He bent down and smiled right in her face. “Well, it looks like I finally have one, doesn’t it?”
Xavier stepped up beside my sister. “Bria’s a good cop. Everybody knows that. And everybody knows that you’re just a thug who likes to hide behind his badge and the power you think it gives you.”
Dobson straightened up and gave Xavier a hostile look. “And you should be grateful that I’m going to let you keep working here. But, for the record, as of this moment, you’re being busted back down to patrol, Xavier. The graveyard shift over in Southtown. Good luck with that.”
A muscle twitched in Xavier’s jaw as he ground his teeth together. That was the worst possible shift in the worst possible part of town. Xavier would be lucky if he made it a week without getting shot at—or worse. But even more than that, it was a proverbial slap in the face after all his years of working his way up through the ranks, especially when all he was guilty of was doing the right thing and standing up for his partner.
But Bria wasn’t afraid of Dobson and his threats. She moved even closer to him, her eyes colder than I’d ever seen them before, even when she was fully embracing her magic.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” she said in a voice that was pure ice. “I don’t know what Madeline Monroe paid, promised, or plied you with to set all this up, but I hope that you enjoyed it. Because she’s going to burn you alive with her acid magic the second you are no longer useful to her. The next time you’re in the station, they’ll be carrying you in on a stretcher, with what’s left of you stuffed into a black body bag.”
Every part of Dobson bristled at her harsh words, even his already spiky, salt-and-pepper hair. “You know what? I’ve had enough of you two and your empty threats. Pack up your shit, get out, and don’t ever come back. That’s an order, Coolidge.”
He whirled around to stomp away, but Bria reached out and latched onto his arm. Dobson shook her off as hard as he could. Given his giant strength, Bria went flying back five feet into her desk, bouncing off the side of the sleek, shiny chrome and falling on her ass. But my sister scrambled right back up onto her feet. She started to throw herself at Dobson, but Xavier held his hand out, stopping her.
But Dobson had had enough because he let out a low growl and drew back his massive fist. He was actually going to hit Bria in front of everyone. His murderous brown gaze locked onto my sister’s face, and I knew that he was going to punch her as hard as he could—and that he could easily break her neck with that one blow.
I didn’t think—I just acted.
I stepped in front of my sister and shoved her back toward Xavier, out of the way of Dobson and his killing strike. Even as I pushed Bria back, I whirled around to face the captain. I wasn’t strong enough to catch his fist in my hand, so I ducked his punch, slammed my elbow into his potbelly, hooked my foot around his ankle, and used his own forward momentum to trip him and send his smug ass crashing down to the floor.
Loud, shocked gasps rang out, rippling through the crowd, but they vanished just as quickly, and silence fell over the entire station again.
One . . . two . . . three . . .
Five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . .
The seconds ticked by, but the only sound was Dobson’s heavy rasps as he lay on the floor and tried to get his breath back.
Then a small scrape-scrape sounded, as one of the hookers got up off the bench, making it slide back. The hooker gave me two thumbs-ups, then started clapping her hands together.
“Woo!” she called out. “You go, girl! You put that freeloading bastard in his place!”
The second hooker got to her feet and joined in. So did the third one, until they were all clapping and cackling with glee, along with Sophia, who let out an earsplitting whistle of approval. Their chuckles were contagious, and they surged throughout the station, spreading from one cluster of people to the next until everyone was laughing at Dobson.
His face turned from red to purple to almost black with rage as he sprawled on the floor, and he had another goose egg on his forehead to match the one he’d gotten from the freezer at the Pork Pit. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his wing tips slipped on the slick marble, and he fell back down onto his knees again. His clumsy effort only made everyone laugh louder.
This time, Dobson grabbed hold of one of the drawer handles on Bria’s desk and carefully hoisted himself upright. He turned first one way, then the other, and the chuckles stopped, the air thick and heavy with tension and silence again. Even the three hookers sank back down onto the bench and ducked their heads, although Sophia remained standing, her arms crossed over her chest, the words Kiss off showing on her T-shirt again.
