Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom (29 page)

Owen’s eyes narrowed, and he regarded me with another shrewd, knowing look. “Tobias Dawson. You killed him too. That’s why you were at Mab Monroe’s party and asked me to introduce you to him. So you could get him alone and kill him.”

I nodded. “That didn’t quite work out the way that I’d planned, but since I’m still breathing and he’s not, I can’t complain too much.”

Owen crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to one side, as if trying to get a better look at me. As if trying to see past the cold mask of my face and into the blackness that coated my soul. “And did you kill Jake McAllister that night as well? Are you the one who stuffed him into one of Mab’s bathtubs?”

So he’d heard about Jake’s body being found at Mab’s party. Seemed like the Fire elemental hadn’t squashed that pesky rumor nearly as well as she would have liked to. Or maybe she was just putting it out there herself to see who would be stupid enough to take credit for Jake’s death so she could pay him a personal visit. Either way, there was no point in denying anything now.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said.

I didn’t tell Owen that Jake McAllister had threatened to rape and murder me. I wasn’t going to make excuses for myself. I’d made that mistake with Donovan Caine. Tried to make the detective see that while I might be something of a monster, there were worse ones out there than me. That occasionally, I took out the big bads to make things better for folks. That Ashland needed someone like me. Someone who could work outside the corrupt legal system. Someone who couldn’t be bought or bribed or intimidated
into backing down. Donovan hadn’t been able to understand, much less accept that simple fact. It went against everything the detective had believed in—about the system and himself.

I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Owen Grayson. Whatever this thing was between us, he was going to know exactly what kind of person I was, what kind of cold, calculated violence I was capable of and had executed so many times throughout the years. I wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything for him or try to explain away all the bodies that I’d left in my wake.

Owen could draw his own fucking conclusions and act accordingly. And when he told me to get the hell out of his office and never come back, I’d go quietly and without anger or malice. Because before he’d left town, before he’d left me, Detective Donovan Caine had taught me an important, if painful lesson—that anyone who couldn’t accept me for who and what I was wasn’t worth wasting my time on.

So I stood there, and I waited for Owen to tell me to leave.

“I suppose I should thank you for killing Jake McAllister,” he said. “After I found out that he’d threatened Eva that night at your restaurant, I wanted to snap the little bastard’s neck myself. I might have too, if not for Jonah McAllister and his connection to Mab Monroe.”

Owen uncrossed his arms and flexed the fingers on one hand, then the other, as if he’d still like to get his hands on Jake McAllister, even though the Fire elemental was currently rotting in his grave.

“Don’t thank me,” I said. “I didn’t do it for you.”

“No,” he replied. “You did it for yourself. Because Jake McAllister was going to keep on making problems for you. Just like Tobias Dawson was making problems for Violet Fox and her grandfather, because Warren Fox wouldn’t sell his land and store to Dawson.”

Surprised, I frowned. “You knew about the Foxes’ troubles with Dawson?”

Owen nodded. “Eva told me about it. I offered to intercede on Warren’s behalf, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Grumpy old bastard.”

“Warren T. Fox is definitely all that.”

We shared a smile, and for the first time, a bit of hope flickered in my chest. Because instead of the cold disgust I’d expected to see, warm respect filled Owen’s violet eyes. He kept studying me, that strange, thoughtful expression on his face once more.

“You don’t remember me, do you, Gin?” Owen asked.

I raised my eyebrows at the sudden change in conversation. “Should I?”

He shrugged. “Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but when a girl saves your life, you hope she remembers you after the fact.”

I’d saved Owen Grayson’s life? When had that happened? And why had I done it in the first place? I wasn’t in the habit of saving anyone but myself. My eyes narrowed. “Sorry. Not ringing any bells.”

The corner of his lips lifted into a half smile. “I thought not. Given all the other… excitement you’ve confessed to just tonight, I suppose I shouldn’t be disappointed.”

