So I held up my hands in a placating gesture and kept the cold, calm violence out of my gray eyes as best I could.
“I’m the owner. Gin Blanco. I don’t want any trouble. Let the girl go, and I’ll open the cash register for you. I won’t even call the police after you leave.”
Mainly because it wouldn’t do me any good. The cops in the southern metropolis of Ashland were as crooked as forks of lightning. The esteemed members of the po-po barely bothered to respond to robberies, especially in this borderline Southtown neighborhood, much less do something useful, like catch the perps after the fact.
Jake snorted. “Go ahead. The police can’t touch me, bitch. Do you know who my father is?”
In addition to being a Fire elemental, Jake was also a name-dropping prima donna. A wonder he’d survived this long.
“Don’t tell them that!” Lance hissed.
Jake snorted and turned his red eyes to his buddy. “I’ll tell them whatever I want. So shut your sniveling mouth.”
“Just let the girl go, and I’ll open the cash register,” I repeated in a firm voice, hoping my words would penetrate Jake’s magic high and sink into his thick skull.
His red eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ll open the cash register, or the girl dies—and you along with her.”
He jerked the girl back against him, and the flames coating the knife burned even brighter, taking on an orange-yellow hue. The silverstone scars on my palms—the ones shaped like spider runes—itched at the influx of magic. I tensed, afraid he was going to do the girl right here, right now. I could kill him—easily—but probably not before he hurt the girl with his magic. I didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t going to happen. Not in my restaurant. Not now, not again.
“Jake, calm down,” Lance pleaded with his friend.
“No one’s making any trouble. It’s going just like you said it would. Quick and easy. Let’s just get the money and go.”
Jake stared at me, the flames dancing in his red eyes matching the movement of the ones on the knife blade.
Pure, malicious glee filled his crimson gaze. Even if I hadn’t been good at reading people, that emotion alone would have told me that Jake enjoyed using his magic, loved the power it gave him, the feeling of being invincible.
And that he wasn’t going to be satisfied just stealing my money. No, Jake was going to use his Fire power to kill everyone in the restaurant just because he could, because he wanted to show off his magic and prove he was a real badass. Unless I did something to stop him.
“Jake? The money?” Lance asked again.
After a moment, the fire dimmed in Jake’s eyes. He lowered the glowing blade a few inches, giving the girl some much-needed air. “Money. Now.”
I opened the register, grabbed all the wrinkled bills inside, and held them out. All Jake had to do was let go of the girl long enough to step forward and grab the cash, and I’d have him. Come on, you bastard. Come and play with Gin.
But some sense of self-preservation must have kicked in, because the beefy half giant jerked his head. Lance left his post by the injured woman, tiptoed forward, snatched the money out of my hand, and stepped back. I didn’t bother grabbing him and using him as a hostage. Guys like Jake weren’t above leaving their friends twisting in the wind—or stuck on the edge of my blade.
Jake licked his thick, chapped lips. “How much? How much is there?”
Lance rifled through the green bills. “A little more than two hundred.”
“That’s it? You’re holding out on me, bitch,” Jake snarled.
I shrugged. “Monday’s a slow day. And not many people like to get out in this kind of cold weather, not even for barbecue.”
The Fire elemental glared at me, debating my words and what he could do about them. I smiled back. He didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into—or whom he was messing with.
“Let’s just go, Jake,” Lance pleaded. “Some cops could come along any second.”
Jake tightened his grip on his flaming knife. “No. Not until this bitch tells me what she did with the rest of the money. This is the most popular restaurant in the neighborhood. There had to be more than two hundred dollars in that cash register. So where did you hide it, bitch? You wearing a money belt underneath that greasy blue apron?”