Sharpest Sting: An Elemental Assassin Book

by Jennifer Estep

  This picture was very, very real.

  That first image was only the beginning of this twisted trip down memory lane. I flipped through photo after photo, all of Fletcher and Mason. Eating in the Pork Pit, drinking lemonade and relaxing in lawn chairs in someone’s backyard, even fishing in a mountain stream. No matter the locale, one thing remained the same in every single shot: the two men grinning at each other as though they were the best of friends.

  With each new image, each warm smile and cozy scene, my heart splintered into smaller and smaller pieces. By the time I finished with the photos, my heart was thoroughly crushed, although each small, serrated shard of shrapnel kept grinding itself deeper and deeper into my body, slowly, surely, thoroughly shredding everything I thought I knew about Fletcher.

  Besides the photos, there was one more thing in the folder: a handwritten note on a sheet of yellowed paper.

  Mason,

  I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me to join your group. Together I think we can do great things as the Circle grows even stronger…

  I couldn’t read the rest of the note. Hot, sour bile clogged my throat, and it took every ounce of my self-control to keep from vomiting all over the note and the photos.

  “Gin?” Bria asked in a low, strained voice.

  “That’s Fletcher’s handwriting. It’s true. It’s all true,” I said in a dull, defeated voice. “The old man really did work for you. He really was a Circle assassin.”

  Mason rocked back in his chair and gave me another smug smile. “Oh, the Tin Man was one of the best. Elemental, vampire, dwarf, giant. There was no one he couldn’t find and eliminate. We had quite a productive partnership.”

  “Why?” Lorelei asked in a suspicious voice. “Why would Fletcher ever work for you?”

  Mason shrugged. “After Deirdre left Ashland, Fletcher was desperate to find and kill her for tricking him into murdering her parents and threatening sweet baby Finn. One thing led to another, and Fletcher eventually found his way to me. He stormed into this very study one night and demanded I tell him where Deirdre was.”

  “So he knew that you and Deirdre belonged to the Circle?” I asked, still confused.

  Mason shook his head. “Of course not. He’d never even heard of the Circle at that point. All Fletcher knew was that I had done business with Deirdre’s parents, and he thought I might know where she had gone. Fletcher didn’t realize that Deirdre had already asked me to hide her from him.”

  “That was when Deirdre started working for the Circle,” I said, filling in the gaps in his story. “You kept her safe from Fletcher, and in exchange, she started all those fake charities to launder the Circle’s money.”

  “Now you’re catching on, Gin,” Mason replied. “Most people would have eliminated Fletcher right then and there, but I knew his reputation as the Tin Man, and I saw a way to turn the situation to my advantage.”

  “You manipulated Fletcher,” Bria accused. “You told him some story and got him to work for the Circle.”

  Mason shot his thumb and forefinger at her, making the remaining sapphire paperweights on the desk rattle again. Bria tensed. So did I, along with Lorelei.

  He dropped his hand, and the stones stilled. Bria, Lorelei, and I let out a collective relieved breath.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I told Fletcher that I would help him find Deirdre—if he did a few jobs for me.”

  “You tricked him,” Lorelei said in a flat voice.

  Mason let out a low, throaty laugh. “Oh, my dear. I did no such thing. Fletcher went into our arrangement with his eyes wide open—and he enjoyed it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “After he discovered how thoroughly Deirdre had used, betrayed, and fooled him, Fletcher was brimming with bitterness. I helped him channel that bitterness, and he happily took his rage at Deirdre out on my enemies. He was exceptionally good at his job, and we got along quite well for several years.”

  I seized onto his words, desperate to focus on something—anything—besides the turbulent emotions rolling through me. “What happened between the two of you? Why did Fletcher leave the Circle?”

  “Eventually, the sting of Deirdre’s betrayal wore off, and Fletcher started asking awkward questions about who we were and what we were doing. At first, I thought he was taking a deeper interest in Circle business, but then I realized he’d figured out that the group wasn’t nearly as noble as I’d made us out to be.”

