, don't you?”

Madeline didn't answer, of course, but I could have sworn that I saw the curve of her crimson lips and the gleam of her white teeth through the Ice, almost as if the black widow were laughing at me one final time.