Heart of Venom

Chapter Nine

I drove Roslyn’s car back to Jo-Jo’s house. I would have called Finn and told him what was going on, but I’d left my cell phone at the salon, along with my knives. The first time that I could remember forgetting my weapons and leaving them behind in years.

As the miles passed, I tried to remember everything that Jo-Jo had ever told me about Grimes. It wasn’t much.

He’d kidnapped Sophia, taken her to his camp, and done terrible things to her before Jo-Jo had hired Fletcher to rescue her. The old man had saved Sophia, and he and

Grimes had fought to a standstill, but Fletcher hadn’t been able to finish the job and kill him. Still, Grimes had kept his distance from the Deveraux sisters since then, on the threat of death from Fletcher. End of story.

I’d definitely have to swing by Fletcher’s house and see what else I could dig up. Despite what I’d told Phillip, despite my rage and how painfully aware I was of how much Sophia was probably suffering this very second, I wasn’t going to go rushing into Grimes’s camp blind. No,

I wanted to be as prepared as possible when I attacked him. I’d have to be, in order to get Sophia out of there alive.

I drove even faster than Roslyn had, so it didn’t take me long to reach Jo-Jo’s house. Despite the earlier gunshots and flashes of elemental violence, no police cars sat in the driveway. The house was on higher ground and set back from the road much farther than the others in the subdivision, so you’d really have to look to notice anything out of the ordinary. Besides, gunshots weren’t uncommon in Ashland, not even out here in the ’burbs. When they did erupt, most folks hurried to lock their doors and grab their own weapons, rather than calling the cops, most of whom would take their sweet time responding.

From a distance, Jo-Jo’s home looked the same as always. A three-story white plantation house perched on top of a hill, a grassy lawn spread out around it like the rippling skirt of an emerald dress. It was only when I got out of the car and walked closer that I could see the damage that Grimes, Hazel, and their men had done.

The front door, left wide open, had a muddy boot print planted in the middle of it, and a sheet of water from Bria’s melted elemental Ice covered the hallway, soaking my bare toes. A long, splintered piece of wood floated in the water like the plank of a wrecked ship, the part of the doorway that Sophia had pulled off in her desperate attempt to stay with Jo-Jo.

The inside of the salon wasn’t any better. The men Bria and I had killed lay where they had fallen, blood pooled under their bodies, their sightless eyes fixed on the ceiling. I went through their pockets, rifling through their wallets for clues about Grimes, but all I found were driver’s licenses, credit cards, and a few crumpled bar receipts.

Nothing useful. I threw the last wallet aside in disgust.

But the worst part wasn’t the water or the bodies or the kicked-in door. No, the worst part was the blood that had splattered against one of the walls. Because I knew that it was Jo-Jo’s blood, that I hadn’t been able to protect her from this horror in her own home, that I’d stood by while she’d been shot and Sophia had been kidnapped. If I could have, I would have killed the men all over again for destroying Jo-Jo’s salon. Because it was more than a business—it was a sanctuary. More than once, I’d shown up on Jo-Jo’s front porch late at night, covered with blood and bruises. And every time— every single time — she’d welcomed me with open arms and healed me with no questions asked. More than that, she’d made me feel wanted, protected, loved. I’d always felt safe here—until today.

Harley Grimes would live just long enough to rue the moment he’d ever decided to come after the Deveraux sisters again.

My knives were still where I’d left them, two on the floor and three on the buffet table with all the food. The dark chocolate mousse pie, the fried chicken salad sandwiches, the chocolate-dipped fruit. All spoiled now and covered with hungry, humming flies that had invaded the house along with the heat. More sad reminders of how horribly wrong the day had gone.

I grabbed my knives, sliding one into its usual spot against the small of my back before tucking the others into the pockets of my shorts. I glanced around, wondering if there was something that I’d overlooked, and I spotted a piece of paper on the floor next to Rosco’s basket in the corner. I went over, picked up the paper, and unfolded it.

An image of Jo-Jo sitting on the steps at the Briartop museum stared back at me.

I recognized the photo as one that had run in the newspaper a few weeks ago, one of many that the media photographers had snapped after clementine’s botched heist that night. The rest of the story had been carefully cut away from the photo, along with the other people in it, leaving only the image of Jo-Jo behind. The paper had been folded into a small square, and the edges were soft and worn, as though Grimes had been carrying it around in his pocket for a while.

