I frowned, wondering if maybe my vision wasn't quite as clear as I thought it was. "Sierra? What are you doing here - "
"Hi, sugar," she drawled.
Sierra smiled, pulled a stun gun out of her purse, shoved it into my chest, and hit me with it.
Chapter 6
The volts of electricity pumping through my chest made every single nerve ending in my body flare to life and explode with pain. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Instead, my legs went out from under me again, and I slumped to the ground, my muscles jumping and twitching with spasms. It was all I could do to hold on to my hammer, but I knew that if I let go of it, I was dead.
Sierra smiled, leaned down, and hit me with the stun gun again. My head arched back, and I could feel every tendon in my neck, shoulders, and chest straining against the electricity surging through my body. Once again, I opened my mouth to scream but couldn't get a sound out. Every wave of electricity felt like ropes of fire curling tighter and tighter around my body.
Sierra finally pulled the stun gun away from my chest, and I slumped against the side of the car, all the fight fried right out of me. Sweat ran down my face, the salt of it stinging my eyes, and I struggled to blink away the moisture and push down the pain pulsing through my body.
I was dimly aware of Phillip still struggling with Stuart off to my left. It sounded like the giant had had a little more life left in him than I'd thought.
"Geez," Sierra muttered, staring at Richie, who was still lying on the pavement where he'd fallen. "You really did a number on him, didn't you?"
She dug the sharp toe of her red stiletto into the dwarf's side, but of course, Richie didn't move. He was much too dead for that.
"Who . . . are . . . you?" I finally managed to rasp.
She bent down so she could look into my eyes. "I'm the woman who's going to kill the high and mighty Spider - not you and your buddy there. I knew that you were up to something. You were showing way too much interest in her inside the club. Tell me, did they hire you to take out Blanco too? As a backup team in case I failed?"
They? Who were they? Who had hired Sierra to kill Gin?
"I don't know . . . what you're . . . talking about," I said, my voice still low, strained, and hoarse.
Sierra narrowed her hazel eyes, as if she didn't believe me. She started to hit me with the stun gun a third time, but her cold gaze flicked to Phillip. He must have been close to finishing off Stuart, because Sierra straightened up.
"Ah, well. You want something done right . . ." Her voice trailed off, and she gave me another predatory smile. "Now, at least, I don't have to split the money with those two idiots. Not that I planned on doing that anyway. While Blanco was killing them, I was going to take her out."
So Sierra had planned for the two men to be a distraction while she snuck up on Gin, just like Richie had been going to do to Stuart.
"Of course, now I'll have to add you and your friend to the body count." Sierra shrugged. "But that's something else that I don't have a problem with."
She reached into her purse, pulled out a revolver, and pointed it in Phillip's direction.
Even though my fingers were still twitching, I managed to tighten them around the grip of my hammer. Once again, I felt a wave of my own power flow from the metal to my body, easing some of my aches and pains. I grabbed hold of that cold, hard, unyielding sensation and let it center me. Then I raised the hammer and smashed it into Sierra's right knee as hard as I could.
It wasn't the mightiest blow I'd ever landed, but it was certainly effective, and I felt her bones crunch underneath the head of the hammer. She screamed with pain, but she didn't go down, so I raised the hammer again and slammed it into the top of her foot. She screamed again, higher and louder this time, and staggered back.
One of her heels caught in a pit in the pavement and snapped, sending Sierra's legs flying out from under her.
Crack.
Her head hit the ground at an awkward angle, and just like with Richie, all the movement in her body simply stopped. Her mouth gaped open, but nothing came out except a bit of blood, darker than the crimson lipstick that she wore. More and more of it began to pool on the pavement under her head, and I knew that she was dead.
I let out a breath and finally released my hammer. The weapon clattered to the ground, but I could hear the metal murmuring, this time with pride. It always enjoyed hitting things, no matter what they were.
"Owen!"
I blinked, and suddenly, Phillip was crouching down in front of me.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his blue eyes full of concern.
I grimaced. "I'll live. I think."
Phillip helped me up. My muscles still jerked and burned with electricity, but I managed to stay upright.
He stared down at Sierra. "She really didn't want to take no for an answer, did she?"
"Only you could make a bad joke like that at a time like this."
Phillip grinned a moment, but then his face turned serious. "Who do you think she was?"
I shrugged and immediately wished I hadn't, as the small motion sent more ribbons of fire racing through my body. "I don't know. She said that she was here to kill Gin. She thought that whoever had hired her had hired us too, in case she and her men couldn't get the job done."
Phillip bent down and rifled through her purse. "No ID on her but plenty of weapons. There's a knife in here, along with some garroting wire."
He let out a low whistle and held out a piece of paper so I could see it. The words One million were scribbled on it, probably the amount that Sierra was supposed to get paid, along with three letters: M.M.M.
"Do you think that's who hired her?" Phillip asked. "Because we both know of someone with the same three initials."
Along with everything else that had gone down at the Briartop museum, Gin had also discovered that Mab had left her estate to some long-lost relative, M. M. Monroe. So far, Gin hadn't been able to find out anything about this mysterious Monroe, not so much as his or her full name. But it looked like this person knew all about Gin - and that worried me.
I took the note from him and slid it into my pants pocket. I'd think about it later. Right now, we had more pressing concerns.
"Now what?" Phillip asked.
"What do you think? Now we get rid of the bodies."
He sighed and shook his head. "I think you've been spending way too much time around Gin. We go out for a simple guys' night on the town, and you end up dropping three bodies in the nightclub parking lot. You're picking up her bad habits."
A wry grin pulled up my lips. "But it was fun, right? Just like old times, when we'd get into some street fight with a couple of gangbangers who thought that they were tougher and smarter than we were."