Bria, Xavier, and Owen kept their eyes and guns on the guards, but none of them made a move toward me. Neither did anyone in the crowd. They were all too shocked by my actions.
Finally, after about three minutes of whaling on the car, I lowered the hammer and stepped back, breathing hard, although I felt much calmer, my earlier tension wiped away by the energizing exertion.
“Oh, man,” Finn groaned through the receiver hidden in my ear. “Really, Gin, did you have to smash up the car? I’m starting to think that’s some sort of fetish of yours.”
“Maybe,” I agreed in a cheery voice. “I do quite enjoy it.”
I twirled the hammer around again and slammed it into the hood, adding another dent to the dozen already there.
“Great,” someone muttered in the crowd. “Crazy assassin bitch is talking to herself now.”
“Is it my imagination, or are your admirers making snide comments about your sanity?” This time, Phillip’s voice sounded in my ear.
I couldn’t see him, but Phillip was ensconced with Finn on the rooftop closest to Benson’s mansion. He, Finn, Bria, Xavier, Owen, and I were all wearing earpieces so that we could communicate with one another.
“Apparently, you agree with them,” I murmured back.
“If the hammer fits . . .” Phillip trailed off.
“Says the man who likes to throw people off his riverboat,” Owen cut in.
“You’ve been holding out on me, Philly,” I chimed in again, using Eva’s nickname for him. “That sounds like fun.”
“See?” Phillip said in a smug voice. “Your crazy woman agrees with me, Owen.”
“Whatever,” Owen rumbled back.
“Enough talk,” Bria cut in.
“Yeah.” Xavier joined the conversation. “You’ve finally got some guards headed your way, Gin—a lot of them.”
I glanced toward the mansion. Sure enough, about a dozen vamps were marching in my direction, all of them clutching guns. Several were murmuring into their phones, trying to coordinate with one another, but I looked past them. Waiting—just waiting for the king himself to make his appearance.
A few seconds later, the front doors opened, and Beauregard Benson came striding out of the mansion, wearing his usual white pants and sneakers, along with a baby-blue bow tie and a matching button-up shirt, complete with his pocket protector full of pens. And he wasn’t alone. Silvio shuffled along behind his former boss, two vamps holding on to his arms.
The last knot of tension in my chest loosened. I was glad to see that Benson hadn’t killed Silvio outright for his betrayal. As long as he was still breathing, Jo-Jo could heal the damage that had been done to him—on the outside anyway. As for the inside, well, Silvio would have to deal with that in his own way and his own time, just like the rest of us did.
“All right, guys,” I murmured. “It’s go time. Just keep the guards off my back, and I’ll handle Benson.”
“Are you sure?” Finn asked. “I’d be happy to put a couple of bullets in his skull.”
“And he might send them spinning away into the crowd with his vampiric Air magic,” I countered. “No, Benson’s mine.”
Nobody said anything. They all knew why that was so important to me.
Benson was still about two hundred feet away from me, so I leaned down and propped Owen’s hammer up against the side of the smashed-up Bentley. Then I looked over my shoulder at the crowd milling around behind me.
“Anybody who steals that hammer will have to answer to me,” I called out.
Mutters rippled through the crowd, and everyone scuttled back a few steps.
“No way, man.”
“Not me.”
“Uh-uh. I ain’t touching that stupid hammer.”
I stepped away from the hammer and the car and backed up so that I was standing in the middle of the street, just behind the center lines. Through my earpiece, I could hear the others murmuring as they checked everything a final time. Finn and Phillip readied their rifles, taking aim at the guards, while Bria, Xavier, and Owen remained clustered around her sedan, weapons in hand, ready to support me however they could. I didn’t anticipate needing them to help me kill Benson, though. I wanted to do it myself.
I needed to do it myself.
Benson pushed through his guards, snarling at them to get out of his way, before storming through the open gate, crossing the sidewalk, and stepping out into the street in front of me. His cold blue gaze flicked over to his smashed car, and a spark of anger flashed in his eyes before he was able to hide it. Looked like I’d finally gotten under his skin. The vamp might feed on other people’s emotions, but he had some of his own too, mixed in with the cruelty pumping through his veins. Still, he kept his features calm as he faced me.
“Gin,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon. And looking so well. Why, your recovery is quite remarkable, considering how much you were screaming only yesterday.”
Snide snickers rippled through the ranks of the guards, but I shut out the sound of their mockery. Benson was trying to make me angry so that he could more easily feed on my emotions and make himself stronger. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d spent most of my life pushing aside my feelings, hardening my emotions, and letting ice run through my veins instead of anything else, and I saw no reason to stop now.
Not until after I’d stopped him—for good.
“I am feeling much more like myself today,” I drawled right back at him. “It’s a wonder what a good night’s sleep will do for you. Well, that and not being strapped down to a chair and force-fed your nasty drugs. Kind of cowardly of you, Beau. Filling me full of sedatives and that Burn pill instead of facing me head-on, villain to villain. Mab Monroe certainly never would have done anything like that. Say want you want to about her, Mab had style and power to spare. You? All you have are your sick little experiments and the emotions you rip out of other people.”
Murmurs swept through the crowd behind me, and even a few of Benson’s own guards nodded their heads in agreement. The vampire kingpin’s smile tightened, as though he were grinding his teeth together to hold the expression in place.
“Yes, well, Mab had her way of doing things, and I have mine,” he said, straightening his silver glasses a tiny bit. “I’d say that it’s been working out pretty well for me so far. Since I have all of this.”
He swept his hand out wide, as if to encompass his mansion, his men, and all of Southtown.
“You’re right. Pushing your poison on people has worked out pretty well for you, if not for your car.”
This time, the laughter was on my side of the street, as one person and then another in the crowd snorted in agreement. Benson’s lips puckered with displeasure. That spark of anger shimmered in his gaze again, and a muscle ticked in his jaw before he was able to smooth out his features.
“Why are you here, Gin?” he asked in a voice that was as mocking as mine. “Desperate for another hit of Burn already?”
“Sorry to disappoint, but once was more than enough for me.”
“Too bad,” he purred. “Your reaction to the drug was quite . . . interesting.”
Benson peered at me through his glasses, but I kept my gaze steady and level with his. The vamp puckered his mouth again, disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a rise out of me.
“Well, then, let me guess,” he said. “You’re here to get your traitor back.”