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“Only as a last resort. I want him on staff. Willingly.” Because forced bindings were never as strong as those entered into freely. “Holt hasn’t signed with anyone yet. In fact, he managed to stay completely off the radar until two days ago, when the JumboTron at an NHL hockey game caught him darkening the entire arena during a riot on the ice.”
“How do you know it wasn’t just a power outage?”
“Because he blinded the arena from the outside in, starting at the perimeter and moving toward the ice from all sides equally. The general public thinks he’s just some idiot who saw the first lights go out before the camera did and pretended to be doing a magic trick. But I know what I saw, and I’m not the only one. Now that he’s been exposed, everyone wants him. I’ve officially extended an invitation, and he’s agreed to come to town as my guest and hear our pitch. You will be his liaison. You will show him the advantages of joining the Tower syndicate and make sure that he signs with us, or with no one.”
“I’m not a fucking recruiter, Jake.” I’d been part of Tower’s personal security team. I’d killed for him. I’d kidnapped for him. I’d done other things I desperately wished I could forget, but recruiting was a specialized skill—one I didn’t have. “I’m a soldier, and you need a salesman.”
“You are whatever I say you are, and when Ian Holt gets here, you will be his recruiter. You will be his girlfriend, his best friend, his therapist, his mother, or his dog trainer, if need be. You will do whatever it takes to put a chain link on his arm.” For emphasis, Tower glanced at the two black interlocking chain links tattooed on my own arm—the flesh-and-blood binding tying me to him until my term was up. “Whatever it takes, Korinne. Do you understand?”
I understood. “You want me to fuck him.” And if I refused—if I refused anything Jake told me to do—resistance pain from violating my oath to him would shut my organs down one at a time until I died screaming.
“I want you to give him whatever he wants. And if he wants you, then yes, you will bed him, and you better be the best he’s ever had, because if he refuses my mark, you will have to bring him in by force so I can drain him. And if that happens, I will kill you, and your sister will pay for your failure as you’ve paid for your latest mistake. She will serve out the years remaining on her contract in this room, under the same conditions.”
My blood ran cold, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “No one touches Kenley. You swore it when I signed on.” My little sister would be untouchable, in exchange for my service.
“And you swore that you would guard my life and my interests with your own.” Tower unbuttoned his shirt slowly, and I knew what he was going to do even before he pulled back the left half of the material to show me the fresh pink scar. “Your key card let the enemy into my house. Into my home, where my wife and children sleep. Your gun faltered where it should have fired, and I was shot in my own home, by my greatest enemy.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You failed,” Tower insisted. “You broke your word, and I have no reason to keep mine. If Ian Holt does not sign with me voluntarily by the end of his visit, I will have you executed, and your sister will pay the pound of flesh you still owe.”
Nausea rolled over me, and if I’d had anything to vomit, it would have landed in his lap.
“You have two weeks to get back in shape and make yourself presentable. This is your last chance, Korinne. Save yourself. Protect your sister. Get me Ian Holt.”
After Tower left, the lights stayed on, and I had several minutes to see the emaciated ruin my body had become. And to think. And to hate Jake Tower like I’d never hated anyone in my life. Then the door opened again, and my sister stepped into the room, a younger, softer reflection of the woman I’d been until Tower locked me up.
Kenley gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth, then she spoke from behind it. “What did you bastards do to her?”
Milligan stood behind her, staring at the floor. “I never touched her. I just work here.”
“Where the hell are her clothes?”
Milligan shrugged. “This is how he sent her. You’ve got fifteen minutes to get her cleaned up.” He backed out of the room and shut the door.
Kenley crossed the small space and set a canvas bag on the floor, then dropped onto her knees in front of me, brushing hair back from my forehead.
“How long?” I asked, staring at the mattress while she dug in her bag.
She pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me. “Almost six weeks,” she said, and I could hear the sob in her voice, though she tried to hold it back.
“I’m fine.” I cracked the top on the bottle, scared by how much effort that took, then unscrewed the lid. I’d gulped half of it before I remembered I should go slow.
