Gin Blanco retired from the assassin business, but that doesn’t mean she’s done with killing. Mab Monroe is still calling the shots in Ashland. But Gin has no intention of letting the woman who murdered her mother and sister remain unpunished. First she’s going to have to face a new enemy, however. Luckily she’s got a good group of friends watching her back.

Welcome to the world of Jennifer Estep‘s Elemental Assassin series. Gin is a tough heroine, but she’s feeling vulnerable due to her recent break-up and the return of her baby sister. The first problem is being addressed by her new beau, Owen Grayson. She might not need to worry about the second problem if she dies before she can tell Bria that they’re sisters.

Summary:

I’d rather face a dozen lethal assas­sins any night than deal with some­thing as tricky, con­vo­luted, and frag­ile as my feel­ings. But here I am. Gin Blanco, the semi-retired assas­sin known as the Spi­der. Hov­er­ing out­side sexy busi­ness­man Owen Grayson’s front door like a ner­vous teenage girl. One thing I like about Owen: he doesn’t shy away from my past—or my present. And right now I have a bull’s-eye on my fore­head. Cold-blooded Fire ele­men­tal Mab Mon­roe has hired one of the smartest assas­sins in the busi­ness to trap me. Elek­tra LaFleur is skilled and effi­cient, with deadly elec­tri­cal ele­men­tal magic as potent as my own Ice and Stone pow­ers. Which means there’s a fifty-fifty chance one of us won’t sur­vive this bat­tle. I intend to kill LaFleur—or die trying—because Mab wants the assas­sin to take out my baby sis­ter, Detec­tive Bria Coolidge, too. The only prob­lem is, Bria has no idea I’m her long-lost sib­ling … or that I’m the mur­derer she’s been chas­ing through Ash­land for weeks. And what Bria doesn’t know just might get us both dead …

CHAPTER ONE

“Are you going to kill this guy? Or are we just going to sit here all night?”

“Patience, Finn,” I mur­mured. “We’ve only been in the car an hour.”

“Longest hour of my life,” he muttered.

I arched an eye­brow and looked over at Finnegan Lane, my part­ner in crime for the night. Most nights, actu­ally. Just after ten o’clock a few days before Christ­mas, and we sat in the dark­ened front of Finn’s black Cadil­lac Escalade. An hour ago, Finn had parked the car in a secluded, out-of-the-way alley that over­looked the docks that fronted the Aneirin River. We’d been sit­ting here, and Finn had been grous­ing, ever since.

Finn shifted in his seat, and my gray eyes flicked over him. The wool fab­ric of his thick coat out­lined his broad shoul­ders, although a black watchman’s cap cov­ered his walnut-colored hair. His eyes were a bright green even in the semi-darkness, and the shad­ows did lit­tle to hide the square hand­some­ness of his face.

Most women would have been glad to have been in such close quar­ters with Finnegan Lane. With his easy smile and nat­ural charm, Finn would have already had the major­ity of them in the back­seat, pants off, legs up, steam cov­er­ing the win­dows as the car rocked back and forth.

Good thing I wasn’t most women.

“Come on, Gin,” Finn whined again. “Go stick a cou­ple of your knives in that guy and leave your rune for Mab to find so we can get out of here.”

I stared out the car win­dow. Across the street, bathed in the golden glow of a street­light, the guy in ques­tion con­tin­ued to unload wooden crates from the small tug­boat that he’d pulled up to the dock forty-five min­utes ago. Even from this dis­tance, I could hear the warped, weath­ered boards creak under his weight as the river rushed on by beneath them.

The man was a dwarf—short, squat, stocky, sturdy—and dressed in black clothes prac­ti­cally iden­ti­cal to the ones that Finn and I were wear­ing. Jeans, boots, sweater, jacket. The sort of anony­mous clothes you wore to go skulk­ing about late at night, espe­cially in this rough South­town neigh­bor­hood, and most espe­cially when you didn’t want any­one else to see what you were up to.

Or were plan­ning on killing some­one, like I was tonight. Most nights, actually.

I rubbed my thumb over the hilt of the sil­ver­stone knife that I held in my lap. The metal glinted dully in the dark­ness of the car, and the weight of the weapon felt cold and com­fort­ing the way that it always did to me. The knife rested lightly on the spi­der rune scar embed­ded in my palm.

It would be easy enough to give in to Finn’s whin­ing. To slip out of the car, cross the street, creep up behind the dwarf, cut his throat, and shove his body off the dock and into the cold river below. I prob­a­bly wouldn’t even get that much blood on my clothes, if I got the angles just right.

Because that’s what assas­sins did. That’s what I did. Me. Gin Blanco. The assas­sin known as the Spi­der, one of the best around.

