Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

a thing to happen.”
    “All right,” Jonah McAllister said. “You want to be
    “It’s not a charade, Mr. McAllister,” I said. “I fully incompensated for your trouble. I can certainly understand tend to testify against your son—and there’s nothing you that.”
    can offer me to get me to change my mind. Certainly not He reached into his suit and pulled out a slim black money.”
    checkbook and a matching Mont Blanc fountain pen. Jonah McAllister leaned forward. His brown eyes
    “How much do you want?”
    burned now, though not with Fire elemental magic. InI laughed. stead, the lawyer put the full force of his charm into his The chuckles rumbled out of my throat like motorgaze. “Come, come now, Ms. Blanco. There’s no need to cycle exhaust. Low, thick, black. once more, McAllister’s play the upstanding citizen with me. I’ve researched you. lips tightened into a thin, hard line, even if the rest of You’re an orphan, aimless, a drifter who lucked into runhis face couldn’t follow suit. The attorney didn’t apprecining this restaurant after the owner, the distant cousin ate being laughed at. Too bad. Because he’d just tickled who took you in, was murdered a few months ago. Hell, my funny bone with his blatant bribery attempt, whether you can’t even decide on a major so you can graduate from he’d intended to or not.
    the community college you take so many classes from.”
    “Sorry,” I murmured. “I didn’t actually expect you to Good to know the Gin Blanco cover identity I’d bring your checkbook along, much less whip it out. You worked so hard to build over the years had passed the certainly have a style about you, Mr. McAllister, trying to thorough inspection of someone like Jonah McAllister. bribe me in my own restaurant.”
    But that didn’t stop the knife of pain that sliced through Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 146-147
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    148 JENNIFER ESTEP
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    me. Because his words were truer than he realized. I had the influence. I can make things very difficult for you, if I been something of a drifter, aimless, until Fletcher’s murso choose. You’ll find standing up and doing the so-called der. That brutal event and its aftermath had made me right thing to be a very trying proposition.”
    take a hard look at my life—and made me start to change. My eyes narrowed, but I didn’t respond.
    I was still a work in progress, but I’d be damned if Jonah
    “Have you wondered why you haven’t had any cusMcAllister was going to threaten anything that was mine. tomers the past two days?” Jonah said in a soft voice. McAllister took my silence to mean I was considering
    “No,” I replied. “I figured it was you, telling people his proposal and decided to up the ante. “Besides, I’m to steer clear of the Pork Pit. Just how long do you think certain there’s something I have you might find of value you can do that?”
    or interest.”
    “As long as it takes for you to realize you can’t win,”
    I shook my head. “You don’t have anything I want, he replied. “I’ll keep people away every day until you go McAllister. Not a thing. Now why don’t you drop the out of business, if I have to. I have the money, time, recharade of a concerned father just trying to do what’s best sources, and motivation to pull it off. Maybe you should for his son? We both know little Jakie is an embarrassthink about that, before you so cavalierly throw away my ment all the way around. Did he tell you he was going to generous offer. I’m trying to be civil about things. Trust kill two girls just for kicks?”
    me when I say you wouldn’t like the alternative.”
    “Shut up, bitch,” Jake growled from his booth. “or I’ll The bastard was actually trying to bully me. Trying to fry your ass.”
    squeeze me the way he had so many other people over I stared at him. “You don’t scare me, Jakie. I would the years. It might have worked, if I’d still been thirteen, have thought our encounter the other night would have living on the streets, and mourning the loss of my family. proven that to you, even if you were high on your own It might have worked, if I’d still been Genevieve Snow. Fire elemental magic at the time.”
    But no matter how much I changed, no matter how I More sparks of hatred flashed to life in Jake’s eyes, and tried to be different and leave my past profession behind, the red, magical rage slowly filled his gaze. Jake opened part of me would always be