Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

down on one knee and Mab had money, but her real power came from the started to repeat the handcuff process on Jake. He stared fact she was a Fire elemental, just like Jake McAllister. into his face. Xavier frowned, then looked up at me with Being an elemental meant Mab could create, control, and his black eyes.
    manipulate fire just about any way she wanted to. But
    “You know who this is?” he rumbled.
    Mab Monroe had far more power than Jake McAllister
    “No. Should I?”
    had ever dreamed of. Rumor had it that Mab had more The giant nodded his head. “Yeah, Jake McAllister.”
    magic, more raw power, than any elemental born in the My gray eyes narrowed. “McAllister? As in Jonah last five hundred years. Given her stranglehold on the McAllister? The lawyer?”
    city and queenlike position in the Ashland underworld,
    “The one and only,” Xavier rumbled. “Jake here is his it wasn’t so much a rumor as a commonly known fact. son. Third time he’s been in trouble since Halloween.”
    Anyone who went up against Mab Monroe got dead in The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind my a hurry.
    eyes. Jonah McAllister was Ashland’s highest priced and Jonah McAllister was more than just Mab’s lawyer—he most successful lawyer. A charismatic showman who was one of her top lieutenants, along with Elliot Slater, the could make the most violent, irredeemable, sociopathic giant who handled Mab’s security and brutally enforced criminal seem like an innocent schoolgirl—and make the her wishes. McAllister’s job was to deal with anyone who jury weep with compassion while he did it. McAllister challenged Mab through legal means. To bury them in didn’t care whether people were guilty or not, as long as enough paperwork and red tape to drown an elephant so they could pay his astronomical fees.
    that they either gave up outright or were forced to when But even more problematic was the fact Jonah McAlthey went bankrupt trying to pay their own attorneys. lister was also the personal counsel to Mab Monroe. AshNo, Jonah McAllister wouldn’t be pleased about my land might have all the municipal trappings of any other beating down his son. He, and by extension Mab Moncity. Police and fire departments, a city council, a mayor. roe, could make problems for me—problems that weren’t But Mab Monroe was the one who really ran the town, as easily solvable now that I was just Gin Blanco and not in addition to her own lucrative, Mob-like empire. To moonlighting as the assassin the Spider anymore. Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 20-21
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    22 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 23
    “You sure you want to press charges?” Xavier asked.
    “Fuck who his daddy is,” I said. “He almost slit that
    “Most people don’t, after they find out who his daddy is.”
    girl’s throat. I’m pressing charges.”
    I stared at Jake, who kept blinking up at the ceiling. Xavier shrugged. “Your choice. Just don’t expect much My gaze slid over to Cassidy, who was busy looking at to come of it.”
    her shoes. She’d heard Xavier’s question, and she knew He clinked the silverstone handcuffs around Jake’s what the McAllister name meant as well as I did. Cassidy wrists and yanked the Fire elemental up to his feet. The thought I was going to fold, and she didn’t want to see me abrupt motion snapped Jake out of his blinking trance, tell the cops to let Jake go.
    and he looked over his shoulder at the cop, then back at The image of the orange-red flames licking at Cassidy’s me. It took a few seconds for the reality of the situation slender throat flashed before my eyes, along with her tearto penetrate his thick skull. streaked face. Reminding me of another place, another “You called the cops? You’re going to pay for this, time, another girl desperate for me to save her, to conbitch!” Jake screamed. vince her everything was going to be okay, even if I knew He surged forward, trying to break free of Xavier and it wasn’t. That it would never be all right again. get at me. But Xavier easily restrained him with one hand. The memories of my baby sister, Bria, and the horHard to break a giant’s grip. rible night our mother and older sister, Annabella, had But instead of staying where I was, I stepped around been murdered, swam up in the back of my mind, a dark the counter and walked over to Jake. This time, I let him shark rising to surface. The memory sank its cold, jagged see just how cold and flat and hard my gray eyes