  Mason paused, and his gray gaze dropped to the photos on my lap, as though he was thinking back to those happier, simpler times. Then his nostrils flared with anger, and his mouth flattened out into a hard, thin, unforgiving line. “Tristan didn’t help matters.”

  I blinked at the unexpected change in topic. “What did Tristan have to do with you and Fletcher?”

  “Everything.”

  I waited for him to elaborate, but Mason stared into the amber depths of the bottle of Scotch and tap-tap-tapped his fingers on top of the black ledger. Several seconds passed before his fingers stilled. Mason roused himself out of his thoughts, pushed back from the desk, and got to his feet.

  I studied the positions of Tucker, Emery, and the six giants, wondering how we could kill our enemies. I could handle Emery, and Bria and Lorelei could take out the giants, but that still left Tucker to deal with and, of course, Mason, who could just wave his hand, explode all the stones in here, and drive the chunks into our bodies. Hard fists of worry and dread punched into my chest. It was still a fight we couldn’t win, and I didn’t know if we could even escape.

  Mason gestured out at the study. “I doubt your father ever mentioned it to you, Gin, but this mansion was built by our Mitchell ancestors. Our family lived in it for generations, and Tristan and I grew up here.”

  No, I hadn’t known that, but it didn’t surprise me, given how at home he seemed and how the structure’s stones reacted to his presence.

  Mason glanced around the room a few more seconds. “Let’s take a walk.”

  He headed toward the back of the study. Emery scuttled in front of him and opened one of the glass doors. Mason stepped outside and disappeared from view, but Emery stopped and jerked her head at the other giants.

  “Bring them,” she ordered.

  The giants stepped forward and lifted their guns, and Bria, Lorelei, and I had no choice but to get up, skirt around the desk, and head for the open door. Our path took us right by Hugh Tucker, who was still standing beside the desk like a dog waiting for a summons from its master.

  “I tried to warn you, Gin,” he murmured. “You should have listened to me.”

  The undeniable truth of his words slapped me across the face, and the file of photos that I was still clutching felt as heavy as an old-fashioned ball and chain weighing me down. Tucker was right. I really should have listened to him, but my arrogance, stubbornness, and curiosity had gotten the better of me, and now I was stuck in Mason’s web—one that would probably end up strangling us all.

  * * *

  We stepped out onto the porch that wrapped around this level of the mansion. Emery led the way, with Bria, Lorelei, and me behind her and the giants clustered behind us. Tucker brought up the rear and closed the glass door behind him.

  We plodded down the stairs to the ground level. Emery strode across the stone terrace that jutted out from the back of the mansion, through the grassy yard, and over to a path that curled past a garden filled with whitewashed trellises and a pretty gazebo. We followed the path into the neighboring woods.

  About a quarter mile later, the trees receded, revealing a large clearing in the woods. Despite its distance from the mansion, the grass here was smooth and even, and the ground was free of dead leaves, indicating that the area was regularly landscaped, even during the winter. Several crosses jutted up from the grass, along with square stones and other markers, all of which had been worn smooth by the wind, weather, and passage of time.

  It was a cemetery.

  Mason was wait
ing at the edge of the grass, and he held his arms out wide like a carnival barker showing off a wondrous attraction. “Welcome to Ashland Memorial Cemetery.”

  He moved deeper into the cemetery, and we followed him. I eyed the tombstones we passed, reading the names carved into the markers. Monroe, Shaw, Tucker, Rivera, Porter, Snow, Mitchell. Various symbols were also carved into the markers, including the sunburst rune that had belonged to Mab Monroe. Mab herself was buried at Blue Ridge Cemetery, just like Fletcher was, but I spotted a tombstone with her name on it, and it seemed as though several members of her family had been laid to rest here.

  No matter the family names, the tombstones all had one thing in common: they all prominently featured the Circle’s ring-of-swords rune.

  Mason stopped and turned to face us. “Several years ago, when my business started taking me away from Ashland for extended periods of time, I leased the mansion to the historical association. The members take care of the house and the heirlooms, but no one ever comes back here except for me and a few hard-core history and genealogy buffs.”