I just stared at him, searching my memory for
anything that would tell me what he was talking about, but I came up blank. As far as I could remember, the first time I’d ever set eyes on Owen Grayson was the night he’d come to the Pork Pit to pick up Eva after Jake McAllister had tried to rob the restaurant. Oh sure, I’d seen his picture in the newspaper and his face on the evening news, since he was one of the movers and shakers in Ashland. But that night in the restaurant was the first time I’d ever been up close and personal with him.

Owen sighed, walked around the desk, and sat down on the far edge. He gestured for me to do the same, so I perched on the opposite corner.

“I don’t know how much you know about me, Gin, but my parents died in a fire when I was a teenager. There wasn’t any money or insurance or other relatives we could stay with, so Eva and I were out on the streets. She was little more than a baby then.”

I knew what it was like to live on the mean streets of Ashland. Cold, hard, depressing, constantly cowering in dark corners so the bigger and stronger wouldn’t decide to take an interest in you. It had been hard enough by myself at thirteen. I couldn’t imagine being responsible for someone else as well back then.

“Anyway,” Owen said. “We didn’t have any money for food, so I begged mostly or stole what I could. One night, I found myself in the alley behind this barbecue restaurant near Southtown. It was winter and cold, and Eva and I hadn’t eaten in days.”

A tiny flicker of memory sparked to life in the back of my mind. A fuzzy image that I’d all but forgotten. I remembered that snowy winter—and the scrawny teenager
I’d seen behind the Pork Pit one night, digging through the cold trash for something to eat.

“The back door of the restaurant opened, and this girl stepped out, carrying a black trash bag. She was a few years younger than me,” Owen said in a low voice. “She saw me digging through the trash and stopped. Then she spotted Eva huddled across the alley in this little crack in the wall that I’d set her down in. The girl stared at Eva, then at me for the longest time.”

The image sharpened in my mind. A boy wearing tattered clothes, his hands raw, red, and chapped from the cold. And a little girl, bundled up tight in layers of rags, staring at me with her big, blue eyes that reminded me so much of Bria’s curious gaze. The surprise of seeing her in my old hiding spot, in the little crack between buildings where I’d slept so many nights in the frosty air.

My stomach twisted now, here in Owen’s office, just as it had done that night.

“The girl went back inside. I thought she was going to get the owner of the restaurant. That he’d tell us to move on—or worse call the cops and report us. Instead, she came back with this cardboard box. The top of it had been cut off, and the girl had stuffed the whole thing with food. More food than I’d seen in weeks.” Owen’s eyes never left mine as he spoke. “More food than Eva and I had eaten in weeks.”

I remembered the warmth of the Pork Pit that night. How I’d grabbed the box from one of the rooms in the back and raced into the storefront, packing up all the sandwiches and beans and fries and cookies that hadn’t been eaten that day. How I’d been filled with some terrible
emotion I couldn’t explain, that the only thing I could do to get rid of it was to try and help that little lost girl in the alley. Fletcher Lane had been sitting behind the cash register, reading one of his many books. He’d watched me box up the food in silence, his bright green eyes filled with thoughts I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“And how did you come to the conclusion that it was me? That I was the one who gave you some food that night? That was years ago.” My low tone didn’t completely disguise the emotion that thickened my voice.

“Because after I took the box from the girl, she handed me a jacket,” Owen continued. “A black leather jacket nicer than anything I’d ever owned, even when my parents had been alive.”

Finn’s jacket. I’d grabbed it from the coat rack on my way back out to the alley. He’d just bought the coat a few days ago, and he’d been pissed when he’d realized that I’d given it away. To the point where he’d started around the counter after me. One of the many times Fletcher had to separate us, in the beginning.

“After she gave me the jacket, the girl turned to go back inside, but I reached out and grabbed her hand,” Owen said, his own voice raspy now. “She let me hold her hand maybe three seconds before she jerked away from me and went back inside. But that was long enough for me to feel the metal in her hand—the silverstone embedded in her flesh.”

I remembered that cold, faint, desperate touch. It had burned me in a way nothing else ever had, not even when Mab Monroe had melted the spider rune into my palms in the first place. I’d gone back inside the restaurant, not
quite crying. Fletcher hadn’t said a word. The old man had just sat there reading his book, waiting for me to compose myself once more. After I’d told him what I’d done, Fletcher had just nodded his head and gone back to his book. We never spoke of it again.

