Spider's Trap Read online

  Still, I would have been perfectly happy to skip the polite nonsense of the meeting and let Dimitri and Luiz duke it out until one of them killed the other, but Silvio had pointed out that if I resolved their feud today, they wouldn’t show up at my restaurant, the Pork Pit, tomorrow. Since I didn’t want the criminals scaring my customers, I’d decided to be a good boss and put in an appearance.

  Everyone had been sitting at the conference table when I’d walked on board with Silvio. But at the sight of me, Dimitri and Luiz had shot to their feet and started shouting accusations at each other, as if they thought that I would side with whoever yelled the loudest and the longest.

  Now Dimitri was cursing at Luiz in Russian, and Luiz was returning the favor in Spanish. Since it didn’t look like they were going to stop anytime soon, not even to take a breath, I tuned them out as best I could and stared out over the brass railing.

  The Aneirin River flowed by the white riverboat, the swift current causing the vessel to sway ever so slightly. The November sun glinted off the surface of the blue-gray water, making it sparkle like a sheet of diamonds, while a faint breeze brought the smell of fish along with it. My nose wrinkled at the wet stench. A few crimson and burnt-orange leaves clung to the trees that lined the far side of the river, although the breeze would soon send them spiraling down to the ground—

  Something flashed in the trees directly across from me.

  I frowned, leaned to the side, and focused on that spot. Sure enough, a second later, a small gleam of light caught my eye, the sun reflecting off something hidden back in the trees—

  Silvio nudged me with his elbow again, and I realized that Dimitri and Luiz had stopped shouting and were staring at me with expectant faces, their arms crossed over their chests. Behind them, their guards wore similarly hostile expressions.

  “Well, Blanco?” Dimitri demanded in a low, gravelly voice. “What’s your decision?”

  “Yeah,” Luiz chimed in, his tone much higher. “Who gets the laundries?”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Um . . .”

  Dimitri frowned, and anger sparked in his dark brown eyes. “You weren’t even listening to us!”

  “Well, it was kind of hard to follow,” I admitted. “Especially since I don’t speak Russian, and my Spanish is rudimentary, at best.”

  Dimitri threw his hands up in the air and spewed out more Russian words, all of which sounded like curses.

  Phillip leaned over. “I think he just insulted your mother.”

  I groaned, but I held my hands up, trying to placate the mobster. “Okay, okay. That’s enough. Stop. Please.”

  Dimitri finished his cursing, but he still gave me a disgusted look. “I knew this would be a waste of time. I should have just killed Lorelei and taken the laundries. Just like I should have put a bullet in your head the night of Madeline’s party and taken control of the underworld myself. Just like I should do right now.”

  Silence descended over the deck, and the only sound was the steady rush of the river flowing by the boat.

  I laid my hands flat on the table, then slowly got to my feet. The scraping of my chair against the wood was as loud as a machine gun.

  I stared at Dimitri. “That was exactly the wrong thing to say.”

  Everyone could hear the chill in my words and see the ice in my wintry-gray eyes.

  Dimitri swallowed, knowing he’d made a mistake, but he wasn’t about to back down in front of everyone, so he raised his chin and squared his shoulders. “I don’t think so. There’s only one of you. I have three men with me.”

  I smiled, but there was no warmth in my expression. “That’s because you need guards. I don’t. I never have. So if I were you, I’d start apologizing to me. Pronto.”

  Dimitri wet his lips. “Or else?”

  I shrugged. “Or else your men will be dragging what’s left of you off this boat, and Phillip will be sending me the cleaning bill.”

  Dimitri sucked in a breath, but anger stained his cheeks a bloody red. “Nobody threatens me.”

  “Oh, sugar,” I drawled. “It’s not a threat.”

  Dimitri kept staring at me, his breath puffing out of his open mouth like a bull about to charge. Beside me, Phillip and Silvio got to their feet and moved out of my way.

  “Try to show a little restraint,” Silvio whispered as he passed.