  “What’s so special about this place?” Lorelei asked. “It’s just an old cemetery. There are dozens of them in Ashland.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re right, Ms. Parker. There are dozens of old, forgotten cemeteries in the surrounding mountains, but this was the very first cemetery ever built in Ashland. Our founding fathers and mothers are resting in this hallowed ground.”

  Bria frowned. “Wait a second. You’re saying that the people who founded Ashland also created the Circle?”

  “Exactly! They were one and the same.” Mason gestured at the markers. “The Mitchells, Monroes, Snows, and other families banded together to decide how to run their new city. Eventually, that first large group winnowed down, as certain members’ fortunes rose and fell, and there came a clear divide among some of the families, an inner circle, if you will.”

  I’d always wondered how the group had gotten its name. A bit cliché, if you asked me.

  “And somewhere along the way, the Circle families decided that it would be better to slip into the shadows and rule from behind the scenes,” Lorelei said. “Smart.”

  Mason shrugged. “That was my grandfather Merle’s idea. He was a politician, but he realized that the more he was in the public eye, the more he had to answer to the common people and the less he could do the things he truly wanted. Merle decided he would rather run things discreetly than have to listen to the riffraff. If people don’t know you exist, then they can’t demand favors, blame you, or hold you accountable for things.”

  He looked at me. “Take Gin, for example. For years, you thought Mab acted alone and killed your mother because of some old family feud between the Monroes and the Snows. You were right, and you were wrong.”

  Before I could come up with some snarky retort, he walked on, heading deeper into the cemetery. Mason pointed out various tombstones and markers and shared interesting tidbits about the people buried here, as though he was some genteel tour guide showing us a historic attraction instead of just a sick, sadistic son of a bitch.

  Mason finished sharing his latest bon mot, and we stopped in front of a stone pavilion in the heart of the cemetery. Light gray marble columns rose up to support the A-line roof, also made of marble, but the rectangular structure was open on all four sides. Tall wrought-iron torches stood at all four corners of the pavilion, and flames flickered inside the glass globes, despite the afternoon sunlight. Wide, shallow steps led up to the front of the pavilion, and the name Mitchell was engraved in fancy cursive letters in the wide band of stone that topped the entrance. I held back a derisive snort. Of course, Mason would erect a monument to his family.

  I peered inside the structure. A single gray marble tomb was standing in the center, although it was much plainer than the other markers and didn’t feature the ring-of-swords rune.

  Mason gestured at the tomb. “I thought you girls might like to see where your father is really buried.”

  I jerked back in surprise, as did Bria beside me.

  “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  Mason gestured at the tomb again. “Tristan is buried here, not in Blue Ridge Cemetery next to your mother.”

  Suddenly, I saw the pavilion with new eyes. It wasn’t a monument to the Mitchell family. No, it was a fucking shrine to Mason and his power and how he had killed Tristan with it. Why else display your dead brother’s tomb in such garish, ghoulish fashion?

  Anger spiked through me, but I pushed it away. Right now, I needed answers, and I couldn’t afford to foolishly give in to my rage and disgust. Not if I wanted to escape with Bria and Lorelei.

  “Why did you kill Tristan?” I asked. “Why did you order Mab to murder our mother and Annabella?”

  Mason casually leaned a shoulder against one of the columns. “Tristan never liked being part of the Circle. Neither did Eira. They both kept whining and crying about some of our bloodier, more illegal activities. Tristan wanted us to turn over a new leaf and use Circle resources to help the city, rather than hinder it. His words, not mine. Once Fletcher started asking questions, Tristan thought he had finally found a way to wrest control of the group away from me.”

  “How?” Lorelei asked.

  Mason ignored her and stared at me. “Tristan told Fletcher the truth, that I had been hiding Deirdre all along. My brother begged Fletcher to kill me, and the Tin Man was stupid enough to take the assignment.”

