Web of Deceit Read online

  Jimmy Fontaine watched Gin for another minute, but when she didn’t do any­thing else sus­pi­cious or threat­en­ing, his unease faded away, and his eyes latched onto her ass. In addi­tion to pimp­ing out young girls and boys, Fontaine also like to sam­ple the mer­chan­dise himself.

  Fontaine stepped out from behind his desk, moved over, and sat down on a wide white couch that took up the bet­ter part of the right wall. He pat­ted the cush­ion beside him. “Why don’t you come over here? I’d like to get to know you bet­ter. Jackson’s told you what we do here right? How we run a sort of halfway house for teens who don’t fit in any­where else.”

  That was the bull­shit line that Jack­son fed to other teens to get them into the row house in the first place. After that, Jimmy, his men, and his drugs made sure that they didn’t leave until they were all used up—or dead.

  “Sure,” Gin chirped in a bright voice, but once again, her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  She moved over and plopped down onto the sofa next to Jimmy. Jack­son sat in a chair across from them. Nei­ther man noticed Gin’s arm fall down to her side—or the bit of metal that sud­denly glinted in her right hand.

  “So,” Gin chirped in that light tone again. “Is this where you rape all the girls that you bring up here? Or do you get them high first so they don’t fight back as hard? Is this were you raped Vio­let Wong before you beat her to death? Or did one of your filthy cus­tomers do it for you?”

  For a moment, Fontaine’s mouth gaped open, and Jack­son wore a sim­i­larly stunned look. Big brother was a lit­tle quicker on the draw, though, because his mouth snapped shut, and his eyes narrowed.

  “How the hell do you know that name?” Jimmy growled, dark rage fill­ing his face.

  Gin just smiled at him. “Because I went to her funeral a few weeks ago. And her father wanted me to come here tonight and say hello for him.”

  “What the hell—” Jack­son sputtered.

  Gin chose that moment to lean for­ward, snap up her hand, and drive the sil­ver­stone knife that she held there deep into Jimmy Fontaine’s chest. The giant’s eyes bulged in pain and sur­prise, and he opened his mouth to scream, even though it wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good in the sound­proofed office. But Gin didn’t give him the chance. She leaped on top of the giant, even as she yanked the knife out of his chest.

  And then, she cut his throat with it.

  She turned her head, and blood spat­tered onto the side of her face, coat­ing her pretty fea­tures like thick, sticky paint. Gin’s lips tight­ened at the sen­sa­tion, but she kept her eyes open and focused on Jack­son the whole time, already think­ing about how to take out her next target.

  “You bitch!” Jack­son screamed, scram­bling to his feet. “This was a setup!”

  Gin pushed her­self up off the sofa and leapt at Jack­son, but the younger giant was too quick for her. He stepped back, knock­ing over his chair. She landed at his feet, and the giant drew back his foot and kicked her in the ribs. Gin grunted at the bru­tal con­tact and rolled back, back, back, away from the enraged giant. She came up in a low crouch, her knife still clutched in her hand.

  Jack­son stared at his brother a moment, and the blood soak­ing into the white coach. “You killed him! You killed Jimmy, you bitch!”

  With a roar, the giant went after Gin. She tried to defend her­self, but he slapped her knife away. Jack­son grabbed Gin’s jacket, lifted her up off the floor, and punched her repeat­edly in the stomach.

  I didn’t remem­ber stand­ing out­side on the fire escape, but sud­denly, I was, with the gun that I’d had tucked into the small of my back clenched in my right hand. Worry burned through my veins like a wild­fire roar­ing out of con­trol. The girl’s pride be damned. I wasn’t going to let her die, not like I had her mother and older sister—

  Gin groaned, but she reached up and clawed at Jackson’s eyes. The giant jerked back in sur­prise, and Gin man­aged to spin around and out of her jacket. She stum­bled across the room and fell on top of the desk, gasp­ing for air. Her eyes landed on some­thing on top of the smooth glass, and I saw her hand snake forward.

