Black Widow

by Jennifer Estep

  Jonah’s head snapped up and down as he hurried to reassure her. “Of course. I started sending out the invitations this morning. All the underworld bosses have gotten theirs by now. They will all be too curious and afraid not to come.”

  “Oh, I’m counting on it,” Madeline murmured. “Let’s go. I’m done here.”

  She and Emery both turned their backs to Jonah and strolled away. The lawyer swallowed and followed them, although his steps were much slower than theirs. His obvious misery at his new, tenuous status in life filled me with dark satisfaction.

  But I was going to get even more satisfaction when I crashed Madeline’s party.

  * * *

  The rest of the stragglers left, and a couple of guys in blue coveralls appeared, along with another one driving a small tractor with a crane attached to it. I held my position by the tombstone and eyed the men since I’d been attacked by gravediggers at Mab’s funeral as part of one of Jonah’s many plots to kill me. But the men ignored me, took a couple of swigs from the thermoses full of coffee they’d brought along, grabbed their shovels, and got to work.

  An hour later, a car cruised through the cemetery, following the winding path. By that point, the gravediggers and the guy on the tractor had gone, having finished their work. What was left of the casket spray of pink and white roses rested atop the disturbed, black earth. Behind the roses, my tombstone rose up, with my spider rune carved into the center of it. The mark was the same size as the scars on my palms.

  I was crouching down in front of the tombstone, staring at the words on the glossy, gray granite surface—Gin Blanco, beloved daughter, sister, and friend. Gone too soon.

  That last line had been Jo-Jo’s idea. Heh. Not everyone would think that, not after what I had planned.

  The car stopped, the door opened, and Owen got out. He walked over to my side and stared down at the tombstone, his violet eyes dark and unreadable. Owen hadn’t said much these past few days. Pretending that I was dead had been harder on him than anyone else. At night, when we were in bed together, he loved me with furious feeling, as if I might disappear if he didn’t hold on to me tightly enough. And I returned the favor.

  Because we both knew that I could still die before this was all said and done.

  But neither of us mentioned that uncomfortable fact, as if by not talking about it, that wouldn’t make it the very real possibility that it was.

  “What are you thinking about?” Owen finally asked.

  I stared at the tombstone that featured the day of my supposed death for a few more seconds, then rose to my feet. “I’m thinking that this is the second time that I’ve supposedly been buried in this cemetery, thanks to a Monroe.”

  I looked up the ridge where the Snow family was buried. A tombstone with my real name—Genevieve Snow—squatted up there, along with one that bore Bria’s name as well. Our mother, Eira, and older sister, Annabella, were actually entombed up there, along with our father, Tristan.

  “It must be strange,” Owen said. “Seeing how the world, how people, just . . . go on without you.”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t strange so much as it was sad, but I wasn’t about to confess that to him. Not now, anyway.

  “I don’t know if I could do that,” he said, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “Go on without you. I wouldn’t know how to do that.”

  “You would find a way, and I would want you to.” I stepped into his arms and cradled his face in my hands. “But you don’t have to worry about that because I’m not going anywhere. You should know by now that I’m very, very good at surviving. Even when I’m up against someone as dangerous as Madeline.”

  I pressed my lips to his. Owen returned my kiss, then shuddered and hugged me tight. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in his rich, metallic scent. We stood like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, in front of my grave for a long, long time.

  Finally, though, I drew back. Because Madeline was making her plans, and I needed to weave my web as well.

  So I kissed Owen one more time, then held out my hand. He threaded his fingers through mine. The warmth of his skin chased away the chill that I hadn’t even realized had sunk into my bones until right now. It was a beautiful, crisp fall day, so perhaps the cold had more to do with our standing over my supposed grave than anything else. Then again, I always felt a bit of a chill when I realized that I was still alive when I shouldn’t be. The trap that Madeline had set for me had been one of the most dangerous that I’d ever faced. Part of me still couldn’t believe that I was standing here in the sunshine, instead of being cold, dead, and buried in the ground.

