Kissing the Killer(38)

I watched as Brooks stared at her and slowly comprehension dawned. “You’re the Spider.”

“That’s right. I’m the black widow.”

“I heard you never left your room.”

She smiled again. “That’s a convenient lie. Well, it used to be true, but not anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

She walked into the room. “Can you guess why I picked this room in particular?”

“Back of the building, few people, easy to attack.”

“All of that is true,” she said, “but there’s something else. Voodoo itself is important to me.”

“Voodoo,” Brooks said flatly.

She nodded again. “Haitian Voodoo is very, very interesting. It has a long history of important women priests. I think they’re called mambo. The mambo protect their people with magic spells to keep away evil spirits.” She looked up and smiled at me. “That’s more or less what I do, Emma.”

I blinked at her.

“Why are we here?” Brooks asked.

Louisa looked back at him. “I want to help you, Brooks. I wanted you to see me, to know my secret, in exchange for your trust. Now you know. I’ve been attacking my father’s mafia, stealing away the women he enslaves and setting them free. I’ve been running a large network of men and women for a long time, all building up to this.”

“I don’t understand,” Brooks said. “Why would you hurt your own family?”

She shrugged and came closer. “I have my reasons. But most importantly, I can help you.”

“How?”

“I have connections. I can get you into a safe house. I can get rid of Abram’s body as well, even run interference with my family for a while. Soon, we’ll be able to get you both out of the city.”

“Why?” I asked suddenly. “I don’t understand. Why would you risk your family for us?”

Louisa looked at me and smiled. “I knew you were worth bringing here. Have you ever felt powerless, small? Like nobody could save you?”

I nodded but said nothing.

“Me too,” she said. “I want to give power to the powerless. That’s why I save these women forced into sex slavery. That’s why I want to help you.”

“I don’t trust you,” Brooks said. “You’re a Barone. You’re one of them. Why the hell would I believe you?”

She sighed. “Because, Brooks, you have no other choice.”

Just then, men flooded into the room, men wearing black masks and carrying weapons. Brooks reached for his gun, but in the heat of the moment, I found myself throwing myself at him. I grabbed his arm, stopping him just as the men reached us. They quickly disarmed Brooks and grabbed me, ripping me away from him.

Black hoods were shoved over our heads. Strong hands pulled me along, shoving me, pushing me. I stumbled in total darkness, my heart hammering in my chest.

She wanted to give power to the powerless.

With a black hood over my head, I felt more powerless than I ever had before.





17





Brooks





That was not at all how I wanted that meeting to fucking go down. When planning this out, I didn’t for a second imagine getting swarmed by armed men in black ski masks and getting a black bag shoved over my head.

I couldn’t see a fucking thing as I stumbled along, led like a dog by some goon with a gun. I’d wanted to pull my weapon, to at least take a few of the bastards down before they got me, but Emma had stopped me. I didn’t know what she was thinking, why she wanted to be a part of this, but it was too late now.

We were both black-bagged and getting dragged along by Louisa Barone.

I couldn’t help but think the whole thing was shit. How could Louisa Barone be running one of the most dangerous up-and-coming gangs in the city? She was living in the Barone family’s mansion, right in the center of the mafia’s power structure. There was just no way she could run a serious crew from there.

But what I saw of the guys who came into the room before they black bagged me was pretty convincing. They had looked just like the Spiders I saw the other night, right down to the black masks and the weapons.

Fuck, this was bad. If Louisa was working for the mafia, we were both fucked. As far as I knew, only Abram actually knew what Emma looked like, but if my problem had escalated all the way up to the top of the Barone family, they probably all knew about it.

Or maybe Louisa really was running the Spiders. If that was the case, we were being abducted by a notoriously violent gang that was known for stealing women away, never to be seen or heard from again.

As I shuffled along, getting prodded in the back every few steps for being too slow, I couldn’t help but feel like we were being disappeared too.