She gave him a flat look. “Well, perhaps this time you can manage not to shoot me.”
“I had to make it look good, didn’t I? Shooting Lane and slapping you around wasn’t going to cut it after Blanco started playing hero. Besides, you got the added bonus of saving your dear son. I got him to trust you, just like that.” The giant snapped his fingers.
So the whole point of the bank robbery had been about Deirdre ingratiating herself with Finn. No wonder she’d seemed genuinely upset. Santos shooting her hadn’t been part of the plan, but he’d done it anyway. Too bad he’d only grazed her instead of putting a bullet through her chest.
Deirdre’s red lips puckered, and anger filled her eyes at his mocking tone. It was obvious that there was no love lost between the two of them. Perhaps the giant would double-cross and kill her for me. Yeah, right. No way could I ever be that lucky. Besides, I wanted to end Mama Dee myself.
“Oh, yeah, the bank job went so well that you had to shoot your own men and leave with nothing,” I sniped, slurring my voice to add to my weakened appearance. “What are you going to do for an encore? Swipe some poor kid’s lunch money on the playground? That seems to me like that’s about all you can handle, Rod.”
Anger stained Santos’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to snipe back at me, but Deirdre held up her hand. “Don’t be an idiot. She’s just baiting you.”
I snorted and leaned a little more heavily on the cage bars. “Sugar, from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve surrounded yourself with idiots.”
“Mmm.” Deirdre’s noncommittal murmur had Dimitri and Santos eyeing her with suspicion. “Regardless, they were clever enough to capture the great Spider. Interesting nickname Fletcher gave you.”
I shrugged. “He thought it was appropriate.”
“Just like his name, the Tin Man.” Deirdre paused, her eyes gleaming with sly satisfaction. “Do you know why he decided on that particular moniker?”
I shrugged again. I had no idea what she was getting at.
She smiled. “He told me it was because he didn’t have a heart anymore. That I had ripped it right out of him. I always liked the idea of him never forgetting what I did to him.”
I gripped the bars. “What did you do to Fletcher? What’s the real story with you two?”
She glanced at her watch. “I suppose I have time to indulge you in this one last thing. Before I let Mr. Barkov dispose of you. He’s been so very helpful these past few weeks. He should be rewarded, don’t you think?”
Dimitri sneered at me again, his whole body puffing up with self-importance. He actually started cracking his knuckles, as if the thought of him beating me would frighten me. Idiot.
I focused on Deirdre again. “So what happened with Fletcher?” I didn’t even try to keep the eagerness out of my voice. This might be my last chance to get the truth out of her before one of us killed the other, and if I had to grovel to do it, then so be it.
“Just a typical story of a girl rebelling against her parents. We never got along. They thought that I should be a prim, proper prude like they were, with no more ambition than catching a rich husband to prop up the Shaw family fortune.” Deirdre shook her head. “But I had other plans. I was supposed to get my trust fund when I was eighteen, but my parents realized that I was going to leave Ashland the second I got the money. They changed the terms so I couldn’t access it until I was twenty-five. Even then, I realized that they’d just keep putting it off. My parents had already blown through their fortune, and they were going to spend mine too.”
“So?” I asked, not seeing her point.
“So I decided to stop them.”
“This is about your trust fund? Seriously?”
She shrugged. “Are you really that surprised? You’re an assassin, Gin. You know better than anyone else what people will do for money.”
She had me there.
“Once I realized that my parents weren’t going to give me my money, I decided to do whatever I wanted. Smoking, drinking, boys.” She grinned, but it was a sharp, predatory expression. “Lots of boys.”
“What about Fletcher?”
“Another boy took me to the Pork Pit, where I met Fletcher. He was quite handsome, charming too. Even better, I knew that my parents would never approve. He ran a barbecue restaurant, which was about as low-class as you could get, according to them. So I decided to have a little fun. I seduced Fletcher, made him think that I was this sweet young girl who totally adored him, and he fell for it. He was totally in love with me. It was amusing enough while it lasted.”
Deirdre paused, her gaze distant, as if she were seeing Fletcher as he had been back then. Her hand crept up to her icicle-heart necklace, her fingers stroking over the rune.
“So what happened? What changed?”