  Behind her, Jack­son drew the gun out of the pocket of his let­ter­man jacket. Through the win­dow, I took care­ful aim at him with my own weapon. If he made a move to pull the trig­ger, the boy was going to get a bul­let through the back of his head.

  But Jack­son just looked down at his gun, then over at his brother with his cut throat. Rage twisted his hand­some face, and he threw down the gun and took off his jacket. Fool.

  Jack­son cracked the knuck­les on both of his hands. “Time to die, bitch,” he snarled, grab­bing Gin’s shoul­der and turn­ing her back around toward him.

  And that’s when she stabbed him in the throat.

  The object that I’d seen Gin palm off the desk had been a long, slen­der let­ter opener with a shiny pearl han­dle. It wasn’t as sharp as one of her sil­ver­stone knives, but it did the job, espe­cially since she buried it up to the hilt on Jackson’s throat.

  Jack­son tried to scream, but all that came out was a series of stran­gled gasps and gur­gles. Gin pulled the makeshift weapon out of his throat and shoved him away. The young half-giant stum­bled over his fallen chair and went down onto the floor on his back. Gin didn’t make the same mis­take that Jack­son had—she didn’t hes­i­tate. She raised the let­ter opener again and used the force of her entire body to drive it down deep into his chest.

  Jack­son Fontaine didn’t get up after that.

  When it was over, and Jack­son was as dead as his older brother, Gin slowly pushed her­self up to her feet. She stood there in the mid­dle of the office, sway­ing back and forth, eyes wide, fear and a touch of dis­gust fill­ing her face at what had just hap­pened. At what she’d just done.

  “Come on, girl,” I whis­pered. “Pull your­self together. You can do it. This is what you were born to do, what I’ve been train­ing you for.”

  After a moment, Gin closed her eyes and shud­dered out a breath. When she opened them again, her gray gaze was sharp and bright as steel once more. Now, she was the Gin that I knew—the lit­tle girl with an iron will and a heart of stone that had let her sur­vive so many ter­ri­ble things already. The death of her mother and older sis­ter, being tor­tured by Mab Mon­roe, liv­ing on the streets, being trained by an assas­sin like me.

  Gin sucked in a breath and stared at the two bod­ies. For a moment, I won­dered if she’d be able to go through with the final part of the assign­ment. But her face hard­ened, and her lips flat­tened out into a thin line. Gin tip­toed over to Jack­son Fontaine, leaned down, and checked the pulse—or lack thereof—in his neck. Just because some­one looked dead didn’t mean that he was actu­ally that way. You always had to check and make sure.

  I nod­ded in sat­is­fac­tion. Smart girl. She’d done every­thing that I’d told her to—and then some. She’d made this old man prouder than I’d thought pos­si­ble. I’d been right when I’d told Jo-Jo that Gin was ready for this. The girl was more than capa­ble of doing jobs on her own. And soon, in a few more years, she’d be the equal of any assas­sin work­ing today. And some­day, maybe one day sooner than I real­ized, she’d be ready for what I was really train­ing her for—to kill Mab Monroe.

  When Gin was sat­is­fied that the gaints were gone, she wiped her bloody knives off on the edge of the white couch and tucked them back up her sleeves. Then, she went over, unlocked the door, and left Jimmy Fontaine and his younger brother Jack­son dead and cool­ing on the floor. She didn’t look back.

  #

  An hour later, Gin pulled open the front door of the Pork Pit, mak­ing the bell chime. She stepped inside, and her eyes swept over the inte­rior, skim­ming over the blue and pink vinyl booths, the match­ing pig tracks on the floor, and finally back to the counter where I sat read­ing an old, bat­tered copy of To Kill a Mock­ing­bird. It seemed like an appro­pri­ate choice, given what had hap­pened tonigh
t. Besides, you just couldn’t go wrong with the South­ern classics.

  “Is the job done?” I asked, using one of the day’s checks to mark my place in the book.

  “You shouldn’t ask me that,” she said, a slightly hurt tone in her voice. “You know that I wouldn’t have come back unless it was done.”

