(Elemental Assassin 01) Spider's Bite Read Online Free PDF

department. City council. Mayor’s office. Cops, district attorneys, judges, and other assorted good guys didn’t last long in this city, unless they went over to the dark side—and into Mab’s hip pocket.
    Like all savvy businesswomen, Mab Monroe hid her true nature behind a veneer of cultured sophistication. Donating money to charity. Spearheading fund-raisers. Giving back to the community. All of it designed to distance her from the ugly things she ordered done on a daily basis. Mab kept her eye on the big picture, which is why she had two lieutenants, for lack of a better word, who ran the day-to-day operations. Her lawyer, Jonah McAllister, and Elliot Slater.
    McAllister handled the people who challenged Mab through legal means. The slick lawyer buried the poor folks in so much paperwork and red tape that most of them went bankrupt just trying to pay their own attorneys. Slater claimed to be a security consultant, but the giant was really nothing more than an enforcer in a nice suit. He handled Mab’s minions and dealt with those who crossed the Fire elemental in a swift, brutal, permanent manner—when Mab didn’t deign to do it herself.
    To most folks, Mab Monroe was a paragon of elemental virtue, a perfect marriage of money and magic. But those of us who dealt in the shady side of life knew Mab for what she really was—ruthless. The Fire elemental had a stranglehold on Ashland, her fingers in every worthwhile, lucrative, or helpful operation in the city, but it just didn’t seem to be enough for her. Mab just kept reaching for, and accumulating, more and more and more, as though money, power, and influence were the vital oxygen she needed to fuel herself. Simply put, she was a bully, albeit one with enough magic to back up any claim she made and get her anything she wanted.
    I’d never liked bullies.
    But Mab’s magic didn’t keep folks from quietly plotting against her. Several times a year, Fletcher got inquiries about hiring me to take out Mab Monroe. We’d done some recon on her over the years and had decided it was too close to being a suicide mission to bother with. Even if I could get through her layers of security and giant bodyguards, Mab could always kill me herself. She wasn’t afraid to use her own Fire elemental magic. That’s how she’d clawed her way to the top in the first place—by killing anyone who challenged her meteoric rise through the ranks of Ashland’s underworld.
    Still, Fletcher kept an open file on the Fire elemental, tracking her security, her movements, looking for any signs of weakness. For some reason, the old man wanted Mab dead. He just hadn’t found a way to get it done yet. At least, not one that didn’t involve him going out in a blaze of glory with her.
    “You’re telling me Gordon Giles was stupid enough to embezzle money from one of Mab Monroe’s companies?” I asked.
    Fletcher shrugged. “It appears that way. Client didn’t give any more details, and I didn’t ask. If you’ll flip to the back page, you’ll see there’s a time limit on this one.”
    I turned to the appropriate sheet and read the info. “They want the job done by tomorrow night? You want me to do a job on less than twenty-four hours’ notice? That’s not like you, Fletcher.”
    “Read the payment.”
    My eyes skimmed farther down the paper. Five million. Question asked and answered. Fletcher might have loved me like a daughter, but he also loved getting his fifteen percent. I wasn’t adverse to my cut, either.
    “It’s not a bad chunk of change,” I admitted.
    “Not bad? It’s twice your going rate.” A mixture of pride and anticipation colored Fletcher’s rough voice. “The client’s already made the fifty percent deposit. Do this job, and you can retire.”
    Retirement. Something that had been on Fletcher’s mind ever since I’d come back with a broken arm and a bruised spleen from a botched job six months ago in St. Augustine. The old man kept talking about me