Dobson stalked over to me and drew his fist back. I tilted my chin up and stood there, waiting for him to sock me in the jaw, or at least try to.
But at the last second, he thought better of it and stabbed his finger at me instead. “Arrest that bitch,” he snarled. “For assaulting an officer.”
“That seems to be a popular excuse with you,” I drawled. “And that was hardly an assault. Trust me. If I assaulted you, then you would be crying to your mama about it.”
“Take her away,” he growled. “Right fucking now.”
Rough hands grabbed me, pulling me away from Bria and Xavier. My sister reached for me, but Dobson stepped in front of her, blocking her path. Bria glared at him, her hand dropping to the gun holstered on her black leather belt, as if she was thinking about doing something violent and stupid, just like I had.
“It’s okay, Bria,” I called out. “He’s not worth it. I’ll be fine.”
But we both knew it was a lie, and more and more worry pinched her face.
“I’ll get you out of here,” she promised.
“Of course you will,” I replied in an easy voice.
Another lie, since we both knew the only way I was getting out of here now was in a pine box. I’d escaped Madeline’s trap to sucker me into police custody back at the restaurant, but now here I was tangled up in it all the same. She’d probably told Dobson to assault Bria at some point during their confrontation, knowing that I would step in to stop him. Part of me had realized that I was giving Madeline exactly what she wanted by taking down Dobson and that he would use my intervention as an excuse to arrest me. But at least I’d saved my sister from his physical wrath.
The two officers holding on to me tightened their bruising grips on my upper arms, but I didn’t move, I didn’t resist, and I didn’t fight back. That would just make things worse.
Silvio had been standing next to Sophia, and they both came striding over. The vampire planted himself in front of Dobson.
“Where are you taking my client?” Silvio demanded. “She didn’t do anything wrong. She was simply defending her sister. What could you possibly be charging her with?”
Dobson looked down his nose at the other man. “Assaulting an officer, for starters. As for the rest, well, give me a few minutes. With all the bad things that bitch has done, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with something else.” He glanced over at the men still holding on to me. “Take her away.”
“Forget it,” Silvio snapped. “She’s right here. Let’s get her processed and out on bail. Immediately.”
“Aw, I’m sorry, Mr. Lawyer Man, but I’m afraid that it’s too late to do that now. There’s just no way to process her in time for release before the end of business today. I’m afraid that your client will have to spend the night in jail.” Dobson held his hands out to his sides as though he were helpless in all of this. “Them’s the rules. I’m sure you understand.”
It was just after three in the afternoon, plenty of time to get me processed and out on bail, but we all knew that wasn’t going to happen. Now that Dobson had his hooks into me, he wasn’t going to let go until one of us was dead.
Silvio’s gray eyes glittered with anger, and he straightened up to his full height, which was still more than twelve inches shorter than Dobson’s massive, seven-foot frame. �
��What I understand is that if Ms. Blanco gets so much as a hangnail while she is in your custody, then she will sue you, the department, and every other person in this station.”
“So many empty threats,” another voice called out. “It’s a good thing that I happen to be an expert on legal matters like these.”
Jonah McAllister wove his way through the crowd, his shiny black wing tips tap-tap-tapping out on the floor the drumbeat of my approaching doom.
“Oh, look,” I drawled. “Another cockroach out in the middle of broad daylight. Will wonders never cease.”
Jonah’s jaw clenched, but the rest of his too-tight skin didn’t move with the sour expression. “Oh, Gin.” He let out a hearty, merry chuckle. “You don’t know how happy it makes me to finally see you here, where you belong.”
“Well,” I drawled back, “I’m sure that you can give me some tips on how to navigate the big house. Especially when it comes to bending over for everyone. Tell me, how is that pesky court case against you progressing? You know, the one with all those disturbing counts of murder, robbery, and conspiracy? Hmm?”
