Snared

CHAPTER ONE

Being an assassin meant knowing when to kill—and when not to kill.

Unfortunately.

I stood in a pool of midnight shadows, my boots, jeans, turtleneck, and fleece jacket as black as the night around me. My dark brown hair was stuffed up underneath a black toboggan that matched the rest of my clothes, and I’d swiped a bit of black greasepaint under my eyes to break up the paleness of my face. The only bit of color on my body was the silverstone knife that glinted in my right hand. I even inhaled and exhaled through my nose, so that my breath wouldn’t frost in the chilly January air and give away my position.

Not that anyone was actually looking for me.

Oh, a dwarf on guard duty was patrolling the estate. Supposedly, he was here to keep an eye out and make sure that no one snuck out of the woods, sprinted across the lawn, and broke into the mansion in the distance. But he was doing a piss-poor job of it, since I’d been watching him amble around for more than three minutes now, making an exceptionally slow circuit of this part of the landscaped grounds.

Every once in a while, the guard would raise his head and look around, scanning the twisted shadows cast out by the trees and ornamental bushes that dotted the rolling lawn. But most of the time, he was far more interested in playing a game on his phone, judging from the beeps and chimes that continually rang out from it. He didn’t even have the sound muted—or his gun drawn. I shook my head. It was so hard to find good help these days.

Still, I tensed as the guard wandered closer and closer to my position. I was standing at the corner of a gray stone house, set in the very back corner of the yard, several hundred feet from the main mansion. Trees clustered all around the house, their branches arching over the black slate roof and making the shadows here particularly dark, giving me the perfect hiding spot to watch and wait out the guard.

No doubt the man who lived in the mansion charitably referred to this house as a caretaker’s cottage, or something else equally dismissive, even though the house was almost large enough to be its own separate mansion. Even Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, would have been impressed by the spacious rooms and expensive, antique furniture that I’d glimpsed through the windows when I’d been sneaking around the house and getting into position—

“So are you actually going to break into the mansion or are we just going to stand around out here all night in the dark?” a low, snide voice murmured in my ear.

Speak of the devil, and he will annoy you.

I looked to my right. Fifty feet away, a tall, man-shaped shadow hovered at the edge of the tree line. Like me, Finn was dressed all in black, although I could just make out the glimmer of his eyes, like a cat’s in the darkness.

“I’m waiting for the guard to turn around and go back in the other direction,” I hissed. “As you can bloody well see for yourself.”

The transmitter in my ear crackled from the force of Finn’s snort. “Mr. Cell Phone Video Game?” He snorted again. “Please. You could do naked cartwheels across the lawn right in front of him, and he still wouldn’t notice.”

Finn was probably right, but the guard was only about thirty feet from me now, so I couldn’t risk responding. Instead, I slid back a little deeper into the shadows, pressing myself up against the side of the cottage. My body touched the wall, and I reached out with my elemental magic, listening to the gray stone that made up the structure.

Dark, malicious whispers echoed back to me, punctuated by high, shrill, screaming notes of fear and agony as the stone continually muttered about all the blood and violence it had witnessed over the years—and all the people who had died inside the cottage. The mutters didn’t surprise me, given where I was, but their deep, harsh intensity made me frown. I wouldn’t have thought that the caretaker’s cottage would have been this affected by the man in the mansion, given its distance from the main structure.

Then again, anything was possible when dealing with the Circle.

I shut the stone’s mutters out of my mind and focused on the guard, who’d finally reached the cottage. Like most dwarves, he was short and stocky, with bulging biceps that threatened to pop through the sleeves of his suit jacket. Your typical muscle, except for the thin, scraggly wisps of black hair that lined his upper lip. Someone was trying to grow a mustache with little success.

The guard stopped about ten feet away from me, raised his head, and glanced at the front of the house, making sure that the door and the windows were shut. He even tilted his head to the side, listening to the whistle of the winter wind as it made the tree branches above the cottage scrape together like dry, brittle bones.

I tightened my grip on my knife, feeling the symbol stamped into the hilt pressing into the larger, matching scar embedded in my palm, both of them a circle surrounded by eight thin rays—a spider rune, the symbol for patience.

