I stared at his suit, then at his briefcase, then at the tablet he was still holding out to me. And I finally got an inkling of why Silvio was really here.

I laughed. “Sorry, Silvio, but I’m not the type who needs or wants an assistant.”

He waved his hand, pooh-poohing my objections. “A business owner such as yourself, not to mention a prominent elemental, needs a professional assistant. Trust me on that.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t. Besides, you worked for Benson for years. Don’t you want to take a break? Rest and relax and all of that?”

Silvio’s index finger tap-tap-tapped on the tablet, making image after image flash by on the screen. “What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been sitting on that riverboat for the past few days, and I’m already bored out of my mind. I’m one of those people who need to keep working, Gin.”

“And you’ve decided that you want to work for me?” I shook my head again. “Some folks would say that you had a death wish, Silvio. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly the safest person to be around. And it’s only going to get worse, given what I did to Benson. No doubt, the other underworld bosses will see it as the opening salvo in some sort of war against them.”

He nodded. “Of course they’ll see it that way.”

“And here I thought that I was just doing a bit of pest extermination.”

Silvio gave me a patronizing look, apparently not getting my joke. Admittedly, it was a bit lame.

“By killing Benson in the manner that you did, you declared yourself to be a major power player in Ashland and worthy of being Mab Monroe’s successor. You’ve thrown your hat into the ring, Gin. There’s no taking it back now.”

I sighed. “I know. But it had to be done. I couldn’t let things keep going on the way they were.”

He nodded. “And I believe it was precisely the right action to take. Whatever you think of Beau, everyone knew that he was strong and not someone to be trifled with. Now they’ll think the same of you. Trust me. People won’t just come here to kill you anymore. They’ll want to do business with you too. Perhaps even hire you as the Spider. All that means meetings and a calendar and a schedule to keep.”

I groaned.

“And that’s why you need me,” Silvio continued. “To keep everything organized, but mostly, to be your eyes and ears and keep you apprised of any threats.”

“You want to spy on the other underworld bosses for me?”

“I wouldn’t call it spying. Not exactly. But you’d be surprised how much you can learn by just being someone’s assistant, hanging around outside of meetings, chatting with other assistants, and the like.”

The truth was that I could use a middleman of sorts, if only to try to warn would-be assassins away from me and the restaurant. But I wasn’t about to take advantage of Silvio that way. That would make me no better than Benson, always expecting him to fetch my coat for me.

I shook my head again. “I appreciate the offer, Silvio. Really, I do. But I don’t need an assistant. So take this time for yourself. Do the things that you’ve always wanted to do. You don’t owe me anything for saving you, if that’s what this is about.”

Silvio straightened up, his face as indignant and insulted as if I’d slapped him with a black glove. “Of course I don’t owe you anything. Frankly, I didn’t expect you to come back for me. It was rather stupid of you to do so, especially for me, a complete stranger. And you should have just let Mr. Lane put a couple of bullets into Beau’s head, instead of facing him down yourself. In the future, I hope that you will refrain from taking such foolish risks. I would hate to have to search for another employer.”

The chiding note in his voice reminded me of Fletcher. I raised my eyebrows at him, and Silvio calmed down.

“But I do owe you for Catalina,” he said. “I told Laura that I would watch out for her, and I haven’t exactly done a terrific job of it. But you saved Catalina from Benson, you protected her when I could not, and I am more grateful for that than you will ever realize. I always pay my debts, Gin. You should know that about me.”

“I would have helped Catalina regardless of you or anything else.”

He smiled a little. “I know that too. It’s why I’m going to work for you instead of just paying you off.”

“Lucky me,” I murmured.

But Silvio wasn’t about to be denied. He gestured down at his tablet again. “Now that that’s all settled, why don’t we get started?”

30

I protested again that I didn’t need an assistant, or whatever Silvio saw himself as, but he remained stubbornly steadfast in his insistence that I did. Luckily, some new customers came into the restaurant to take me away from him. I thought that would be the end of things, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he picked up his stuff and settled himself in an out-of-the-way booth next to the restrooms, alternately texting on his phone and typing on his tablet.

I had no idea what he was so furiously typing, but I didn’t have the heart to send him away. If he truly was trying to organize my schedule, it would probably go something like this.

Eat breakfast. Come to work. Check for booby traps. Open restaurant. Ask Sophia to dispose of the latest bodies in the cooler. Kill would-be assassins during afternoon trash run.

And so on and so forth.

But Silvio seemed happy enough doing whatever he was doing, so I left him alone. Besides, I had other things to worry about—like the black Audi.

I’d been keeping an eye out for it, wondering when the occupants would make an appearance at the Pork Pit. And when it pulled up to the curb and sat there idling, it seemed as though its occupants were debating whether or not they really wanted to come inside. Oh, she wanted to come inside, all right. And I wanted her to.

I wanted to confront my new enemy and my oldest problem face-to-face.

I was mildly surprised that it had taken her this long to make an appearance, but I was grateful for the last few days of solitude. I finished wiping down the table I’d been working on, then wandered over behind the counter to where Sophia was chopping up some onions.

“Two women are going to come into the restaurant,” I said. “An elemental and a giant. Just keep cooking. Don’t pay any attention to them, no matter what happens.”

“Who are they?” Sophia rasped.

“They’re connected to this whole Benson mess. I can handle them. Nobody you need to worry about today. Okay?”

She nodded and kept chopping onions.

As if on my cue, the bell over the front door chimed, and two women walked into the restaurant: the giant and the auburn-haired woman.

