“What happened?” Jo-Jo asked, moving over to the sink to wash her hands.
“Sebastian Vaughn played me for a lovesick fool.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “That’s what happened.”
Finn had already heard my sob story, but I quickly filled in Jo-Jo, Sophia, and Fletcher on everything that had happened. When I finished, I turned my attention to Sophia.
“Do you think you can take care of the mess that Finn and I left at his apartment building?” I asked. “We got most of it, but the bodies definitely need to be moved to a more permanent location.”
Sophia nodded and left the salon without another word. I let out a breath. Well, that was one problem solved. Now to see to Fletcher.
Jo-Jo pulled a chair over to him, along with a freestanding light, which she clicked on. The dwarf leaned over him, peeled away the towel bandages, and peered at the hole close to his collarbone, the one that blood was still trickling out of.
“Sorry, darling,” she said. “But the bullet is still in there, and getting it out is going to hurt as much as it did going in.”
Fletcher nodded. “Best get on with it, then.”
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, while Jo-Jo held her hand up. The feel of her Air magic gusted through the salon, making me grimace. Even though it wasn’t directed at me, I could feel tiny, invisible needles stabbing into my skin as Jo-Jo gathered up her power. Like Mab’s Fire, Jo-Jo’s Air power was the opposite of my own Ice and Stone magic, and it simply felt wrong to me. Of course, the irony was that Jo-Jo was using her magic to heal instead of to destroy, as Sebastian had destroyed the mausoleum. But the feel of his magic hadn’t bothered me at all, since he was gifted in the same element that I was. Not even when he’d been trying to kill me with it.
Jo-Jo’s eyes burned a milky white in her lined face, while the same bright glow coated her palm. She leaned forward and began to move her hand over Fletcher’s body. Back and forth and up and down. Slowly, the bruises on his skin faded from purple to green, then disappeared completely. The cuts and scrapes that dotted his knuckles closed together, then healed.
Once the minor things were taken care of, Jo-Jo moved on to the bullet still lodged in his shoulder. She reached for more and more of her magic, and the feeling of pins and needles intensified, so much so that I had to dig my fingernails into the spider rune scars in my palms to keep from snarling. But I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want anything to interrupt her concentration. Not when Fletcher was hurting so much.
Jo-Jo reached forward, and a small piece of metal seemed to float to the surface of Fletcher’s skin and then up into her hand. She held it up between her fingers so that Finn and I could see the bullet. It was a large caliber, and I bit back another curse. The giants hadn’t been fooling around when they’d come after Fletcher. If that bullet had hit his heart, he would have been dead before he dropped to the floor. I wondered what Sebastian had told his men about why he wanted Fletcher and Finn dead. But I supposed it didn’t much matter, since we’d killed all the giants.
And I was going after Sebastian next.
Once Jo-Jo got the bullet out, she finished healing Fletcher a few minutes later. He drew in deep breaths, his lungs free of the rasp that had strained them before, but a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. He was worn out from everything that had happened. He wasn’t the only one.
But Fletcher still turned his head to stare at me, his green eyes soft and kind, far kinder than I deserved.
Jo-Jo stood up and touched Finn’s arm. The two of them left the salon and headed into the kitchen, leaving me alone with Fletcher.
“I know what you’re thinking, and it wasn’t your fault,” he said. “I knew that there was something wrong with the job from the get-go. I should have found out exactly what it was before I let you go anywhere near Cesar Vaughn—or Sebastian.”
I shook my head. “There are always doubts about any job. This one just happened to have more than most. Besides, I was the one who pushed and pushed to do the hit. Not only that, I was the one who was sloppy, who let Sebastian see me outside the library in Dawson’s mansion. If not for that, he might have never discovered who we are and what we do. At the very least, he wouldn’t have found out about you and Finn.”
It sickened me that I’d failed both Finn and Fletcher so completely, that I’d failed to protect them from a dangerous enemy, one I’d happily, carelessly invited into our lives. The whole reason I’d become an assassin was to protect the people I cared about, but I hadn’t lived up to my own promise to myself. Not at all. The only thing that hurt worse than that was knowing that I’d taken Charlotte’s father away from her, the same way my mother and sisters had been taken away from me.
Fletcher reached out and took my bloody hand in his. “It’s not your fault, Gin,” he repeated. “Don’t you think for one second that it is. I know the risks as well as you do. Better than you do, because I’ve lived with them longer. Besides, I’m the one who dragged you into this life in the first place.”
I nodded, although I knew that I’d never forgive myself for the hurt I’d caused him tonight or especially the hurt I’d caused Charlotte, for the rest of her life.
Charlotte. My stomach churned. I hoped that she was okay. I hoped that she had stayed in her room like I’d asked her to.
I hoped that Sebastian wouldn’t take his anger at me out on her.
Fletcher cleared his throat, getting my attention. “And now I have to tell you something, Gin. My contact called me earlier tonight, right before the giants attacked. He confirmed a few things for me about the job.”
That must have been why his phone was busy when Finn had tried to call him.
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that Sebastian was the one who paid for it.”
I thought of all the sad, knowing looks he’d given me over the past few days, especially the one right before I’d left the house tonight to go to the Vaughn estate.
“Did you know that Sebastian was behind all of this?” I whispered.
He hesitated. “I suspected.”
“When?”
He cleared his throat again. “The day Sebastian picked you up at the Pork Pit for your first date. He seemed so . . . smug, like he’d just gotten everything he’d ever wanted. It didn’t sit right with me, so I started investigating him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I couldn’t keep the hurt and accusation out of my voice.