Both Sebastian’s and Charlotte’s eyes widened as I went over and handed the order ticket to Sophia Deveraux, likely because Sophia was dressed in her usual Goth clothes—black boots, black jeans, and a black T-shirt that featured a white rose dripping blood. Grinning silver skulls dangled from the black leather collar around her neck, while red streaks shimmered in her black hair. Sophia looked at the ticket and grunted as she stirred a pot of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce that was simmering on one of the stoves. She didn’t talk much.
Sebastian laughed and joked with me while I helped Sophia fix their food, but Charlotte didn’t say a word. Instead, she kept tracing her index finger over the counter, painting a pattern that only she could see. I wondered what she was thinking about. I wondered if she enjoyed being here with Sebastian or if she was already worried about returning home and what might happen there, what her father might do to her.
Well, she shouldn’t have worried. Because after tonight, Cesar Vaughn wasn’t going to hurt her ever again.
“Is something wrong?” Sebastian asked, noticing the dark look on my face.
I shook my head. “Of course not. Unless you turn out to be a lousy tipper.”
He laughed, and I joined in with his hearty chuckles.
Finn looked at Sebastian, then at me. His frown deepened. No doubt, Finn would run straight to Fletcher as soon as Sebastian and Charlotte left and tell the old man all about the two of them coming into the restaurant. But there was nothing that I could do about that, so I decided to focus on my two customers—and enjoy this unexpected time with Sebastian.
I still had to work, of course, seeing to the needs of the few remaining diners, but I was able to spend most of my time hanging out at the counter with Sebastian. He was as warm, witty, and charming as he had been at the party. Maybe even more so, since today he was just a guy eating in a restaurant, flirting with a cute waitress who enjoyed every second of his attention.
Finn finally got up to help Sophia with something in the back of the restaurant, while Charlotte slipped off her stool and headed toward the bathroom.
“Alone at last,” Sebastian murmured. “I thought your brother was never going to leave. He doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
I snorted. “Finn doesn’t like anyone who’s cuter than he is.”
“So I’m cuter than he is? Good to know.”
Sebastian grinned, and I felt myself blushing, just like Charlotte had earlier.
“And now for the real reason that I came here.” He leaned forward and captured my hand with his, even though I was wiping down the counter again. “Go out with me, Gin.”
I’d been having so much fun with Sebastian that I almost said yes without even thinking about it. But at the last moment, I swallowed my easy agreement. Maybe I’d been around Fletcher too long, because I couldn’t quite quash the little whisper of worry in the back of my mind, the one that insisted that Sebastian had some secret agenda, the way rich guys almost always did.
“Why would someone like you want to go out with someone like me? We don’t exactly run in the same circles.” I made my voice light and teasing, as if it didn’t really matter whether we went out or not. Although I was startled by just how much it suddenly did matter—to me.
His mouth set into a stubborn line. “I don’t care whether you have money, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t care about anything like that. Not money, not power, not people and how I can use them. Not like my father does.”
His lips pinched together, and I wondered if he was talking about Charlotte, and if he knew what his father was doing to her. But his sour expression melted away, and Sebastian smiled at me again.
“You’re the most interesting woman I’ve met in ages, Gin. So c’mon. Give a guy a break. Let me take you out to dinner, a movie, coffee, something, anything you like.”
His eyes met mine, and I stared into the dark, liquid depths, still trying to discern his true motives. But all I saw in his earnest, pleading gaze was a desire to get close to me. Maybe he really did want to get to know me, or maybe he thought that I’d be an easy lay, so bowled over by his suave moves and smoldering good looks that I’d let him do me before dinner. Either way, I felt myself wavering, despite what a bad idea it was. But really, I liked the attention, and I wanted it to last for at least a little while longer.
“All right,” I said, laughing a little at how good it felt to give in to him. “All right. You win.”
“I always do.” He grinned again. “How about tonight?”
I thought of my plans for his father, plans that just wouldn’t wait. My laughter vanished, and I shook my head. “I can’t tonight. How about Friday?”
That was three days from now and a more natural date night than the current Tuesday. More important, it would be after I’d killed his father, and I had no doubt that Sebastian would have other things to think about then and would forget all about me.
A pang twinged through my chest at the thought, even though I knew it was for the best. Still, it surprised me how much I cared about seeing Sebastian again, even though I probably never would after today.
Maybe if I’d met Sebastian before Fletcher had gotten the Vaughn job. Maybe if I’d met him months after. But, of course, my terrible luck had made us cross paths at precisely the wrong moment. Fletcher was right—nothing could ever come of this. No matter how much I might have wanted it to. My heart squeezed tight.
Sebastian’s grin widened. “Friday would be great.”
“I still have to work.”
“I understand. Pick you up here around seven?”
I smiled at him, keeping up the charade until the bitter end, even though my expression was as brittle as my heart. “It’s a date.”
• • •
Finn returned from the back of the restaurant, Charlotte stepped out of the bathroom, and they both took their seats again. Sebastian kept giving me sly little winks, though, as if we were in on some secret joke together.
