Heart of Venom

his lap.

His eyes narrowed but not before I saw a flicker of emotion in the cold brown depths: fear.

“You do remember Mr. Lane, don’t you?” I continued, mocking him with his own fondness for formal addresses.

“He’s the man who saved Sophia from you before.”

“He’s the man who took Sophia from me before,”

Grimes growled back. “One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t kill him years ago.”

“Funny, because Fletcher felt the exact same way about you,” I drawled. “He didn’t kill you way back then, but believe me when I tell you that I plan to rectify that now.”

Grimes gave me an amused look. “Do you know how many people have tried—and failed—to kill me over the years? You’re not the first person to come up to my mountain with a couple of guns and knives and try to take me out. I assume you saw the pit. That’s not the first one that’s ever been dug around my family’s cemetery, and it won’t be the last.”

“Perhaps your other attackers weren’t motivated enough,” I quipped. “Believe me when I tell you that won’t be a problem for me. I’m in it to win it, and all that.”

Behind me, the three men with the guns shifted on their feet, making the floorboards creak and groan under their weight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two men on my right exchange a nervous glance. They seemed much more concerned by my threat than Grimes did.

Then again, I’d already killed a passel of their buddies, and the day was still young.

But Grimes had a different reaction from his flunkies.

He ignored me completely. Instead, he swiveled around in his chair and reached for a decanter of clear liquid on a table behind his desk. Grimes unstoppered the bottle, and caustic fumes from whatever was inside assaulted my nose. Some of his mountain moonshine, I guessed, gussied up in fancy crystal. Mountain strychnine, from the harsh scent of it. That wouldn’t just put hair on your chest; it would burn it clean off. And probably take a good portion of your esophagus along with it.

Grimes poured himself a couple of fingers’ worth of moonshine into a crystal tumbler, then swiveled back around to face me again. Once he’d had a few sips of the foul brew, he set the tumbler aside and picked up a silver picture frame perched on the right side of his desk. He studied the photo for a moment, then set the frame down at an angle. The same sullen photo of Sophia that I’d seen earlier on the wall by the stairs peeked at out me.

“I knew that Sophia was mine from the first moment that I saw her,” Grimes said. “Hazel and I were out getting supplies at this little country store down the mountain a ways. Sophia was there with her sister.”

A jolt went through me. country Daze—he had to be talking about country Daze, Warren’s store. No wonder the old coot had been so insistent on coming with Owen and me. Warren probably felt guilty that Grimes had first laid eyes on Sophia in his store, as guilty as I felt for Jo-Jo’s picture being in the newspaper and leading Grimes back to her and Sophia all these years later. And especially for letting Sophia dispose of so many bodies for me over the years.

“Of course, I tried to do the right thing and court her proper,” Grimes continued, still staring at the picture of Sophia, his eyes distant and dreamy with memories. “But Ms. Deveraux wouldn’t have any of that. She thought that I was a bad influence on Sophia. She should have kept out of things that didn’t concern her. But that won’t be a problem now, will it?”

I thought of how casually Grimes had shot Jo-Jo in the salon and how cold, pale, and lifeless she had looked lying on cooper’s kitchen table. She could have taken a turn for the worse. She could have needed more healing magic than cooper had to give.

She could have died in the time that I’d been up here on the mountain.

My heart squeezed at the thought, aching worse than any of my injuries, but I kept my face calm, as though we were talking about the weather, instead of a brutal attack on someone I loved.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied. “Jo-Jo is stronger than you think. She’s a tough old bird. She might just surprise you—again.”

“What do you mean byagain?” Hazel asked.

My gaze cut to her. “Who do you think hired Fletcher in the first place? Jo-Jo wanted her sister back, and she decided to do whatever was necessary to make it happen.”

“Yes, let’s get back to Mr. Lane,” Grimes said, leaning back in his chair and interlacing his fingers again. “I’m interested in why you said that he sent you, since I know that he’s been dead for months now.”

His voice and words were casual, but once again, a bit of unease pinched his face. Whatever Fletcher had done to Grimes all those years ago, however badly the old man had hurt him, however close the old man had come to killing him, it had left a lasting impression. Good. I wanted Grimes to be afraid. I wanted him to sweat and worry and wonder. But most of all, I wanted him to suffer for as long as possible before I ended him.

Even if I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that right now.

“Oh, you’re right,” I agreed. “Fletcher was killed last fall.”

My gaze dropped to the floor, but I wasn’t seeing the gleaming, pristine wood. Instead, blue and pink pig tracks spattered with blood filled my vision, along with a crumpled, ruined figure that had had the flesh peeled from his bones with Air magic. Fletcher. More memories rose in my mind of that horrible, horrible night when

I’d realized that the job that I’d been sent out on was a trap and that I was too late to save Fletcher from being tortured to death inside the Pork Pit.

But I pushed the memories and the emotions back down into the bottom of my black heart and smothered them with a cold, icy layer of rage, just like I had done with the pain of my injuries. Because now was not the time to show any sort of weakness.

“If Lane is dead, then why are you here?” Hazel asked.

“Because he trained me,” I answered in a voice that was even snider than hers.

“And who are you?” Grimes asked.

“My name is Gin, like the liquor.”

They both gave me blank looks, apparently not getting the joke. Nobody appreciated irony these days.

I sighed. “My name is Gin Blanco,” I replied. “But y’all probably know me by another one: the Spider.”

The three men behind me sucked in a collective breath.

They shifted on their feet again, backing away from me and making the floorboards creak- creak-creak-creak with their jerky, hurried movements. Well, it was good that my reputation had preceded me. Perhaps when it came time for me to kill Grimes and Hazel, these fools would cringe and cower instead of getting in my way. A nice thought, but I wasn’t going to pin my hopes and dreams on it.

But once again, the brother and sister seemed completely unconcerned by my moniker.

“The Spider?” Hazel sneered. “Really? You’re the big, bad bitch who took out Mab Monroe? I don’t believe it.”

I shrugged. “Believe it or not. Doesn’t much matter to me.”

“You’re lying,” Grimes said. “The Spider would never come here. She would never waste her time on some ill-advised rescue mission.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that it was so ill-advised, seeing as how I’m standing here and Sophia isn’t.” I grinned. “Y’all didn’t catch her, did you?”

A muscle twitched in Grimes’s cheek, but he returned my shrug with one of his own, as though the fact that

I’d stolen Sophia right out from under his nose was of no consequence. “This isn’t the first time that Sophia has escaped. She’ll be back here where she belongs soon enough.”

Hazel let out a derisive snort, then rolled her eyes. “All you’ve done for the past several months is talk and talk about Sophia Deveraux. I don’t see what you find so fascinating about her. She’s just a dwarf. Not even a very pretty one at that. Did you see those tacky clothes she had on? Not to mention that horrid spiked collar that she was wearing. You could do better, Harley. So much better. At the very least, we can find you a college girl who will clean up much nicer than Sophia Deveraux ever could.”

From the evil glint in her eye, what she really meant was some poor girl whom Hazel would have an