Jonah’s brown eyes narrowed, and his mouth flattened out as much as it could, but he didn’t respond to my taunt. Didn’t much matter. I knew the real reason he was here. In fact, I’d been waiting for him or even Madeline herself to show up ever since I entered the station. But I supposed that she was still too busy with the library dedication to her dead mama to come and see about me—yet.
Jonah looked over at Dobson. “Rest assured, Captain, that if this woman assaulted you, then you have every right to arrest her. The law will back you up on that, in my expert opinion.”
“The only thing you’re an expert at is being a weasel,” I cut in, ignoring his flimsy justifications. “We all know that Madeline sent you here to be her eyes and ears. Glad to see she’s found some use for you. It won’t last, though. You know that better than anyone. As soon as she’s done with you, Madeline will use her acid magic to dissolve that smooth face of yours into a puddle of melted skin. I bet it happens soon too. Like, say, right after that party she’s planning?”
It was a calculated jab, and I had the satisfaction of seeing Jonah blink in surprise. “How do you know about the coronation—”
He clamped his lips shut, realizing that he’d already said too much. This time, my eyes were the ones that narrowed. Coronation? Perhaps it wasn’t so much a party as it was Madeline asserting herself and taking control of the underworld, just like Mab had done so many years ago.
And I finally realized what Madeline’s crowning achievement was going to be—my murder.
This was it. This was her endgame. This was what all the underworld bosses had been so desperately trying to accomplish these last several months. Madeline had just been smarter, slyer, and more motivated to make it happen than anyone else. She had realized that sending her minions after me head-on like all the other bosses had was a stupid waste of time and resources. So she’d waited, and she’d plotted and planned, and she’d decided to hit me where it would hurt the most—by going after my friends. Roslyn. Owen. Eva. Finn. Jo-Jo. And now Sophia, Bria, and Xavier were caught up in the mess too.
Silvio had once told me that Madeline wanted to burn my world to the ground before she killed me. Well, so far, she was doing a bang-up job of it, and all I saw were flames every which way I turned. Hurt my friends, murder me, and take control of the underworld all at the same time. Even I had to admit that it was a neat, ambitious hat trick, and she was pulling it off beautifully so far.
“Enough talk,” Dobson growled. “She assaulted me, and she’s been arrested. So put that bitch in a cell. Now.”
Silvio, Bria, Xavier, and Sophia protested, shouting in louder and louder voices that I was innocent, that I hadn’t done anything wrong, that this was the worst sort of frame-up. But it was no use. Dobson was in charge, and all the other cops were either too crooked or too afraid of him to do anything but follow his barked orders.
So the fine boys in blue of the Ashland Police Department did what most of them had probably been dreaming about for a long time now—they carted my ass off to jail.
10
More and more cops surrounded me, creating an unbreakable ring, before the two officers still holding on to me shoved me forward.
I looked over my shoulder. Silvio, Bria, Xavier, and Sophia surged forward, but Dobson dropped his hand to his gun, a clear warning that he would start shooting if they tried to interfere or help me in any way. So my friends were forced to pull up short. Even if they’d gotten past Dobson, there was no way they could have fought their way through the rest of the cops flanking me.
“Gin! Gin!” Bria started yelling, standing on her tiptoes to see through the crowd that separated us.
“It’s okay!” I yelled back. “I’ll be all right!”
Her panicked gaze met mine for a split-second before the cops pushed me through an archway set into the back wall, and she disappeared from sight.
* * *
The archway opened up into a long hallway, with more wooden benches lining the walls, and rooms and jail cells branching off either side. But instead of stopping, opening one of the cells, and shoving me inside, the two cops tightened their hold on me and marched me to the far end of the hallway and through another archway.
