Crack!

The giant crumpled to the snow.

That shot had been much closer than any of the others, and my head snapped up.

Finnegan Lane stood on top of one of the shipping containers.

My brother was wearing a long gray trench coat over a gray suit. The fabric glimmered like pure silver in the moonlight, which also frosted the tips of his dark hair and brought out the hard planes of his handsome face. He looked like a ghost come back for vengeance.

He waved me over, and I sprinted in his direction. He swung his legs over the side of the container and dropped to the ground, then popped right back up, slinging his rifle on top of his shoulder and grinning widely, his green eyes glinting in his handsome face. In that moment, he looked so much like Fletcher that it made my heart squeeze tight. He’d come to my rescue, just like the old man had done so many times in the past.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I got your text about coming over to the Pork Pit,” Finn said, still grinning. “I pulled up right as those giants were carrying you out of the front of the restaurant. Looked like you could use a little help.”

He frowned, snatched his rifle off his shoulder, and fired off another round, dropping two more giants who’d been heading this way.

“You’re awfully popular tonight,” he drawled. “I think we should go and leave them wanting more.”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

More giants caught sight of us and starting firing, the bullets pinging off the metal containers all around us.

“Good idea,” I said.

Finn fired off another round of shots, then held his hand out. “Ladies first.”

I laughed and disappeared into the shadows, with him right beside me.

31

Finn and I made it out of the container maze and back to his car. He threw it into drive, and we zoomed away from the shipping yard. We didn’t speak for several blocks.

“Jo-Jo’s?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I winced. “My back is burned and frozen solid from Deirdre’s Ice magic. Double the fun, double the pain.”

He nodded and turned onto the highway that would eventually take us to Jo-Jo’s salon, and we both fell silent again.

Finally, I cleared my throat and gently placed Deirdre’s icicle-heart necklace on the console between us. I’d managed to hold on to it through the fight in the shipping yard. For a moment, Finn stared at the blood—Deirdre’s blood—that coated the diamond icicles. Then his lips pressed into a harsh line, and he looked away from the rune.

I’d spent the last few days tiptoeing around, trying to give him the time and space he needed to come to terms with everything, but I couldn’t do that anymore. Not after what happened tonight. Not after he’d shot his own mother to save me.

“I’m sorry you had to kill her,” I said in a soft voice. “I know how much you cared about Deirdre.”

Finn shrugged. “But she didn’t care about me, did she? Not one little bit. No matter how much I wanted her to.” His voice dropped to a low rasp, hurt and longing rippling through his words. After a second, he cleared his throat. “I’m glad it was me. I think that Dad would have wanted it to be me.”

“Why would you say that?”

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “After Santos got control of the bank and tied me to that chair, I asked Deirdre why she was robbing the bank. She told me everything. How she’d manipulated Dad into killing her parents so she could get her trust fund and then how she’d used me to get access to the bank.” He paused. “She said that I was an even bigger fool than Fletcher had ever been, because you’d warned me about her, and I’d refused to listen to you. She was right about that.”

I shook my head. “She was your mother. Of course you wanted to believe that she’d come back to Ashland to be with you. She was counting on it.”

He sighed. “Yeah, and I fell right into her trap. I hurt you because of her. And Bria and Jo-Jo too. I’m sorry about that. Sorrier than you will ever know. And I’m going to make it up to you, all of you.” His mouth hardened, and his hands tightened around the steering wheel. “But for right now, I’m just glad that bitch is dead.”

His voice was cold, but hurt still flickered in his eyes. Finn might have killed Deirdre to save me, but he’d be feeling the bitter bite of her betrayal for a long time to come, just like Fletcher had.

We rode in silence for a couple of miles before Finn spoke again.

“Tell me about the shipping yard,” he said. “What did Tucker want with you?”

I filled him in on everything that had happened. Everything Deirdre had said and everything Tucker had threatened, including that there was some sort of secret group that really pulled the strings of the underworld and everything else in Ashland.

“Who do you think they are?” Finn asked.

“I have no idea, but Tucker wanted me to work for them. To be their front woman, their puppet. Just like Mab, who he said had been working for the group all along.” My hands curled into tight fists in my lap, my fingers digging into the spider rune scars embedded in my palms. I drew in a breath and forced out the rest of the words. “Tucker claimed that my mother was involved with them too, although I don’t know how. He said that this group, this Circle, gave Mab the okay to murder her.”

Finn’s eyes widened, and he looked at me. “Do you believe him?”

A wild sob rose in my throat, and I wanted to scream that of course I didn’t believe Tucker, that of course it couldn’t be true, that of course my mother couldn’t have been working with him, with this group.