“You’re not fine. I thought you were dead. Jake kept saying you were alive, but he wouldn’t let me see you. I was sure he was lying, just to keep me working.” Tears formed in her eyes and when she blinked, they rolled down her cheeks.
“No. Don’t cry, Kenni,” I whispered, because they were listening. They were always listening, and they were probably watching through the one-way glass. I licked the moisture from my lips. “Don’t ever let those steel-hearted sons of bitches see you cry. If they know you can be broken, they’ll fuckin’ break you just for sport.”
Like they’d tried to break me.
She nodded, jaw clenched against sobs she was visibly choking back.
I opened my mouth to tell her it would be okay. I would make it okay. But then my stomach revolted, and I lurched for the toilet. I retched hard enough to wrench my injured shoulder, and the water came up. It was too much, too fast. I should have known better. I’d been sipping half handfuls of clean water from the back of the toilet tank since the bottles had stopped coming, but that was different from gulping half a bottle, ice-cold.
Kenley pulled my hair from my face and I sat up, wiping my mouth with the back of one bare arm. My stomach was still pitching, but there was nothing left to lose.
“No one knew where you were.” She handed me the bottle again, and I rinsed my mouth, then spit into the toilet, thinking about how wrong she was. Some people knew where I was. Some of them had seen me, through the one-way glass. “Tower was shot, and you were shot, then he woke up and you disappeared. What happened, Kori? No one knows what really happened.”
What happened? I’d been buried in the basement, at the mercy of the monsters. But that wasn’t what she was asking.
“Liv said she needed my help, so I went. But it was a trap. They were waiting for me. They took my key and used it to break in.” I was the breach in security that got one of our men killed, two more shot, and Tower’s prize blood donor—my murdered friend Noelle’s only daughter—taken. “Ruben Cavazos shot us both.” I ran my fingers over the dirty bandage on my shoulder.
I should have run, regardless of the risk. I would have run, if not for Kenley. I couldn’t leave her alone with Tower. Alone in the syndicate. My sister and I were a package deal, from start to finish.
“You’re lucky he didn’t have you killed,” she said, but I shook my head.
“He can’t. He still needs me.” I had no clue why I had to be the one to recruit Ian Holt, but if Jake didn’t need me, I would be dead.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” She stood and headed for the canvas bag, but her shoulders were shaking and it took me a minute to realize why.
“Kenley, this isn’t your fault.” I used the edge of the toilet to push myself to my feet.
“Of course it’s my fault.” She dug in the bag and pulled out a bottle of shampoo, then crossed the room toward the narrow, curtainless shower stall in one corner. “I sealed the binding between you and Liv, so you have to do what she asks. Because of me.”
Kenley was a Binder. A scary-good Binder. She was so good Jake hid her from the world, to protect her and every contract she’d ever sealed for him. He kept her under twenty-four-hour guard, and he threatened me to control her, just like he threatened her to control me.
“It wasn’t like that this time,” I insisted, as she turned on the shower—it only worked when they wanted it to. “Liv didn’t officially ask and I wasn’t compelled. I went to help her on my own.” Because it was the right thing to do. I was sure of that, even after everything that had come since.
“It’s my fault you’re here in the first place, Kori.” Kenley aimed the shower spray at the opposite wall, then turned to look at me, arms crossed over her chest, and I sighed. I’d never been able to effectively argue with that one. But again, I had to try.
“I make my own decisions. We came into the syndicate together, and we’ll leave together.” Or not at all. “Four years,” I whispered leaning with my forehead against her shoulder, while stray droplets of water sprayed us both. “We can do four more years, right?”
She nodded, but she looked far from sure. I’d been shot, starved, abused and locked in the dark for almost six weeks, but she was the one I worried about. Kenley was fragile, so I had to be strong enough for both of us. And Jake knew it. He knew what cards we held—what mattered to us—so he always won the game.
“Let me see your shoulder.” Kenley blinked away more tears, and I leaned against the wall for balance while she peeled medical tape and gauze from my gunshot wound. I’d done my best to keep it clean, and I’d taken all the antibiotics Jonah had brought in the first couple of weeks, back when I was being fed and showered regularly, because he was the bulk of my punishment. But then Jake had figured out that his brother wasn’t enough to break me, and that’s when the darkness and isolation had dropped into place around me.
