“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Ms. Monroe,” he murmured. “As well as her earlier one with Ms. Slater.”

“You couldn’t help it?”

He shrugged. “Vampiric hearing has its uses.”

I didn’t respond. Silvio cleared his throat again.

“Obviously, she wants to kill you,” he said. “But she also wants to wipe out everyone and everything that you care about to send a message to everyone else in Ashland. She wants to hurt you in the worst way possible. So does the giant. They were talking about their plans for you during dinner. Monroe wants to make an example out of you to the entire underworld, so that she can more easily take control of things. She’s not going to kill you immediately. She wants to make you suffer first. She wants to eat away at you a little bit at a time, much like the acid on that cup, until there’s nothing left but a brittle shell that she can easily smash and destroy at her leisure.”

“I would expect nothing less from the daughter of Mab Monroe.”

Silvio shifted in his seat. “Not just Mab Monroe.”

My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

He looked around the restaurant, making sure that no one was listening to us, then leaned forward. I did the same.

“I heard her talking to Beau the first time she came to the mansion to do business with him,” Silvio said in a low voice. “He knew that she was Mab’s daughter, but she was really trying to impress him, so she told him about her father: Elliot Slater.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth from gaping open at the revelation. “Elliot Slater was Madeline’s father?”

Silvio shrugged again. “Well, I gather it was in genetic material only. Apparently, he and Mab had a victory celebration one night when he was drunk, and she was thinking about what sort of man might give her a strong, worthy heir to the Monroe family name. So she decided on him. That’s the story that Madeline told Beau. She made it sound like it was a rather spur-of-the-moment sort of thing on Mab’s part. But here Madeline is, all the same.”

So not only did Madeline have magic, but she also had giant blood running through her veins, which meant that she was even stronger than I’d feared.

Silvio didn’t say anything else, although he kept his gray gaze focused on me. He knew what Madeline’s coming to town meant for me. No doubt, he knew some other little tidbits about the acid elemental too, since he’d watched Benson deal with her over the past several weeks. Maybe Silvio was right. Maybe I did need an assistant after all.

I roused myself from my troubled musings and stared at him. “That file of information that you gave me on Benson. Is that something you’d like to do again?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I want to know everything there is to know about Madeline Magda f**king Monroe,” I growled.

I didn’t add that I would need the information if I had any hopes of figuring out what her next move was—and how I could kill the bitch.

Silvio nodded. “I did something similar for Benson. He was insistent on my compiling very thorough dossiers on all his enemies. He wanted to know just as much about them as he did about his drugs and experiments. It was actually one of the few parts of my work that I liked. I’ve always enjoyed research. In another life, I might have become a librarian, if you can imagine that, maybe even worked in Cypress Mountain or somewhere like that.”

Oh, I could more than imagine it. Silvio had the kind of sharp, orderly, analytical mind that I’d associate with a librarian or a researcher. Well, I was going to put that big brain of his to good use.

“You still want a job with me?”

He nodded.

“Well, you’ve got one,” I said. “Start digging. I want to know all about her, Emery Slater, McAllister, and everyone they have working for or with them. Coordinate with Finn. He’ll help you. I want a preliminary report by the end of the week. I will pay you, of course, and reimburse you for any bribes or other expenses that you have.”

I quoted him a figure that made Silvio blink in surprise. Apparently, Benson had never paid him that much, but I knew that any info he could find for me on Madeline, Emery, Jonah, and what they were planning would be worth more than a briefcase full of diamonds.

Silvio nodded, typing down some notes on his tablet. “It will be my pleasure.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, I doubt that there will be anything pleasurable about this, when it’s all said and done.”

•

Silvio left, with a promise to return when I opened back up in the morning. He seemed almost giddy at the prospect of working for me. Well, what passed for giddy for him, which was a mild smile and a bit of spring in his step. I supposed that his enthusiasm was good, since I couldn’t muster a single scrap of it right now.

