Snared (Elemental Assassin #16)(14)
“Happy to oblige,” I drawled.
I finished wiping down the counter, then moved over to the stove to stir the still-simmering sauce. Silvio sat on his usual stool at the counter, pulled out his phone and tablet, and fired everything up for the morning briefing.
“So I got your texts last night, and I have to admit that I’m as baffled as Finn is,” Silvio said, swiping through some screens on his tablet. “I can’t imagine what Damian Rivera has possibly done to warrant a personal visit from Hugh Tucker. Apart from his recent DUI arrest and general boorish and drunken state, Rivera’s been behaving himself lately.”
“Well, he’s done something wrong, and I want to know what it is. Especially since he seems like the easiest member of the Circle to interrogate and then eliminate.”
“Agreed,” Silvio said. “Rivera does seem to be the weak link in this chain of evil. I’ll keep digging into him.”
While Silvio texted and emailed his contacts, I took the barbecue sauce off the burner to let it cool and started on something new. Milk and dark cocoa powder went into a small pot, along with a splash of vanilla extract and a cinnamon stick. A few minutes later, I pushed a steaming mug of hot chocolate, topped with a large dollop of vanilla whipped cream, mini marshmallows, and a generous drizzle of homemade chocolate sauce, across the counter to Silvio.
He took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “You know, I’m starting to get spoiled with all the hot chocolate and cookies and food all the time,” he grumbled. “I’ve had to add five miles to my workout routine every week just to burn off all the extra calories.”
“I do try.” I grinned. “And all that grumbling would sound a whole lot more convincing if you didn’t have a whipped cream mustache right now.”
Silvio gave me a sour look and wiped away the offensive whipped cream with a napkin, but he kept right on sipping his hot chocolate, and he took the refill that I gave him several minutes later.
By the time Catalina Vasquez, Silvio’s niece and my best waitress, and Sophia Deveraux, my head cook, came into the restaurant, the vampire was on his third mug of hot chocolate. Catalina rolled silverware into napkins, while Sophia and I started on the day’s cooking. The rest of the waitstaff trickled in one by one, and as soon as I opened the front door at eleven o’clock sharp, customers streamed in, eager to get somewhere warm and cozy, just like Silvio.
The lunch rush passed in a busy blur, although I kept an eye on everyone, always alert for potential trouble. More than a few underworld bosses came into the Pork Pit to eat and pay their respects to me, and to bend Silvio’s ear, hoping to set up a meeting with yours truly so they could gripe about their rivals, the general lack of respect for their territories and boundaries, and all the other petty problems that they expected me to solve.
Complain, complain, complain. That was all the other bosses did to me, and why any of them thought that it would actually be fun or fulfilling to be the head of the underworld was beyond my comprehension. They shouldn’t be plotting to murder me. They should all be down on bended knee, profusely thanking me for putting up with the whole sorry, corrupt lot of them instead of stabbing them all to death the way that I so often dreamed of. Now, that would be fun and fulfilling.
Every time some boss tipped his head at me or had one of his minions sidle up to Silvio, I had to grind my teeth to keep a bland smile fixed on my face. Everyone thought that I was in charge, that I was the head honcho, that I was in complete control, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
For weeks now, Hugh Tucker had been leading me around like I was some cute little kitten playing with the strings that he kept dangling in front of me. Sure, I knew who some of the Circle members were, and I even knew the group’s rune, a circle of sharp swords pointing outward. But none of the members was going to be easy to get to, much less take out, especially not the still--unidentified mystery man in charge of the whole shebang. But all I could do was build my own web of death one strand at a time, starting with Damian Rivera.
Annoying underworld bosses aside, lunchtime went by with no problems, and I finally had a chance to relax and eat my own lunch at around two o’clock. Since it was so cold outside, I wanted some warm, hearty comfort food, so I whipped up a pot of chili, along with a couple of ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwiches. The chili was a fantastic mix of meat, beans, and spices, all in a rich, thick, tomato-based sauce, while the grilled cheese sandwiches were buttery, melty, and perfect for dunking into the chili. I finished off my meal with some chocolate chip cookies and a tart, refreshing raspberry lemonade.
By the time I finished, I was actually in a good mood, despite last night’s shocking revelations about Tucker and my mother. I’d just wiped the last of the cookie crumbs off my hands when the bell over the front door chimed, and a woman dressed in a long crimson coat trimmed with black faux fur entered the restaurant. Her blond hair gleamed under the lights, and a pair of oversize black sunglasses perched on her face, like she was a movie star trying not so successfully to go incognito.
Jade Jamison was a minor underworld boss with big-time ambitions who was always looking to climb higher and get richer. Jade had helped me out in the past, and I considered her a friend, one of the few that I had among the city’s criminals. I smiled as she hurried over to the counter, her black stiletto ankle boots clacking against the blue and pink pig tracks on the floor.
“Jade.”