Troy reached out, as if he were going to curl a lock of Catalina’s hair around his finger, but she slapped his hand away before he could touch her.

“That was a long time ago,” she snapped. “Before I knew better.”

Troy’s eyes narrowed. “You know, given our history, I was going to be nice about this. Not anymore.”

He snapped his fingers. One of the other guys stepped forward, unzipped the black backpack he was holding, and pulled out a fistful of plastic bags, all filled with pills. He handed the bags to Troy, who held them up so that Catalina could see them.

“All you gotta do is take these pills over to that barbecue restaurant where you work and pass them out to the waiters and the customers,” Troy said. “Give them out here on campus too. Think of them as free samples.”

He snickered, and so did the other two guys.

Catalina’s jaw clenched tight, and she glared at Troy, her hazel eyes almost black with anger. “I’m not pushing your pills. Forget it. Find someone else to sell that poison for you.”

Troy reached toward her a second time, but Catalina slapped his hand away again. Troy surged forward, and the other two guys stepped up behind him, the three of them crowding Catalina and forcing her to back up against the chain-link fence on that side of the lot. Troy’s two minions were actually older guys—vampires, given the glint of the fangs in their mouths as they leered at Catalina.

“You move out of the neighborhood, and you suddenly think you’re better than everyone else. Well, not so high and mighty now, are you?” Troy sneered. “Not when there are three of us and one of you.”

She coldly looked from one guy to the next, not a flicker of fear showing in her face. Impressive. Catalina was tougher than she’d ever let on at the restaurant.

“Actually, I’d say that there are just two of you,” Catalina said, jerking her head at the vampires. “From what I remember, you don’t like to get your hands dirty, Troy.”

A red flush crept up Troy’s neck, spreading into his cheeks. “Well, you’d know all about being dirty, wouldn’t you? Since all you do is clean up other people’s shit all day long.”

Catalina stiffened, but she didn’t respond.

“You know, if you won’t play ball, then you aren’t leaving me a lot of options,” Troy said. “I can’t have you going around school after turning me down. That would send the wrong message to a lot of people. Last chance, Cat. Take the pills—or else.”

The two vampires crept a little closer to her, smiling even wider and showing off even more of their fangs. Troy’s meaning was clear: get with the pill-pushing program or get drained.

Catalina lifted her chin and glared at Troy. She wasn’t backing down, no matter what. I admired her for it, really, I did, but it was also stupid of her. She should have just accepted the pills and flushed them later. Oh, I knew that Catalina didn’t want to take the pills and get sucked in with Troy and his thugs, but it was too late for that. This was about to get very ugly for someone.

Good thing ugly was what I specialized in.

“Gin?” Owen asked.

I realized that he had asked me a question, probably more than once, and I focused on his voice again. “Sorry, babe. I’ve gotta go.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Nah. I just see a bit of trash that needs to be taken care of. I’ll be there soon.”

Owen and I hung up, and I slid my phone into my jeans pocket, before opening the car door and throwing my backpack into the passenger’s seat. Then I slammed the door shut.

The sharp crack reverberated through the parking lot, and the three guys turned to stare at me. Catalina tried to edge away, but the two vamps spotted her furtive movements and flanked her, keeping her pinned against the fence. I pushed away from my car, stuck my hands into my pockets, and strolled in their direction.

Catalina recognized me, her boss, at once. She let out a small gasp, her face paled, and she started shaking her head no-no-no, although I couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn me off or worried about what I was going to do to the three guys hassling her.

But Troy didn’t see her reaction. Instead, his gaze slid past me to my car. When he realized that I was driving an Aston Martin, a greedy smirk slashed across his face.

“Hey, hey, foxy lady,” he called out. “You lookin’ for some action? You lookin’ to score a little sumthin’ sumthin’?”

I smiled back at him, showing almost as many teeth as the two vampires were. “Sumthin’ like that.”

Behind Troy, Catalina kept shaking her head no-no-no. She opened her lips, but one of the vamps rattled the fence beside her, a clear sign for her to keep her mouth shut. But there was no need for her to waste any more of her breath on these fools, especially not to try to tell them who they were messing with. Besides, Troy wouldn’t have heeded any warning. He was completely focused on me, a potential customer, and I could almost see the dollar signs churning in his head as he calculated how much he could take me for.

“Well, you are in the right spot, baby. Because I have got just the thing for you.”

He held out one of the bags, and I took it from him. A single pill lay inside the plastic, its deep, dark red color making it look like a drop of congealed blood. I flipped the bag over and realized that a rune had been etched into the surface of the pill: a crown with a single flame arching up out of the center of it, the symbol for raw, destructive power.

Still, despite the bloody color and the symbol, the pill looked more like a kids’ vitamin than a dangerous drug, but I knew all too well how deceiving looks could be. Most people didn’t think that I seemed anything like a dangerous assassin—until my knife was cutting into their guts.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Troy’s smirk widened. “It’s the latest, greatest thing on the market, baby. It will rock your world. Nah, scratch that. It’ll just burn it down instead.”

The two vamps snickered at his cheesy lines. Catalina rolled her eyes. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do too, but I decided to let things play out.

I tucked the pill into my jeans pocket. Not because I had any intention of taking it but because Bria would no doubt be interested in it. Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland’s few good cops, actually cared about things like trying to keep drugs off the streets. I tried to help her out whenever I could, despite my own life of killing and crime.

“Now that you’ve seen the goods, let’s talk about payment, baby,” Troy crooned. “Normally, a hit like that is fifty a pop.”

My eyebrows shot up in my face. “Fifty bucks for one pill? That must be quite a joyride.”

“Oh, it is,” Troy said. “Believe me, it is. But if you don’t have that much cash on you, don’t sweat it. I’m sure we can work out some other form of payment.”