My other customers finished their meals, paid, and left, so I sent Sophia and the waitstaff home and closed down the Pork Pit for the night.

I wasn’t supposed to be over at Owen’s for dinner for another hour, so I spent that time driving aimlessly, my mind still on my disturbing conversation with Madeline Magda Monroe.

Silvio was right. She wanted to kill me, and so did Emery Slater. In a way, I couldn’t blame them for it. I had killed members of both of their families, after all, even if Mab was the one who’d started things, by murdering my mother and my older sister all those years ago.

As for Jonah McAllister, well, teaming up with them would be a chance to save his own miserable hide from the underworld bosses who wanted him dead, and it would give him another shot at taking me down. Win-win for the slimy lawyer.

But the more I thought about the three of them, the more a sinking sense of déjà vu washed over me. This time last year, I was slowly being drawn into a battle with Elliot and Mab. I’d eliminated them, although I’d barely managed to survive the deadly confrontations myself. And now the next generation of Monroes and Slaters had stepped up to take their place and continue their blood feud with the Snow family. I’d have to be on my guard now more than ever before. So would the rest of my friends and family.

But brooding about what Madeline might be up to wouldn’t do me any good, and it was time for me to show up at Owen’s, so I put aside my worries as best I could and steered in that direction.

It was almost nine when I stopped my car in front of Owen’s mansion. The house was dark, except for a light burning in the kitchen. Owen had said that Eva was spending the night at Violet’s, which meant that we’d have the place to ourselves. He was probably in the kitchen, fixing a late supper for us.

I let myself into the house and headed for the kitchen, but the area was empty, with only the small light over the stove turned on.

“Owen?” I called out.

No answer.

He must be waiting in his bedroom for me, reading a book, watching TV, or maybe taking a shower. So I headed down the hallway in that direction, my thoughts turning back to Madeline and her acid magic—

As I passed the downstairs living room, the lights suddenly snapped on, making me freeze in my tracks. What happened next also took me by surprise, although it really shouldn’t have, considering that I had been expecting it for days now.

“Happy birthday, Gin!”

My friends and family screamed out the words, blowing horns to punctuate their jubilation as they popped up from their hiding places behind the couches and chairs. A large banner bearing the words they’d just yelled was draped over the TV, while clusters of colorful balloons had been tied to the lamps on the end tables.

All I could do was just stand there in the doorway, blinking at them all with my mouth hanging wide open, like the surprised, clueless idiot I was.

Owen, Finn, Bria, Xavier, Roslyn, Phillip, Eva, Sophia, Jo-Jo and her gentleman friend, Cooper Stills, Violet and her grandfather, Warren T. Fox. They were all there, along with Catalina and Silvio, all of them wearing goofy birthday hats and giving me happy grins. Well, everyone except for Silvio. He looked a little chagrined by the red-and-white polka-dot hat perched on top of his head and the matching horn clutched in his hand. Yeah. I would have been too.

Owen grabbed my hand and tugged me into the living room. One by one, my friends came over, hugged me, and wished me a happy birthday. I grinned and smiled and made the appropriate oohing and aahing noises at the pile of presents on the coffee table in front of the TV and the tiers of frosted chocolate cupcakes on another table.

Finn gave me a smug, satisfied grin. “Did we surprise you? C’mon. You can admit it. You didn’t think that I would throw the party on your actual birthday, did you?”

I blinked. I hadn’t realized that today was actually the day until right now, but I turned up the wattage on my forced smile so he wouldn’t see that I’d forgotten my own birthday.

“Yeah, you got me good this year.”

Owen came over and slung his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “I thought you would figure it out as soon as I called you this morning and asked you to come over tonight. But Finn was right. You looked totally surprised.”

“I was,” I admitted, slipping my arm around his waist. “I told you that Finn always manages to surprise me. And he’s not the only one these days.”