  Owen led me away from the gravesite, but I couldn’t help but glance back over my shoulder. The sun was glinting off my tombstone, the bright rays filling in the lines of my spider rune and making it glimmer.

  I didn’t particularly believe in good omens, but I was going to take the shining silver light as a sign that I wouldn’t be back here anytime soon, to be buried for real after my final confrontation with Madeline.

  22

  Owen and I drove our respective cars back over to Jo-Jo’s, with him going all the way up the driveway, while I parked my rental two streets over, just like before.

  By the time I did a sweep of the subdivision to make sure that no one was watching the house, everyone had gathered in the salon, which had been converted into a makeshift war room. Several tables had been crammed in between the cherry-red salon chairs, and papers, blueprints, photos, and more covered all the available surfaces, overtaking the usual stacks of glossy beauty and fashion magazines. Pens, markers, and printouts were piled high in plastic tubs, mixed in with the lipstick, nail polish, and hair curlers that Jo-Jo used on her clients, and Silvio had even stacked some old copies of the Ashland Municipal Codex around Rosco’s wicker basket in the corner. But the basset hound seemed to be enjoying the makeshift fort, since he’d put his brown-and-black head on top of one of the thick books, snoring and drooling all over the faded yellow pages.

  Finn and Silvio were leading the charge, poring over papers and photos while they worked the phones, gathering the final scraps of information I needed to put my plan into action. Bria and Xavier stood in front of a dry-erase board that my sister had brought over from her house, ticking off the names that Owen, Phillip, and Roslyn called out to them off the printouts in their hands. Jo-Jo moved from one side of the room to the other, passing out bottles of water, while Sophia relaxed in one of the salon chairs, bobbing her head and snapping her fingers in time to the golden oldies streaming through her skull-shaped earbuds.

  While I’d been hiding out at Jo-Jo’s, Finn and Silvio had been looking into things for me, and they’d quickly learned that Madeline’s party tomorrow night wasn’t just about ding-dong-the-bitch-Gin-Blanco-is-dead. Oh, I’m sure there would be some crowing about that, but more important was that the acid elemental had invited every crime lord and lady in Ashland to her exclusive underworld shindig. I could imagine what she was going to do—proclaim herself to be the queen of them all, since she’d finally managed to do what none of them had been able to. Kill me. Or so she thought.

  I was so going to enjoy ruining her coming-out party.

  Since everyone was busy, and I had nothing to add, I slipped away from the noise of the salon and headed into the quiet of the kitchen. Given all the free time I’d had while playing dead, I’d been cooking a lot while I’d been staying with the Deveraux sisters. So it was easy enough for me to pile several platters high with the chocolate chip cookies, dark chocolate-cherry brownies, and a chocolate-mousse pie that I’d made.

  But I figured that we might want something a little more substantial to nibble on as the evening wore on, so I started making stacks of grilled-cheese sandwiches. Some plain, some stuffed with sweet, juicy slices of apples and pears, some filled with honey ham and bread-and-butter pickles, and some bulging with thick slices of tomato sprinkled with salt, pepper, and a touch of dill weed. I cut the hot sandwiches into triangles, gr
abbed some napkins, cups, and pitchers of lemonade and sweet iced tea, and carried everything into the salon.

  I slipped inside, and everyone kept right on working, except for Finn. He immediately perked up and sniffed the air a couple of times, just like Rosco did, then turned in my direction, his eyes even bigger and more eager than the basset hound’s.

  “Do I smell grilled-cheese sandwiches? With cookies? And lemonade?”

  I laughed, and we all gathered around to nosh on my postfuneral feast, as it were. While we ate, Finn and Silvio updated the rest of us on everything they’d been able to find out so far about Madeline’s party.

  “Looks like Madeline has invited everyone who’s anyone in the underworld,” Finn said, stuffing two triangles of the apple-and-pear grilled cheese into his mouth at once.

