Last Strand

CHAPTER ONE

“I’ve always wanted to rob a bank.”

Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, made that pronouncement in an exceptionally bold, gleeful tone. A wide grin stretched across his tan, handsome face, and a conspiratorial gleam brightened his green eyes, further indicating his interest in committing a serious felony.

“But you work at a bank,” I pointed out. “Why would you ever want to rob one?”

“Plotting an elaborate heist. Liberating trays of diamonds, stacks of gold bars, and piles of cash from a supposedly impenetrable vault right out from under the noses of our enemies. Executing a complicated, convoluted plan that goes completely off the rails but somehow still works out at the very last second.” Finn’s grin widened, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “C’mon, Gin. This is the stuff that dreams are made of.”

I snorted. “I think you need some different dreams. You know, ones that are a lot less dangerous and illegal.”

“And ruin all the fun? Absolutely not.” He winked at me. “Besides, we all know that Dangerous and Illegal is my middle name.”

“And here I thought it was Alexander,” I drawled.

Finn ignored my teasing and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror, making sure that his walnut-brown hair was still perfectly, artfully in place. Then he straightened his green tie and smoothed his silvery suit jacket, both of which were also still perfectly, artfully in place. Apparently, looking good was another key component of my foster brother’s bank-robbing fantasy.

Someone deliberately cleared his throat, and Finn and I both glanced over our shoulders at Owen Grayson, my significant other. With his blue-black hair, violet eyes, and tan skin, Owen was just as handsome as Finn was, albeit in a rougher, less polished way, especially given his slightly crooked nose and the thin white scar that slashed across his chin.

Still, my heart always skipped a beat at the sight of him, and my gaze roamed over the navy jacket that stretched across his broad shoulders before following the line of his gray tie down his chest. Mmm-mmm-mmm. Perhaps I’d been hanging around Finn too long, but few things appealed to me more than Owen Grayson in a snazzy suit. Or perhaps I just liked his buttoned-up look because I knew about all the hard, defined muscles that lay underneath the fine fabric, sort of like knowing what was hidden beneath the wrapping paper on a Christmas present. Well, unwrapping Owen out of one of his many suits was always a treat for me.

“Um, I hate to point out the obvious, Finn, but you’ve actually been in a bank robbery before,” Owen rumbled.

Finn kept his grin fixed on his face, but his jaw clenched, as though he were grinding his teeth to hold the happy expression in place.

Several months ago, Deirdre Shaw, Finn’s long-lost mother, had swanned back into Ashland, chock-full of fake apologies and hidden agendas. Supposedly, Deirdre had wanted to make up for lost time, but she’d really been plotting to rob First Trust, the bank where Finn worked. Thanks to me, Deirdre’s heist had gone sideways, but not before she had revealed her true, duplicitous nature and had brutally tortured her own son with her elemental Ice magic.

Finn’s longing to finally get to know his mother had been far more precious than any diamonds, gold bars, or cash in the First Trust vault, and Deirdre’s cold, cruel, calculated betrayal had utterly destroyed that longing—along with a good chunk of Finn’s heart. Perhaps even worse, he’d had to kill his mother to stop her from killing me, something that still filled my own heart with guilt and grief.

Owen’s gaze flicked back and forth between Finn and me. He grimaced, realizing that he’d hit about a dozen different nerves. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean…” His deep voice trailed off, and he grimaced again. “Sorry.”

Finn waved his hand, indicating that all was forgiven, but his grin had vanished, and his eyes had dimmed. My heart squeezed tight at his obvious pain—pain that I was partially responsible for, even if Finn claimed otherwise.

Someone else deliberately cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence. “I don’t know why we’re talking about robbing a bank. Technically, we have every right to be here. Well, Gin does.”

Silvio Sanchez, my personal assistant, spoke up from his position beside Owen in the backseat. Silvio was about twenty years older than us thirtysomethings, and his gray hair and eyes gleamed in the morning sunlight filtering in through the windows, as did his bronze skin. My assistant was also dressed in a suit, although his was a dark, subdued gray, compared to Finn’s lighter, brighter, silvery threads. Still, Silvio looked just as polished as my brother and my significant other did.

“After all, the account was left to Gin,” Silvio continued, pointing out facts the way he so often did. “So she has every right to access the funds. If she ever decides to get out of the car.”

He raised his eyebrows at me in a silent, chiding question. I sighed, faced forward, and looked out through the windshield again.

The four of us were sitting in Finn’s silver Aston Martin, which was parked on the third level of a garage down the street from the Bellum Bank. Normally, going to a bank would be no big deal, but the people flowing in and out of the doors were far more dangerous and devious than your usual bankers and customers.

That was the problem.

