I gave him a grim smile. "Because unlike you, I have heard of her. Go on."
Vinnie nodded. "Anyway, LaFleur tells me that she's working for Mab Monroe on a special assignment. To find and kill the Spider. And that I'm going to help her do this. At this point, I am freaking out. But I can't exactly leave, not without her killing me too."
He shuddered at the memory of the other assassin threatening him. Couldn't blame him for that. Not when LaFleur had thrown in a demo of her electrical magic right there on the spot.
"So she approached you about working for her. Then what happened?" I asked.
Vinnie swallowed again. "This woman, LaFleur, said that unless I wanted to end up like her friend, I was going to start watching Roslyn for her. Going to see who Roslyn was hanging out with, who she talked to at the club every night. She wanted me to make a list of every woman that I saw Roslyn with. She said that one of them had to be the Spider, and it was just a matter of narrowing it down."
Well, he'd just confirmed what Brown, the vampire, had said in the park. I didn't know if LaFleur had been ordered to do all this by Mab or if the assassin had come up with the plan all on her own. Either way, it wasn't good news for me.
"I told her that I was just a bartender, that I didn't know about anything that had happened with Roslyn or Elliot Slater or the Spider or any of it. But she wouldn't take no for an answer. LaFleur said that if I didn't do exactly what she said, she'd kill Natasha and make me watch while she did it. And then she'd kill me."
Vinnie's voice dropped to a whisper and was so soft that I had to strain to hear him. "I just-I didn't have a choice. You didn't see what she did to that man. You didn't smell it or hear him scream. So yeah, I did what she said. I started watching Roslyn. And when LaFleur came back to the club a few days ago and told me to start talking about the drug shipment, I did that too."
"Why didn't you come to me, Vinnie?" Roslyn asked. "I would have believed you. I would have helped you."
The Ice elemental gave her a wan smile. "I know that you would have tried. But Elliot Slater almost killed you, and this woman makes him look like Santa Claus. And Natasha, she comes first with me. She always has. I couldn't risk her. I'm sorry, Roslyn. So very sorry."
The vampire nodded, accepting his apology. "I know, Vinnie. Believe me, I know."
"So what did LaFleur say to you tonight?" I asked. "When she came into the club?"
Vinnie looked back at me. "She told me that no one had shown up at the drug meeting last night, which meant that I must not have done what she asked me to. She said that she was going to dance for a few minutes before she left to go over to my apartment, and kill Natasha and her babysitter. I was just-desperate. I didn't know what to do, so I left to go home and try to get to my daughter before LaFleur did. But she had men inside the club waiting for me."
"I know," I said in a wry tone. "I'm wearing little bits and pieces of them right now."
Vinnie stared at me, his blue eyes once again taking in the blood on my clothes, hands, and face. "What's going on?" he asked. "Who are you? Why were you in the park tonight?"
The bartender had been pretty out of it when I'd shown myself to Mab's men earlier, all of his attention focused on taking down Brown, the vampire, not with who I was.
So I stared at him, letting him see just how cold, flat, and hard my gray eyes really were, and made the introduction once more. "I'm the woman you're looking for, Vinnie. I'm the person LaFleur wanted you to find. I'm the Spider."
Chapter 9
Vinnie looked at me a second more, then bolted out of his chair and headed for the hallway that led into the front part of the house. I sighed. As much as I liked the fact that the mere mention of my assassin name was enough to inspire abject terror in people, it was inconvenient right now. Because I needed to talk to Vinnie, not kill him. Not yet anyway.
But Vinnie didn't get far. By that point, Finn had finished his coffee run and was strolling back down the hallway, a mug of his steaming chicory brew in his left hand. He saw Vinnie heading toward him, sighed, and reached around behind his back with his right hand. Finn came up with a gun, which he leveled at Vinnie's head.
The Ice elemental froze in the doorway.
"Why don't you be a good boy, Vinnie, and go sit down," Finn said in a pleasant voice before taking a sip of his coffee. His eyes never left the other man, and his gun never wavered. Finn could be a badass when he had to, just like me.
Xavier got to his feet, walked over, and clamped his hand on Vinnie's shoulder, as a little added incentive. "If we wanted you dead, Vinnie, we would have left you in the sandbox. Relax, man. Nobody here is going to hurt you."
The giant didn't add the not yet part. He didn't have to.
Xavier maneuvered Vinnie back over to his original chair. The Ice elemental sank into the padded seat, a dazed expression on his face. Xavier hovered over his shoulder, in case he decided to run again.
"You're the Spider. The Spider," Vinnie muttered, his eyes flicking back to me.
"That's my name," I drawled.
He leaned forward and buried his head in his hands. Bits of golden sand fell out of his dirty brown hair and glinted on the floor. "Dead. I'm so dead. You're going to kill me, aren't you? That's why you brought me here. That's why you healed me. To question me before you kill me."
Admittedly, that had been my first plan, but now I was reconsidering things. Even assassins could be swayed from time to time.
I tilted my head to one side and gave him a thoughtful look. "Not necessarily. What I really want to know about right now is your little girl."
Vinnie raised his head out of his hands and looked at me. "Natasha?"
I nodded. "Natasha. Tell me about her."
The Ice elemental shifted in his chair. "You can do whatever you want to me. I know that I deserve it, for spying on Roslyn like I did, for setting you up like I did. But please, leave Natasha out of it. Please. I'll do anything you want, tell you anything you want, give you anything you want, if you'll just let her go."
I shook my head. "I hate to disappoint you, Vinnie, but I don't have your daughter. I have no idea where Natasha is."
Vinnie's face fell. "But you-you killed those men at the park. The giants. I saw you do it. And you brought me here, you healed me. Surely, you must have Natasha here too."
"I'm sorry," I said and meant it. "But we just found you. We didn't get your daughter as well. Given what I heard the men in the park say, I'm pretty sure that Mab has her now."