Something that the guard had little of, since five seconds later, he turned his attention back to his phone and started his slow, ambling walk again, one that took him right by my hiding spot. I could easily have reached out of the shadows, sunk my hand into the dwarf’s hair, yanked his head back, and cut his throat. He would have been dead before he’d even realized what was happening. But I couldn’t kill him—or anyone else here—tonight.

Unfortunately.

Once I started dropping bodies, the members of “the Circle,” a secret society responsible for much of the crime and corruption in Ashland, would realize that I was onto them. They would close ranks, increase their security, and come after me—or worse, my friends. Something that I wasn’t ready for.

Not yet.

So as easy as it would have been for me to kill the guard, I let him wander away, never knowing how close he’d come to playing his last video game.

Once the guard had moved far enough away, I relaxed and looked over at Finn, who flashed me a thumbs-up, then raised the gun in his other hand and saluted me with it.

His voice crackled in my ear again. “I’ll be here waiting, but with guns drawn instead of bells on. Just in case you need the cavalry to ride to your rescue.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. I’m Gin Blanco, fearsome assassin and underworld queen, remember? The only thing I need rescuing from is you and your bad puns.”

Finn grinned, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. “You know you love me and my bad puns.”

“Oh, yeah. Like a toothache that I can’t get rid of.”

“That’s me, baby. Finnegan Lane, rotten as they come.”

He saluted me with his gun again, proud that he’d gotten the last word in. I rolled my eyes again, but I was smiling as I turned away from him, left the shadows behind, and hurried toward the mansion.

#

Since it was January, the holidays were officially over, but someone was being a little slow about putting away the decorations. White twinkle lights were still wrapped around the thick columns that supported the sprawling, two-story, gray stone mansion, along with strands of illuminated snowflakes that glowed a pale blue. Still more lights and snowflakes curved over the stone archways and outlined all of the windows, which also had white velvet bows hanging in them.

But this was a New Year, with new targets for the Spider.

I crossed the lawn and hunkered down behind some lounge chairs set up on the patio that ringed the heated pool, as far away from the cheery glow of the holiday lights as I could get. Then I peered around the chairs and over at the mansion.

Despite it creeping up on eight o’clock, lights burned in every room on the first floor, and I spotted several servants moving back and forth, tidying up and doing their final chores for the night. In the windows closest to me, two women plucked red and green glass balls off a massive Christmas tree that took up most of that room.

I watched the women work for a few seconds longer, as well as all the other servants, but no one moved toward the windows and looked outside. No one had seen me approach the mansion, so I raised my gaze to a particular window on the second floor. Lights burned in that room as well, but I didn’t spot anyone moving around inside. Excellent.

I glanced over my shoulder, but the guard was at the very back of the lawn now, several hundred feet from me, and still playing his game, judging by the faint beeps and trills that whispered into the night. I wouldn’t get a better chance than this, so I slid my knife up my sleeve so that I would have both hands free. Then I surged to my feet, got a running start, leaped up, and grabbed hold of a trellis attached to part of the mansion.

The wood creaked and groaned under my weight, more used to holding up pretty roses than a deadly assassin, but the slats didn’t crack, and I felt safe enough to keep climbing. Even if the wood had broken and made me fall, I could have used my Stone magic to harden my body and protect myself from the rough landing.

It only took me about ten seconds to scale the trellis, hook my leg onto the first-story roof, and pull myself up and onto that part of the mansion. I lay flat on my stomach for several seconds, listening, but no surprised shouts or alarms sounded. I also glanced at the guard again, but he was a murky, indistinct shape in the night. No one had seen my quick, spidery climb.

Even though lying on the cold roof chilled my body from head to toe, I held my position, once again reaching out with my magic. Just like the ones at the caretaker’s cottage, the stones of the mansion whispered of dark, malicious intent, along with blood, violence, and death. The mutters were much fainter here, more sloppy slurs than clear, distinct notes, as though the stones had been thoroughly soaked in all the alcohol that their owner so famously imbibed. Still, I could pick out the lingering emotional vibrations from all the evil deeds that had been committed here over the years. Exactly what I would expect from the home of a member of the Circle.

