Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

my mentor had been brutally tortured and murdered inside the Pork Pit—in the very spot Jake and I were in right now. The old man, Fletcher Lane, had wanted me to retire, to take a different path in life, to live in the daylight a little, as he was so fond of saying. I’d followed Fletcher’s advice and quit the assassin business after I’d killed Alexis James, the Air elemental who’d murdered him.
    “Hmph.”
    Behind me, Sophia grunted. I looked over my shoulder at the dwarf, who still had hold of the other woman. The girl was unsuccessfully trying to pry the dwarf’s stubby fingers off her waist. Good luck with that. Sophia had a grip like death. Once she had you, she didn’t let go—ever. My gray eyes locked with Sophia’s black ones. Regret flashed in her dark gaze, and the dwarf shook her head just the tiniest bit. No , she was saying. Not in front of two witnesses.
    Sophia was right. Witnesses were bad. I couldn’t gut Jake with the two girls watching and get rid of the body afterward. Not in my own restaurant. Not without blowing my cover as Gin Blanco and leaving everything behind. And I wasn’t going to do that. Not for a piece of trash like the Fire elemental. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t let Jake know exactly who he was dealing with.
    I waited until there was a lull in Jake’s howls, then tipped his head up with the knifepoint and gazed into his eyes. They’d lost all hint of their red, fiery magic. Now, his brown irises were wide and glossy with panic, fear, pain.
    “You ever come to my restaurant and fuck with me or my customers again, and I’ll carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
    I slashed down with the knife, breaking the skin on his beefy neck. Jake yelped at the sting and clawed at the slight wound with his sausage-thick fingers. I slapped his hand away and nicked him again. The smell of warm, coppery blood filled my nose. Something else that hadn’t bothered me in a long, long time.
    “Every time you move, I’m going to cut you again. Deeper and deeper. Nod your head if you understand.”
    Hatred flared in his gaze, taking the edge off the pain and panic, but he nodded.
    “Good.”
    I clipped his temple with the knife hilt. Jake’s head snapped to one side and fell onto the floor. Unconscious. Just like his friend Lance.
    I stood up, wiped my fingerprints off the knife, and dropped the weapon on the floor. The half-giant didn’t stir. Then, I got to my feet and headed for the girl, still crouched underneath the table.
    She shrank back against the legs of a chair at my approach, like she wanted to melt into the metal. Her pulse fluttered like a mad butterfly against her temple. I put my friendliest, most trustworthy, charming, southern smile on my face and crouched down until I was eye-level with her.
    “Come on, sweetheart,” I said, holding out my hand. “It’s over. Those men aren’t going to hurt you now.”
    Her chocolate eyes darted to Jake lying on the floor. Her gaze flicked back to me, and she chewed her lip, her teeth white against her toffee skin.
    “I’m not going to hurt you, either,” I said in a soft voice. “Come on, now. I’m sure your friend wants to see how you are.”
    “Cassidy!” the other woman called out since Sophia still wasn’t letting her go. “Are you all right?”
    Her friend’s voice penetrated Cassidy’s fearful daze. She sighed and nodded her head. The girl reached out, and I grabbed her trembling hand. Cassidy’s fingers felt like thin, fragile icicles against the thick scar embedded in my palm. I tugged the girl to her feet. She eyed me with understandable caution, so I kept my movements slow and small, not wanting to startle her.
    “I’m fine, Eva,” Cassidy said in a low voice. “Just a little shook up is all.”
    Sophia let go of the other woman, and I stepped back. Eva rushed forward and caught her friend in a tight hug. Cassidy wrapped her arms around the other women, and the two of them rocked back and forth in the middle of the restaurant.
    I walked over to Sophia, who was watching the two women with a flat expression on her pale face.
    “Friendship. Ain’t it a beautiful thing?” I quipped.
    “Hmph.” Sophia grunted again.
    But the corner of the Goth dwarf’s lips turned up into a tiny smile.
    The two girls hugged a minute longer before Eva pulled a cell phone out of her jeans.
    “You call the cops,” Eva told her friend. “I need to let Owen know I’m okay. You know how he is. He’ll