Black Widow (34 page)

Madeline straightened up to her full height. “So I set about planning how to take Blanco down once and for all. And not just her, but everyone who ever helped her murder one of
us
.”

Murmurs of agreement and appreciation surged through the crowd, louder than before. They were hanging on to her every word.

“But unlike Blanco, who used the shadows and her knives to terrorize, I decided to do things the right way, through legal means.”

That whopper finally caused a few disbelieving titters to sound, since
legal
wasn't a concept that many folks in the ballroom were acquainted with, much less embraced. But a cold glare from Emery silenced the snickering rebels.

“Some of you helped me,” Madeline said. “And for that, you have my thanks.”

She bowed her head, and several folks puffed up a little taller. Some of them I recognized as people Fletcher had files on in his office, but I made note of all the others too. Silvio was discreetly angling his phone and snapping photos of them, just as I'd asked him to. I'd need the information later on. It wouldn't do me any good to take out Madeline only to have to worry about all the people who'd been loyal to her. Across the room, Bria's expression twisted with disgust as she realized how many cops were here.

“But in the end, Blanco was the instrument of her own
destruction,” Madeline continued. “Rather than face justice for her many crimes, she barricaded herself in her own rattrap restaurant and then burned the place down. As far as I'm concerned, she couldn't have met a better, more poetic end.”

Satisfaction surged through Madeline's voice, and it matched the growing buoyant mood in the ballroom. Yes, yes, everyone was glad that I was finally dead. I grinned. Which was going to make it all the more fun to see their horror when they realized that I was still alive.

Still, it surprised me that Madeline wasn't taking outright credit for my death. Then again, she didn't need to. Everyone knew that she'd orchestrated the whole thing, right down to starting the fire at the Pork Pit, and I had no doubt that these people both feared and respected her for it. Now here she was, weaving her web over the whole lot of them. They wouldn't even realize that they were trapped in the tangled threads until it was too late.

“So Blanco is finally dead, and I say good riddance.” Madeline raised her glass again.

More murmurs of agreement sounded, with more than a few muttering,
I'll drink to that.
Tough crowd here tonight.

“With our number one enemy dead, I say that we return to the old ways,” Madeline said. “Because we
are
Ashland, we are the people who haunt its darkest corners, we are the people who meet the deviant demands and dark desires of the so-called good citizens of our fair city. We're the ones they always turn to in the end, no matter how desperate they are to keep all their secret vices hidden.”

She glanced around the room, judging the response to her speech, but everyone was still hanging on to her every word, so she continued with her sales pitch.

“So I say that we take what we want, what we had back when my mother was still alive. Who's with me?”

This time, loud, enthusiastic cheers erupted from the crowd, and everyone raised their champagne glasses high again. A few hoots and hollers broke out, which Madeline encouraged with a benevolent smile. Oh, yes. She was a slippery one. Mab would just have stormed into the room, said that she'd murdered me, and that it would be business as usual, with everyone bowing down to and paying tribute to her right then and there. She would probably have already ordered everyone to get out of her mansion so she could enjoy the spoils of her victory in peace.

But Madeline . . . she wanted to be
liked
, as well as feared. It was almost as if she had some desperate
need
deep down inside to bend people to her will without their even realizing that they were kneeling down in front of her. I wondered if it was because she truly delighted in such cruel mind games or that she wanted to be the exact opposite of Mab and make her own scorched mark on Ashland.

“But of course,” Madeline continued when the cheers had died down, “this is a business venture like any other. And we all know that any business needs one thing above all others to succeed—a strong leader.”

This time, the murmurs were more speculative than happy. This was the heart of Madeline's speech, the thing that would impact every single person here, and they all knew it. She had her hand around their throats, and now
all that was left was to see how hard she was going to squeeze. I was willing to bet that it was going to be a death grip.

“I think that we can all agree that
I
am going to be that leader.” She paused. “And for my services in that capacity, each one of you will pay me forty percent of everything you earn.”

I almost choked on my champagne, and I wasn't the only one. Forty percent? As far as tribute went, that was
outrageous
. Even Mab had never dared to demand that much. Madeline didn't just want to be queen. She wanted to own everyone and everything in the entire city.

For the first time, I wondered if her ambition extended beyond Ashland. If one city wasn't enough for her. If this was just going to be her staging area for bigger and better things, maybe even for a move against someone else, some other boss, although I had no idea who else might be out there for her to conquer next.

Still, as shocking as it was, Madeline's pronouncement was met with uneasy but agreeing silence—at first.

Everyone in the ballroom looked back and forth at each other, thinking furiously. They didn't like an outsider coming in and taking over, especially not at a hefty forty percent, but they didn't want one of their enemies to do it either.

But finally, someone stepped forward to protest. Don Montoya ran a series of sports and other bookies out in the suburbs. He was tall, fit, and handsome, with bronze skin and a shiny black pompadour that made him look like a middle-aged Elvis. “And why should we let
you
just waltz into town and take over?” he demanded.

Madeline's eyes glittered like chips of green ice in her beautiful face. “Because I did what none of you could—I killed Blanco. That earns me the right to be the boss.”

“Please,” Montoya sneered. “You didn't kill her. Not really. You spun your little lies, and she got caught in them. That's all. You didn't do the honorable thing. You didn't face her down yourself. You didn't stand in the shadows with a gun in your hand and put three bullets in the back of her head.”

More than a few mutters of agreement rose up at his words. For as crooked, low-down, dirty, rotten, and double-dealing as the members of the Ashland underworld were, they still respected one thing above all others—strength.

Trapping your enemy with lies, bribes, and other machinations was all well and good. But twisting the knife in your enemy's heart yourself? Well, that was even
better
. It proved that you had the guts to take what you wanted, and damn anyone who tried to show you the error of your ways. That's what Mab had done, and it was one of the reasons she'd held on to her power, position, and influence for so long.