Owen gave me a quizzical look, wondering who else I was referring to, but I didn’t feel like talking about Madeline tonight, so I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek instead. Owen smiled back at me, and then we were caught up in a conversation with Bria, Roslyn, Xavier, and Phillip. Then one with Jo-Jo and Sophia. And so on.

Finally, my friends made me sit down on the couch in front of the table full of presents.

“Here,” Owen said. “Open mine first.”

He handed me a square, flat white box. I untied the violet ribbon and pulled the top off to find a black velvet box nestled inside the first one. I cracked open that box, expecting some sort of jewelry, given the shape. It was jewelry, all right.

A necklace—a spider rune necklace.

My breath caught in my throat at the sight of the silverstone pendant lying on top of the black velvet. Somehow, some way, Owen had made a perfect replica of the spider rune pendant that I’d worn when I was a kid, the one that Mab had melted into my hands all those years ago. Not only that, but each one of the tiny links in the delicate silverstone chain was also shaped like my spider rune, although they were much, much smaller than the main pendant.

“Well?” Owen asked, a hesitant note in his voice. “Do you like it? I’ve been working on it for a while now, and I thought tonight would be the right time to finally give it to you.”

“It’s perfect,” I whispered, stroking my hand over the rune, my fingers trembling just a bit. “Absolutely perfect.”

Owen gently took the box from me. “Here. Let’s put it on and see how it looks.”

My hair was pulled back into a ponytail, so he was able to easily drape the necklace around my throat and hook it together in the back. A moment later, the spider rune slid into the hollow of my throat, the slight weight feeling odd after so many years of not wearing it. I got to my feet and went over to the mirror on one of the walls.

The silverstone gleamed against my skin, the spider rune winking at me like an old friend. It was a little disconcerting, seeing my rune as an actual object after all the years of it being branded into my hands. But it was also a welcome feeling.

“What do you think?” Owen asked.

“It’s perfect,” I repeated in a much stronger voice. “Absolutely perfect.”

I loved the necklace, truly, I did, and it was one of the most thoughtful presents that anyone had ever given me. No doubt, Owen thought that he’d been giving me a cherished piece of my past by crafting the necklace. He had, but he’d also given me something even more important for my future: a weapon to use against Madeline Monroe.

Because the entire necklace was made of silverstone, which meant that it would absorb my magic, just like my spider rune ring, and I planned on stuffing the metal with as much power as it would hold. I had a feeling that I’d need the extra reservoir of magic in the coming days.

Behind me, Finn let out a long, loud, put-upon sigh. “Way to overachieve, Grayson,” he muttered. “You totally ruined the new toaster I got her.”

I laughed, then turned, wrapped my arms around Owen’s neck, and kissed him for all I was worth.

“Enough of that,” Phillip called out. “You can thank him in private later.”

Owen and I broke apart, laughing.

My friends gathered around me, oohing and aahing over the necklace. The only one who didn’t join in the revelry was Silvio. He sipped a glass of ginger ale and stood in the corner, as calm and stoic as ever. Every once in a while, he would give me a measured look. He knew what was coming as well as I did: Madeline Magda Monroe wanting to burn my world to a crisp before she killed me. But for tonight, he was willing to ignore it.

And so was I.

So I laughed and smiled and ate birthday cupcakes and opened the gag gifts that everyone had gotten for me, including Finn, who had somehow found a toaster that featured a giant black spider perched in a web on the side. I promised him that I’d use it at the Pork Pit. I pushed all thoughts of Madeline Magda Monroe from my mind and savored this time with my friends and family.

Because I had a sinking feeling that this would be the last birthday I ever celebrated with them.

But there would be time enough to worry about Madeline, Emery, Jonah, and their schemes tomorrow. Tonight I would enjoy my birthday and remember that this was what was important—my friends, my family, and the memories we made together.

They were what mattered, they were the ones I was determined to protect, and they were what I would be fighting for in the days and weeks to come.