Jennifer Estep - Web of Lies

I drew in a breath, but the grease and spices that flavored the air from the morning’s cooking didn’t soothe me the way they usually did. I stared at the newspaper again, wondering how I’d been so sloppy as to get the Pork Pit plastered across the front of it.

Publicity was one thing I didn’t need. The very last thing I needed. I hadn’t advertised my services when I’d been a working assassin, and I certainly didn’t want to broadcast my whereabouts now that I was retired. Not that anyone had any reason to suspect that Gin Blanco, restaurant owner and part-time college student, was actually the renowned assassin the Spider. But still I worried.

Paranoia was good. It had kept me alive this long. No reason to abandon it now.

“Come on, Gin. It’s not that bad,” a deep, male voice cut into my brooding. “At least he made you out to be the hero instead of the villain. How often does that happen?”

I glared at Finnegan Lane, who sat on a stool across from me drinking a cup of chicory coffee. Finnegan looked every bit like the smooth-talking, money-swindling investment banker he was. A fitted gray suit draped over his solid frame, along with a matching wool coat. His starched, tailored sage shirt brightened his eyes, which were the slick green of a soda pop bottle. His walnutcolored hair curled over the collar of his coat. His thick locks had a sexy, stylish, rumpled look that had taken Finn at least ten minutes, two mirrors, and several squirts of product to obtain.

In addition to being my money man, Finnegan Lane was also the son of my mentor, Fletcher. Finn was like a brother to me and one of the few people I trusted since the old man’s murder. Finn was also my handler now, for lack of a better word. He didn’t like my decision to retire, as it robbed him of his lucrative fifteen percent handling fee, but he understood why I’d done it. That I was honoring Fletcher’s wishes. Besides, Finn had plenty of other less-than-legal schemes to keep him busy — when he wasn’t out fucking anything in a miniskirt or attending some high-society function and rubbing elbows with his clients who were even more devious, crooked, and dangerous than he was.

“Besides,” Finn continued in a matter-of-fact voice.

“You can’t kill the reporter. Nobody wants him dead, ergo, there’s no one to pay your rather substantial fee. Remember what Dad said — never work for nothing.”

Finn took another sip of his coffee. I drew in a breath, letting the rich caffeine fumes fill my lungs. Fletcher had drunk the same chicory coffee when he’d been alive, and the familiar roasted smell comforted me better than a warm hug. Finn was right. I couldn’t kill the reporter for doing his job. No matter how much trouble he’d just caused me with his story.

“All right, so I won’t kill him,” I said. “How about you ruin his credit instead? Call in his mortgage or something?”

“Mortgages,” Finn scoffed. “Dime a dozen in this city, penny ante, and not worth the trouble.”

He drained the rest of his coffee and stared at me.

“What about the kid, the would-be robber? Did you know he was Jonah McAllister’s son when you broke his wrist and threatened to slit him from groin to gills?”

“It wasn’t a threat so much as a promise.” I shrugged.

“And no. Didn’t matter to me who his daddy was then, and it doesn’t matter to me now.”

Finn swiveled around on his stool and looked at the rest of the restaurant. Just before noon on a Tuesday. Despite the gray clouds and cold, rainy weather outside, I should have had at least twenty customers by now, with more coming in every minute, all eager to get their barbecue fix on, and the phone ringing off the hook with takeout orders. Instead, a lone woman huddled in a booth in the back of the restaurant, out of sight of the storefront windows. A young girl who looked all of eighteen, nineteen, tops.

Nobody else sat at the long counter or in the booths.

Not a single person stood outside staring in through the windows, and no one had called for takeout. Not even my Tuesday regulars. Hell, nobody besides the girl had come in all morning, not even the mailman. He’d just slid the day’s bills through the mail slot and scurried on to the next stop on his route as though this were a house of lepers.

“And you wonder why you don’t have any customers,” Finn murmured. “Jonah McAllister’s put the word out that you are persona non grata. And I’m sure the story in the newspaper didn’t help matters, either. Nobody wants to eat someplace where they might not have cleaned up the blood yet.”

“What does McAllister think he’s going to do?” I asked. “He can’t keep people away forever. The food’s too good. Even if he could, I still wouldn’t starve.”

“Thanks to my years of wise monetary advice and stellar investing skills,” Finn not so humbly stated.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, thanks to your skills. If Jonah McAllister thinks a couple of days of lousy business are going to intimidate me into dropping the charges against his loser kid, then he needs to think some more.”

“Jonah McAllister doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” Finn replied. “If he knew you were the assassin the Spider, he’d probably just borrow a couple of Mab Monroe’s giants to try to kill you before you could testify against his son.”

“Former assassin,” I corrected. “And let Jonah McAllister send some of Mab’s goons after me. We both know exactly how that would turn out.”

Finn snorted. “Yeah, with their blood on the floor of the restaurant.”

I grinned. “C’mon. You have to admit I do good work.”

“Deadly work, perhaps. You know how I feel about the word good .” He shuddered.

Like me, Finnegan Lane was firmly entrenched in the shady side of life, with morals that bent easier than wet grass. Banking regulations, married women, public indecency laws. Finn fucked around with whatever and whomever he could without getting caught. Even when he did, he always found a way to wriggle out of whatever messy love triangle he currently found himself in.

Finn was more slippery than grease on a hot skillet. He preferred to tackle problems in a roundabout way, which usually involved pulling his pants up while he ran away from whatever gun-toting husband was hot on his trail.

Me? I went at my problems straight on — and knife point first. Another reason Fletcher Lane had trained me to be the assassin, and not his son, even though Finn was two years older than me.

Finn held up his empty cup and let out a low whistle between his teeth. A moment later, Sophia came through the double doors that led to the back of the restaurant.

The dwarf clenched a battered silver coffeepot in her stubby fingers. The one she always kept warm for Finn.

Fletcher too, before he’d died. Once again, Sophia wore her usual Goth outfit — black jeans, a black T-shirt, and black boots. Today, dainty silverstone hearts hung from her black leather collar. They clanged and clashed like cymbals as she walked.

“Sophia? Pretty please?” Finn smiled and held out his empty cup.

The Goth dwarf grunted, but the corners of her lips, crimson today, twitched upward into a tiny smile.

Finnegan Lane could charm any woman he set his mind to, and he enjoyed practicing his skills on every female within a twenty-foot radius. Young, old, pretty, toothless.

Didn’t much matter to Finn. He enjoyed playing the part of the old-fashioned, charming, Southern gentleman to whatever audience was handy. Even the gruff, tough Sophia Deveraux wasn’t immune to his ladykiller smile.

Then again, he’d had thirty-two years to wear her down.

Finn batted his green eyes at Sophia while he sipped his fresh cup of coffee. Sophia gave him another minuscule smile, then moved over to the double sink, where she was draining a colander of elbow macaroni to make some salad. Normally, during the lunch hour rush, there wouldn’t be room to move or turn around back here.