“It could be worse.” Kenley wadded up the bandage and dropped it on the floor. “The stitches have dissolved and it’s only a little red.” Which kind of figured, because the rest of me was black and blue. “Get cleaned up. He’s sending an escort for us in a few minutes,” she said, while I stepped out of my underwear and dropped my grimy bra on the floor. Kenley kicked them into the opposite corner, then stuck one hand under the water and grimaced. “They could at least make it warm.”
But they wouldn’t. The basement cells weren’t built for comfort. They were built for isolation and torture. They were built for hour after hour of darkness and silence, because when you can’t see anything and you can’t hear anything, you have no choice but to think about what you did, and how you would never, ever do it again.
But here’s the thing. I would do it all over again, if I had the chance. I would take the gunshot wound, and the silence, and the darkness, and the worst Jonah could throw at me, if it meant sending Noelle’s kid back home where she belonged.
I stepped into the shower and gasped as freezing water poured over my face and body. I let it soak my hair, then I opened my mouth and drank just a little, one hand propped on the tile wall for balance, because I hadn’t eaten in days, and the room was starting to spin.
While I washed my hair slowly, shocked wide-awake by the cold water, my sister pounded on the one-way glass. “She’s gonna need something clean to wear. Actual clothes, this time! And a towel!”
I lathered the cracked bar of soap while water and shampoo suds ran down my body to swirl through the drain at my feet. It felt good to be clean on the outside, even if I might never be truly clean on the inside, ever again.
Five minutes later, clean and still damp, my hair dripping on clothes that weren’t mine and didn’t quite fit, I stepped out of the cell I’d spent almost six weeks in with one arm around my sister, as she half held me up. Milligan didn’t look at me, and neither did either of the grunts Tower had sent to escort us to Kenley’s apartment. But as the door swung shut behind me, literally closing on a chapter of my life I never wanted to reread, a man stepped out of the shadows in the hallway and crossed beefy arms over a barrel chest.
“Won’t be the same around here without you, Kori,” Jonah Tower said, cruel laughter echoing behind every syllable, and at the sound of his voice, my heart thumped painfully, pumping remembered pain and fear along with the blood in my veins. He stepped closer and whispered into my ear, too softly for Kenley to hear. “But I think you’ll be back. And if you can’t give Jake what he wants, I get to end you. Then the younger Miss Daniels and I are gonna get to know each other real well.”
Kenley shied away from the hand he laid on her shoulder, and I stepped between them, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath. “I’ll be back all right, but you’re not gonna see me coming. And if you’ve laid a finger on my sister, I’m going to tear them off one at a time and shove them down your throat until you choke on your own sins.”
Two
Ian
“Have I told you you’re an idiot?” Aaron asked, staring through the windshield at the tall iron gate and the even taller house behind it. If such a monstrosity could even be called a house. It was more like a modern fortress.
“About twenty times since my plane landed.” I flipped down the driver’s-side sunshade and checked my tie in the mirror.
“Has it sunk in yet?”
I glanced at him in the thick shadows of the car’s interior, lit only by the green numbers scrolling across the radio’s display in the dashboard. “Your puny verbal barbs are no match for my thick skull.”
“You do have a freakishly thick skull,” Aaron said, flipping through the stations on my rental car’s radio. “But that won’t stop a bullet. They may look civilized in tuxedos and sequins, but they’re really monsters in men’s clothing, every single one of them. They’re going to eat you alive in there, Ian.”
“Then may they choke on my corpse.”
Aaron punched the button to turn off the radio, uncharacteristically serious in concession to the job at hand. “Eight years since you left, and nothing’s changed. You’re still ready to charge in half-cocked and make the world bend to your will, consequences be damned.”
“That’s not true.” The kid I’d been back then was idealistic but soft. Smart but naive. That kid had been burned by the real world—roasted alive—and I’d risen from his ashes, ready to breathe fire of my own. “Now I’m fully cocked, and well aware of the consequences. As are you.”
