Black Widow
Page 2

Fancy, curlicued letters spelled out the new name in the black metal arch: Monroe Memorial Park.
I glared up at the sign, wishing I had one of the blacksmith hammers that my lover, Owen Grayson, used in his forge, so I could kneecap the gate, send it crashing to the ground, and then knock out each and every one of those damn letters in the toothy smile of the arch. Especially the ones in Monroe. But, of course, I couldn’t do that. Not now. Maybe late tonight, when the park was nice and deserted, and no one was around to see me vent my pent-up rage on an innocent sign.
This wasn’t the first dedication I’d attended in the past few weeks. After finally making her grand appearance in Ashland back in September, Madeline had wasted no time in claiming her millions in inheritance as M.M. Monroe, moving into Mab’s mansion, and letting everyone know that she intended to pick up all of her mother’s business interests, legitimate and otherwise.
I didn’t know exactly what her master plan was, but Madeline had set about ingratiating herself with all sorts of civic, charitable, and municipal groups, saying she wanted to continue all of the good works her mother had funded while she was alive. Of course, she was lying through her perfect teeth, since Madeline was no more charitable than her mama had been. But if there was one thing that folks in Ashland responded to, it was cold, hard cash—or at least the promise of it.
And so the dedications had begun. A wing at the Briartop art museum, the train station, several bridges, a good chunk of the interstate that wrapped around the downtown loop, and now this park. Every few days, it seemed like someone was engraving, chiseling, painting, broadcasting, or proclaiming something else in Mab’s name at dear, dutiful daughter Madeline’s teary and oh-so-grateful requests.
And I’d been to every single breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea party, cocktail hour, coffee klatch, barbecue, and fish fry, trying to figure out what my new enemy was up to. But Madeline was an excellent actress; all she did was grin and make small talk and preen for the cameras. Every once in a while, I would catch her staring at me, a small smile playing across her lips, as though my obvious stakeouts were amusing her. Well, that made one of us.
Of course, I had Finn digging into Madeline, trying to find out everything he could about her past, her personal life, and her finances, in hopes of finding a clue to what she was planning for me and the rest of the Ashland underworld. But so far, Finn hadn’t been able to find anything out of the ordinary. Neither had Silvio Sanchez, my new self-proclaimed personal assistant.
She had no criminal history. No massive debt load. No large cash withdrawals from her bank accounts. No sudden, hostile takeovers of any businesses—legal or otherwise—that Mab had once owned. And perhaps most telling of all, no late-night, hush-hush meetings with the underworld bosses.
Yet.
Still, I knew that Madeline had some sort of scheme in mind for me. Impending evil always made my spider rune scars itch in warning—and anticipation of turning the tables on my enemies.
Usually, Madeline ignored me at the dedications, but apparently, she wanted to chitchat today, because she shook hands with the official, then strolled in my direction. And she wasn’t alone.
Two people followed her. One was a giant bodyguard dressed in a white silk shirt and a black pantsuit, around seven feet tall, with light hazel eyes and a sleek bob of golden hair that curled under at the ends. The sun had reddened her milky cheeks, giving her skin a bit of hot, ruddy color and darkening the faint freckles that dotted her face. The other was a much shorter man, clutching a silverstone briefcase in front of him and dressed in a light gray suit that was even slicker and more expensive than Finn’s. A lion’s mane of hair wrapped around his head, the arches, dips, and waves as pretty and perfect as icing decorating a cake. His elegant silver coif hinted at his sixty-something age, despite the tight, tan, unlined skin of his face.
Emery Slater and Jonah McAllister. Emery was the niece of Elliot Slater, who’d been Mab’s number one giant enforcer before I’d taken credit for killing him, while Jonah had been Mab’s personal lawyer and someone whose many crimes I’d taken great pleasure in exposing back during the summer. Needless to say, there was plenty of hate to go around among the three of us.
“Incoming,” Finn murmured, straightening up, pushing away from the tree, and moving to stand beside me.
Madeline stopped in front of me, with Emery and Jonah flanking her. The giant and the lawyer both shot me icy glares, but Madeline’s features were warm and welcoming as she sidled a little closer to me, and a serene smile stretched across her face.
“Why, Gin Blanco,” she purred. “How good of you to come out to my dedication today. And looking so . . . spiffy.”
I wore what I always wore: black boots, dark jeans, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. Next to Madeline and her crisp white suit, I resembled one of the hoboes who sometimes slept in this park. Madeline might seem all sweetness and light on the outside, but on the inside, I knew that her heart was as full of venom and as vicious as mine.
“Why, Madeline,” I drawled right back at her, “you know that I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “You do seem rather fond of popping up everywhere I go.”
“Well, you can hardly blame me for that. It’s always so very lovely to see someone of Mab’s stature honored in such small but touching ways.”
Madeline’s lips quirked again, as if she was having trouble holding back her laughter at my blatant lie. Yeah. Me too.
“Funny thing, though,” I said. “You know was I’ve noticed? That Mab’s name isn’t actually on anything. It’s always just ‘Monroe Memorial this’ and ‘Monroe Memorial that.’ Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think that you were going around town putting your name on everything. Instead of your dearly departed mama’s.”
Finn chuckled. Emery and Jonah shifted their cold stares to him, but Finn kept laughing, completely immune to their dirty looks. He was rather incorrigible that way.
Madeline’s green eyes crinkled a bit at the corners, as if she was having to work to maintain her sunny smile. “I think that you’re mistaken, Gin. I’m honoring my mother exactly the way that she would have wanted me to.”
“And I think that you have as little love for your dead mama as I do. You couldn’t care less about what she would have wanted.”