“Actually, I have a small confession to make. I’ve been thinking about you a lot these past few days, Ms. Blanco. So much so that I had a friend gather some information on you.”

So Owen Grayson had someone dig into my past. No worries. My cover ID as Gin Blanco was rock solid. It had withstood Jonah McAllister’s scrutiny, and I had no doubt it had passed muster with Grayson as well. But I didn’t understand his curiosity. Sure, I’d saved his sister, Eva, from being burned to death by Jake McAllister that night at the Pork Pit. But most men of Grayson’s wealth, position, and standing would have forgotten all about me by now.

“You checked me out? Why?”

“You saved my sister, you saved Eva,” Owen said. “She’s the most important thing in the world to me. I like to settle my debts. I wanted to find some way to repay you. I wanted to find something you liked, something you wanted or needed, and give it to you. No strings attached.”

“I told you that I don’t want your money.”

Owen waved his hand. “So you’ve said. But then I got close to you, shook your hand that night in the Pork Pit. And I wondered why someone who runs a barbecue restaurant, even one on the edge of Southtown, would carry five silverstone knives on her person. Seemed like overkill to me.”

If he only knew. I had to work very hard not to reach for my knife again. So not only could Owen Grayson sense a metal weapon in my hand, he could also tell exactly how many I had on me. The usual five, at the moment. Two up my sleeves, two more strapped to my thighs, and one in my purse.

“You know about my interest in metal,” Grayson continued.

“I also have one in weapons as well. Making them is a sort of hobby of mine. So you can understand my curiosity about ones as finely crafted as yours. Silverstone’s not easy to shape or purchase.”

“The Pork Pit’s in a rough neighborhood,” I deadpanned.

“The knives make me feel secure.”

Owen laughed. A hint of sarcasm colored his throaty voice. “I’ll just bet they do. But there was one more thing that intrigued me about you, Ms. Blanco.”

“And what would that be?”

Owen stopped and disengaged my hand from his arm.

Before I realized what he was doing, he turned my hand over and held my palm up. “This.”

We stood underneath one of the antique streetlights. The hazy golden glow covered my palm—and made the spider rune scar embedded in my flesh shimmer a faint silver.

“A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays,” Owen Grayson murmured. “A spider rune. The symbol for patience. I wondered what the symbol was.”