Jennifer Estep - Tangled Threads

The assassin skirted around Xavier and set off across the parking lot. Keeping one eye on her, I paused right outside the entrance long enough to light a cigarette and make sure that my martini glass was up where everyone could see it so people would think that I was here to party, despite my dressed down clothes. I also ran a hand through my dark chocolate brown hair, mussing it up, as though I’d already had a hell of a good time inside.

Then I headed in LaFleur’s general direction, my steps slow and wobbly, my body swaying from side to side. Just another tipsy smoker desperate for a nicotine fix and getting some fresh air before I went back inside the club for another drink, another fuck, or whatever I was indulging in tonight. An easy enough role for an assassin to play and one that I’d used for camouflage dozens of times over the years.

I’d taken only ten lazy steps away from the building before LaFleur stopped at the edge of the parking lot. I paused as well, ambling back and forth on the fringes of a group of smokers huddled together for warmth, keeping close enough to them to look like I belonged there. Just another face in the crowd sucking down her cancer stick as fast as she could.

LaFleur stood in the shadow of a weeping willow tree, its long, delicate, swaying tendrils just brushing the top of her emerald headband. She put her back to the tree and turned to face the entrance to Northern Aggression once more. She examined everything, from the people waiting in line, to the group of smokers that I was standing with, to the flashing heart-and-arrow sign above the building. The assassin took it all in, analyzing everything just the way that I would have, looking for any threats to her, anything suspicious, unusual, or out of the ordinary.

I was glad that I’d stopped at the bar for my props. Otherwise, the other assassin would have spotted me storming out of the club after her. And then, well, things would have gotten interesting.

But LaFleur didn’t see me or anything else that threatened her. Her watchful stance relaxed, and she made herself a little more comfortable against the tree, just leaning the tops of her shoulders against it, instead of the full length of her slender body.

And then she waited.

Ten … twenty … forty-five … I counted off the seconds in my head. LaFleur didn’t move a muscle for three minutes. She could have been a statue planted under the tree for all the emotion she showed. I frowned. So not only did she have deadly electrical magic but LaFleur could be patient as well — just as patient as I could be. Mab Monroe had chosen her assassin very wisely.

I wondered what LaFleur was waiting for, though. Had she told Vinnie Volga to break away from his station at the Ice bar and come outside and meet her? Because the way he’d reacted to her had told me that Vinnie knew exactly how dangerous the assassin was. Did she really think that the bartender would want to be alone in the dark with her? Especially after her little trap down at the docks had failed to net her the Spider?

But Vinnie didn’t come outside, and five minutes and three horrible, disgusting cigarettes later, I got my answer as to what LaFleur was doing lurking outside Northern Aggression.

A black stretch limo rolled through the parking lot, coming to a stop in front of her. The assassin pushed away from the weeping willow and straightened, her hands loose and open by her sides, but she made no move to step forward toward the rumbling car. My eyes narrowed. Whom was she meeting now? And why?

The driver scurried out of the front seat of the limo and ran around to the back. He opened the door and stuck his hand inside the dark depths. He helped a woman out and to her feet, then bowed and stepped back. I recognized her at once. As if I could ever forget her.

Mab Monroe.

Mab looked like she either had been or was going out for the night. The Fire elemental wore a long black evening gown with a strapless, sweetheart neckline. A matching black fur wrap was draped around her creamy shoulders. The paleness of her skin contrasted with her hair, which was the bright, polished red of a new penny. It curled softly to her shoulders. But Mab’s eyes were her most striking feature. They were even blacker than her dress and looked like two pieces of hard jet set into her milky face.

My gaze fell to the Fire elemental’s throat. As always, she wore her signature rune necklace — a large ruby set in a ring of curvy, gold rays. The diamond cutting on the gold caught the light from the neon sign outside the club and made it seem that the rays were actually flickering, that they were real, burning flames. No wonder, since the necklace represented a sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab’s personal rune, used by her alone. She never went anywhere without it, just as I never left home without my silverstone knives.

I watched as Mab approached LaFleur. The assassin bowed her head respectfully to Mab, but she never took her eyes off the Fire elemental, not even for a second. LaFleur might be working for Mab, but she didn’t trust her. Smart girl.

The two women put their heads together and started talking. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, and Mab wasn’t the sort of person you just walked up to in the dark. I couldn’t move any closer to them without attracting attention to myself. At least, not without circling all the way around the back of the club and coming at them from a different angle. Knowing my luck, they’d probably be long gone by the time I did that.

What I really wanted to know was what the hell the Fire elemental was doing outside Roslyn’s club. As far as I knew, Mab had never come here before. She and the drunk yuppies who frequented Northern Aggression didn’t exactly run in the same circles.

So why would she meet LaFleur out here in the open instead of somewhere more private? What was going on between the two of them? And how much was it going to fuck up my plans to kill the Fire elemental sooner rather than later?

In the pocket of my jeans, my cell phone let out a low, steady buzz. Still pretending to be nothing more than a drunk smoker, I ambled away from the group of people that I’d been standing next to. My phone kept vibrating, so I dug it out and flipped it open.

“What?” I growled.

“We’ve got a problem,” Finn said in my ear. “Vinnie left the bar. At least, he tried to. He didn’t get five steps before three guys came out of the crowd, surrounded him, and helped him on his way.”

So that’s why LaFleur had come back outside Northern Aggression so quickly. She’d left her men behind inside the nightclub to watch Vinnie in case he decided to bolt. Just as I would have.

“They went out through a side door,” Finn said. “From the looks of them, I think they’re going to take Vinnie for a walk that he won’t come back from — ever.”

As I stood there listening to Finn, I kept staring at LaFleur and Mab. Emotions surged through me, and for a moment, I considered palming my silverstone knives, sprinting toward the two women, and stabbing them to death. Mab didn’t have any of her usual giant guards with her. No backup, nothing. This was my chance to finally kill her. To do to her what she’d done to my family all those years ago.

My whole body burned with the need to kill her — right here, right now. Enemy, enemy, enemy , a primal little voice muttered in the back of my head. Here is your enemy. In the open. Exposed. Vulnerable. Kill her now, before she leaves. Before she hurts anyone else that you love .

But I forced the hot, aching, greedy, reckless rage aside and buried it under the cold, inescapable logic of the situation. Because the part of me that was the Spider — the cold, hard, rational, ruthless part of me that would always be the Spider — realized that attacking Mab now would be suicide.