  Restraint wasn’t a popular word in my vocabulary, but I nodded, acknowledging his point. If I killed Dimitri and Luiz, it would just convince the other bosses that I wanted them all dead, and they would probably start trying to murder me again. I’d fought hard for my relative peace and quiet, and I wasn’t going to throw it away on a couple of minor mobsters.

  Even if I did feel like stabbing both of them. Violently. Viciously. Repeatedly.

  Phillip and Silvio stepped over to where Lorelei Parker was still sitting at the far end of the table. Lorelei had quit texting and was staring at me, but she remained in her seat, with Jack Corbin standing by her side. The two of them weren’t dumb enough to take me on, at least not face-to-face, but the same couldn’t be said for the other bosses.

  Dimitri wasn’t brave enough to fight me on his own, so he turned to Luiz. “You help me with Blanco, and I’ll let you have the coin laundries. All of them.”

  Luiz scoffed. “I want the laundries and that deli you own on Carver Street.”

  Dimitri sighed and nodded.

  I rolled my eyes. A minute ago, they would have been happy to murder each other, and now they were going to work together to try to kill me. Well, at least Luiz had the good sense to try to squeeze everything he could out of the other gangster. Had to admire him for that. Even if he’d picked the wrong side.

  Dimitri and Luiz shook hands, sealing their hasty deal, and then they both faced me, with their guards standing behind them, cracking their knuckles in anticipation of the beat-down they thought they were going to give me. Fools.

  “Now what are you going to do?” Dimitri sneered. “Against all of us?”

  “Me? I’m finally going to have some fun. I certainly deserve it, after listening to you two whine like a couple of kids fighting over the same ice-cream cone.”

  My insult was the last straw. Dimitri’s cheeks burned even hotter, and he stabbed his finger at me.

  “Get her!” he roared.

  “Kill Blanco!” Luiz yelled.

  The two bosses and their guards surged toward me, with Dimitri leaning over the table and reaching out with his hands, as though he wanted to strangle me to death.

  I kicked my foot into the table leg, making the whole thing slam forward, right into the Russian’s potbelly. He gasped and bent over double, causing his very bad, very obvious, very shaggy black toupee to almost slide off his head.

  But I was already moving on to the next threat. Since I didn’t have any knives, I leaned down, snatched up the chair I’d been sitting in, and slammed it into the head of the closest guard. He yelped and staggered away, clasping his hands over his bloody broken nose. He lurched past Silvio, who stuck out his foot and tripped him. The giant’s head hit the top part of the railing, and the brass let out a loud, pealing note, ringing like a bell. The giant slumped to the deck unconscious. Ding. Down for the count already.

  Silvio flashed me a thumbs-up. I grinned back, then turned to fight the next guard.

  Phillip had made sure that no one boarded the riverboat armed, so I wasn’t worried about getting shot. Even if someone had managed to sneak in a gun or a knife, I could always use my Stone magic to harden my skin and protect myself from any bullets or blades.

  Using the same chair, I took out two more guards, opening up cuts and bruises on their faces, necks, and arms. By the time I got done with those giants, the plastic seat had cracked apart, so I ripped two of the metal legs off the chair and swung them around like batons.

 
Whack-whack-whack-whack.

  I slammed the metal poles into every guard I could reach, cracking the chair legs into knees and throats and temples and groins. Moans and groans blasted out like foghorns across the deck, and more than a little blood arced through the air and spattered onto the glossy white wood and gleaming brass rails.

  “Restraint!” Silvio called out after I jabbed the end of one of the poles into the face of the closest giant. “Restraint, please, Gin!”

  “What?” I yelled back. “I’m not killing them . . . yet!”

  At my words, the giant I’d been fighting froze, his fists drawn back to punch me. But he took my warning seriously; instead of hitting me, he whirled around and made a beeline for the gangplank on the other side of the boat. I let him go, since he was the last guard standing. The others were huddled on the deck, trying to find the strength to hoist themselves upright and will their eyes to stop spinning around in their heads.

