"You should let me pay you, Gin. I know how hard you work."
I held back a snort. I doubted that her tone would be so kind, so considerate, if she knew how much money I had stashed away in various bank accounts-money that I'd gotten for killing people.
I glanced at the ticket stapled to the bag. "It's a ham sandwich, beans, fries, and two pieces of strawberry pie. Don't worry. It's not going to break me. Besides," I said, thinking of Jonah McAllister and his measly thirteen cents. "A customer gave me a big tip tonight anyway. More than enough to cover your meal, detective."
She opened her mouth, but I cut her off.
"I insist," I said in a firm voice. "Think of it as an early Christmas present."
The least I could do was slip my own sister a free meal now and then. The very least.
"All right," Bria said, being gracious enough to take me up on my offer. "Thanks. I appreciate it."
She grabbed the bag, gave me a nod and a smile, and turned to go.
Sophia cleared her throat-loudly. I glanced over at the dwarf, and she stabbed a stubby finger in Bria's direction before stabbing it back in mine. Then, Sophia crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a flat stare. I felt like a naughty schoolgirl being chastised by her nun of a teacher. I knew what the dwarf wanted. For me to talk to Bria, to get her to stay, to do something, anything, to further our relationship, even if it was only the tiniest bit.
"Um, detective?" I said.
Bria stopped and looked over her shoulder at me.
"I know that you don't have any ... family in Ashland." The lie stuck in my throat like lumpy gravy, but I forced it out. "I was wondering if you had any plans for Christmas."
I knew that because I kept an eye on Bria whenever she came into the Pork Pit, trying to learn everything I could about her. Usually she brought Xavier along with her, since the giant was her partner on the force whenever he wasn't busy helping Roslyn run Northern Aggression. Finn had also compiled a fat folder of information on Bria that contained just about everything that she'd ever done in her twenty-five years.
But for some reason I just hadn't been able to bring myself to look at the file, and it lay unopened on the coffee table in the den in Fletcher's house. I didn't want to read about what my sister had been up to all these years-I wanted her to tell me herself. About her life, about her job, even about her hopes and dreams. Sappy and sentimental of me, but I didn't care.
Every time that Bria came into the Pork Pit to eat, I tried to strike up some kind of conversation with her, tried to learn more about my sister and what she'd been doing since the last time that I saw her, when she was eight years old. To let her tell me in her own words about all the things that had happened to her since that horrible night when our family had been torn apart by Mab.
From the bits and pieces that she'd told me and what Xavier had let slip, I knew that Bria had been adopted by a couple named Coolidge. The man had been a cop down in Savannah, Georgia, where they'd lived, and he was Bria's inspiration for joining the force. Her foster father had died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. Her foster mother had followed him a year later, hit and killed by a drunk driver.
By all accounts, they'd both loved Bria, and she'd loved them. I'd learned a while back that when your family had been murdered and torn away from you like mine had, you had to make a new family for yourself. Sometimes with what was left of your own flesh and blood, and sometimes with the people you met along the way. It helped to ease the pain.
Shadows darkened Bria's blue eyes, and her mouth flattened into a tight line. "I was planning on working Christmas and letting somebody else spend the day with her family since I don't really have any."
The harsh tone in my sister's voice indicated that I should drop this awkward conversation. I looked at Sophia, who cleared her throat again and raised her eyebrows, a rare show of expression from her. The dwarf didn't want me to give up. Neither would Finn, Owen, or Jo-Jo, if they'd been here. The truth was that I didn't want to give up either. Not when Bria was finally back in my life after so many years. Not when Fletcher had gone to so much trouble to make sure that I knew that she was alive and to bring her back to Ashland in the first place.
"Well, Owen Grayson is having some people over at his house," I said, taking the plunge. "Me, Finn, Xavier, Roslyn. I thought that if you weren't doing anything else, you might like to join us."
After, of course, I called Finn, Xavier, and Roslyn and asked them all to come.
Bria didn't say anything, but a sad sort of longing flickered in her blue eyes. It matched the ache in my heart.
"I'm cooking," I said, trying to sweeten the pot, so to speak. "So I can assure you that the food will be excellent."
After, of course, I told Owen that I was whipping up a Christmas feast for all the people that I hadn't actually invited over to his house yet.
Bria stared at me a moment more before answering. "I don't want to intrude," she said in a soft voice.
I smiled at her, letting a rare bit of warmth creep into my cold gray eyes. "You won't be intruding. You're Xavier's partner. You're practically family now, Bria."
Behind me, Sophia let out a soft snicker at my lame attempt to establish some sort of connection with my sister. Yeah, my words dripped with cheese, and I knew that it was amusing to see big, bad Gin Blanco reduced to pleading just to spend a few hours with her own bloody sister. But still, this comedy of errors had been the dwarf's idea to start with.
I turned and glared at Sophia. Below the counter, out of Bria's line of sight, I grabbed the silverstone knife that I'd stuck in there when McAllister and LaFleur had come into the restaurant. I brandished the weapon at the dwarf, telling her exactly what I was going to do to her if she didn't quit her giggling.
But my flashing the blade only made her snicker harder. Given her extremely thick, dwarven musculature, I could make Sophia look like a pincushion with my silverstone knives, and it wouldn't hurt her-much. At least, not as much as she'd hurt me with her fists, something that we both knew.
"I'll ... think about it," Bria finally said.
I gave her another smile, but her lack of commitment made some of the warmth drain out of my features. "You do that."
Bria nodded at me once more, then turned and headed out of the restaurant. This time, I didn't try to call her back or stop her from leaving, even though my heart felt as cold and empty as the snowy night outside as the door swung shut behind her.
Chapter 15
I stood there staring at the front door of the Pork Pit, wishing Bria would come back, wishing I could just tell her who I really was without worrying about how she would react to the information. But I didn't want to immediately lose my sister all over again when I'd just found her, which is probably how things would go if I told her I was the Spider.