Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, got up the next morning, and went to the Pork Pit, my barbecue restaurant in downtown Ashland. I parked six blocks away from the restaurant and stepped onto the sidewalk, easing into the crowds of commuters scurrying to work on this cold December morning. The sun was shining for a change, but the weak rays gave off no real warmth, and everyone had their chins tucked down into their coats, their breaths billowing out around them in thick clouds of frost.

   I hurried along with everyone else, although I kept glancing around and looking at the reflections in all the glass storefront windows, trying to see if anyone was following me. I didn’t spot anyone, but that didn’t mean anything. Not with a skilled professional like Fedora working for the Circle. I wouldn’t even see someone like her coming until she had put three bullets in the back of my head. Still, I kept as good a watch as I could. Just in case.

   I made my way to the Pork Pit and did my usual check of the front door and windows, on the off chance that someone had left a rune trap, bomb, or other nasty little holiday gift for me. But the door and windows hadn’t been tampered with, so I headed inside and repeated the process. The blue and pink vinyl booths were clean as well, along with the tables and chairs, and no one had been inside since I’d locked up last night. So I put a blue work apron on over my clothes and got started on my morning chores, including making a vat of my mentor Fletcher Lane’s secret barbecue sauce.

   Getting into my usual routine and breathing in all the cumin, black pepper, and other sweet and spicy fumes from the simmering sauce made me feel a smidge better. So had doing those silly drawings with Lorelei last night. Sure, Fedora might have gotten away, but Phillip and I were okay, and that was the most important thing. Besides, sooner or later the Circle would make a mistake. I just had to be ready to take advantage of it when they did.

   At ten o’clock, a soft knock sounded on the front door, and I let Silvio Sanchez inside the restaurant.

   “You don’t have to knock, you know. I gave you your own key weeks ago. You can come in anytime you want to.”

   “Knocking is the polite thing to do,” the vampire murmured back to me. “And in this case, it’s the prudent thing as well. Especially when your boss is an assassin who doesn’t take too kindly to people sneaking up on her.”

   “Point taken.”

   Silvio shrugged out of his long gray trench coat, revealing his matching gray suit, shirt, and tie underneath. He hung his coat on the rack by the door, then swept off his gray fedora and placed it there as well.

   My gaze locked onto his fedora, and just like that, my mellow mood vanished. Silvio realized what I was staring at.

   “It’s just a hat, Gin,” he said in an amused voice. “Not a vessel for the ultimate evil.”

   I grunted and stepped behind the counter that ran along the back wall of the restaurant. I pulled out a sharp, serrated knife from a butcher block and started slicing tomatoes, lettuce, and onions for the day’s sandwiches. Cutting things always made me feel better.

   Silvio perched on his usual stool at the counter and fired up his phone and tablet for the morning briefing, as he liked to call it. The vampire ran down everything he’d found out about Fedora overnight, which basically was nothing. He’d been in touch with Bria and Xavier and had gotten a license-plate number for the SUV off a security camera in the neighborhood. Silvio had tracked the vehicle to its rightful owner, who had reported it stolen a few hours before the attack at McAllister’s mansion. No doubt Fedora had abandoned the vehicle by now. Another dead end.

   So Silvio moved on to other underworld matters, including a couple of bosses who needed me to mediate yet another petty dispute. I sighed. More often than not, I felt like being the head of the Ashland underworld was like serving as the CEO of the most dangerous company ever. Only I didn’t get a cushy payday, a corner office, a private jet, or any other sweet corporate perks. Just more and more people planning, plotting, and biding their time until they decided that they were finally ready to try to kill me.

   But I forced myself to listen to Silvio and follow along. Everyone else still thought that I was the big boss, so I had to act like it. At least until I found out more about the Circle, how they fit into the Ashland underworld, and whose strings they were pulling, other than my own. Besides, if the other bosses ever found out about the Circle and realized that I was not the ultimate power in Ashland, that would only make them that much more determined to kill me so they could move up in the underworld food chain.

   Silvio suggested that we schedule some meetings with a few of the more important criminals, and I reluctantly agreed.

   Then I moved on to the other pressing topic of the day. “What about Jonah McAllister? Is he still holed up in his mansion?”

   Silvio nodded. “As of ten minutes ago, according to one of Jade’s people. She has them texting me updates, but so far, everything is quiet.”

   “Fedora wouldn’t come back until tonight anyway. That’s what I would do. How did Jade take my request?”

   “Jade was more than happy to offer her assistance,” Silvio said. “She already had several folks working in the area, including a security guard who patrols that particular neighborhood. She’s not even going to charge you for it, although she would like to request a small favor in return. Although said favor is unspecified at this point.”

   “Of course she would.”

   Jade Jamison was a savvy businesswoman, and she knew that having me owe her one would be worth more in the long run than any money I might pay her for her surveillance services.

   Silvio mentioned a few other things that needed my attention before a couple more knocks sounded on the front door, and the rest of the workers started showing up, including Catalina Vasquez, Silvio’s niece, and Sophia Deveraux, who was wearing a long black trench coat with a silver sequined skull wearing a red Santa hat stitched across the back. It matched the rest of her Goth clothes, including her black-and-silver, candy-cane-striped sweater. Sophia always showed her holiday spirit in a unique way.