But I didn’t get out of the car and get on with things like Finn wanted me to. Instead, I sighed. “He hardly seems worth the trou­ble. He’s a flunkie, just like all the oth­ers that I’ve killed these past two weeks. Mab will hire some­one else to take his place before they even dredge his body out of the river.”

“Hey, you were the one who decided to declare war on Mab Mon­roe,” Finn pointed out. “Cor­rect me if I’m wrong, but I believe that you were rather eager to kill your way up to the top of the food chain until you got to her. You said it would be fun.”

“That was six hits ago. Now, I’d just like to kill Mab and give every­one in Ash­land an early Christ­mas present, myself included.” My turn to grouse.

But Finn was right. Two weeks ago, a series of events had led me to offi­cially declare war on Mab, and now, I was deal­ing with the fallout—and the tedious bore­dom of it all.

Mab Mon­roe was the Fire ele­men­tal who ran the south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land like it was her own per­sonal king­dom. To most folks, Mab was a paragon of virtue, a Fire ele­men­tal who used her magic, busi­ness con­nec­tions, and money to fund worth­while char­ity projects through­out the city. But those of us who strolled through the shady side of life knew Mab for what she really was—the head of a mob­like empire that included every­thing from gam­bling and drugs to pros­ti­tu­tion and kid­nap­pings. Mur­der, extor­tion, tor­ture, black­mail, beat­ings. Mab ordered all that and more, prac­ti­cally on a daily basis. But the Fire ele­men­tal was so wealthy, so pow­er­ful, so strong in her magic that no one dared to stand up to her.

Until me.

I had spe­cial rea­son to hate Mab—she’d mur­dered my mother and older sis­ter when I was thir­teen. And she’d been plan­ning on doing the same thing to me and my baby sis­ter, Bria. But first, Mab had cap­tured and decided to tor­ture me that fate­ful night so long ago. Which is how I’d ended up with a pair of match­ing scars on my hands.

I put my knife down long enough to rub first one scar, then the other with my fin­gers. A small cir­cle sur­rounded by eight thin rays was branded into each one of my palms. A spi­der rune. The sym­bol for patience. My assas­sin name.

And one that Mab Mon­roe was now see­ing every­where she went.

For the past two weeks, I’d been stalk­ing Mab’s men, get­ting a feel for her oper­a­tion, see­ing exactly what kind of ille­gal pies she had her sticky fin­gers in. And, along the way, I’d picked off some of her min­ions when I caught them doing things that they shouldn’t, hurt­ing peo­ple that they shouldn’t. A twist of my knife, a slash of my blade, and Mab Mon­roe had one less sol­dier in her lit­tle army of terror.

Killing her men hadn’t been hard, not for me. I’d spent the last sev­en­teen years of my life being an assas­sin, being the Spi­der, until I’d retired a few months ago. Cer­tain skills you just never forgot.

Nor­mally, though, when I killed some­one, I left noth­ing behind. No fin­ger­prints, no weapon, no DNA. But with Mab’s men, I’d pur­pose­fully drawn the image of my spi­der rune at every scene, close to every body that I left behind. Taunt­ing her. Let­ting Mab know exactly who was respon­si­ble for mess­ing up her plans and that I was deter­mined to pick her empire apart one body at a time, if I had to.

Which is why Finn and I were now sit­ting in the dark down by the docks in this dan­ger­ous South­town neigh­bor­hood. Finn had got­ten a tip from one of his sources that Mab had a ship­ment of drugs or some other ille­gal para­pher­na­lia com­ing into Ash­land tonight. As the Spi­der, I’d decided to come down here and see what I could do to foul up Mab’s plans once more, thumb my nose at her, and gen­er­ally piss her off.

“Come on, Gin,” Finn cut into my mus­ings. “Make a move already. The guy’s alone. We would have seen his part­ner by now, if he’d had one.”

I looked at the dwarf. He’d fin­ished unload­ing the boxes from the tug­boat and was now busy haul­ing them over to a van parked at the end of the dock.

“I know,” I said. “But some­thing about this just doesn’t seem right.”

“Yeah,” Finn mut­tered. “The fact that I can’t feel my feet any­more and you won’t let me turn the heater on.”

“Drink your cof­fee, then. It’ll make you feel bet­ter. It always does.”

For the first time tonight, a grin spread across Finn’s face. “Why, I think that’s an excel­lent idea.”

Finn reached down and grabbed a large metal ther­mos from the floor­board in the back­seat. He cracked open the top, and the caf­feine fumes of his chicory cof­fee filled the car. The rich smell always reminded me of his father, Fletcher Lane, my men­tor, the one who’d taught me every­thing that I knew about being an assas­sin. The old man had drunk the same foul brew as his son before he’d died ear­lier this year. I smiled at the mem­ory and the warmth it always stirred in me.

