My stomach twisted now, here in Owen’s office, just as it had done that night.
“The girl went back inside. I thought she was going to get the owner of the restaurant. That he’d tell us to move on — or worse call the cops and report us. Instead, she came back with this cardboard box. The top of it had been cut off, and the girl had stuffed the whole thing with food. More food than I’d seen in weeks.” Owen’s eyes never left mine as he spoke. “More food than Eva and I had eaten in weeks.”
I remembered the warmth of the Pork Pit that night. How I’d grabbed the box from one of the rooms in the back and raced into the storefront, packing up all the sandwiches and beans and fries and cookies that hadn’t been eaten that day. How I’d been filled with some terrible emotion I couldn’t explain, that the only thing I could do to get rid of it was to try and help that little lost girl in the alley. Fletcher Lane had been sitting behind the cash register, reading one of his many books. He’d watched me box up the food in silence, his bright green eyes filled with thoughts I couldn’t begin to comprehend.
“And how did you come to the conclusion that it was me? That I was the one who gave you some food that night? That was years ago.” My low tone didn’t completely disguise the emotion that thickened my voice.
“Because after I took the box from the girl, she handed me a jacket,” Owen continued. “A black leather jacket nicer than anything I’d ever owned, even when my parents had been alive.”
Finn’s jacket. I’d grabbed it from the coat rack on my way back out to the alley. He’d just bought the coat a few days ago, and he’d been pissed when he’d realized that I’d given it away. To the point where he’d started around the counter after me. One of the many times Fletcher had to separate us, in the beginning.
“After she gave me the jacket, the girl turned to go back inside, but I reached out and grabbed her hand,” Owen said, his own voice raspy now. “She let me hold her hand maybe three seconds before she jerked away from me and went back inside. But that was long enough for me to feel the metal in her hand — the silverstone embedded in her flesh.”
I remembered that cold, faint, desperate touch. It had burned me in a way nothing else ever had, not even when Mab Monroe had melted the spider rune into my palms in the first place. I’d gone back inside the restaurant, not quite crying. Fletcher hadn’t said a word. The old man had just sat there reading his book, waiting for me to compose myself once more. After I’d told him what I’d done, Fletcher had just nodded his head and gone back to his book. We never spoke of it again.
Owen reached over, picked up my cold hand, and turned it over, so my palm was face up, the spider rune scar visible for all to see.
“Just like the silverstone you have in your palms, Gin,” he said. “I’ve known it was you from the moment I shook your hand that first night at the Pork Pit. And I’ve been watching you and trying to think of some way to repay you ever since.”
“Why?” I asked. “So I felt sorry for you one night and gave you some food. So what?”
Owen shook his head. “It wasn’t just that. I came back the next day, hoping to thank you. But instead of you, an older guy was there, drinking coffee and waiting in the alley. He said he knew about my situation and that he also knew someone who needed a good, strong apprentice. A dwarven blacksmith who lived up in the mountains. He drove Eva and me up there that day. The dwarf took a liking to me, and I worked hard for him. And now, well, we have all this.” Owen gestured at the office with its fine furnishings.
Fletcher. He was talking about Fletcher Lane. The old man had helped Owen just the way he’d aided me so long ago. I wondered why. It was one thing to take a single stray in off the street after she’d saved your life, like I’d once done for Fletcher. But helping others? Every time I thought I had a handle on who and what Fletcher Lane had been, I found out something else unexpected or met someone like Owen who told me another story of the old man’s kindness.
“Well, you’re right,” I said. “That was me. I gave you the food. But you don’t owe me anything for it. Hell, I didn’t even do it for you. I did it for me. Because I’d once been in that alley digging for garbage to eat.”
Owen nodded. “I thought it might be something like that.”
His thumb stroked soft and slow over the scar on my palm. A pleasant warmth spread through my stomach, then moved lower, as I thought about other places where Owen could touch me. But I didn’t want him like this. Didn’t want him to feel that he needed to pay me back — for anything. I wanted him to want me, Gin Blanco, as I was now. Cold heart, bloody hands, iron will. Not because of some soft sentiment he felt for a girl who didn’t even exist anymore.
“So that’s what this is all about?” I asked. “You asking me out, you wanting to get to know me better. You actually think you owe me something for some random act of kindness years ago?”
“I owe you everything, Gin.”
I shook my head. “No, you don’t. Sure, I gave you the food and the jacket. But the job with the blacksmith? That was all the old man. Fletcher Lane. He owned the Pork Pit before me.”
Owen frowned. “Lane? As in Finnegan Lane?”
I nodded. “Finn’s father. He was the one who got you that job, Owen. Not me. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Fletcher never said a word to me about it.”
“I see.”
“So you don’t owe me anything. Not one damn thing,” I said, letting him off the hook and ignoring the bitterness that filled my mouth — and heart. “Because I would have done the same thing for anyone who’d been in that alley looking the way you and Eva did that night. So whatever debt you think you’ve accrued with me over the years, cancel it. I certainly have. Just keep your mouth shut about Elliot Slater and what I told you tonight, and we’ll be more than square.”
I started to pull my hand out of his, but Owen tightened his grip, the strength of his fingers pressing against mine. His eyes burned with violet fire.
“You think that I just want you now because of something that happened back then? That I’m coming on to you to pimp myself out to pay off some debt?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not a big leap to make, given our conversation tonight.”
Owen shook his head. “You’re wrong, Gin. Dead wrong.”
“Really? Would you still be holding my hand if I were old, toothless, and had a face like a piece of leather?”
He had the good grace to wince.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Besides, I’ve been down this road before. In case you haven’t been listening, let me recap. I’m an assassin, Owen. A very, very good one. I’ve spent my entire adult life killing people for money, a lot of money, and after I leave here tonight, I’m going to go plot how I can slit Elliot Slater’s throat and get away with it. Do you really want to be with a woman who sleeps with a silverstone knife under her pillow? And would use it on you at any time if she thought you were a threat to her? Because that’s me, in a nutshell.”
Instead of answering my question, Owen regarded me with another thoughtful stare. “Donovan Caine really did a number on your self-confidence, didn’t he?”
He had, but I’d be damned if I was going to let Owen know how badly the detective had wounded me when he’d left. So I shrugged.
“The detective and I came from two different worlds. The twain met, and one of them decided that he couldn’t handle it. I don’t want to waste my time going over the same old ground with someone new. Assassins aren’t known for their exceptionally long life spans. Even retired ones like me.”