His brown eyes tracked up and down my body, taking in my black boots and dark blue jeans and the tight green tank top I had on under my black leather jacket. Behind him, the two vampires did the same thing, licking their lips like I was a bottle of booze they were going to pass around. Oh, everybody was going to get a taste of Gin Blanco, all right, just not the kind they expected.

I bared my teeth, all pretense of a sweet smile long gone. “You call me baby one more time, and you’ll be eating through a straw for the next six months.”

Catalina sucked in a breath, but confusion filled Troy’s beefy face. When he finally realized that I’d threatened him, his brown eyes narrowed to slits.

“Those are big words coming from a little lady,” he snapped. “You should be more respectful. Think about who you’re talking to.”

“Oh? And who would that be?”

His chest puffed up with self-importance. “Troy Mannis, that’s who.”

“Never heard of you.”

He blinked, and his shoulders slouched. I couldn’t have deflated his ego any faster if it was a balloon I’d popped with a pin. But anger rose up to fill the empty space inside him. “Well, you should,” he said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “Because I run this campus, and if you’re looking to score here, then you have to go through me. You don’t have a choice. Nobody here does.”

“Oh, there’s always a choice,” I drawled. “Like me going through you and leaving nothing behind but bloody little smears on the pavement.”

Troy threw back his head and laughed. So did the two vampires, who had moved away from the fence and were now flanking him. Behind them, Catalina eyed me with a wary gaze. She’d heard the rumors about me being the Spider, just like everyone else who worked at the Pork Pit. Well, she was about to see how true they were.

“You must be on something already, flying high, to say something like that,” Troy said. “Maybe you don’t know who I am, baby, but you don’t want to piss off the people I work for.”

This time, my smile was a little more genuine. “Actually, I love pissing people off. Important people, rich people, dangerous people. I’m an equal-opportunity pisser-offer. You know why?”

“Why?” He asked the inevitable question.

“Because the bigger and tougher they think they are, the more they bleed. Just like you will.”

Troy opened his mouth, but I was tired of talking, so I didn’t give him a chance to insult me again. Instead, I snapped my fist up and sucker-punched him in the throat.

Troy’s eyes bulged in surprise, even as he choked and gasped for air. The bags of pills fluttered out of his hand, and he stabbed his finger at me over and over again, in a clear kill-that-bitch-right-now gesture to his friends. The vampires charged at me, but I was ready for them.

The vamp on my right was quicker, and he reached for my neck, probably so he could snap my head to one side and bury his fangs deep in my throat. But I darted forward, turned my body into his, grabbed his right arm, and flipped him over my shoulder. His head cracked against the pavement, and he moaned with pain. He rolled over onto his side, and I kicked him in the ribs. The vampire started dry-heaving. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

A hand wrapped around my waist from behind, as the second vampire yanked me back up against his body. I let him pull me toward him, using his own momentum to help me drive my elbow deep into his stomach. While he gasped for air, I slammed my boot onto the top of his foot, then grabbed his arm and flipped him over my shoulder too. The vamp landed on top of his buddy, making the other man’s head crack against the pavement again. I lashed out and kicked the second man in the ribs too, just so he could have the same stomachache as his friend.

While the two of them were coughing and wheezing, I turned back to Troy. He’d managed to suck enough air back into his lungs to do something supremely stupid: pull a switchblade out of his pants pocket.

I laughed. “A switchblade? Really? Doesn’t your boss have enough money to buy you a gun?”

Troy growled and slashed at me with the weapon. I let him swing at me, easily sidestepping his wild blows.

“Hold still, you bitch!” he screamed.

I grinned again. “Why, all you had to do was ask, sugar.”

I stopped. Troy came at me again, and this time, I knocked the blade out of his hand, then tossed him over my shoulder the same way I had his two friends. And for the third time, I followed it up with a hard kick to the stomach. By the time I finished, the three guys were a moaning, groaning pile on the pavement.

I circled around them, debating whether or not to keep kicking them, but Catalina stepped forward and held up a hand.

“Gin,” she said. “Don’t. Please.”

I looked at her, then at Troy and his friends. Considering.

If these punks had jumped me in the alley behind the Pork Pit, I would have pulled out one of my knives and finished the job. But I was out in the open in broad daylight, with Catalina here to witness any slicing and dicing that I might do. I tried to avoid traumatizing innocent folks whenever possible. Besides, Troy and his loser drug-dealing friends weren’t worth getting blood on my clothes.

So I gave her a sharp nod. Catalina let out a relieved sigh.

Troy groaned again and rolled off his two friends. He started to get up, but I put my boot against his neck, not hard enough to crush his windpipe but with more than enough pressure to get his attention. Eyes wide, he stared up at me, pain and rage darkening his brown gaze.

“I think we’ve established that you are not, in fact, the prince of this particular kingdom,” I said. “But I am certainly the queen bitch around here. And if I ever see you selling drugs or hassling anybody—anybody at all—then what I did to you today will feel like a foot massage. Are we clear?”

“Whoever the hell you are, you’re going to pay for this,” Troy snarled, his angry gaze cutting to Catalina. “And you too, Cat. I promise you both that.”

Catalina let out another sigh, although this one sounded more sad than relieved.

I removed my boot from Troy’s neck and leaned down so he could see that my gray eyes were even colder and harder than the pavement around us. “My name is Gin,” I growled. “Like the liquor. I’m sure you can figure out the rest. You think you’re such a tough guy? Well, come look me up, and we’ll find out.”

He snarled and grabbed at my ankle, so I kicked him again, even harder than before. After that, the only thing Troy was capable of was wheezing, kissing the asphalt, and desperately trying not to throw up.

I grinned, knowing that my work here was done.

2

I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, reminding me that I wasn’t alone with my attackers.