  My heart clenched. I knew what was coming next. These sorts of stories always ended the same way—with death.

  “I suspected that Tristan was plotting against me, so I had him followed. As soon as he started secretly meeting with Fletcher, I knew what he was up to.” Mason paused. “And I punished him for it.”

  Lorelei grimaced, while Bria clamped her hand over her mouth, as though she was trying not to be sick. I just stood there, still clutching that folder of photos of Fletcher and Mason. Every word my uncle said made the thin file get a little heavier and harder to hold.

  “Tristan thought he could eliminate me, but I gathered up the Circle members who were loyal to me, and we killed the ones who weren’t.” Mason gestured at the tomb for a third time. “Fletcher managed to escape, but I had Tristan brought here, along with Eira. And then I killed him right in front of her.”

  Hot tears stung my eyes, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop the salty drops from streaking down my face. A couple of them splattered onto the folder in my hand, forming dark, wet spots on the manila.

  “Eira begged me to stop, but she had also betrayed me, so I made her watch while I dealt with Tristan. And then, once he was dead, I told her that if she ever betrayed me again, I would do the exact same thing to her and her three lovely daughters.”

  Mason told the story of my father’s torture and murder calmly, casually, as if it was of very little importance in the grand scheme of things. Lorelei stared at him with a horrified expression, while Bria dropped her head, her hand still clamped over her mouth.

  A faint buzzing sounded in my ears. It took me a few seconds to realize it was coming from the marble slabs of my father’s tomb. Unlike the sapphire paperweights and other knickknacks in the mansion study that had vibrated with delight at the feel of Mason’s magic, the stones here shuddered with revulsion at the low timbre of his voice.

  No! Please! Don’t! Stop!

  The buzzing sharpened, and I almost thought I could hear the stones crying out with distinct words—the ones my mother had screamed as she watched her husband being brutalized by his own brother. Somehow I resisted the urge to slap my hands over my ears to block out the phantom screams.

  Mason shook his head. “But Eira didn’t listen to me. Oh, she played it cool at first. For a long time, actually. Doing her job, keeping Circle records, and waiting for her girls to grow up. But one of my sources in the police department told me that Eira was plotting to expose the Circle to the cops, the media, and anyone else who would listen. I couldn’t have that, s
o I told Mab to kill Eira, along with her daughters.”

  By this point, Bria was openly weeping, and Lorelei slung her arm around my sister’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. I should have done it, but I felt rooted in place, stuck in the ground as firmly as the tombstones around us, although tears continued to roll down my face.

  “After I killed Tristan, Fletcher fell back in line, and he kept working for the Circle, even though I could tell how much he hated me. But I enjoyed having the infamous Tin Man under my thumb, so I let him live. Mab didn’t know about Fletcher’s history with me or the Circle, and I found it highly amusing and ironic when she tried to hire him to kill your mother. Even though Fletcher refused, I still let him live. It only made him more miserable to know he had failed Eira and her daughters the same way he had failed Tristan.”

  “You bastard!” I hissed. “You kept Fletcher around to torture him.”

  An evil grin creased Mason’s face, and his gray eyes glittered with a cold, vindictive light. “Yes, I did. And it was extremely satisfying.”

  Mason fucking Mitchell.

  Once again, Fletcher’s voice snarled in my mind, even louder and clearer than it had in the study, although I still couldn’t remember when or where I’d heard him say my uncle’s name.

  “So what happened?” Lorelei asked. “How did Fletcher finally get away from you?”

  “After a while, I grew tired of his petulance, and I started using him on fewer and fewer jobs,” Mason replied. “I was happy enough knowing that he was simmering in his own sauce inside the Pork Pit. But Fletcher, well, he just couldn’t be satisfied with our arrangement.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  Mason stared at me. “He broke into my personal archives and stole a ledger. But Fletcher was much smarter about using the information than your mother was. He didn’t go to the police or the media and try to expose me. Instead, he used the ledger as blackmail. He said as long as I left him alone, he would do the same to me, so we reached our little détente.”