The top of the cavern was damp, and phosphorescent mold covered most of the jagged stalactites, a strange, pale green contrast to the rest of the gray, brown, and black rock. A drop of water fell down from one of the stones and spattered onto my upturned cheek. I looked up, backtracked the drop, and realized a steady stream of water rushed down one wall of the cavern. Still more water dripped from other stalactites over my head. Hmm.
That might be useful.
Tobias Dawson walked in a loose circle around me.
His snakeskin cowboy boots clattered on the rough stone.
"Do you know where you are?"
I put my hands on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet. Spots swam in front of my eyes again, but I blinked them away. "I have a pretty good idea."
It was hard to talk through my broken, throbbing jaw, and my words came out mushy and mumbled. Just the way my face felt.
The dwarf stared at me. "You broke into my office, into my safe." His floppy mustache bristled with anger.
I shrugged. No use denying it now. If Tobias Dawson's elemental talent for sensing and identifying others' magic was as good as he claimed, no lie of mine would convince him otherwise. Besides, I was already on the hook here. If I played my cards right, maybe things would stop and end with me. I didn't want Dawson to start thinking about who else might have been involved with me - and I didn't want him going after Finn, the Deveraux sisters, the Foxes, or even Donovan Caine.
"Yeah, I broke into your office."
"Why?" the dwarf snapped. "What were you looking for? Who are you working for? Did Warren Fox hire you to kill me?"
I stared at the dwarf and kept my eyes cold, my face expressionless. I might be on the express bus to dead, but I wasn't going to snitch on the Foxes and take them with me. "I don't know any Warren Fox."
"Bullshit," Tobias snarled. "I saw you at his store the other day."
I raised an eyebrow. "You mean that shack by the side of the crossroads? Yeah, I was there. So what?"
"Why?" Dawson demanded.
"I had to pee," I quipped. "And I didn't feel like getting a briar in my ass by going in the woods."
The dwarf stared at me, considering my words. "I don't believe you."
"Doesn't much matter to me whether you believe me or not."
Tobias spit a stream of tobacco juice out of his mouth.
It spattered against my bare, scraped leg. The dwarf was going to pay for that. I might die down here, but before I went, I was going to get at least one good blow in. Just for that.
"Who are you working for? What do you want?" Dawson asked again. "I have ways of making you talk, you know."
My jaw twitched with pain, which kept me from rolling my eyes. Yeah, I'd figured out the dwarf could hurt me the first time he'd slammed his fist into my face. The memory was still fresh in my mind, even if it had apparently slipped his.
"I'm sure you do. As for what I want, well, it's more about what my employer wants. Maybe we can work out some sort of deal."
The dwarf stopped his circle to stand in front of me.
His pale blue eyes narrowed. "I'm listening."
"You let me go, and I tell you who wants you dead. How does that sound?"
The dwarf nodded. "All right. You have a deal."
Lying bastard. He wasn't going to let me go, and we both knew it. But this was how the game was played when you were sloppy enough to get captured. Dragging things out to the bitter end. I'd only get one shot to try to take out Dawson. I knew what I was going to do, but whether I had the strength for it was another matter. Still, it was best to keep him talking as long as possible.
I backed up a few steps from the dwarf so that I was clear of the stalactites and the water dripping down from the ceiling. He didn't follow me. His first mistake. "So you've figured out what I am, what I do."
"You're an assassin," Dawson said. "That's the only explanation for all those silverstone knives you had on you and the way you threw yourself at me at the party."
Well, at least he wasn't stupid enough to think I'd really been attracted to him. That would have been rather sad on his part. I gave him a thin smile. "Actually, I was enjoying my retirement, if you can believe that. But then, as the old story goes, I got one last job offer, and the money, well, it was just too good to pass up."
Another assassin, Brutus, had said those words to me once - right before I'd killed him. Of course, they were a complete fabrication on my part now. But it was just the sort of fairy tale Tobias Dawson wanted to hear, the story he'd already sold himself on. I could see the suspicion in his eyes. All I had to do was fill in the name for him. And even if I didn't make it out of here alive, I still planned on causing as much trouble as I could for one certain individual.
"Who hired you? Why? Tell me right now, or I'll let my boys have some fun with you." Dawson jerked his thumb over his shoulder at his two men.
Behind him, one of the giants rubbed his crotch and rocked his hips forward. His buddy laughed at him and gave me a slow wink. Their casual mockery made my anger ratchet up from a slow simmer to a boil. Those bastards weren't laying another hand on me.
But I still had my part to play for Tobias Dawson, so I took another step back from the jagged stalactites and threw my hands out wide. "Isn't it obvious who I'm working for? Who else knows about this little diamond mine you've stumbled upon? Who else have you told about it? Why don't you think about that for a few seconds and get back to me."
The dwarf frowned and spit out another stream of tobacco juice. His blue eyes turned inward as he reviewed the list of folks he'd shared his underground discovery with. I was willing to bet it was a real short list - with only one woman's name on it.
"Mab," he muttered. "Mab Monroe. That's who you're working for?"
I shot my thumb and forefinger at him. "Give the man a prize."
Dawson frowned. "But why would she hire an assassin to kill me?"
Despite my broken jaw, I managed a laugh. A loud, mocking laugh that echoed off the walls. "Because, you idiot, she wants all this for herself. All these lovely, lovely diamonds, and the money that's going to come along with them."
"No way." Dawson shook his head. "There's no f**king way you're working for Mab. She wouldn't turn on me like that."
I snorted. "Take your head out of your ass. Of course Mab would turn on you like that. It's what she does. She's made a career out of it, as a friend of mine would say. You're just the latest casualty in her ever-expanding empire."