  “You!” Dimitri bellowed, having finally recovered his breath. He shoved his toupee back where it belonged. “I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I do!”

  With a loud roar, he charged at me. I dropped the chair legs that I had used against the guards and simply squatted down. Then, when he was right on top of me, I surged up and tossed him back and over the side of the railing.

  “Ahhh!” Dimitri screamed on the way down.

  Splash!

  Footsteps pounded on the deck, and I spotted Luiz rushing at me. So I squatted down again quickly, and then, when he was right on top of me, I pulled the same move and sent him overboard too.

  Another loud scream, another satisfying splash!

  I scanned the deck, but there were no more enemies to fight. So I looked at Lorelei Parker and Jack Corbin, who were in the same positions as before.

  “You two don’t want to join in the fun?” I drawled, picking up the metal chair legs and twirling them around in my hands. “I was just getting warmed up.”

  Lorelei let out a disgusted snort, while Corbin held up his hands and stepped back.

  Faint cries sounded—“Help! Help! Help!”—and I strode over to the railing. Phillip and Silvio followed and stood on either side of me, and we all looked down.

  Dimitri and Luiz were clinging to each other in the river, both of them thrashing around and trying to stay afloat by drowning each other. Dimitri had somehow held on to to his toupee, which he was now beating against Luiz’s face. They both looked like the wet, slimy rats they were.

  I grinned at Phillip. “You were absolutely right. Throwing people overboard is tons of fun. I feel better already.”

  “Told you so,” Phillip said in a smug voice, his blue eyes bright with mischief and merriment.

  Silvio sighed. “Don’t encourage her.”

  More moans and groans came from the fallen giants on the deck. I tossed my metal poles aside, turned around, and leaned back against the railing. All the guards stopped and looked at me, wondering what I was going to do next.

  “So,” I called out, jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “Anyone else want to go for a swim?”

  Strangely enough, no one took me up on my offer.

  2

  The guards staggered to their feet, shuffled over to the railing, threw down a couple of ropes and life rings, and fished their waterlogged bosses out of the river.

  Silvio took hold of one end of the conference table that I’d kicked into Dimitri’s stomach and scooted it back into place.

  “What are you doing?”

  The lean vampire pulled a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of his gray suit jacket and began wiping the splattered blood off the table. “The meeting’s not over yet. You haven’t decided who gets the coin laundries.”

  “Seriously?”

  Silvio continued cleaning the table. “We can always reschedule it for another day . . .”

  “Oh, no. Uh-uh. No way am I wasting any more time on these two schmucks.”

  He gave me a pointed look. “Now or later. Your choice.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “There’s no need to be all hasty,” Phillip drawled, still leaning against the railing. “After all, Dimitri and Luiz need some time to dry off.”

  I looked over at the two gangsters, who were now sprawled faceup on the deck, panting and shivering from their forced swim, with water seeping out of their clothes and shoes and sluicing all over the wood. A few feet away, Dimitri’s black toupee lay in a puddle all by itself.

  I watched as Silvio righted each of the overturned chairs and slid them back under the table. Except, of course, for the one I’d used to take down all the guards. That demolished chair was a lost cause, just like this sham of a meeting.

  “Besides,” Phillip continued, “no underworld get-together is complete without violence and refreshments. We’ve already had one, so we might as well enjoy the other. So sit, relax, admire the view, have a drink. Trust me, alcohol always makes these shindigs much more tolerable.”

  “Sometimes I think that you and Finn were twins separated at birth.”

  Finnegan Lane was Fletcher’s son and my foster brother. He’d wanted to come to the meeting to witness the fireworks between Dimitri and Luiz but had to wine and dine some rich new client instead, since he was an investment banker. Like Phillip, Finn thought that a stiff drink, a slick suit, and a smarmy smile could solve almost all of the world’s problems and was determined to prove himself right.

  Phillip sniffed and ran his hand over his golden hair, which was pulled back into its usual ponytail. “Nonsense. We could not possibly be twins, since I’m much more handsome than Lane could ever dream of being.”