Madeline strolled over to Montoya, her long white gown rippling around her body. The crowd fell back so that the two of them stood alone in the center of the dance floor.

“Just because I didn't kill Blanco with my bare hands or some crude instrument doesn't mean that I wasn't responsible for her death,” Madeline said. “She lost
everything
because of me, and her friends are well on their way to doing the same. I've always had a slightly different
philosophical approach than my mother. Why merely kill your enemies when you can torture them before you utterly destroy them?”

“Please,” Montoya sneered again. “You can spout your pretty words all you want, but we all know the real reason you didn't face down Blanco yourself—because you don't have the magic to do something like that. Your mother, now, she was a
real
elemental, and she showed us all just how much power she had. So many times that we could never,
ever
forget. But you? You're nothing but a spoiled little princess, coming in here, stomping your foot, and telling us all how you think it's going to be.”

Madeline arched a delicate eyebrow. “You think that I'm not strong?”

He looked down his nose at her. “Not like your mother.”

She let out a soft laugh, but everyone in the ballroom could hear the malice in it loud and clear. Uncertainty filled Montoya's face, finally overpowering his arrogance, but it was already far too late for any apology.

Madeline casually flicked her wrist, as if she were dismissing his harsh words and bitter accusations with a simple wave of her hand. But it was so much more sinister than that. A few small green drops flew out of her fingertips, streaking through the air like emerald comets.

The acid spattered onto Montoya's face.

He screamed, his skin immediately blistering, burning, and smoking as the caustic liquid ate and ate away at it. In an instant, his handsome features had been irrevocably scarred. By the time ten seconds had passed, his bronze skin was melting quicker than candle wax. At
the thirty-second mark, the white of his cheekbones was peeking through the bubbling red flesh that was sloughing off his face bit by gruesome bit.

Montoya went down on his knees, clawing like a wild animal at his own skin in a desperate attempt to gouge the acid out of what remained of his face.

But it was too late.

Montoya collapsed in a heap on the floor, clawing, kicking, thrashing, and screaming all the while. Madeline jerked her head at Emery. The giant drew a gun out from under her black suit jacket, stepped forward, and put three bullets into Montoya's disintegrating skull. Blood, bone, and brain matter flew through the air, landing with wet, sickening
plop-plop-plop
s on the white marble floor.

Madeline stood over his body, delicately dusting off her hands as if they had a bit of unwanted dirt on them. Emery flanked her. The giant holstered her gun, even as her cold hazel gaze swept over the crowd, daring anyone else to challenge her boss.

“Well,” Madeline finally drawled, “he wanted three bullets in the head. He got them. Would anyone else like to question my new authority?”

Nobody else dared to step forward. Instead, everyone shifted uneasily on their feet. The nooses had been dropped over their necks. Now Madeline was ready to pull them tight.

“As I said,” she continued, stepping over Montoya's burned, bloody body and approaching the crowd again, “I intend to fulfill my mother's role as the head of the underworld. Thanks to Mr. McAllister, I know what each and every one of you was paying her. I know all about
your homes, your businesses, your rivals, and everyone that supplies and supports all of your various . . . enterprises.”

With every word she said, more and more people turned their hostile glares to Jonah, who gulped down a breath and tiptoed back so that his whole body was pressed up against one of the terrace doors. I'd wondered why Madeline had kept him around this long. She must have spent these past few weeks pumping him for information on how Mab had done things—and all the tribute that she'd been getting from the other crime bosses. Smart. After a few more weeks, once everything was up and running smoothly, she could dispose of him at her leisure. I almost wouldn't have minded letting Madeline live long enough to devise some truly dastardly fate for Jonah. But I was too committed to my plan to back down now.

Madeline glanced back at Montoya's body. “And now, since I had to resort to such an unpleasant display, you will all be paying me an even fifty percent.”

Gasps rang out through the crowd, but I studied Madeline with new appreciation. She'd known that someone would call her out, and she was using Montoya's death as a way to get even more than what she'd already demanded. I was willing to bet that fifty percent of everything in town was what she'd really wanted all along.

“So,” Madeline said, wrapping up her threats, “you can either accept my terms, or you can dirty up my dance floor, just like your colleague did. The choice is yours.”

It wasn't a choice at all, but nervous chatter surged through the crowd, as everyone talked with their neighbors.
But all of the sounds were small, hollow, and empty, and they quickly faded away. Madeline might not have her mother's Fire magic, but she'd demonstrated how powerful she was in her own right. She'd already won, and everyone knew it.

Slowly, a hush fell over the crowd. Madeline smiled, looking from one face to another, daring anyone to challenge her, but no one did.

One by one, I looked at my friends, still holding their positions in various corners of the ballroom. Owen. Phillip. Xavier. Silvio. Bria. Jo-Jo. Sophia. Finn. Roslyn. They all nodded back at me and started pulling off their wigs and glasses. This was the moment we'd been waiting for, and it was finally time to make my presence known.

“Well, Maddie,” I called out in a loud, sneering drawl, “let me be the first to offer my congratulations on your new position.”

Everyone turned to look at the person who'd just committed suicide by speaking to the acid elemental in such a mocking, derisive way. Puzzled frowns filled their faces, and whispers sprang up, as people tried to figure out who I was.

I stepped out of the shadows and strode across the dance floor, stopping in the middle of the ballroom, about ten feet away from Madeline and Emery. Still holding on to my champagne flute, I planted a hand on my hip and turned to one side, so that I could stare out at all the people gathered around. No one had recognized me yet, so I decided to end their confusion.

I reached up, plucked the black glasses off my face, and tossed them aside. Then I did the same thing with
the red wig, making my dark brown hair spill around my shoulders.