Deeper and deeper we went into the station, twisting and turning through one corridor after another, with more and more members of the po-po coming out from their posts to join my parade. They didn’t want to risk my making a break for it. Hence all the muscle. Couldn’t blame them for that, since that’s exactly what I was thinking about. Slamming my fist into the face of one of my handlers, grabbing somebody’s gun, and shooting, fighting, and magicking my way out of here.
But it wouldn’t work. There were too many cops with too many guns and far too many itchy trigger fingers. No, right now, I needed to bide my time and see exactly what sort of game this was. Because I had a sneaking suspicion that Madeline wasn’t through playing with me yet. Otherwise, Dobson would have shot me in the middle of the station right after I’d tripped him, not ordered his men to cart me off to places unknown. So I would be patient and endure whatever torture was coming until I could figure out a way to turn the tables on Dobson and the rest of the cops.
Finally, we reached the end of this particular hallway, where a steel door was set into the wall. One of the officers plucked an old-fashioned skeleton key off a ring of them clipped to his belt, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door. The two officers pushed me forward, and I was forced through to the other side, where a short hallway opened up into a large room with one singular, striking feature—an enormous jail cell.
The cell itself was about twenty-five feet square, far larger than all the others we’d passed. Two long wooden benches squatted inside it, pushed up against the bars, while two dirty, grimy toilets were set into the back wall, jutting out from the gray marble. The rest of the room was completely bare and empty, except for dozens of wooden chairs that had been arranged outside the bars. Stairs led up to a second-floor balcony that wrapped around and overlooked the cell, almost as if it were a stage. But the most telling thing was that there were no security cameras anywhere. The cops didn’t want anyone to see what went on in here.
Even though I’d never before been here, I knew exactly where I was.
The bull pen—a place that prisoners went into and never came out of again.
But all I could do was stand there and wait while the officer used that same skeleton key to open the cell door. The second guy patted me down, but I’d left my knives, jewelry, and cell phone in Silvio’s car, so there was nothing for him to take away from me. When that was done, hands pressed on my back, shoving me forward into the middle of the empty space.
I righted myself and turned around. The officer quickly swung the cell door shut and locked it again, lest I try to make a break for it. Once I was secure, some of the tension eased, and the cops looked through the bars and
smirked at me, as if I were a tiger caged in a zoo. But I wasn’t the animal here—they were, for what they did in this place.
“I wonder how long she’ll last.”
“The bitch is supposed to be tough.”
“We’ll see just how tough when she goes against the group that Dobson picked out.”
“Who’s got the book on it?”
“Osborne, I think . . .”
I tuned out their sly murmurs, instead studying their faces, and memorizing as many of their twisted smiles as I could. I wasn’t dead yet, and if I lived through this, well, they were going to wish they hadn’t.
I thought whatever cruel thing they had planned might start immediately, but after making sure that the cell door was locked, the cops trickled out of the room and shut the main door behind them, probably off to report to Dobson that I was all squared away. I wondered if the captain would come back here to gloat, or if Madeline herself would show up, now that I was finally, exactly, where she wanted me. I didn’t know, but I had more important matters to think about right now.
Like escaping.
So I did what anyone stuck in a cell would do—I started trying to figure out how to get out of it.
But the thick, solid bars were all made of silverstone, and I couldn’t so much as rattle them. I might be a powerful elemental, but even I didn’t have enough juice to get through that much of the metal, and the bars would simply absorb any magic I threw at them. The floor was useless as well, since it was a solid slab of gray marble. Plus, we were on the ground level. Even if I cracked open the floor with my Stone magic, I had nowhere to go but down into the dirt. So I moved on to the back of the cell and splayed my hand across the cool wall.
The marble hummed with low notes of despair and desperation, the emotions of everyone who’d been locked in this cell. But mixed in with the somber chorus of doom were also high-pitched shrieks, the sharp, piercing, agonized cries of everyone who’d been forced in this cage before me and had left a bloody, tattered, broken mess.
Black Widow Page 10
