Bria, Xavier, and Owen kept their eyes and guns on the guards, but none of them made a move toward me. Neither did anyone in the crowd. They were all too shocked by my actions.

Finally, after about three minutes of whaling on the car, I lowered the hammer and stepped back, breathing hard, although I felt much calmer, my earlier tension wiped away by the energizing exertion.

“Oh, man,” Finn groaned through the receiver hidden in my ear. “Really, Gin, did you have to smash up the car? I’m starting to think that’s some sort of fetish of yours.”

“Maybe,” I agreed in a cheery voice. “I do quite enjoy it.”

I twirled the hammer around again and slammed it into the hood, adding another dent to the dozen already there.

“Great,” someone muttered in the crowd. “Crazy assassin bitch is talking to herself now.”

“Is it my imagination, or are your admirers making snide comments about your sanity?” This time, Phillip’s voice sounded in my ear.

I couldn’t see him, but Phillip was ensconced with Finn on the rooftop closest to Benson’s mansion. He, Finn, Owen, Xavier, Bria, and I were all wearing earpieces so that we could communicate with one another.

“Apparently, you agree with them,” I murmured back.

“If the hammer fits . . .” Phillip trailed off.

“Says the man who likes to throw people off his riverboat,” Owen cut in.

“You’ve been holding out on me, Philly,” I chimed in again, using Eva’s nickname for him. “That sounds like fun.”

“See?” Phillip said in a smug voice. “Your crazy woman agrees with me, Owen.”

“Whatever,” Owen rumbled back.

“Enough talk,” Bria cut in.

“Yeah.” Xavier joined the conversation. “You’ve finally got some guards headed your way, Gin—a lot of them.”

I glanced toward the mansion. Sure enough, about a dozen vamps were marching in my direction, all of them clutching guns. Several were murmuring into their phones, trying to coordinate with one another, but I looked past them. Waiting—just waiting for the king himself to make his appearance.

A few seconds later, the front doors opened, and Beauregard Benson came striding out of the mansion, wearing his usual white pants and sneakers, along with a baby-blue bow tie and a matching button-up shirt, complete with his pocket protector full of pens. And he wasn’t alone. Silvio shuffled along behind his former boss, two vamps holding on to his arms.

The last knot of tension in my chest loosened. I was glad to see that Benson hadn’t killed Silvio outright for his betrayal. As long as he was still breathing, Jo-Jo could heal the damage that had been done to him—on the outside, anyway. As for the inside, well, Silvio would have to deal with that in his own way and his own time, just like the rest of us did.

“All right, guys,” I murmured. “It’s go time. Just keep the guards off my back, and I’ll handle Benson.”

“Are you sure?” Finn asked. “I’d be happy to put a couple of bullets in his skull.”

“And he might send them spinning away into the crowd with his vampiric Air magic,” I countered. “No, Benson’s mine.”

Nobody said anything. They all knew why that was so important to me.

Benson was still about two hundred feet away from me, so I leaned down and propped Owen’s hammer up against the side of the smashed-up Bentley. Then I looked over my shoulder at the crowd milling around behind me.

“Anybody who steals that hammer will have to answer to me,” I called out.

Mutters rippled through the crowd, and everyone scuttled back a few steps.

“No way, man.”

“Not me.”

“Uh-uh. I ain’t touching that stupid hammer.”

I stepped away from the hammer and the car and backed up so that I was standing in the middle of the street, just behind the center lines. Through my earpiece, I could hear the others murmuring as they checked everything a final time. Finn and Phillip readied their rifles, taking aim at the guards, while Bria, Xavier, and Owen remained clustered around her sedan, weapons in hand, ready to support me however they could. I didn’t anticipate needing them to help me kill Benson, though. I wanted to do it myself.

I needed to do it myself.