This must have been the thing that had finally fully reignited his interest in Sophia, even more so than Fletcher’s death. The reason Jo-Jo had been shot.

My surprise quickly faded away, but a sick, sick feeling lingered in my stomach. Because Jo-Jo wouldn’t have even been at the museum if not for me, if I hadn’t asked her to come and heal Phillip after clementine had shot him.

My fault—it was my fault

that Grimes had come after the Deveraux sisters again. I’d put Jo-Jo in the spotlight without even meaning to, and now she and Sophia were paying the terrible price for it.

My fingers curled around the clipping, crushing the newspaper into a small, round wad. Not for the first time, I cursed clementine Barker and then Jonah McAllister, who’d hired her in the first place. McAllister couldn’t have possibly realized that this would be one of the consequences of his actions, but I knew that he would enjoy it all the same, should he ever learn of it. There were few things the weaselly lawyer liked better than causing trouble for me and mine.

I let myself fume about McAllister for a moment before I tossed the wadded-up newspaper clipping aside.

My eyes scanned the ruined salon a final time, but there was nothing else to see or do here, so I grabbed my sandals from the corner and slipped them on.

I’d just started to leave when my cell phone rang.

It was such a loud, jarring, unexpected sound that I whirled around, a knife in my hand, ready to kill whatever was making that noise. But after realizing that it was only my phone, which I’d left on the buffet table, I let it ring until it went to voice mail. I picked it up and had started to slip it into my pocket when it began ringing again. I had a sneaking suspicion who was calling and that he wouldn’t give up until I answered.

“What?” I growled into the receiver.

“Finally!” Finn practically shrieked in my ear. “There you are! I’ve been calling and calling you!”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been a little busy, in case you haven’t heard.”

“I got off the phone with Bria a few minutes ago,” Finn said. “Tell me what happened.”

I quickly filled him in on everything that had happened. While I talked, I left the salon and walked down the hallway, my sandals sloshing through the puddles of

water. I stepped out onto the front porch, stopping to shut the door behind me. At least, I tried to. Its hinges had come loose from the frame, and it wouldn’t quite close all the way. Another thing that Grimes had broken—and something else that he was going to pay for.

When I finished, Finn was silent for a moment. Then he let loose with a very long, very loud, very imaginative string of curses that quickly devolved into a raging manifesto about how Grimes should be brutally tortured, stitched back together, and then tortured again for everything that he’d done to Jo-Jo and Sophia.

“Well,” I drawled when Finn had finally calmed down enough to let me get a word in edgewise. “I second all that. In fact, I’m getting into the car right now to go make it happen.”

“I’m up in cypress Mountain meeting with a client, but I can leave right now and be down there in a few hours,” Finn said. “Then we can go after Sophia together.”

“There’s no time. I need to get to her as soon as possible. There’s no telling what Grimes will do to her.”

I didn’t tell him that it might already be too late. Finn knew that as well as I did.

“You can’t go after Grimes alone,” Finn said. “Who knows how many more men he has on that mountain of his? At the very least, you’ll be outnumbered.”

“I can, and I’m going to. I don’t care how many fucking men he has. I’ll kill every single one of them if that’s what it takes; you should know that.”

“I do know that. I also know that you’re upset, but going up there on your own isn’t a smart move,” Finn said. “You know it too, deep down inside. You’re just not thinking clearly right now because you’re so angry.”

Jo-Jo! Sophia! Jo-Jo! Sophia!

The sisters’ screams echoed in my head again, and once more all the images, all the terrible memories, of the day overwhelmed me. Sophia stumbling into the salon, telling us to run. Jo-Jo stretching her hand out toward her sister. Sophia hanging on to the doorframe with all her might. The coppery smears of Jo-Jo’s blood on Bria’s sheet of elemental Ice. The agony in her eyes at the thought of Sophia in Grimes’s clutches. The cold touch of Jo-Jo’s hand at cooper’s house.

Finn was right. I was angry. But I was determined too.

And waiting simply wasn’t an option, no matter how dangerous doing this alone was going to be.

“My thinking is crystal-clear,” I snapped. “Save Sophia. kill Grimes. It’s pretty cut-and-dried. Save your breath, Finn.”

“Gin, wait—”

I hung up on him. The phone started ringing a second later. No doubt, Finn thought that he could talk me out of it. He should have known better.