While Finn drank his cof­fee, I stared out at the scene before me once more. Every­thing seemed still, quiet, cold, dark. But I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that some­thing was wrong. That some­thing was just slightly off about this whole setup. Fletcher Lane had always told me that nobody ever got dead by wait­ing just a few more min­utes. His advice had kept me alive this long, and I had no inten­tion of dis­re­gard­ing it now.

Once again, my eyes scanned the area. Deserted street. A few dilap­i­dated build­ings hug­ging the water­front. The black rib­bon of the Aneirin River in the dis­tance. The pale boards of the dock. A lone light flick­er­ing over the dwarf’s head—

My eyes nar­rowed, and I focused on the light. The bright, intact light burn­ing like a bea­con in the dark night. Then, I looked up and down the street, my gaze flick­ing from one iron post to the next. Every other light on the block was busted out. Not sur­pris­ing. This was South­town, after all, the part of Ash­land that was home to gang­bangers, vam­pire pros­ti­tutes, and junkie ele­men­tals strung out on their own magic and hun­gry for more. Peo­ple would just as soon kill you as look at you here. Not a place you wanted to linger, even dur­ing the day­light hours.

So I wasn’t sur­prised that the street­lights had been bro­ken, prob­a­bly long ago, by the rocks, beer bot­tles, and other trash that lit­tered the street. What did sur­prise me was the fact that there was one still burning—the one right over the van that the dwarf was pack­ing his boxes into.

How … con­ve­nient.

“You might as well get com­fort­able,” I said, star­ing at the lone light. “Because we’re going to be here a while longer.”

Finn just groaned.

#

We didn’t have long to wait. Ten min­utes later, the dwarf fin­ished load­ing the last of his boxes into the van. Once I started watch­ing him—really watch­ing him—I real­ized that he’d been tak­ing his sweet time about things. Mov­ing slower than a nor­mal per­son would have, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the bit­ter cold that frosted Ash­land tonight. But then again, this was far from the inno­cent scene that it appeared to be.

Now, the dwarf stood beside the van, smok­ing a cig­a­rette and star­ing into the dark­ness with watch­ful eyes.

“What’s he doing?” Finn asked, tak­ing another sip of cof­fee. “If the man had any sense, he’d crank up the heater in that van and get out of here.”

“Just wait,” I mur­mured. “Just wait.”

Finn sighed and drank some more of his chicory brew.

Five more min­utes passed before a flash of move­ment along the dock caught my eye.

“There,” I said and leaned for­ward. “Right fuck­ing there.”

A fig­ure stepped out from behind a small shack that squat­ted at the far end of the dock that jut­ted out into the river.

Finn jerked upright and almost spilled his cof­fee on the leather seats. “Where the hell did he come from?”

“Not he,” I mur­mured. “She.”

The woman strolled down the dock toward the dwarf. Despite the dark­ness, the sin­gle street­light still burn­ing let me get a good look at her. She was petite and slen­der, about my age, thirty or so. She had a short bob of glossy black hair, held back with some sort of head­band, and her fea­tures had an Asian fla­vor to them—porcelain skin, expres­sive eyes, del­i­cate cheek­bones. She also wore black from head to toe, just like the rest of us.

I frowned. No woman in her right mind would walk through this neigh­bor­hood alone at night. Hell, not many would dare to do it dur­ing the day. Much less wait more than an hour in a run­down shack on a Decem­ber night when the tem­per­a­ture hov­ered in the low twenties.

Unless she had a very, very good rea­son for being there.

And I was begin­ning to think that I knew exactly what that rea­son was—me.

The woman reached the dwarf, who crushed out his cig­a­rette. She said some­thing to the man, who just shrugged his shoul­ders. The woman turned and scanned the street, much the same way that I’d been doing for the last hour. But I knew she couldn’t see us, given where we were parked. The Dump­ster sit­ting at the end of the nar­row alley in front of Finn’s car screened us from her line of sight.

After another thirty sec­onds of look­ing, the woman turned back to the dwarf and advanced on him. For a moment, he looked con­fused. Then star­tled. Then his eyes widened, and he turned and started run­ning away from her.

He got maybe five steps before the woman lifted her right hand—and green light­ning shot out of her fingertips.

Finn jerked, almost spilling his cof­fee again. Even I blinked at the sud­den, pow­er­ful flash of light.

The dwarf arched his back and screamed, his harsh cry echo­ing down the deserted street, as the light­ning slammed into his body. The woman advanced on him, the mag­i­cal light in her hand inten­si­fy­ing as she stepped closer toward him.

And she was so fuck­ing strong. She stood at least a hun­dred feet away from me, but I could still sense the sharp, sta­tic crackle of her power even here in the car. The feel of her ele­men­tal magic made the spi­der rune scars on my palms itch and burn the way they always did when­ever I was exposed to so much power, to so much raw magic. And she had plenty to spare.