  I nod­ded. “You’re right. For­give me.”

  Gin nod­ded back. The girl came over and hopped up on one of the stools in front of the counter. My green eyes flicked down her body, but her dark jacket did a good job of hid­ing the blood that she’d got­ten on her when she’d killed the Fontaine broth­ers. She’d taken the extra step of zip­ping up her jacket too, to cover what­ever stains might be on her T-shirt. And some­where along the way, she’d stopped long enough to wipe the blood off her face. Over­all, she’d cov­ered her tracks well.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked, think­ing of the punches that I’d seen her take in the office. “Do you need to go see Jo-Jo tonight and get her to heal you?”

  I’d sent the dwarf home after Gin had walked out of Jimmy Fontaine’s office, but I’d told Jo-Jo that we might be over at her salon later, depend­ing on how Gin felt about things.

  Gin shrugged. “I think my ribs are bruised that’s all. It’s noth­ing that can’t wait until morn­ing. What I’d really like now is some food. I’m starv­ing, Fletcher.”

  I nod­ded. “I’m one step ahead of you there.”

  I turned around and retrieved the plate of food that I’d warmed for her. A thick, juicy ham­burger with all the fix­ings, a pile of mac­a­roni salad, and a heap­ing help­ing of baked beans smoth­ered in the Pork Pit’s famous bar­be­cue sauce. All of Gin’s favorites.

  I pushed the food across the counter to her, and she imme­di­ately dug in. I knew that she was hun­gry. I hadn’t let her eat sup­per before she’d gone to meet Jack­son Fontaine, for fear that she might throw up before or even dur­ing the job. It was always bet­ter to do a job on an empty stomach—especially the first time you went solo.

  I let her get halfway through her food before I asked the inevitable ques­tion. “So how was it?”

  I watched her face care­fully, look­ing for any sign of guilt or fear or dis­gust. By now, the girl had had time to really think about what she’d done, and I didn’t want her emo­tions to start gnaw­ing at her. But no guilt flashed in her eyes and no self-loathing twisted her fair fea­tures. Instead, she sat there and the counter, chewed her food, and thought about my question.

  “It went okay,” Gin finally said. “I don’t think that I did very well at con­vinc­ing them that I was a run­away. I was too angry about what they were doing to really play the part like you told me too.”

  Her self-analysis was spot-on. Her act­ing could have used some work, but she’d got­ten the job done in the end. And next time, I knew that she’d make an effort to cor­rect her mis­take tonight. I only had to tell Gin some­thing once, and she did it, with­out hes­i­tat­ing and with­out ask­ing questions.

  “Well, it doesn’t much mat­ter now, does it?” I asked. “The Fontaine broth­ers are dead, and you’re not. I’d say that makes the evening a grand success.”

  I hes­i­tated, not quite sure how to say what I really wanted to—or how it might sound to a sixteen-year-old girl who’d just killed two men. In the end, I decided on the direct approach. I’d never been one for smooth words, not like my son, Finnegan. That boy could charm the wings off a butterfly.

  “I’m proud of you, Gin.”

  “Really?” she asked in a soft, shy voice. “Really and truly, Fletcher? I did good tonight?”

  I nod­ded. “Really and truly. You did real good tonight, Gin. What you did will at least give Vic­tor Wong some peace. That’s all the poor man can hope for at this point.”

  She smiled then, and it was as if the moon had sud­denly burst into the Pork Pit, bathing every­thing in its soft, sil­ver light. Still smil­ing, Gin turned her atten­tion back to her food.

  I decided to let her eat the rest of her meal in peace, so I picked up my book once more. But I couldn’t quite focus on the words—or hide the proud grin that quirked my lips.

  Oh, yes. The girl was a natural-born assassin.

  And I was going to make her the very best there was. So she could do what needed to be done—for her­self and for her sis­ter Bria.

  One day, Gin Blanco was going to grow up and kill Mab Mon­roe. And I, Fletcher Lane, the Tin Man, was going to help her every step of the way.