Anger flashed in Madeline’s eyes, making them flare an even brighter, more vibrant green, the same intense, wicked color as the acid that she could summon with just a wave of her French-manicured hand. She didn’t like me calling her out on her true feelings for her mother, and she especially didn’t like that I’d pointed out that the dedications were all about her ego, not Mab.

Good. I wanted to make her angry. I wanted to piss her off. I wanted to rile her up so much that she couldn’t even see straight, much less think straight, especially when it came to me. Because that’s when she would make a mistake, and I could finally figure out what her endgame was and how I could stop it before she destroyed everything and everyone I cared about.

“But who am I to judge?” I drawled on. “I wouldn’t care either, not if she had been my mother. I guess it’s one of those little things that we’ll just have to agree to disagree on.”

Madeline blinked, and she forced her crimson lips to lift a little higher. “You know, I think that you’re right. We are just destined to agree to disagree—about a great many things.”

We stared each other down, our stances casual and our features perfectly pleasant but with a deadly, dangerous coldness lurking just below the smooth surfaces.

“Anyway, I’m afraid I must be going,” Madeline said, breaking the silence. “I have another dedication to prepare for tomorrow. This one’s at the library downtown.”

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

“No,” she said in a pleased voice. “I don’t think you will. But I do thank you for coming out here today, Gin. As you said, it’s always so very lovely to see you.”

Madeline smirked at me, then pivoted on her stiletto and moved back toward the podium, shaking hands and thanking all for their support and well wishes. Emery and Jonah each gave me one more hostile glare before they trailed after her. Soon the three of them were in the heart of the crowd, with Finn and me standing by ourselves underneath the maple.

“She really is something,” Finn said in an admiring tone, his eyes locked onto Madeline’s lithe, gorgeous figure.

Despite his being involved with Bria, Finn was still a shameless flirt who loved to charm every woman who crossed his path. He would never do that with Madeline, for obvious reasons, but that didn’t keep him from ogling her for all he was worth. I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

“What?” he protested. “She’s like a black widow spider. I can admire the beauty of such a creature, even if I know exactly how deadly it is.”

“Only you would think that being eaten during your postcoital bliss would be worth it.”

Finn shrugged, then flashed me a mischievous grin. “But what a way to go.”

He stared at Madeline another moment before looking over the rest of the crowd. He must have spotted someone he knew, perhaps one of the clients at his bank, because he waved, murmured an excuse to me, and headed in the direction of a wizened old dwarf who was wearing a large pink sun hat and an even larger diamond solitaire that could have had its own zip code. Finn never missed an opportunity to mix business with pleasure, and a moment later, he was attached to the dwarf’s side, having winked and wiggled his way past her female giant bodyguard. Finn gave the elderly woman a charming smile as he bent down and pressed a dainty kiss to her brown, wrinkled hand. Well, at least he was an equal-opportunity flirt.

But I continued to watch Madeline, who was still shaking hands and was now standing directly below the arch that bore her family’s name. Maybe it was the way the sun was hitting the metal, but the word Monroe seemed to flicker and gleam with a particularly intense, sinister light, as though it were made out of some sort of black fire, instead of just sturdy old iron.

Madeline noticed me staring at her and gave me another haughty, pleased smirk before turning her back and ignoring me completely. Emery and Jonah did the same, moving to flank their boss again.

All I could do was stand there and watch my enemy have a grand old time, basking in the warm glow of everyone’s collective, attentive goodwill.

Maybe I’d been wrong when I told Finn that being eaten was the worst part.

Maybe waiting for the black widow to kill you was the real torture.

2

The dedication wrapped up soon after that, and Madeline, Emery, and Jonah got into a black Audi and drove away from the park, probably off to the Monroe family mansion to plot and scheme the rest of the day away.

I stood beneath the maple, alternating between glaring at the Audi as it zoomed away and that metal arch that was now a permanent reminder of Mab, Madeline, and all the horrible things they’d done to me and the people I loved. My hands clenched into fists again, my fingers digging even deeper into my spider rune scars, and cold anger seared my chest from my heart all the way down into the pit of my stomach.

Finn finished flirting with the elderly dwarf and her bodyguard and wandered back over to me.

“I need a drink,” I growled.

He perked up. “Now you’re talking.”

We left the newly crowned Monroe Memorial Park behind and walked about half a mile until we came to a gray, featureless building that looked like it might house corporate offices. A large sign of a heart with an arrow through it was mounted over the front doors, the only clue that there was more to this gin joint than met the eye. Northern Aggression, Ashland’s most decadent nightclub, was run by Roslyn Phillips, a vampire friend of ours.

It was barely past one in the afternoon now, so the neon sign was dark, although it would light up as soon as the sun set, a glowing red, orange, and yellow beacon that would invite folks from near and far to step right on inside and indulge themselves in all the hedonistic pleasures the club offered—blood, liquor, sex, smokes. You could get all that and more inside, in as small or large quantities as you desired, as long as you had enough money to pay to play.

Roslyn knew that Finn and I were going to the dedication, so she’d invited us to swing by afterward. I knocked on one of the doors, but there was no answer. I rang the buzzer too, in case Roslyn hadn’t heard my sharp, loud raps. Still, no answer.

“You think something’s wrong?” I asked, worry replacing my earlier anger. “That someone’s holding Roslyn inside?”

That’s exactly what had happened a few weeks ago when Beauregard Benson, a vampire drug dealer, held Roslyn hostage and forced her to lure me over to the nightclub.