He nodded at the somber reminder. “You sure you don’t want me to go in with you? I could grab a monkey suit and be back in a second.” Aaron was a Traveler, which meant he could step into the shadow of a tree outside my car and into his own bedroom in the space of a single breath, and be back just as fast. “You’re gonna need someone you trust at your back.”
Unfortunately for Aaron—or fortunately, depending on your perspective—traveling was one of the most common Skills in the world. Aaron’s range was a little above average, but his accuracy was questionable at best, and unless his motivation was personal, no one would ever call him punctual. Which meant he had no value whatsoever to the Skilled syndicates.
That fact had kept him safe from their interest for years. So safe, in fact, I’d often wondered if he was faking his own incompetence for that very reason. He wouldn’t be the first to try it. Hell, I’d tried it. But that wasn’t why I couldn’t use his help.
“Thanks, but no. If you show your face in Tower’s house, within an hour they’ll know you’re an Independent.”
They’d also know that Aaron was as good with a computer as he was bad with women, that he was late on the rent and quick with a punch line, and that he was addicted to those little melt-away mints people serve at weddings. His life was an open book, available to anyone who cared to read it. As were most people’s lives. Which was why I was the only one who could do this job.
Because I had no life. No past. Officially, I didn’t even exist, and if they ever figured that out, being seen with me could get Aaron killed.
“I need you to stay off their radar so you can be my emergency bailout, if this ends badly.”
“Fair enough.” Aaron sounded half relieved, half disappointed. He wanted to play badass assassin, but he didn’t really want the risk that came with it. “Give me a call if you need a quick escape.”
“I will,” I said, as he pushed open the passenger-side door. But we both knew I wouldn’t. There was nothing he could do to help me, if I couldn’t get out of Tower’s house on my own. The infrared lighting grid guaranteed that trespassers couldn’t gain entrance through the shadows. His heavily guarded exits made sure no one got in the traditional way, either. Once inside, I would be on my own.
“If you survive this kamikaze mission, we should get dinner. And beer.”
“Absolutely.” But that was another lie. I had every intention of surviving, but wouldn’t get the chance to hang out afterward, and I’d probably never be able to come back into the country at all, much less this particular city. If I accomplished what I’d set out to do, the price on my head would be high enough that preachers and Boy Scouts would fight one another for the chance to profit from my death.
“Good luck, man.” Aaron stuck his hand out and I shook it, then he stepped out of my rental car and closed the door. I watched as he walked into the patch of woods at the side of the road. One step. Two. Three. Then he was gone, not just hidden by the shadows, but transported by them. Through them.
I took a deep breath and checked my tie in the mirror again—I hadn’t worn a tux in years, and my distaste for formal wear had not faded. Then I shifted the car into Drive and pulled onto the street at the end of a procession of cars all headed the same place I was.
The queue of vehicles moved quickly, greased by proper planning and a well-trained workforce. When I rolled to a stop in front of the house, feet from the curved, formal steps, a man was waiting to take my keys while another spoke into his handheld radio, his steady but unobtrusive gaze taking in every detail of my clothes and bearing. They knew my face.
Before I’d even rounded the front of the car, a brunette in a long, formfitting peach-colored dress came down the steps toward me. She smiled like a pageant contestant and moved like a waitress, quick and eager to please.
“Mr. Holt.” She threaded her arm through mine and guided me smoothly up the steps, without ever faltering in either smile or stride. “We would have sent a car for you,” she said, leading me through a door held open by a man in service dress. She was smooth, and polished, and poised—an experienced people handler and a beautiful woman.
But she was not what I’d requested.
“Unnecessary. I wanted to see the city a bit on my own.” I stopped in the foyer, and she had no choice but to stop with me, because I still held her arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m Nina. Mr. Tower’s personal assistant.”
“And you’re my escort for the evening?”
Her smile faltered a bit over my implication, and the dissatisfaction echoing intentionally within the question. But then she rallied from the insult and her smile beamed brighter than ever, if a little brittle now. “No, I’m afraid Mr. Tower has chosen someone else to keep you company during your stay. I’m just here to make the introductions this evening.”