Owen reached over, picked up my cold hand, and turned it over, so my palm was face up, the spider rune scar visible for all to see.

“Just like the silverstone you have in your palms, Gin,” he said. “I’ve known it was you from the moment I shook your hand that first night at the Pork Pit. And I’ve been watching you and trying to think of some way to repay you ever since.”

“Why?” I asked. “So I felt sorry for you one night and gave you some food. So what?”

Owen shook his head. “It wasn’t just that. I came back the next day, hoping to thank you. But instead of you, an older guy was there, drinking coffee and waiting in the alley. He said he knew about my situation and that he also knew someone who needed a good, strong apprentice. A dwarven blacksmith who lived up in the mountains. He drove Eva and me up there that day. The dwarf took a liking to me, and I worked hard for him. And now, well, we have all this.” Owen gestured at the office with its fine furnishings.

Fletcher. He was talking about Fletcher Lane. The old man had helped Owen just the way he’d aided me so long ago. I wondered why. It was one thing to take a single stray in off the street after she’d saved your life, like I’d once done for Fletcher. But helping others? Every time I thought I had a handle on who and what Fletcher Lane
had been, I found out something else unexpected or met someone like Owen who told me another story of the old man’s kindness.

“Well, you’re right,” I said. “That was me. I gave you the food. But you don’t owe me anything for it. Hell, I didn’t even do it for you. I did it for me. Because I’d once been in that alley digging for garbage to eat.”

Owen nodded. “I thought it might be something like that.”

His thumb stroked soft and slow over the scar on my palm. A pleasant warmth spread through my stomach, then moved lower, as I thought about other places where Owen could touch me. But I didn’t want him like this. Didn’t want him to feel that he needed to pay me back—for anything. I wanted him to want me, Gin Blanco, as I was now. Cold heart, bloody hands, iron will. Not because of some soft sentiment he felt for a girl who didn’t even exist anymore.

“So that’s what this is all about?” I asked. “You asking me out, you wanting to get to know me better. You actually think you owe me something for some random act of kindness years ago?”

“I owe you everything, Gin.”

I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Sure, I gave you the food and the jacket. But the job with the blacksmith? That was all the old man. Fletcher Lane. He owned the Pork Pit before me.”

Owen frowned. “Lane? As in Finnegan Lane?”

I nodded. “Finn’s father. He was the one who got you that job, Owen. Not me. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Fletcher never said a word to me about it.”

“I see.”

“So you don’t owe me anything. Not one damn thing,” I said, letting him off the hook and ignoring the bitterness that filled my mouth—and heart. “Because I would have done the same thing for anyone who’d been in that alley looking the way you and Eva did that night. So whatever debt you think you’ve accrued with me over the years, cancel it. I certainly have. Just keep your mouth shut about Elliot Slater and what I told you tonight, and we’ll be more than square.”

I started to pull my hand out of his, but Owen tightened his grip, the strength of his fingers pressing against mine. His eyes burned with violet fire.

“You think that I just want you now because of something that happened back then? That I’m coming on to you to pimp myself out to pay off some debt?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Not a big leap to make, given our conversation tonight.”

Owen shook his head. “You’re wrong, Gin. Dead wrong.”

“Really? Would you still be holding my hand if I were old, toothless, and had a face like a piece of leather?”

He had the good grace to wince.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Besides, I’ve been down this road before. In case you haven’t been listening, let me recap. I’m an assassin, Owen. A very, very good one. I’ve spent my entire adult life killing people for money, a lot of money, and after I leave here tonight, I’m going to go plot how I can slit Elliot Slater’s throat and get away with it. Do you really want to be with a woman who sleeps with a silverstone knife under her pillow? And
would use it on you at any time if she thought you were a threat to her? Because that’s me, in a nutshell.”

Instead of answering my question, Owen regarded me with another thoughtful stare. “Donovan Caine really did a number on your self-confidence, didn’t he?”

He had, but I’d be damned if I was going to let Owen know how badly the detective had wounded me when he’d left. So I shrugged.