Benson pushed through his guards, snarling at them to get out of his way, before storming through the open gate, crossing the sidewalk, and stepping out into the street in front of me. His cold blue gaze flicked over to his smashed car, and a spark of anger flashed in his eyes before he was able to hide it. Looked like I’d finally gotten under his skin. The vamp might feed on other people’s emotions, but he had some of his own too, mixed in with the cruelty pumping through his veins. Still, he kept his features calm as he faced me.

“Gin,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. And looking so well. Why, your recovery is quite remarkable, considering how much you were screaming only yesterday.”

Snide snickers rippled through the ranks of the guards, but I shut out the sound of their mockery. Benson was trying to make me angry so that he could more easily feed on my emotions and make himself stronger. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d spent most of my life pushing aside my feelings, hardening my emotions, and letting ice run through my veins instead of anything else, and I saw no reason to stop now.

Not until after I’d stopped him—for good.

“I am feeling much more like myself today,” I drawled right back at him. “It’s a wonder what a good night’s sleep will do for you. Well, that and not being strapped down to a chair and force-fed your nasty drugs. Kind of cowardly of you, Beau. Filling me full of sedatives and that Burn pill instead of facing me head-on, villain to villain. Mab Monroe certainly never would have done anything like that. Say want you want to about her, Mab had style and power to spare. You? All you have are your sick little experiments and the emotions you rip out of other people.”

Murmurs swept through the crowd behind me, and even a few of Benson’s own guards nodded their heads in agreement. The vampire kingpin’s smile tightened, as though he were grinding his teeth together to hold the expression in place.

“Yes, well, Mab had her way of doing things, and I have mine,” he said, straightening his silver glasses a tiny bit. “I’d say that it’s been working out pretty well for me so far. Since I have all of this.”

He swept his hand out wide, as if to encompass his mansion, his men, and all of Southtown.

“You’re right. Pushing your poison on people has worked out pretty well for you, if not for your car.”

This time, the laughter was on my side of the street, as one person and then another in the crowd snorted in agreement. Benson’s lips puckered with displeasure. That spark of anger shimmered in his gaze again, and a muscle ticked in his jaw before he was able to smooth out his features.

“Why are you here, Gin?” he asked in a voice that was as mocking as mine. “Desperate for another hit of Burn already?”

“Sorry to disappoint, but once was more than enough for me.”

“Too bad,” he purred. “Your reaction to the drug was quite . . . interesting.”

Benson peered at me through his glasses, but I kept my gaze steady and level with his. The vamp puckered his mouth again, disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a rise out of me.

“Well, then, let me guess,” he said. “You’re here to get your traitor back.”

He snapped his fingers, and the guards holding on to Silvio dragged him forward, stopping on the sidewalk behind Benson.

Silvio wasn’t a pretty sight. He was wearing the same gray suit he’d had on yesterday, but now it was rumpled, ripped, torn, and dirty, with the ends of his filthy white shirt hanging down like two broken, jagged teeth. Blood dotted the sleeves of his jacket, with larger crimson smears and spatter streaked down his pant legs. His head was bowed, letting me see the crazy cowlicks that marred his normally smooth gray locks.

Benson snapped his fingers again, and one of the guards dug his hands into Silvio’s hair, jerking his head up.

And I finally saw the full extent of how Benson had tortured him.

Silvio’s face was a smushed shell. His nose had been broken repeatedly, judging from all the odd bits of bone jutting out against his skin. Bruises blackened the rest of his features, and puncture marks dotted his neck, several sets of them, as red and angry as wasp stings. Someone had been feeding on Silvio. Benson, most likely.

But the more I stared at Silvio, the more I realized that the physical injuries were nothing compared with the other trauma he’d experienced.

Sunken cheeks, waxy skin, dull gray eyes with barely a flicker of light left in them. Silvio looked pale and extremely, pitifully, painfully thin, as if his naturally slender body had been reduced to the point of starvation overnight. I wondered if Benson had fed him some Burn pills or if he’d just used his Air magic to suck out Silvio’s emotions and the majority of his life along with them. Either way, the vamp was a beaten, brittle, broken husk of a man. I’d never seen someone look that close to death and still be standing upright, although the two guards propping him up were helping Silvio with that.

