He took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “You know, I’m starting to get spoiled with all the hot chocolate and cookies and food all the time,” he grumbled. “I’ve had to add five miles to my workout routine every week just to burn off all the extra calories.”
“I do try.” I grinned. “And all that grumbling would sound a whole lot more convincing if you didn’t have a whipped cream mustache right now.”
Silvio gave me a sour look and wiped away the offensive whipped cream with a napkin, but he kept right on sipping his hot chocolate, and he took the refill that I gave him several minutes later.
By the time Catalina Vasquez, Silvio’s niece and my best waitress, and Sophia Deveraux, my head cook, came into the restaurant, the vampire was on his third mug of hot chocolate. Catalina rolled silverware into napkins, while Sophia and I started on the day’s cooking. The rest of the waitstaff trickled in one by one, and as soon as I opened the front door at eleven o’clock sharp, customers streamed in, eager to get somewhere warm and cozy, just like Silvio.
The lunch rush passed in a busy blur, although I kept an eye on everyone, always alert for potential trouble. More than a few underworld bosses came into the Pork Pit to eat and pay their respects to me, and to bend Silvio’s ear, hoping to set up a meeting with yours truly so they could gripe about their rivals, the general lack of respect for their territories and boundaries, and all the other petty problems that they expected me to solve.
Complain, complain, complain. That was all the other bosses did to me, and why any of them thought that it would actually be fun or fulfilling to be the head of the underworld was beyond my comprehension. They shouldn’t be plotting to murder me. They should all be down on bended knee, profusely thanking me for putting up with the whole sorry, corrupt lot of them instead of stabbing them all to death the way that I so often dreamed of. Now, that would be fun and fulfilling.
Every time some boss tipped his head at me or had one of his minions sidle up to Silvio, I had to grind my teeth to keep a bland smile fixed on my face. Everyone thought that I was in charge, that I was the head honcho, that I was in complete control, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
For weeks now, Hugh Tucker had been leading me around like I was some cute little kitten playing with the strings that he kept dangling in front of me. Sure, I knew who some of the Circle members were, and I even knew the group’s rune, a circle of sharp swords pointing outward. But none of the members was going to be easy to get to, much less take out, especially not the still--unidentified mystery man in charge of the whole shebang. But all I could do was build my own web of death one strand at a time, starting with Damian Rivera.
Annoying underworld bosses aside, lunchtime went by with no problems, and I finally had a chance to relax and eat my own lunch at around two o’clock. Since it was so cold outside, I wanted some warm, hearty comfort food, so I whipped up a pot of chili, along with a couple of ooey-gooey grilled cheese sandwiches. The chili was a fantastic mix of meat, beans, and spices, all in a rich, thick, tomato-based sauce, while the grilled cheese sandwiches were buttery, melty, and perfect for dunking into the chili. I finished off my meal with some chocolate chip cookies and a tart, refreshing raspberry lemonade.
By the time I finished, I was actually in a good mood, despite last night’s shocking revelations about Tucker and my mother. I’d just wiped the last of the cookie crumbs off my hands when the bell over the front door chimed, and a woman dressed in a long crimson coat trimmed with black faux fur entered the restaurant. Her blond hair gleamed under the lights, and a pair of oversize black sunglasses perched on her face, like she was a movie star trying not so successfully to go incognito.
Jade Jamison was a minor underworld boss with big-time ambitions who was always looking to climb higher and get richer. Jade had helped me out in the past, and I considered her a friend, one of the few that I had among the city’s criminals. I smiled as she hurried over to the counter, her black stiletto ankle boots clacking against the blue and pink pig tracks on the floor.
“Jade.”
“Gin.”
She slid her sunglasses on top of her head, pushing her blond bob of hair out of the way. Jade was a beautiful woman, and her makeup was as smooth and flawless as ever. But the expertly applied lipstick, powder, and shadow didn’t quite hide the tired lines around her mouth, the purple streaks under her eyes, or, especially, the fear and worry glimmering in her green gaze.
Something was wrong.
The longer I stared at her, the more certain I was. Jade had come to the Pork Pit not as a friend but as an underworld boss, which only meant one thing: she had a problem that she wanted me to solve.
Sure enough, Jade drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “You owe me a favor, and I’m here to collect.”
I raised my eyebrows at her pronouncement. “Well, that sounds rather ominous.”
Her lips tightened into a grim slash. “Believe me, it is.” She glanced around the restaurant, then turned back to me. “Can we go somewhere private and talk?”
“Sure. Step into my office. You too, Silvio.”
I motioned for Jade to walk around the counter and over to the swinging double doors that opened into the back of the restaurant. Silvio grabbed his phone and followed us. I led the two of them past the metal shelves full of sugar, ketchup, cornmeal, napkins, silverware, and other restaurant necessities and opened the back door of the restaurant. I stuck my head outside, just to make sure that no one was lurking in the alley foolishly hoping to kill me, but the coast was clear, and the three of us stepped outside. Silvio shut the door behind him.
Jade looked up and down the alley, taking in the dirty, broken pavement, the overflowing trash cans, and the battered metal Dumpsters hugging the walls. The air wasn’t nearly cold enough to kill the stench of rotten meat, putrid vegetables, and other spoiled food mixed with the sticky-sweet and sour scents of crushed soda cans and broken beer bottles. Her crimson lips curled up with disgust, and she made sure to keep her boots out of the puddles of oily water that had filled in the cracks in the asphalt.
“Some office,” she muttered.
I shrugged and leaned a shoulder against the brick wall of the Pork Pit. “What’s up?”
Jade looked at Silvio, who was standing off to my right, his phone in his hands, ready to take down notes of our meeting.
“Does he have to be here for this?” she asked.
“Yes. He’s my assistant. He gets rather cranky when I don’t let him actually assist me.”