I drew in another breath. "Some things are going to happen tonight, probably in the next few minutes, that you aren't going to like very much. I know you're a detective, a cop, that you've spent your whole adult life protecting people. But I need you to turn off that part of you tonight. I need you to do exactly what I say when I say it, with no questions asked and no hesitation. Do you think you can do that for me?"
Bria frowned. "What are you talking about, Gin? You've got Ice magic, sure, but what do you think you're going to do against four giants? Not to mention LaFleur. If I still had my guns, we could probably get past the giants and get away before LaFleur came to see what all the commotion was about. But we don't have any weapons, other than our magic. I'm pretty strong for an elemental, but I can't take out four giants with my magic. At least, not all at once. "
"You don't have to. I'm going to do it for you. "
Her brow wrinkled as she tried to puzzle out what I was saying. LaFleur could come back at any second, and we didn't have any time to waste. So I decided to make it easy for her. I reached down, drew the two silverstone knives out of my boots, and twirled them in my hands. There wasn't much light in the railcar, but Bria spotted the weapons at once-and realized exactly what they were and whom they belonged to.
Emotions flickered in her gaze. Shock. Surprise. And slowly, comprehension.
I gave her a second to stare at the knives before I tucked them up my sleeves. Seconds ticked by, and my sister just looked at me, like she'd never seen me before. Like she wasn't sure she wanted to right now.
"Let me see your hands," Bria finally said, her voice thick with emotion.
"Bria-"
"Let me see your fucking hands. " She ground out the words through her clenched teeth.
There was no going back and no hiding anything. Not now. She knew.
Bria knew who and what I was.
I drew in a breath and let it out, preparing myself for what I might see in her face. For the horror and disgust that I was almost certain to see there. Then I slowly held out my hands and turned them up toward her, so that she could see my palms-and the two spider rune scars branded into each one of them.
A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. The same rune that Bria wore on that ring around her index finger.
Bria's blue eyes widened in shock, and all the color drained from her face. "Genevieve?"
"Hi there, baby sister," I said.
Chapter 26
"Genevieve," Bria whispered again. For a moment, her body swayed side to side, like she might faint. Her blond hair glinted with the motion.
I shifted on my feet. "Actually, I prefer Gin now. "
"Genevieve Snow," she repeated, as though I hadn't said a word. "You're Genevieve Snow. You're my . . . sister. "
"In the flesh," I said in a light tone.
"And the Spider. " Bria's voice was flat, hard, cold. Her body quit swaying, and her spine snapped upright once more.
"And that too. "
We didn't say anything. Bria moved over to the opposite side of the car, to the spot where Natasha had been huddled, as though she couldn't stand being close to me. Maybe she couldn't, now that she realized who I was and all the bad, bloody things I'd done.
"You're the woman who's been going around town killing Mab Monroe's men," Bria said in a dull tone. "All those men the last few weeks. And Elliot Slater and all those giants up at his mountain mansion before that. How many has it been since you started? Or even since I've been in town? A dozen? Two?"
The accusation in her voice hurt me worse than if she'd hauled off and delivered a stinging slap across my face, but I made myself stay calm, cold, detached, just the way Fletcher Lane had taught me. I would survive this, just the way I had so many other unpleasant things over the years. Even if I was about to lose my own sister-again.
I shrugged. "I quit keeping count a long time ago. "
"Why?" she asked. "Why did you kill them all? Why are you . . . what you are?"
I knew that these were the questions Bria would ask me when she finally found out I was the Spider, the ones she'd demand answers to. But the truth was far too twisted and complicated to get into-at least tonight. And I couldn't help the hurt that pierced my heart at the look on her face-the absolute shock and the sheer horror of realizing what I was. Of knowing that her long-lost sister was a brutal killer. Maybe it had been a pipe dream, but I'd wanted Bria to accept me the way Owen had. But as I looked into her hard blue gaze, I knew she didn't-and probably never would.
There was no time for hurt feelings. No time to dwell on the past or the sea of emotions between us. No time to give into sloppy sentiment and shattered hopes and dreams. All that mattered now was surviving-and killing LaFleur before the assassin told Mab that we were here and at her mercy.
So, as tough as it was, as much as I just wanted to sit down with Bria and explain everything to her, as much as I wanted to beg her to love me the way I loved her, the way I'd always loved her, I forced my feelings aside and embraced the coldness in my heart once more. The cold, hard, black part of me that had let me survive so much over the years-the murder of my family, living on the Southtown streets, becoming an assassin, and all the ugly, bloody, terrible things I'd had to do in between just to survive.