  “No, really?” Phillip snarked. “And here I thought that we were calling out and writing down the names of Ashland’s most dangerous criminals just for kicks.”

  “I agree with Finn,” Silvio added, nibbling on one of the chocolate chip cookies. “And we all know why Madeline went with this specific guest list. It’s not so much a party as it is a coronation, just like McAllister said.”

  “At least until someone shows up to assassinate the queen,” I chimed in. “A role that I am more than happy to play.”

  We all chuckled, but our laughter quickly died down. We all knew how dangerous my plan was, but it was the only way to protect my loved ones from Madeline, as well as hopefully get the one other thing I wanted—a little peace and quiet.

  So we spent the rest of the afternoon working, dividing up the parts of my master plan into small, manageable sections and tasks, just like Madeline had done when she was targeting us.

  Once Bria, Xavier, Roslyn, Owen, and Phillip had finished with the guest list, Finn took over, standing in front of the dry-erase board like a professor, telling us about all the rumors he’d heard about who was moving up in the underworld, who was getting pushed aside, and how many bodyguards they might bring with them to Madeline’s party. He even produced a laser pointer from somewhere to help with his lecture. Show-off.

  When we had a good idea of how many people were going to be attending the party, Silvio took over, since he’d gotten his hands on the most useful things of all—blueprints of the newly remodeled Monroe mansion, along with the guard rotations.

  Jo-Jo cleared off one of the tables, and Silvio unrolled the blueprints with a slight flourish, then bowed his head to me and stepped back so we could all crowd around them.

  Finn pouted. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on this info ever since Gin fake-died. How did you manage it?”

  “A good assistant never reveals his sources.” Silvio gave him a small, satisfied smile. “Perhaps people just like me more than they do you.”

  Finn glared at the vampire, but Silvio kept smiling. He liked needling Finn. Couldn’t blame him for that. It was certainly one of my favorite sports, so much so that I thought it should be an official national pastime.

  “Madeline doesn’t have as many guards as I thought she would,” Xavier rumbled, running his finger down a list of names. “Looks like about three dozen total, split three ways—guarding the perimeter, roaming through the mansion, and then at the party itself.”

  “Yeah, but you’re forgetting that she has Emery as the head of them,” Bria pointed out. “She’s worth at least three giants just by herself.”

  “Heh,” Sophia rasped, cracking her knuckles. “She’s not so tough.”

  We all looked at each other, but nobody argued with the Goth dwarf.

  After we’d reviewed the guard rotations and the blueprints, we moved on to the next phase—weapons.

  Finn got Xavier to help him carry several large, heavy duffel bags into the salon. A gleeful grin spread across my foster brother’s face, as though he were opening up presents on Christmas morning, instead of unzipping bags full of guns, silencers, and ammunition.

  “Where did you get all these on such short notice?” Phillip asked, hefting a revolver in his hand.

  “Why, they were a gift from Madeline,” Finn drawled. “The only good thing she’s ever done for us.”

  “They were the weapons she was going to buy from Harley Grimes to outfit her guards,” Owen added. “The ones we intercepted when Sophia and Jo-Jo killed him that night at Gin’s.”

  “They were just gathering dust and cobwebs in that tunnel under Dad’s house, so I figured that we might as well bring these babies out of storage and give them a spin.” Finn struck a pose with a particularly large rifle. “What do you think? Is gunmetal gray my color?”

  We all groaned.

  While Finn continued to show off with the weapons, Silvio drifted over and handed me a small sheet of paper.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I’m not quite sure, but I thought you should see it, since it’s part of the work that Madeline ordered done on the mansion. Most of the renovations were fairly standard stuff. New paint, new ceilings, new floors. But this is different.”

  “How so?”

  He tapped the paper. “From what I can tell, it’s a single suite of rooms that she’s had remodeled. A bedroom, a bathroom, and some sort of living room.”

  “What’s so unusual about that?”