Sadly, though, the stones’ mutters weren’t as disturbing as those of many of the other places I’d been, and the noise certainly wasn’t going to stop me from completing my mission. So I got to my feet and hurried over to the window that I wanted, the same one I’d looked at earlier. After a quick glance in through the glass to make sure that the room was still empty, I reached out and tried the window, which slid up.

I waited a few seconds, but no alarms blared. I shook my head. You’d think that someone who was part of a decades-old criminal conspiracy would have enough common sense to lock the windows on the second story of his fancy mansion—or at least order his staff to do it for him. But the mansion’s owner thought that he was well protected, anonymous, and untouchable, just like the rest of the Circle did.

Well, they weren’t. Not anymore. Not from me.

I pushed aside the dangling white velvet bow, ducked down, and shimmied in through the open window, making sure to close it behind me. Then I turned and looked over the room in front of me.

The office was the inner sanctum of Damian Rivera, the mansion’s owner and the first member of the Circle who was on my hit list. Several generations ago, the ancestors of Maria Rivera, Damian’s mother, had made a fortune in coal before selling off their mines and branching out into other areas. Maria herself had been big into real estate, buying and selling property all over Ashland, as well as renovating crumbling old homes that she decked out with all the antique furniture and family heirlooms that she got for a song at estate sales.

Damian had definitely inherited his mother’s flair for decorating and dramatic spaces. The office was enormous, taking up a good chunk of this corner of the mansion. The decidedly masculine area was full of dark brown leather chairs and couches nestled alongside tables covered with all sorts of expensive knickknacks. Porcelain vases, crystal figurines, wooden carvings, stone statues. All perfectly in place and all perfectly highlighted by the three gold-plated chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

But the centerpiece of the office was the free-standing bar that took up one entire wall, complete with several red padded barstools lined up in front of it. A wide assortment of liquor bottles perched prettily on the wooden shelves behind the brass-railed bar, along with rows of gleaming glassware. I eyed the liquor bottles, recognizing them all as being well out of my price range, but they fit right in with the rest of the luxe furnishings. The air reeked of expensive, floral cologne and even more expensive cigar smoke, adding to the gentlemen’s club feel of Damian’s lair, and I had to wrinkle my nose to hold back a sneeze.

But I wasn’t here to sightsee or gawk at the expensive furnishings, so I moved over to the desk that stood in the back of the room near the window that I’d just slithered through. To my disappointment, the golden wood was spotless, as though it had never been touched, much less actually used, and not so much as a pen or a paper clip littered the gleaming surface. Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Damian Rivera didn’t have to do something as common as work. From what I knew of him, his favorite hobbies were drinking, smoking, shopping for antiques, and flitting from one mistress to the next. Not necessarily in that order.

Still, I’d come here to search for information about the Circle, so I opened all the drawers and tapped all around the desk, looking for hidden compartments. But the drawers were empty, except for some stacks of cocktail napkins and paper coasters, and no secret hidey-holes were carved into the wood.

Strike one.

Since nothing was in the desk, I moved over to the bar, searching the shelves underneath it, as well as the wooden ones behind it. But all I found were more napkins and coasters, along with several sterling-silver martini shakers and other old-fashioned, drink-making accoutrements.

Strike two.

Frustration surged through me, but I forced myself to stay calm and search the rest of the office. I ran my hands over all of the furniture, looking for any secret compartments. Examined all of the vases, carvings, and statues for false bottoms. Tapped on the walls, searching for hidden panels. I even rolled back the thick rugs and used my magic to listen to the flagstones, just in case a safe was hidden in the floor.

But there was nothing. No secret compartments, no hidden panels, no floor safes.

Strike three, and I was out.

More frustration surged through me, mixed with even more disappointment, both of which burned through my veins like bitter acid. A couple of weeks ago, I’d found several safety-deposit boxes full of information on the Circle that my mentor, Fletcher Lane, had compiled. For some reason that I didn’t understand, Fletcher had only photos of the group’s members, but it had been simple enough for me to get their names, especially since many of them were such wealthy, prominent Ashland citizens.