Nina led me through the wide foyer, generically ostentatious with its soaring ceiling and gold-veined marble tile. Even in his absence, Jake Tower exhibited his own affluence and power like a peacock displaying plumage. Wealth was evident in the expensive furnishings and decor, while his power was even more obvious in the stream of well-dressed guests, several of whom I recognized from political pieces on the nightly news.
At the base of each curved staircase, dressed in black and carrying handheld radios, stood a member of Tower’s security team, monitoring the party in general and me in particular. I was unbound—I’d taken no oath of loyalty or service to Jake Tower—thus untrusted. They would watch me, prepared to intercept or incapacitate, until the day I bore Tower’s chain link on my arm, marking me as his to command.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
Once those milling in the entry had their chance to see me, Nina guided me into the main event. Into the snake pit, where every hiss would feel like praise and every bite like a deep, hot kiss. The venom would flow like honey, too thick to swallow, but too sweet to entirely resist.
I knew how extravagant and generous the syndicates could seem when they wanted something. I also knew it was all a lie. The party was an illusion, from every plunging neckline to each glass of chilled champagne. It was a show. A seduction. I was being courted by the Tower syndicate because I had something they wanted. And I would play along because they had something I wanted.
Heads turned to look when we entered the party. Hands shook mine and voices called out greetings, but the faces all blurred together. The names were a jumble of syllables I didn’t bother to untangle. These weren’t the important names. Not the important faces. Remembering would be a waste of effort.
So I smiled and nodded in the right places, agreeing when it was convenient, changing the subject when it wasn’t. I sipped from the glass placed in my hand and ate the hors d’oeuvres Nina insisted I try. But I tasted nothing and hardly heard the words that came out of my own mouth. I was too busy scanning the crowd for the faces I’d studied. The names I’d memorized. The important ones, not necessarily in power circles, but vital to my purpose.
And finally, nearly half an hour after I arrived, a soft buzz spread through the crowd and I looked up to find Jake Tower coming down the main staircase with his wife on his arm and two black-clothed bodyguards at his back. The host had arrived, late enough to demonstrate that he lived life on his own schedule, but not so tardy as to be truly rude to his guests.
“Let me introduce you to Mr. Tower,” Nina said, taking my arm again. She led me through the crowd toward the stairs as Tower and his small entourage descended into our midst.
At the base of the stairs, a glass of champagne was pressed into Tower’s hand, but he handed it to his wife before accepting another for himself. A heartbeat later, his gaze landed on Nina, then slid to me, and I swallowed a lump of eager rage before it could shine through my eyes and give me away. Tower wasn’t my target, but that didn’t mean I’d cry at his funeral. When the time came, I’d be raising my glass to whoever finally put the vicious, arrogant bastard in the ground, as would everyone else he’d ever tried to put his mark on.
“Mr. Holt, may I introduce Jake Tower and his lovely wife, Lynne. Mr. Tower, this is Ian Holt, your guest of honor.”
Tower offered me his empty right hand and I shook it, making eye contact for the first time. Trying not to show that I knew more than I should.
I shouldn’t know that Tower’s first name was actually Jacob and one of his middle names was David. His wife was really Gwendolyn, and before she married, she’d been a Pierce, a great beauty by all accounts, but not burdened with enough brains or initiative to ever get in her husband’s way.
“Mr. Holt, so glad you could join us. I hope you’re enjoying yourself so far?” Tower’s brows rose, and I nodded in reply.
“Of course. You have a lovely home, and an even lovelier wife.” I took Lynne Tower’s hand briefly, and she smiled, then silently sipped from her glass.
Over their shoulders, the bodyguards watched me, and their surnames filtered through my memory, triggered by faces matching the photographs and notes Aaron had fed me for days. The taller, darker man was Clifton, and the shorter, paler, broader one was Garrett. Their Skills, like their first names, were unknown, but based on their size alone, either could break a man in half.
The group around me shifted to accept a new couple into our power circle, and I realized with one glance at the newcomers that they weren’t a couple at all.