One of the waitresses went over to seat them and take their order. The waitress handed me the ticket for their burgers, potato salads, onion rings, and sweet iced teas, and I spent the next few minutes fixing their food. Once again, the giant stared around the restaurant, her cold, flat eyes assessing everyone inside. Her gaze lingered on Silvio, who was seated three booths away, but he kept fiddling with his tablet as though he were totally engrossed in it, and her eyes moved past him.

The auburn-haired woman kept glancing at me, not being nearly as subtle as she had been the first time she’d eaten in my joint, but I paid no attention to her, as though I didn’t notice her stares. When I was finished with their food, I handed the plates off to the waitress, who served them. Then I sat down on my stool behind the cash register, reading my way toward the conclusion of You Only Live Twice, as if they were just another pair of customers.

They weren’t, of course, especially since I was certain that both of the women wanted me dead. Well, the feeling was definitely mutual. But this was their chess game, and I would play along—for now.

I stayed by the cash register and read my book while the two women ate. Eventually, they began talking to each other in low voices. Silvio started typing and tapping even more furiously on his tablet. I had no idea what he was doing, and I was too concerned about this new threat to care.

The women finished their food, but they dawdled over their dirty dishes, chatting as though they were having the grandest time in the world. Maybe they were. Or maybe they were just waiting for me to notice them. Well, they’d waited long enough.

I’d been about to get off my stool, go over, and formally introduce myself when the giant slid out of the booth and came over to the cash register, the order ticket in her hand. She handed me some bills, telling me to keep the change. I thought that she would walk away, but instead, she jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

“She’d like a word with you,” the giant said.

“I just bet she would.”

The giant blinked, apparently surprised by my snide tone, but I decided to oblige her. The giant stayed by the cash register, so I walked around the counter, went over, and slid into the booth across from the auburn-haired woman. She looked at me, and I stared back at her.

Silence.

All around us, the other diners kept eating, talking, and laughing, but the auburn-haired woman and I sat in quiet contemplation, studying each other the way enemies do.

Heart-shaped mouth. Perfect cheekbones. Vivid green eyes with large black pupils. Just the right amount of understated makeup to bring out her pale, milky complexion.

Up close, she was even more stunning than I remembered, easily one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, right up there with Roslyn. She was dressed in an expensive white business suit that showed off the toned, sleek lines of her body, but my gaze locked onto her most important feature.

Her rune necklace.

She hadn’t been wearing it the first time she’d been in here, but a thick silverstone chain ringed her neck now, with a large pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat, a crown with a flame in the center of it. The rune for raw, destructive power, the same symbol that had been stamped into the Burn pills. The crown was also crafted out of silverstone, but it was the flame in the center of the design that caught my eye, since it was made out of a single large emerald.

But the more I looked at the rune, the more I stared at her, the more I saw another rune, another face, another woman. One who was all too familiar to me. I imagined that this new version was going to be just as much trouble for me as the last one was—maybe even more so.

“It’s so lovely to finally meet you in person, Ms. Blanco,” the woman purred, her voice low, smooth, and silky, just like her mother’s had been. “I’ve heard so much about you and your restaurant. I was delighted to find that the food was as good as people have claimed it was.”

It was a backhanded compliment, if that, the sort of zinger that high-class society folks deliver with pomp and panache, as if life is a game they can win by putting people down to score the most points.

Then she smiled, as if she’d thought of that half-assed insult especially for me, and I flashed back to the last time and place I’d seen that soft, sly expression on her crimson lips: Mab Monroe’s funeral.

Back then, she’d been wearing a black veil to partially obscure her face, and I hadn’t had a clue to her identity, but I knew exactly who she was now. I’d had my suspicions the second I’d picked up her fork the first time she’d come into the Pork Pit, although reading through Benson’s ledger had confirmed many of my theories, in addition to finally giving me her full name.

“I’m sure you’re wondering who I am and why I wanted to talk to you,” she said.

“Not particularly. Lots of folks like to come in and chitchat with me about all sorts of things. The weather, sports, books I’m reading, all their best-laid plans to kill me. Some of them are more entertaining than others. You haven’t really impressed me so far, either with your wit or with the lousy tip you told your bodyguard to leave.”

Her smile melted a little at my snarky sarcasm, but she quickly turned the wattage back up on it. This was her moment, her time to shine, her grand entrance, and she wasn’t going to let me ruin it.

She really should have known better—just like her mother before her.

She drew in a breath. “I’m—”

“There’s no need for introductions. I know exactly who you are,” I said, cutting her off.

Her face crinkled a faint bit in displeasure. I was ruining her shocking reveal. “You do?”

“Oh, yeah,” I drawled. “It’s not every day that you meet someone with the same three initials. M.M.M. Quite distinctive.”

Her eyes glittered. “Yes, but do you know what those initials stand for?”

“Of course,” I replied. “It was written down in Beauregard Benson’s little black book, so to speak. He might have been a sick son of a bitch, but he was an excellent records keeper, especially when it came to his drug empire and all of his buyers and suppliers. You were the focus of his most recent entries. Benson made several pages of notes, speculating on how you had perfected your Burn formula and wondering if you had ever tested it on yourself or your giant friend there. I have to admit that I’m a mite curious about that myself.”

She didn’t respond, so I gave her a winning smile and held out my hand to her to shake.

“But you’re right. It is so very nice to finally meet you in person,” I said. “Madeline Magda Monroe.”

31

M.M. Monroe didn’t like having her thunder stolen, not at all, but she recovered quickly. She leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave me a cool, assessing look.

“I’m sure that you know my name too,” I said, dropping my hand down to the table and mimicking her posture. “It’s Gin, like the liquor. I don’t think that we should stand on formality, do you? Not after all our families have been through together over the years.”