“Either way, it hardly matters now, does it?” Madeline said, waving her hand and making a silverstone-and-emerald ring sparkle on her right hand. It too was shaped like her crown-and-flame rune. “My mother is dead.”
“And you’ve finally come to Ashland to lay claim to your inheritance.”
She smiled again, leaned forward, and steepled her hands together on the tabletop. “Something that I have you to thank for, Gin. My inheritance might have been tied up in the courts for years if you hadn’t uncovered my mother’s will during that whole nasty situation at the Briartop museum. For that, you have my thanks.”
I didn’t want her damn thanks. I didn’t want anything from her. But this was another part of the chess game between us, so I decided to match her move for move.
“What can I say?” I drawled. “I’m all for the truth coming out.”
Her smile widened, revealing a hint of teeth that were as white as her suit.
“Well, now that we know each other, why don’t you introduce me to your friend?”
I gestured at the giant, who was leaning against the counter by the cash register and keeping an eye on Sophia. Apparently, she knew how dangerous the Goth dwarf could be, although Sophia was completely ignoring her and still chopping onions.
Madeline gestured at the giant, who strolled over toward us. “As you noted before, this is my personal bodyguard, Emery Slater.”
Surprise surged through me. Slater? This just kept getting better and better.
“As in Elliot Slater, I presume,” I murmured.
The giant’s eyes were cold and empty as she stared me down. “He was my uncle.”
“And Gin killed him too,” Madeline said, clasping her hands together again. “Isn’t it funny how much family history there is among the three of us?”
“Oh, it’s just a laugh riot,” I drawled.
Madeline and Emery stared at me, but I focused on Madeline. She was the real threat.
“Well, I hope that you’ve enjoyed your time in Ashland so far. I’ve given you quite the tour of the city these past few days, what with y’all following me around in your car.”
Madeline blinked. Apparently, she hadn’t thought that I’d connected them with the black Audi.
“How long have you been in town? I know that you’ve been supplying Benson with his Burn pills for several weeks now. He was trying to reverse-engineer your formula, you know. But he couldn’t quite figure out what your secret ingredient is.”
She let out a pleased laugh. “Sounds like you’ve been investigating me, Gin.”
“Nothing so intense as that. You give me too much credit.”
“Oh, no. I haven’t given you nearly enough credit. You see, I had hopes that you would kill Beauregard, but I admit that I was doubtful about whether you could actually do it.”
So I’d been right about my strings being pulled and there being another player in this game between Benson and me. I thought back to the night that Troy was murdered and how I’d seen the Audi outside the parking garage. And I realized exactly who Madeline and Emery had been following then.
My eyes narrowed. “You knew that Bria had her sights set on Benson. That’s why you were following her around the night I spotted you outside the parking garage. You wanted to see what she was up to regarding Benson.”
Madeline beamed at me. “Clever too. People really do underestimate you, Gin. But yes, you’re exactly right. Your sister is quite formidable. Benson was rather worried about her and what she might dig up on him. He expressed his concerns to me more than once, so I suggested that he be more . . . proactive about the situation. Really send your sister a message.”
My stomach twisted. “You’re the one who told him to kill her informant Max.”
Madeline gave a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “I merely suggested that he take action. Nothing more, nothing less.”
A sick, sick feeling filled my stomach at the thought that I’d been indirectly responsible for Max’s gruesome murder. That Madeline had used him—and Bria—as a way to get to me.
“Of course, given the number of men Benson had sent after you these past several months, I was hoping that you would take the initiative and kill him yourself, thus solving both of our problems. But that didn’t look like it was going to happen. So I decided to . . . accelerate things.” Madeline favored me with a thin smile.
“By having Benson kill a low-level informant? What did you think that would get you?”
“Why, it made your sister, the good detective, become even more determined to bring him down,” she replied, as if the answer should have been obvious. “I knew that Benson would never allow himself to be arrested and that your sister equally wouldn’t give up until she’d nabbed him. Something would have to give, and I knew that something would be you, Gin. That you would get involved somewhere along the way. Although I have to admit that having your waitress witness one of Benson’s executions was just the icing on the cake.”
I didn’t respond, my mind whirling at her subtle, skillful machinations—and how effective they’d turned out to be.
Madeline leaned forward, her green gaze fixed on my gray one, as though we were two conspirators discussing our secret, hush-hush plans. “You see, Gin, I’ve been studying you these last several months, ever since I spotted you at my mother’s funeral. You really are something of a reluctant assassin, aren’t you? You never kill people anymore unless they target you first . . . or go after your family.”
I had to work very hard to keep from showing any sort of emotion. This bitch had set up Max and even Bria to be killed just so that I would get involved and take care of Benson for her. I thought that I was playing chess with her, but Madeline had really been toying with me this whole fucking time.
I’d always thought that Mab was the most dangerous person I’d ever known, but I was beginning to realize that Madeline was just as deadly, because she was even more devious than her mother. Mab had taken control of Ashland and kept it by ruling with an iron, flaming fist. Everyone knew that crossing Mab would lead to a quick, painful, Fire-filled death.
But Madeline . . . Oh, she would kill people outright, just like her mother had, but I got the impression that what she really enjoyed was playing games—whispering a few words into the ears of the wrong people at the right time and then standing back and watching as the poison promise of her web took shape, trapping everyone in its deadly threads.
One I hadn’t even realized I was stuck in until this very moment.
But I couldn’t help but ask some of the many questions on my mind. “And what does my killing Benson get you? How do you benefit?”
She gave another delicate shrug of her shoulders. “Not having to go through a middleman, for starters. Benson gave me far less than what my drugs were worth, and I knew that he was trying to reverse-engineer my formula for Burn, even going so far as to insist that I share my ingredients list with him. It was becoming most annoying. So I decided to cut him out and take control of the drug trade in Ashland for myself. And you made it all possible.”
My stomach twisted again at how easily she’d played me, but all I could do now was try to figure out what her endgame was and how to keep her from using or hurting anyone else I cared about.
“Benson forced me to take one of your Burn pills, you know,” I said, trying another tactic. “As one of his so-called experiments. He wanted to record its effect on me. I was quite surprised to feel elemental magic running through my veins, along with whatever chemicals are in the drug.”
“Oh, that’s thanks to me,” Madeline said in an airy tone. “I put a few drops of my own blood into every batch of the drug. I knew it was the one ingredient that Benson couldn’t figure out and the one that he could never replicate. My magic is what gives the drug its special . . . kick.”