Again, I wondered about Mab Monroe’s name being in Fletcher’s folder. I’d been blindfolded so I hadn’t seen the bitch’s face back then, only heard her cackling laughter as she tortured me. But it could have been Mab. Rumor put her current age at about forty-five. She would have had enough power, even seventeen years ago, to do all the horrible things that had taken place that night. But why?

Why had she murdered my mother, Eira, and my older sister, Annabella? Why had she wanted to kill me? Why had she demanded to know where my baby sister Bria was above all else? I just didn’t understand why—

Footsteps whispered on the carpet off to my right, and a large, beefy hand clamped onto my ass and squeezed—hard.

“Hello there, sweetness,” a male voice said. “If your front looks as tight as your ass, I’m in for a real good time tonight.”

He put his other hand on my opposite shoulder and turned me around. I let him and plastered a smile on my face, my lips ready to form an excuse to get rid of the ogling bastard.

I found myself looking up at Jake McAllister. The Fire elemental had traded in his rock-star jeans and vintage T-shirt for a tuxedo. It didn’t improve his looks. His body was still too beefy, his face still puffed out with baby fat.

He looked like an oversize kid playing dress-up in his daddy’s clothes. But the important thing was that he was here and staring at me.

Of all the people I could have run into here tonight, the possibility one of them would be Jake McAllister had never crossed my mind. So much had been going on the past few days I’d relegated Jake and his threat to kill me to the back burner. But luck, that capricious bitch, had decided to fuck me over once again.

Jake frowned, as though he knew me from somewhere but just couldn’t place me. Then, recognition dawned on his beefy face.

“You!” he hissed.

———

Jake McAllister stared at me. A cruel smile spread across his face, making his cheeks puff out that much more. “You shouldn’t have come here tonight, bitch. Because we’re on my side of town now, and I’m going to kill you.” His brown eyes landed on the heart-and-arrow rune around my neck. “After I fuck you a couple of times.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You want me? Come and get me, you bastard.”

I slammed my fist into his windpipe. Jake’s face went beet-red, and he struggled for air. While he was gasping for breath, I drove my other fist into his stomach.

First one, then the other. Thwack-thwack. Like kneading dough. He bent over, and I hurried away, moving deeper into the mansion.