The giant cop, Xavier, reached down, picked up Lance by the scruff of his neck with one hand, and slapped a set of silverstone cuffs on him with the other. "You. Stand still."
Lance was too busy trying not to puke to do something stupid, like run. Xavier got down on one knee and started to repeat the handcuff process on Jake. He stared into his face. Xavier frowned, then looked up at me with his black eyes.
"You know who this is?" he rumbled.
"No. Should I?"
The giant nodded his head. "Yeah, Jake McAllister."
My gray eyes narrowed. "McAllister? As in Jonah McAllister? The lawyer?"
"The one and only," Xavier rumbled. "Jake here is his son. Third time he's been in trouble since Halloween."
The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind my eyes. Jonah McAllister was Ashland's highest priced and most successful lawyer. A charismatic showman who could make the most violent, irredeemable, sociopathic criminal seem like an innocent schoolgirl - and make the jury weep with compassion while he did it. McAllister didn't care whether people were guilty or not, as long as they could pay his astronomical fees.
But even more problematic was the fact Jonah McAllister was also the personal counsel to Mab Monroe. Ashland might have all the municipal trappings of any other city. Police and fire departments, a city council, a mayor.
But Mab Monroe was the one who really ran the town, in addition to her own lucrative, Mob-like empire. To most folks, Mab was the richest businesswoman in the city, who generously, selflessly, used her wealth to help the less fortunate. But those of us who moved in the shady side of life knew Mab did everything from ordering kidnappings, to bribing government officials, to murdering anyone who got in her way.
Mab had money, but her real power came from the fact she was a Fire elemental, just like Jake McAllister.
Being an elemental meant Mab could create, control, and manipulate fire just about any way she wanted to. But Mab Monroe had far more power than Jake McAllister had ever dreamed of. Rumor had it that Mab had more magic, more raw power, than any elemental born in the last five hundred years. Given her stranglehold on the city and queenlike position in the Ashland underworld, it wasn't so much a rumor as a commonly known fact.
Anyone who went up against Mab Monroe got dead in a hurry.
Jonah McAllister was more than just Mab's lawyer - he was one of her top lieutenants, along with Elliot Slater, the giant who handled Mab's security and brutally enforced her wishes. McAllister's job was to deal with anyone who challenged Mab through legal means. To bury them in enough paperwork and red tape to drown an elephant so that they either gave up outright or were forced to when they went bankrupt trying to pay their own attorneys.
No, Jonah McAllister wouldn't be pleased about my beating down his son. He, and by extension Mab Monroe, could make problems for me - problems that weren't as easily solvable now that I was just Gin Blanco and not moonlighting as the assassin the Spider anymore.
"You sure you want to press charges?" Xavier asked.
"Most people don't, after they find out who his daddy is."
I stared at Jake, who kept blinking up at the ceiling.
My gaze slid over to Cassidy, who was busy looking at her shoes. She'd heard Xavier's question, and she knew what the McAllister name meant as well as I did. Cassidy thought I was going to fold, and she didn't want to see me tell the cops to let Jake go.
The image of the orange-red flames licking at Cassidy's slender throat flashed before my eyes, along with her tearstreaked face. Reminding me of another place, another time, another girl desperate for me to save her, to convince her everything was going to be okay, even if I knew it wasn't. That it would never be all right again.
The memories of my baby sister, Bria, and the horrible night our mother and older sister, Annabella, had been murdered, swam up in the back of my mind, a dark shark rising to surface. The memory sank its cold, jagged teeth into my heart. Fire, torture, destruction, death. All that and more had happened that one, fateful night seventeen years ago. My hands curled into loose fists, hiding the spider rune scars that had been burned into my palms - scars that were a constant reminder of my lost family.
After a few seconds, I uncurled my palms and flexed my fingers, working the tension out of them.
I focused on Jake McAllister again, remembering the sharp, sly way he'd stared at me. Two hundred dollars or not, he'd been ready to kill me and everyone else in the restaurant for nothing more than a thrill. I'd be damned if I was letting him get away with it - any of it.
"Fuck who his daddy is," I said. "He almost slit that girl's throat. I'm pressing charges."
Xavier shrugged. "Your choice. Just don't expect much to come of it."
He clinked the silverstone handcuffs around Jake's wrists and yanked the Fire elemental up to his feet. The abrupt motion snapped Jake out of his blinking trance, and he looked over his shoulder at the cop, then back at me. It took a few seconds for the reality of the situation to penetrate his thick skull.
"You called the cops? You're going to pay for this, bitch!" Jake screamed.
He surged forward, trying to break free of Xavier and get at me. But Xavier easily restrained him with one hand.
Hard to break a giant's grip.
But instead of staying where I was, I stepped around the counter and walked over to Jake. This time, I let him see just how cold and flat and hard my gray eyes really were. "You're the one who's going to pay when Daddy finds out you're knocking over restaurants - or trying to. Piss poor job you did, all the way around."
"Bitch!" he screamed again. "You're gonna die for this! Do you hear me? You're dead!"
Jake lunged forward again, but the giant cop jerked him back by the scruff of his neck - none too gently.
Xavier winked at me, and I smiled. I was starting to like Xavier. I'd have to slip him an extra C-note or two the next time I saw him working the door at Northern Aggression.
"Come on, Jake," Xavier rumbled. "Let's get you in the squad car so you can call your old man to come bail you out."
Xavier pushed Jake McAllister and his friend Lance through the front door and into the back of a waiting cruiser. The other cop, the short guy, took statements from Cassidy and Eva. He'd just finished talking with the girls when the front door of the Pork Pit opened and another cop stepped inside. A tall Hispanic man with short black hair, bronze skin, and eyes the color of smoky whiskey.
Detective Donovan Caine.
The majority of cops in Ashland might be known for their apathy and avarice, but Donovan Caine was a rare exception to the rule. He fought against the rampant corruption, bribes, and payoffs most of the police force took to look the other way and actually tried to catch criminals. And the detective really did believe in all that protect and serve, touchy-feely stuff.