  “Which is exactly what Finn would say, if he were talking about you.”

  Phillip grinned, then waved his hand and signaled one of his own guards.

  The giant nodded back, turned, and opened a pair of double doors that led into the riverboat’s interior. A minute later, a team of waiters wearing black pants and shirts topped with red satin tuxedo vests streamed through the doors. A gold pin glimmered on each vest—a dollar sign superimposed over an outline of the Delta Queen, Phillip’s not-so-subtle rune for his riverboat casino and all the wads of cash it made him.

  A female waiter brought me a new chair, while another moved around the table, taking drink orders from me, Phillip, Silvio, and Lorelei Parker and Jack Corbin, who were once again situated at the far end of the table. I requested a gin and tonic and told the waiter to keep them coming. He flashed me a sly smile, then headed over to take Dimitri’s and Luiz’s orders, since the bosses had finally hoisted themselves to their feet. A few other waiters hovered around the two men, wrapping blankets around their soggy shoulders, before passing out bandages and bags of ice to the guards I’d beaten down.

  The waitstaff finished Silvio’s wipe-down of the conference table and mopped up all the puddles of water. Once everything was pristine again, they disappeared back inside. Two of Phillip’s guards rolled a wet bar out onto the deck, and a woman moved behind it and started mixing our drinks. The waitstaff reappeared, carrying silver platters piled high with food, which they deposited on the table.

  Fresh fruits, gourmet cheeses, dainty desserts, even a tray of butter crackers shaped like miniature riverboats. My mouth watered, and my stomach rumbled.

  “Nice spread, Philly,” I said.

  He saluted me with his glass of Scotch. “What can I say? Gustav does good work.”

  Gustav was the Delta Queen’s head chef. I’d never actually met him, but we had a bit of a competition going on when it came to our cooking, especially since Phillip came to the Pork Pit for lunch at least once a week. He ate at my restaurant because we were buddies, and he was best friends with Owen Grayson, my lover. But he also enjoyed my home cooking, which confounded Gustav to no end, according to Phillip. The classically train
ed chef didn’t appreciate the culinary arts of barbecue and deep-fried Southern comfort food the way I did.

  But I wasn’t above eating someone else’s food, especially Gustav’s, which was truly delectable, so I grabbed one of the bite-size cheesecakes. The pumpkin filling was a thick, sweet burst of flavor in my mouth, while the graham-cracker crust had just the right amount of cinnamon crunch. The dark chocolate ganache drizzled on top added a perfect finishing note of decadent richness.

  After I had downed several of those, I gobbled up some miniature apple and cherry pies, which were divine combinations of golden flaky crust, warm fruit filling, and airy dollops of vanilla whipped cream, all of it dusted with powdered sugar.

  While the rest of us ate, Dimitri and Luiz dried off and trudged back over to the conference table. The Russian had taken the time to wring out his black toupee and plop the damp rat’s nest back on top of his bald head, although it kept threatening to slide off with every move he made. Luiz stood shivering, his chin tucked into the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looked resigned.

  Dimitri, however, still had some fire left in him, despite his chilly dunk in the river. The Russian threw off his blanket, slapped his hands down onto the table, and opened his mouth. But I fixed him with a stony stare and held up my index finger, and he bit back whatever threat he’d been about to deliver.

  “This is what’s going to happen next,” I said. “I am going to sit here and enjoy this lovely spread that Phillip has so graciously provided. Then, if you’re lucky, I will listen while you and Mr. Ramos calmly, rationally, and very quietly tell me why each of you thinks that he deserves the coin laundries. Are we clear?”

  Dimitri opened his mouth again, but whatever he saw in my face made him swallow down his protests. “We’re clear.”

  “Good. Let me enjoy another round, and then we’ll begin.”

  Dimitri didn’t like it, but he sat down across from me at the table, with Luiz taking the chair next to him. In between bites and booze, the two bosses alternately glared at each other and at me, shooting an angry glance at Phillip every once in a while for good measure.