The Bellum Bank was no ordinary financial institution. Instead of being a place for regular folks to cash checks and apply for mortgages, the Bellum Bank catered to Ashland’s underworld. Even criminals needed somewhere to deposit their money, as well as store their other ill-gotten goods, and the Bellum Bank was a one-stop shop for shady financial transactions, money laundering, and more.

And now I had an account there.

Well, technically, it wasn’t my account but rather one that had been left to me by Fletcher Lane, Finn’s dad and my foster father and assassin mentor. I had no idea how much money was actually in the account. All I knew was that Fletcher had wanted me to use the funds to destroy my uncle, Mason Mitchell—something that I was eager to do.

After months of investigating, I had finally discovered that my dear uncle Mason was the head of the Circle, a secret society that was responsible for much of the crime and corruption in Ashland, as well as so much misery, heartache, and pain in my own life.

Among his many, many crimes, Mason had tortured his own twin brother, my biological father, Tristan Mitchell, to death for daring to question his leadership of the Circle. Then, several years later, Mason had ordered Fire elemental Mab Monroe to murder my mother, Eira Snow, and my older sister, Annabella. Mab had tried to murder me too, along with my younger sister, Detective Bria Coolidge, although we’d both managed to escape the Fire elemental’s wrath.

A couple of weeks ago, Mason had finally crept out of the shadows he’d been hiding in for so long. My uncle had dropped all sorts of nasty familial bombshells on me—including the fact that Fletcher used to work for him. That revelation had done the most damage to my heart, and I was still struggling to make peace with all the horrible things my beloved mentor had done on Mason’s orders.

But Fletcher had eventually gotten out from under Mason’s thumb, and he’d stolen a good chunk of the Circle’s money—money that Mason desperately wanted back. Despite my uncle’s best efforts, I was the one who’d found Fletcher’s black ledger, which had been hidden away for years. And now, here I was, sitting outside the bank where the money was supposedly being kept.

Only one problem: I was too afraid to go inside and actually get said money.

I might be Gin Blanco, the assassin the Spider, the supposed queen of the Ashland underworld, but I’d been on so many wild-goose chases over the past few months, with clues that only led to more clues, that part of me didn’t want to go inside the bank and have to solve yet another mystery Fletcher had left from beyond his grave.

I couldn’t bear being disappointed again.

Not now, when I finally knew who Mason was. When I was this close to taking my revenge on him. When I was within a stone’s throw of killing the bastard for all the terrible things he’d done, for robbing Bria and me of the normal, happy life we should have had with our father, mother, and sister. That we would have had, if not for Uncle Mason’s twisted need for power and control.

“Silvio’s right.” Finn cut into my dark thoughts. “Are we going to sit here all day, or are we actually going to go inside and get our loot?”

His green eyes brightened, and he rubbed his hands together again, as though his fingers were itching with excitement at the thought of how much money might be in Fletcher’s mystery account.

“Gin’s loot,” Silvio corrected in a mild tone.

“What good is loot if you don’t share it with the people you love?” Finn quipped right back to my assistant.

Owen snorted. “Why do I think that’s your not-so-subtle way of asking Gin for the biggest share of the money?”

Finn grinned again. “Well, I’m not saying that Gin loves me the most, but I do have the advantage of having known her the longest. That’s got to count for something, especially when it comes to loot. Right, Sis?” He started batting his eyelashes at me, like a debutante flirting with a potentially rich husband at a cotillion.

“Oh, please,” I replied. “You only call me Sis when you want something.”

He kept batting his eyelashes. “I have never been shy when it comes to money. Besides, don’t I deserve a little something-something for helping you investigate the Circle these past few months? Don’t we all? Especially after we rescued you from Mason’s creepy cemetery. Why, he would have crushed you like a bug with those broken tombstones if we hadn’t driven him and his men away.”

This time, I was the one who grimaced. Even though my wounds were healed, sharp stings still pricked my skin, and my entire body ached with remembered pain. Mason had used his Stone magic to explode tombstone after tombstone and pelt me with the resulting rubble, torturing me just like he had my father all those years ago. My uncle would have literally Stoned me to death if my friends hadn’t shown up to help me—and if my nemesis hadn’t risked his life to save mine.

“I think what Finn is trying to say is that it was our pleasure to come to your rescue for a change, Gin, instead of you saving us like you have so many times before.” Silvio shot my brother a pointed look.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Finn replied in a breezy tone. “That too. But I’m mostly thinking about the money.”

His grin widened, and he rubbed his hands together for a third time. A welcome laugh bubbled up in my chest and tumbled past my lips. I could always count on my brother to lighten even my darkest mood—and distract me from my painful memories.

“All right,” I said, giving in to the inevitable. “Let’s go see what Fletcher had in the bank.”

Finn whoop-whooped! and opened the driver’s door. I smiled and opened my own door.