  “This suite is on the bottom floor of the mansion, tucked away in one of the back corners, well away from the rest of the construction.” Silvio hesitated. “It almost seems like she’s been fixing up a place for someone to stay.”

  A chill ran through me at his words. “Madeline is going to have a houseguest?”

  “That’s my speculation.”

  “Who?”

  Silvio shrugged. “Unfortunately, that’s something I haven’t been able to find out.”

  He didn’t say anything else, but he could see the concern on my face. We were going to have enough problems dealing with Madeline, Emery, and their giant guards. We didn’t need to worry about anyone unexpected popping up to throw a wrench in our plans.

  “If it helps, the remodeling was only finished this morning,” he said. “Madeline’s guest probably hasn’t arrived yet and might not until after the party.”

  He was trying to reassure me, but it didn’t work. Silvio touched my shoulder, then moved back over to talk to Jo-Jo.

  I kept staring at the paper in my hand, not really seeing all the lines, squiggles, and other marks. I wasn’t an Air elemental, so I never got glimpses of the future like Jo-Jo did. But for some reason, I felt more concerned about Madeline’s mysterious houseguest than I did about anything else.

  * * *

  While my friends talked among themselves, I roused myself out of my worry and stepped back so that I was in the doorway of the salon, my gaze sweeping over the interior. The blueprints, the names scribbled on the dry-erase board, the duffel bags full of guns and ammo, even the old copies of the Ashland Municipal Codex that were stacked around Rosco’s basket.

  As I looked at first one thing, then another, I thought and thought and thought about things, my mind whirring a hundred miles an hour. Trying to picture how it would all go down. Trying to see if there were any holes in or problems with my plan that I hadn’t accounted for. Trying to anticipate how Madeline and the underworld bosses might react when they realized that I was still alive.

  Trying to figure out if I was dooming myself and my friends to a short, pain-filled night that would end with all our deaths.

  But this was how it had to be. I was only going to get one shot at Madeline, and this was it. So I thought about Fletcher and what he might have done in my place. I thought that the old man would have approved of my plan and all the lessons I’d learned that night so long ago when we were trapped in those metal barrels. The ones that I’d largely forgotten about until Madeline had so cruelly reminded me of them.

  The others realized that I was staring at them, and they quieted down and looked back at me.

  “Well,” I said, grinning wide, “I thi
nk we’re ready to give Madeline and the rest of the Ashland underworld a night that they will never, ever forget. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  23

  The next evening, I got ready for the most important party of my life.

  Or at least, what might be left of it.

  According to what Jo-Jo had learned, Madeline was going to be wearing some fancy, haute couture gown to her shindig, but I dressed the way I always did—to kill.

  Tonight, that meant black boots and thick black coveralls that zipped up to my neck. I also tucked my five knives into their usual slots, since Silvio had returned them to me. My spider rune ring was back on my right index finger where it belonged, with the matching necklace resting in the hollow of my throat underneath my coveralls. Both pieces pulsed with more of my Ice and Stone magic than ever before, since I’d spent a good portion of my time hiding out at Jo-Jo’s pouring my power into the silverstone. They were the two most important parts of my plan, even more so than my knives. Tonight, my jewelry would determine whether I lived or died.

  The others geared up in similar style, and we packed the rest of our supplies into black duffel bags. I wanted to hang on to the element of surprise for as long as possible, so weapons weren’t the only things we were going to need tonight.

  Finally, when we were all ready, we gathered in the salon to check everything one last time. Me, Owen, Bria, Finn, Xavier, Jo-Jo, and Sophia. Phillip, Silvio, and Roslyn were also in on the plan, but they were going in another way. Eva, Violet, and Catalina had wanted to help as well, but we’d voted them down, and the girls were up at Country Daze, with Warren and Cooper watching over them. If things went wrong, the guys would protect them from the fallout.

  And things could go so horribly wrong tonight.

  Owen came over and slid his arm around my waist. “Are you ready for this?”

  I let out a breath. “Yeah. I’m ready, consequences and all. Finally.”