If only he knew how many secrets I had to keep—especially from him.
Sebastian and Charlotte finished their food, while Finn finally scraped up the remains of the peach pie he’d been eating when they’d first arrived. I told Sebastian that the meal was on the house, but he insisted on paying and giving me an obscenely generous tip. Charlotte seemed too full for desert, given that she hadn’t eaten all of her cheeseburger, so I packed up some chocolate-chip cookies for her to take home, putting them in a white paper bag with the Pork Pit’s pig logo printed on the side.
I pushed the bag across the counter to her. “Here you go, sweetheart. In case you want a snack later.”
Charlotte stared at the bag of cookies, then at me. She glanced at Sebastian, who nodded. She reached out and dragged the bag off the counter, hugging it to her chest, almost as if the crinkly white paper were a shield that would protect her from all of the terrible things in her life, including her father.
No bag, no cookies, could do that—but I would.
“Thank you,” Charlotte whispered. It was the first time she’d uttered a single word since coming into the restaurant.
Sebastian gave his sister an encouraging smile, then put his arm around her shoulder again. Charlotte stiffened at his touch, but she let him lead her out of the restaurant, down the sidewalk, and out of sight.
Finn watched them walk away before swiveling around on his stool and facing me again.
I sighed. “All right. I know you know about the Vaughn job. I could tell by your reaction to Sebastian. So let loose. Let me have it. Tell me what a huge, horrible, terrible mistake I’m making with him.”
Finn gave me a thoughtful look, then shook his head. “I’m not going to tell Dad, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I blinked. “Why not? You’re usually not so . . . generous.”
What I really meant was that he was a complete tattletale. Finn was all too happy to rat me out to Fletcher whenever I did something wrong, usually gleefully cackling all th
e while.
Finn puckered his lips, giving me a sour look. But then he glanced out the storefront windows again before turning back to me, his green eyes dark and serious. “Look, I know you’re really into this guy,” he said. “He’s rich, handsome, and charming enough to make even me jealous. If I were you, I’d probably be into him too. I kind of was, anyway.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know. There’s something about him that I just don’t like. It’s like he’s . . . trying too hard. Like he has some desperate need for you to like him.”
I snorted. “This coming from the guy who spends longer on his hair in the morning than I do. If that’s not desperate, I don’t know what is.”
Finn sniffed, but he reached up and touched his hair, making sure that every dark lock was still perfectly in place. “It’s not my fault that you think pulling your hair back into a ponytail every single day of the year is a rocking style.”
I glared at him.
Finn glared back at me, but after a moment, his face softened. “Jealousy and everything else aside, you know that he’s never going to be good enough for you, right?”
I snorted again. “According to you, the only guy who was ever good enough for me was you.”
“True.” He grinned. “So very true.”
A few summers ago, Finn and I had had more than a brother-sister relationship—much more.
Maybe it had been inevitable, being around each other for so long, living, fighting, and training together, slowly taking over Fletcher’s assassination business together. Maybe it was the secretive nature of the life we led and the fact that we could only really trust each other and not any outsiders. Or maybe it had been all of those teenage hormones raging through our systems. Either way, we’d spent a long, hot summer together before both of us realized that we were better off as friends.
In some ways, Finn and I were too much alike to have any sort of lasting romantic relationship. Too hard, too cold, too ruthless, each of us always thinking about the angles we could play and how best to go about getting exactly what we wanted from the other. In other ways, we were too different. He was still warm, carefree, and fun, all emotions that had been burned out of me the night my family was murdered.
These days, we had more of a sibling rivalry, especially as it became more and more apparent that I was better suited for the up-close and dirty work of being an assassin than Finn was. Sometimes I didn’t think that Finn cared anything at all about the flings I had with other guys as much as it bugged him how much closer I was to Fletcher in this one crucial regard.
“Actually,” Finn said, sniffing, “I was too good for you. I’ve ruined you for all other men.”
“Hardly. I’ve had longer, deeper, more meaningful relationships with cheeseburgers than I did with you.”
“Yes, but at least I didn’t go straight to your ass,” he said in a smug, superior tone.
I rolled my eyes and made that threatening, slashing motion with my finger again, letting Finn know exactly what I wanted to do to him. At the far end of the counter, Sophia snickered at our antics.
Finn and I both glared at her, but the Goth dwarf was immune to our dirty looks, and she kept right on slicing tomatoes for the rest of the day’s sandwiches. She could pick us both up by the scruffs of our necks and shake us like disobedient puppies, and we all knew it.
Finn sniffed again, just to let Sophia know how annoyed he was with her. Then his glare disappeared, and he gave me a serious look again.
“All kidding aside, just be careful around this guy, okay, Gin? A slick smile can hide a lot of sins.” He paused. “Trust me. I know all about that.”
“Of course you do. You’ve broken far more hearts than I’ve ever cut into.”
Despite my kidding, Finn kept giving me that dead-serious stare. “And no matter what, you should never, ever tell someone all of your secrets.”
I sighed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to be stupid enough to tell Sebastian anything about what I do as you-know-who. Especially not since it’s going to involve his father.”