I’d scouted several of the Circle members, and Damian Rivera had been the easiest target with the least amount of security. So I’d broken in here tonight in hopes of learning more about the group, especially the identity of the mystery man who headed the organization, the bastard who’d ordered my mother’s murder. But maybe there was a reason that Rivera’s security was so lax. Maybe he wasn’t as important or as involved with the Circle as I’d thought.

Still frustrated, I turned to the fireplace that took up most of the wall across from the bar. I’d already searched that area for loose stones and secret compartments and had come up empty. But any little bit of information could be important, so I pulled out my phone and snapped shots of all the framed photos propped up on the mantel, hoping that one of them might hold some small clue.

Not only did Damian Rivera love the finer things in life, but he also loved himself, since most of the photos were softly lit glamour shots showing off his wavy black hair, bronze skin, brown eyes, and startlingly white teeth. Rivera was in his prime in his early thirties, and he was an exceptionally handsome man—and a thoroughly disgusting individual, even by Ashland’s admittedly low, low standards.

Not only was Rivera a trust-fund baby, living off his family’s wealth, who’d never worked a day in his life, but he’d also never faced any consequences for any of the despicable things he’d done.

And he had done plenty of despicable things.

Silvio Sanchez, my personal assistant, had only been looking into Rivera for a few days, but he’d already found several arrests, mostly for DUIs, stretching all the way back to when Damian was a teenager. Rivera also had a violent temper and some serious anger-management issues. He’d beaten more than one girlfriend over the years, servants too, and had even put a couple of them in the hospital with broken bones and other serious injuries.

But all of that was nothing compared to the woman he’d killed.

One night during his college years, Rivera had gotten into his SUV and decided to see how fast he could drunkenly steer around Ashland’s mountain roads. He’d come around one curve, crossed the center lane, and plowed head-on into a sedan being driven by a single mother of two. She’d died instantly, but Rivera had walked away from the crash with only minor injuries. He’d never been charged in the woman’s death, thanks to his mother, who’d pulled all the right strings and paid off all the right people to cover the whole thing up.

But Damian hadn’t learned his lesson. He hadn’t learned anything, since he’d been arrested for another DUI on New Year’s Eve a few days ago. But he wouldn’t face any consequences for that one either. His mama was long dead, but Damian still had someone to clean up his messes—Bruce Porter, a dwarf who’d been the Rivera family’s head of security for years.

I stopped in front of a photo of Maria Rivera, a beautiful woman with long, golden hair, brown eyes, and red lips. In the photo, she was smiling and standing in between Damian and his father, Richard Rivera, with a dour-looking Bruce Porter hovering behind them in the distance. I raised my phone and snapped a shot of the picture—

“You’ve been in there a while now,” Finn’s voice sounded in my ear. “Does that mean you’ve finally found something good?”

“No,” I muttered. “Just a lot of liquor, antiques, and photos.”

“What kind of liquor?” Finn chirped with obvious interest. “Anything I would drink?”

I slid my phone into my jacket pocket and eyed the rows of gleaming bottles behind the bar. “Oh, I think that you would drink it all, especially since Rivera’s tastes are even more expensive than yours. Why, you would cackle with glee if you could see all the spirits he has in here.”

“Well, why don’t you bring me a bottle or two so I can cackle in person?” Finn chirped again. “I might as well get something from standing out here in the cold.”

Even though he was in the woods outside and couldn’t see me, I still rolled my eyes. “I came here for information on the Circle. Not to pilfer daddy’s booze like some naughty teenager.”

“You say potato, I say opportunity.”

I started to respond when a faint creak sounded in the hallway outside, as though someone had stepped on a floorboard. I froze. The creak came again, louder and closer this time, and it was followed by something far, far worse—the distinctive snick of a key sliding in a lock.

“Let’s have a drink,” a faint, muffled voice said.

Someone was outside the office—and he was about to come in.