The four of us got out of the car, went over to the low stone wall that cordoned off this level of the garage from the open air beyond, and stared down at the street below.

It was just after nine o’clock, and people were trudging along the sidewalks, veering off into office buildings to go to work. Still more folks were sitting in cars, waiting for red lights to turn green so they could head to their own buildings and work. I looked past the foot and vehicle traffic and stared at the Bellum Bank, which dominated this part of downtown.

The bank was housed in an enormous five-story building that featured wide gray stone steps, classic Greek columns, and intricate carvings. Instead of being set back from the street, the Bellum Bank was unusual in that it was in the center of things, with both foot and vehicle traffic flowing all the way around it. A broad street led up to the front of the building before curving into a large roundabout. From there, cars could go either right or left, veering around the bank, or circle the roundabout and head back in the direction they’d come from.

A white marble statue, shaped like a woman with a bucket dangling from one hand and her other fist raised high in victory, stood in the middle of the grassy park in the center of the roundabout. Marisol Patton was famous for sounding the alarm and starting a bucket brigade that had stopped a fire from raging through downtown Ashland in the early 1900s.

Marisol was one of several historic statues in this part of downtown, and my mother, Eira, used to bring Annabella, Bria, and me here in the summer to eat ice cream and play in the grass in the statue’s shadow. My heart twinged at the happy memory, but I shoved it away. I needed to be sharp and focused right now, not dull and melancholy about the past.

Silvio glanced down at the tablet in his hands. My trusty assistant never went anywhere without his electronics. “Everything is the same as before on the traffic cameras that Bria helped me access through the police department’s website. People and vehicles moving around like normal. Nothing unusual, and no sign of any bad guys.” He paused. “Well, other than the ones going into the bank, but I suppose that can’t be helped.”

No, it couldn’t, which was one of the many problems with our potential “bank robbery,” as Finn had dubbed it. As soon as I stepped into the bank, someone was bound to recognize me. Criminals loved to gossip as much as everyone else did, and it wouldn’t be too long before news that Gin Blanco had visited the Bellum Bank got back to Mason. My uncle was smart enough to put two and two together and realize that Fletcher had hidden the Circle’s money at the bank. And then Mason would come for that money—and for me too.

Of course, I’d thought about wearing a disguise, but knowing how paranoid Fletcher was, the old man had probably set up the account so that only I could access it, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to get the money. No, I needed to go in as myself, transfer the funds to my own account at First Trust, and get out as quickly as possible.

“Let’s do this,” I said. “Silvio, stay here in the garage and monitor the traffic cameras. Owen, take the car and park it out on the street, just in case we have to leave in a hurry. Finn will go into the bank with me.”

Finn tossed Owen the car keys, then moved off to talk to Silvio, who was still swiping through screens on his tablet.

Owen laid his hand on my arm. “Are you okay? You’ve been quiet ever since we got here.”

Sometimes I hated that Owen knew me so well and could tell when something was wrong. Still, his concern touched me, the way it always did. “Just worried, I guess.”

“About what?”

I gestured out toward the bank. “If this is really it, the jackpot at the end of the rainbow. Or just another step in a seemingly endless climb to topple Mason off his lofty perch.”

Sometimes I felt like I’d been investigating the Circle for years instead of months. And every time I thought I’d finally learned all of the evil group’s secrets, some new horror popped up and knocked me right back down on my ass again. Not for the first time, I wondered if I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of futility, like Sisyphus doomed to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity.

“I’m just…tired,” I continued. “I want to know that all of this, everything we’ve suffered, all the bad guys we’ve faced down, hasn’t been for nothing. That we destroyed the Circle and made things better for everyone in Ashland. That eventually, Mason will get the horrible death he so richly deserves. And that all the secrets and lies will finally end.”

Understanding sparked in Owen’s violet eyes, and he stepped closer, gently squeezing my arm, before sliding his hand down and threading his fingers through mine. “Well, no matter what happens, we’ll face it together, just like we always do. Okay?”

I nodded, lifted my head, and pressed my lips to his. The kiss was quick, soft, reassuring, but it still made heat simmer in my veins, as did Owen’s rich, metallic scent and the warm strength of his body mingling with my own. I swayed into him, resting my cheek on his shoulder, and he circled his arm around my waist, pulling me even closer.

“Less canoodling, more looting,” Finn called out.

Owen chuckled. Me too. We held on to each other a moment longer, then broke apart.

“Be careful,” Owen whispered.

“You too,” I whispered back.

I forced myself to smile at him, then turned away and jerked my head at Finn, who fell in step beside me. Together, we headed for the stairs.

My face was calm, my stride smooth, but dread churned in my gut like a chainsaw. Despite Owen’s reassurances, I was still deeply worried about what Finn and I would find inside the bank—and if I would be frustrated and disappointed in my quest for revenge yet again.