CHAPTER 44 GIGI
GIGI
Knox insisted on doing the actual sewing-up-skin thing, so Gigi settled for holding Slate’s hand the whole time. Hers was small. His was big.
That big hand squeezed Gigi’s small one, and Gigi squeezed back.
“Hell of a nick,” Knox muttered, finishing the stitches.
Gigi couldn’t help thinking that Slate’s skin looked pale—not a word she associated with him. Knox unearthed a bottle of bourbon and forced it on their patient, for the pain.
Now that the sewing was done, Slate didn’t even seem to feel it—the bourbon or the pain.
Gigi kept expecting him to pass out, but he didn’t.
And the entire time, she kept thinking: He came to me.
The rest of the world thought Gigi was helpless, but Mattias Slater—Code Name Mimosas, Mr. Very Bad News, he of the flat, emotionless voice and the long list of unforgivable sins—had come to her for help.
The least Gigi could do was distract him from the pain. “Tell me about Eve,” she said. “And/or your top three favorite pop songs.”
“I hate pop songs.”
Gigi’s free hand joined the one that already held Slate’s. “Eve it is, then.”
“She wanted in—on whatever this is.”
The Gilded Blade. “Eve wanted an invitation,” Gigi summarized. “From Calla. She sought one out. That’s why the two of you are here in St. Adelaide.”
“Eve wants what Avery has,” Slate said. “Every time, every damn time. And for better or worse, there’s no talking Eve out of anything. Ever.”
“Worse,” Gigi clarified helpfully. “Eve is the worst.”
“You don’t know her like I do.”
“I know that she shot you.”
“Nicked me.”
“Not a nick,” Knox muttered.
“Eve meant to nick me,” Slate insisted. “She’s just not quite as good a shot as she thinks she is.”
Gigi stared at Slate for several seconds, trying to make any of this compute, and then she realized something. “You’re an optimist.”
“I am not.”
“You are a grumpy optimist,” Gigi declared. “Eve is your family. You believe the best in her, even now.”
“I’m the one who taught her how to shoot.” Slate closed his eyes, just for a moment. “In exchange, Eve taught me how to braid.”
Knox snorted. “Why would you need to know how to—”
“Don’t want to talk about it.” Slate fixed his dark eyes on Gigi’s.
“The plan was for Eve to lure the Woman in Red out and disappear with her, and I was going to track them. Worked like a charm—the first part, at least. Woman in Red showed, hood and all. I kept my distance, but I was close enough to see her hand Eve the gun.”
Gigi couldn’t help glancing at Knox, who didn’t even blink. This had to hit close to home for him. Eve had made Slate bleed—a Calla Thorp style good-bye.
“Eve just stood there, holding the gun for a second or two, and then she turned toward me.” Slate’s tone was matter-of-fact. “I knew what she’d been told to do.”
“Calla made her do it.” That was Knox.
“Pretty sure Eve was aiming for the outside of my shoulder.” Slate shook his head. “She has a bad habit of skewing down and to the right. Either way, the bullet passed straight through. Flesh wound. I went down, and by the time I’d clawed my way back up, Eve and her hooded friend were gone.”
“You tried to go after them, didn’t you?” Gigi studied Mattias Slater for a moment. “Before you even bandaged yourself. You looked for Eve.”
“I found the tracker she was supposed to keep on her.” Slate swallowed, like the pain was finally hitting him—that, or the bourbon was. “She also left me these.”
With visible effort, Slate reached the fingers on his free hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out five metal coins and what looked to be a note.
Gigi reached out to take one of the coins from Slate’s palm.
She recognized the design—a metal disk with concentric circles.
She’d seen Eve brandish one at Slate once before.
How many of these is it going to take, Eve had asked Slate, to make you mine again?
“What are they?” Gigi asked Slate.
“The Blake family seals. Eve’s great-grandfather had them made as a way of controlling his family and the people who worked for him.
Favor could be given, and favor could be taken away.
If you had a seal, you were one of the Blake heirs.
” Slate stared at the bits of metal. “I was six the first time I saw one. My father was a minor Blake cousin, but he’d earned it. ”
Slate did not specify what his father had done to earn a seal, but based on the way he’d said the word earned, Gigi was guessing it hadn’t been good. Or legal.
“I lost my father’s seal for him a few years later—cost of trying to do the right thing.”
I’m always at my most dangerous, Slate had told Gigi once, when my intentions are good.
“Eventually,” Slate continued with effort, “Eve ended up with all five seals, old man Blake’s one and only heir. In the months leading up to his death, vipers came at her from all sides, trying to knock her down or take her out.”
“And you protected her.” Gigi was sure of that. “You were on Eve’s side, always. And she shot you.”
“Nicked me—and left me all five seals.”
“And a note.” Knox sounded pissed—more pissed, even, than usual. “What does it say?”
Slate nodded toward the note. “Go ahead, sunshine.”
Gigi unfolded it. There wasn’t a single word on the page, just four black lines—less hashmarks than claw marks. Gigi’s gaze went to the tattoos on Slate’s arm, even as her mind went to the sheath of his knife—the knife she’d lost the night before in the garden.
“Shooting me,” Slate told Gigi, “that was Eve’s number four.”
“Horrible things,” Gigi said. That was what Slate had said the marks in the leather of his sheath stood for: horrible things he’d done.
“Unforgivable things,” Slate replied.
“But you’ve already forgiven her.” Gigi gave Slate a look. “You stealth optimist, you. She shot you, and you’re still going to look for her to try to make sure she’s not in over her head, to try to make sure they don’t hurt her.”
If there was one thing that spoke to Gigi, one thing she recognized and understood and connected to in a way that cut straight to her core, it was people who loved hard. The loyal ones. The ones who could believe when there was every reason not to.
“Right now,” Slate told her flatly, “all I’m planning to do is have another shot of bourbon and wait for Eve’s father to find me. I read him in on what she was up to yesterday, just in case.” Slate shook his head slightly. “Toby’s going to kill me for going along with any of this.”
“Not on my watch,” Gigi declared, and then she cast a hopeful look at Knox. “Our watch.”
“Hell no,” Knox muttered.
“Hell yes,” Gigi replied, because Slate might not have a plan yet, but what Gigi heard loud and clear from him was: I need your help.
What she heard was: You’re already strong.
And Gigi was. She was strong and capable, and she didn’t need her sister’s permission to do what was right. Slate needed Gigi’s help. And the last thing Gigi was going to do—the very last thing—was run away like a little girl.
Okay, Mimosas, she thought, taking Slate’s hand once more in hers, buoyed and resolved. Let’s play a game.