He shook his head. “I’m not just talking about what we do, what you do. I’m talking about other things.”
“What other things?”
Finn shook his head again. “I can’t tell you that. Not really. It’s different for everybody. But the funny thing is that you won’t even know that they’re secrets until after you’ve said them—and realized that it’s too late to take them back.”
I stared at him, mystified. I didn’t know what could be more important than what I did as the Spider. That was the deepest, darkest, blackest secret in my heart. Well, that and what had happened to my family. But I wasn’t telling anyone about that—not ever.
Finn kept staring at me, his face suddenly seeming as old and wise as Fletcher’s, as if he knew something important that I didn’t. So I made myself nod, as though I understood exactly what he was talking about, even though I didn’t have a clue.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t be telling Sebastian Vaughn any of my secrets. Trust me. After tonight, I will be the last thing on his mind.”
9
A couple of hours later, I found myself sitting in a van outside the entrance to Vaughn Construction.
It was after eight now, and the warm rays of the setting sun made the chain-link fence that surrounded the site gleam like molten silver. Security lights burned at fifty-foot intervals along the fence, casting small pools of weak white light against the encroaching darkness. Two giant guards manned the main entrance, sitting in their flimsy wooden shack and rifling through magazines to try to alleviate their boredom at working the night shift. Deeper in the compound, lights blazed in the windows in Vaughn’s office. He was working late again, just like he had every day that I’d watched him.
“You sure you want to do this?” Fletcher asked for the third time since we’d left the house. “Vaughn has a lot on his mind right now, with the terrace collapse and the impending lawsuits. Not to mention his meeting with Mab at Dawson’s party. He’s bound to be jumpy and on edge.”
I thought of the wariness in Charlotte’s eyes earlier today at the Pork Pit and the way she’d scanned the restaurant again and again, as if she expected someone to hurt her at any second.
“I’m sure.”
“You got everything you need?” Fletcher asked.
After finishing my shift at the restaurant, I’d traded my jeans and blue apron for my other work clothes, the ones that only came in one color: black. Now I wore them from head to toe—a long-sleeved black T-shirt, black cargo pants, and black boots. A black vest lined with silverstone covered my chest. In addition to absorbing all forms of elemental magic, silverstone was great at stopping bullets, and the vest would help keep me safe from any blasts of magic or bursts of gunfire that Vaughn might send my way. Despite the sweltering heat, I’d also pulled my hair back and tucked my ponytail underneath a snug black toboggan. As a final measure, I’d smeared a bit of black greasepaint under my eyes to break up the paleness of my face and help me blend in with the gathering shadows.
“Gin?” Fletcher asked again. “It never hurts to do a final check to make sure.”
He was big on being as prepared as possible, especially when it came to being certain that you hadn’t forgotten any important supplies. Sometimes Fletcher would check and re-check his weapons two, or three, or even more times before he was satisfied that he was ready to go, and he’d taught me to do the same thing.
So I shifted in my seat, doing one last mental inventory of my knives. Two up my sleeves, one tucked against the small of my back, and two in the sides of my boots, just like usual. I wasn’t carrying a gun. I didn’t need one. Not tonight.
Not for this job.
“Yeah, I’ve got everything.”
Fletcher nodded and stared through the windshield at the compound again. Vaughn Construction took up its own fenced-in block in the downtown loop, although it was situated closer to Northtown than to Sou
thtown. Several businesses lined the street across from the compound. Fletcher had parked the van in a restaurant lot with a dozen other cars, and no one had given it or us a second look. He was good at picking just the right spot to blend in with his surroundings.
“Sophia told me that boy came into the restaurant today,” Fletcher said. “Sebastian.”
I tensed. I’d been so concerned about Finn ratting me out that I’d never considered that Sophia might do it instead.
“Yeah. So what? It doesn’t matter.”
“Sophia said that the two of you looked awful cozy together.”
“Not that cozy,” I said. “Considering that he brought his baby sister along with him.”
“Don’t be a smartass. That’s Finn’s thing.”
I shrugged.
Fletcher shook his head. “There’s still something that I don’t like about this job. And it’s not just the boy’s interest in you.”
I bristled. He said “interest” like it was the worst thing ever that Sebastian liked me.
“Don’t worry about that,” I said, my voice harsh. “After I kill his father, Sebastian will forget all about me. He’ll have too many other things to deal with. He won’t even remember some random waitress he was supposed to go out with. Even if he does, I doubt that he’ll come knocking on my door anytime soon. So see? You have nothing to worry about. Problem solved.”
The words were as true as they’d been when I’d said them to Finn earlier. And once again, they shot an arrow of hurt straight into my heart. Fletcher stared at me, his green eyes bright and searching.
I returned his gaze with a cold, flat, impassive one of my own. No matter how I felt about Sebastian, this was no time for any sort of soft sentiment.
After several seconds, he nodded. “You’re probably right.”
He drew in a breath, like he was going to say something else. I waited, expecting him to ask me yet again if I really wanted to go through with this, but he didn’t. Instead, his mouth turned down with a hint of sadness, although I had no idea why.