A sec­ond later, the dwarf caught fire. He wob­bled back and forth before pitch­ing to the cracked pave­ment, but the woman didn’t stop her mag­i­cal assault. She stood over his body, send­ing wave after wave of light­ning into his fig­ure, even as the green ele­men­tal flames of her power con­sumed his skin, hair, clothes.

When she was done, the woman curled her hand into a tight fist. The bright light­ning flick­ered, then sparked away into noth­ing­ness, like a flare that had been snuffed out. Greenish-gray smoke wafted up from her fin­ger­tips, and she blew it away into the frosty night air, like an Old West gun­fighter cool­ing down his Colt after some sort of shootout. How dramatic.

“Did you see that?” Finn whis­pered, his cof­fee for­got­ten, his green eyes wide and round in his face. “She elec­tro­cuted him.”

“Yeah. I saw.”

I didn’t add that she’d used ele­men­tal magic to do it. Finn had seen that for him­self as well as I had.

Ele­men­tals were peo­ple who could cre­ate, con­trol, and manip­u­late one of the four elements—Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone. Those were the areas that most folks were gifted in, the ones that you had to be able to tap into to be con­sid­ered a true ele­men­tal. But magic had many forms, many quirks, and there were some peo­ple who could use other areas, off­shoots of one of the four ele­ments. Like metal was an off­shoot of Stone—and elec­tric­ity was one of Air.

One that Finn and I had just seen used to deadly effi­ciency, thanks to our mys­tery woman.

I was an ele­men­tal too. In my case, I had the rare abil­ity of being able to con­trol two elements—Stone and Ice. But I’d never seen some­one with elec­tri­cal power before. And I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing that I had now.

The woman stuck the toe of her boot into the man’s ribs. A large hunk of his body dis­in­te­grated into gray ash at her touch and puffed up like some kind of cold, macabre fog. A sliver of a smile lifted her lips at the sight. Then, she reached inside her coat, drew out some­thing white, and tossed it down on top of his body before head­ing toward the van and slid­ing inside.

Thirty sec­onds later, the woman drove the van down the street, turned the cor­ner, and dis­ap­peared from view. But instead of watch­ing the vehi­cle, I stared at the burned-out body that she’d left behind, won­der­ing what that bit of white was on the dwarf’s still-smoking chest.

“You want me to fol­low her?” Finn asked, his hand hov­er­ing over the keys in the ignition.

I shook my head. “No. Stay here and keep an eye out.”

I got out of the car and made my way across the street, slith­er­ing from shadow to shadow, a sil­ver­stone knife in either hand. After about five min­utes of care­ful creep­ing and lots of pauses to look and lis­ten, I reached the edge of the build­ing clos­est to the dwarf. I crouched there in the black shad­ows, out of sight, until I was sure that the mys­tery woman wasn’t going to cir­cle back around the block and see if any­one had come to inspect her shock­ing hand­i­work. Then, I drew in a breath, stood up, and walked over to the dead dwarf.

Even now, ten min­utes after the ini­tial attack, smoke still curled up from his body, the ele­gant, green-gray rib­bons waft­ing up to the black sky. I breathed in through my mouth, but the stench of charred flesh still filled my nose. The famil­iar, acrid scent trig­gered all sorts of emo­tions that were bet­ter left dead and buried deep inside me. But they bub­bled to the sur­face, whether I wanted them to or not.

For a moment, I was thir­teen again, weep­ing, wail­ing, and star­ing down at the ashy, flaky ruined thing that had been my mother, Eira, before Mab Mon­roe had used her ele­men­tal Fire to burn her to death. And the match­ing husk that had been my older sis­ter, Annabella. Try­ing not to vomit as I real­ized the cruel thing that had been done to them. That was going to be done to Bria and me before the night was through. Sweet, lit­tle Bria—

I ruth­lessly shook away the mem­ory. My hands had curled into fists so tight that I could feel the hilts of my sil­ver­stone knives dig­ging into the spi­der rune scars on my palms. I forced myself to relax my grip, then bent down on my knees so I could get a bet­ter look at the white blob rest­ing on the dwarf’s back.

To my sur­prise, it was a sin­gle white orchid, exquis­ite, ele­gant, and petal soft in the dark.

My eyes nar­rowed, and I regarded the blos­som with a thought­ful expres­sion. I knew what the flower meant and exactly who had left it behind to be found. It was her call­ing card, her name, rank, and trade­mark, just like my spi­der rune was. Some­thing that she’d put here to announce her pres­ence, mark her kill, and serve as a warn­ing to any­one who dared to get in her way.

She was taunt­ing me, just like I’d been doing to Mab Mon­roe these last two weeks.

“LaFleur,” I mut­tered, say­ing her name out loud.

Because the sim­ple fact was that an assas­sin had come to Ashland—one who was here to kill me.