I was a bad guy, I was an assassin, and I killed people, but at least I didn’t torture them before I sent them off this mortal coil.

I might make an exception for Benson, though.

Through my earpiece, I heard Xavier let out a low whistle. “They worked him over good, didn’t they?”

I gave no indication that I’d heard him. Instead, I focused my attention on Benson again.

“Actually, you’re right,” I said, finally answering his question. “I am here to get Silvio back. So if you will be so kind as to send him over to my friends.”

I pointed at the two guards holding Silvio, then over at Bria, Xavier, and Owen. The men shifted on their feet, their eyes flicking back and forth between me and their boss. They didn’t want to disobey Benson, but they didn’t want to tangle with me either.

When it became apparent that they weren’t going to release Silvio, I grinned at them. “Or I can always come get him myself,” I said, flexing my hands into fists. “I haven’t killed anyone yet today, and it’s almost noon. Time to rectify that, don’t you think?”

Benson laughed. “Oh, I’m not giving you Silvio. He’s going to die for betraying me. But I will offer you a deal.”

“And what would that be?”

“Silvio has already admitted that he gave you something of mine. A ledger. Give it back to me, and I’ll make the rest of his death quick and painless. I’ll also let you and your friends leave here alive.”

“Oh?” I said. “You mean that ledger?”

I pointed at Bria, who reached through the open window of her sedan and pulled out the black leather-bound book.

Benson blinked like an owl, but he didn’t say anything.

“Fascinating stuff you have in that little recipe book of yours,” I said. “Although I have to admit that I skimmed over all the drug formulas. Science isn’t really my thing. What I found the most interesting were the names of all your dealers, suppliers, and top-tier clients. Kind of sloppy of you to write all that info down in one place. I imagine your clients would be plenty pissed if all those damning details got out about them.”

“What are you proposing?” Benson snapped, a sharp edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“It’s simple. You turn yourself over to my sister, Detective Coolidge. I’m sure you remember her.”

Bria gave Benson a toothy smile, then tossed the ledger back through the open window and into the sedan.

“You go along with Bria peacefully, since she has more than enough evidence to arrest you now. And when she drags your sorry ass into the police station, you admit to everything—and I do mean everything—involving your drug empire, including Troy’s murder. Max’s too.”

He arched his black eyebrows. “You don’t really expect that to happen, do you?”

I let out a pleased laugh. “Of course not. But I had to give you the chance, which is more than you gave Catalina.”

Benson swept his hand out again. “And why would I agree to any such deal when I can just order my men to kill you where you stand and take what I want?”

The vamps raised their guns. Half of them aimed their weapons at me, while the other half targeted Bria, Xavier, and Owen, still standing by the sedan. Instead of taking cover, I held my hand up and snapped my fingers.

Crack!

A bullet punched through the front windshield of the Bentley and sent the rearview mirror flying. Benson flinched before he could stop himself, while his guards and the crowd ducked and screamed.

“Show-off,” I muttered.

Finn laughed in my ear.

“I wouldn’t suggest a firefight, unless you want your brains painting the street,” I said in a pleasant tone. “I have two very good snipers just itching to kill as many of your men as they can. Before they put a bullet through your skull too.”

All of the guards snapped up their weapons and scanned the surrounding rooftops, but I knew that they wouldn’t spot Finn or Phillip in their snipers’ nest. After several seconds, Benson made another sweeping motion with his hand, and his men slowly lowered their guns.

“What’s your proposal?” he finally asked.

“Why, Beau, isn’t it obvious? The Grim Reaper has come knocking on your door, and I’m here to make sure that he doesn’t go away disappointed.”

27

Benson eyed me, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind about how he could wiggle out of this. He was more than happy to strap me down to a chair and pump me full of drugs, but fighting me on equal footing was something else—something that all his calculations, observations, and experiments hadn’t prepared him for. I’d changed the rules of the game by coming here, by openly challenging him, and he didn’t like it—not one little bit.