Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1) (31)

He chuckled. “Relax, Sage. Nothing gruesome. You can wipe the lurid thoughts of blood and destruction from your mind.”

“I wouldn’t say my thoughts of blood and destruction are lurid,” she corrected, scrunching her nose.

“If you’re not opposed, I’ll need your help tomorrow evening at the Redbloom Tavern, eight o’clock.”

The Redbloom Tavern was not the seediest establishment around, but it was certainly no palace, either. Evie had gone once on a whim with a few girls in her village on her eighteenth birthday. The beer was stale, the wine tasted of vinegar, and the people were filthy and loud. All in all, she had quite enjoyed herself.

“Very well. But may I ask what you could possibly need, work-wise, at a tavern?”

He rubbed his jaw before taking the reins in both hands. “The bomb that was planted in my office.”

The mention of it brought back the smoke, the panic, the frantic beating of her heart, and she sucked in a breath.

“I recognized the timepiece. There’s only one man who could make and sell that sort of watch, the kind that can be hooked and aligned with explosives.”

“And he works at the Redbloom Tavern?”

His lips twisted downward, the dark clouds above casting a pallor of gray light on him. “He owns it.”

He looked to Evie once more with that wary sense of expectation. Like he was waiting, wondering if this was the request that would make her turn her back, would make her run.

But her stubbornness and lack of self-preservation had carried her this far. She stepped forward and nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, sir.”

A flash of relief shone on his face for just a moment before disappearing behind a mask of indifference. A sudden noise from his lips, urging the horses into action, and then he was gone.

Evie looked at the spot where his carriage had been. Where he’d just stood. Her front yard would never quite be the same place again.

And then it started to rain, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a very bad omen of things to come.





Chapter 12


Evie


It was cold tonight.

Evie pulled her brown cloak tightly around her. Not the ivory one she’d treated herself to for her birthday but the one she’d had since she was sixteen.

Worn and patched over, it was essentially worthless. Which was the only wise course when entering an establishment like this. She pushed open the doors and glanced at the clock on the far side of the wall. She was early, but only by a few minutes.

The raucous yells from the table closest to her told her that someone had just lost a valuable hand of cards, and sultry laughter said that someone was about to get lucky in other ways.

Pulling out a chair on the farthest side of the room by the window, Evie seated herself and pulled the brown cloak from her shoulders. In addition to the cloak, she’d picked out her drabbest dress. The only pitfall being the corset had to be worn over it rather than beneath, pushing her small breasts up to high heaven.

Under any other circumstance, that would not bother her. She already had so little to work with in that department, it was always fun to wear a corset that gave her the illusion of it. But she was in a seedy tavern, drawing the salacious gazes of more than one person in the room, and she was trying to remain discreet.

This was a work excursion, after all.

Her heart rate increased when she saw a figure in a dark cloak enter the room, immediately exhaling when he tugged the hood down and it wasn’t her boss. She saw The Villain every day without having the nerves her body was currently throwing at her, but for some reason, this was different.

It was bad enough having the man in front of her house, but now they were in a place of laughter and alcohol. With couples having trysts in every darkened corner and—

Why was she blushing?

“Here all alone, love?” The voice was painfully familiar, and when Evie looked up, her suspicions were confirmed.

“Rick,” Evie squeaked, feeling her heart accelerate in her chest. Her face burned as her eyebrows shot to her hairline. “What are you doing here?”

He laughed in a way that made Evie cringe. Their short-lived relationship had been a youthful mistake born of loneliness that Evie had had trouble escaping since losing her mother and brother. It was a hard lesson to learn that sometimes it was better to remain lonely than to waste companionship and energy on someone undeserving.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He leaned an arm on the back of her seat, and Evie indiscreetly moved her body away from his. Rick was not unattractive. In fact, from an objective standpoint, he was very handsome.

But his personality seemed to negate anything the outward qualities might have saved. He grinned at her in a way she knew was meant to be seductive but instead made her want to gag. “Since when do you frequent places like this, Evie?”

Sighing, losing the last strands of her patience, Evie rolled her shoulders. “I’m meeting someone.” She kept her words clipped, hoping he’d hear the disdain in them and move away from her.

But to her disgust, her blatant denial seemed only to encourage him. “Oh, is that right?” He reached out and ran a finger down her cheek, then laughed when Evie slapped it away. “You didn’t used to have this much bite to you, did you?” he asked. “I would’ve extended our friendship a little longer.”