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“Mr. Holt, this is my brother, Jonah, and our sister, Julia.”
“My pleasure,” I said, shaking their hands in turn, and Julia’s left eyebrow quirked over one deep brown eye, like something in my reply amused her.
Jonah only scowled. He was dressed like one of the guests, but even if I hadn’t known from my research, I would have known from his bearing alone that Jonah would have been more comfortable wearing all black like the rest of Tower’s muscle. He didn’t like dressing up, and he didn’t like playing nice. And he didn’t like me—that much was obvious in his first glance my way.
Almost as obvious was the fact that his dislike of me would be very much mutual.
“Mr. Holt, if I may say so, that was quite an impressive show you put on at the arena a couple of months ago.” Julia—Lia—raised her glass just a little, offering her own personal toast to my Skill.
“Oh, thank you, but it wasn’t intended as a show at all.” Lie. “I was just trying to help out where I could.” That part was true, but intentionally misleading. I was trying to help myself into Tower’s power circle.
“Still, you made quite an impression,” Tower insisted. “Lynne and I were impressed, anyway.”
“Unfortunately you weren’t the only ones. The news clip got quite a bit of airtime, and it’s been viewed on the internet ad nauseam. If I’d known there were cameras aimed at me, I might have done things a little differently.”
Another lie, and a big one that time. I knew there were cameras. The arena was chosen for that very reason. For my Skilled coming-out party. For the exposure that would bring me to Jake Tower’s notice, during his favorite sport.
“And you’re uncomfortable in the spotlight?” Julia asked.
“Or maybe scared of it?” Jonah added. “Darkness is more your thing, right?”
“I’m most comfortable in the absence of both light and attention, but scared of neither.” I faked a nervous laugh. “However, I will admit to being unnerved a bit at first by interest from organizations like this one.”
“You’ve had offers from other syndicates?” Tower’s frown was small, but telling.
“Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open for now. Though no one else has gone to quite this much trouble to impress me before.” I gestured one-armed at the entire party.
“Obviously we don’t stand around drinking and talking every day, but I thought a party would be the best way to introduce you to the syndicate as a whole.”
“And what an introduction it is,” I said, as one waiter took my empty glass while another replaced it.
“This is only the beginning.” Julia smiled, dark straight hair framing a pretty face I couldn’t quite read. “By the end of the week, you’ll understand that no one else can offer you the benefits, security and career advancement potential that the Tower syndicate can.”
“And here is the woman for the job.” Tower smiled coolly at someone over my shoulder and I turned as he waved two more women into our widening circle. The first was a small, delicate-looking woman in light blue, her platinum curls tumbling over pale, bare shoulders. She was smaller and fairer than my personal tastes ran, but I’d requested an escort of her exact description, and when her brown-eyed gaze met mine, some small bit of tension inside me eased.
“Mr. Holt, this is Kenley Daniels.”
I took her hand to shake it and couldn’t help smiling in relief. There she was, my target, hand delivered to me by one of the most dangerous and powerful men in the country, though he had no idea that he’d played the very card I wanted most. All I needed now was to get her away from Tower and his security team, and …
“And this,” he continued, before my hand had more than grazed Kenley’s, “is her sister, Korinne. Kori will be keeping you company this week.”
I blinked, confused, and glanced from Kenley Daniels to her sister, whose coloring matched Kenley’s exactly—same platinum hair, pale skin, and deep brown eyes. Korinne was only an inch or so taller. She was a virtual match to the description I’d given Tower when he asked what I’d desire most in a liaison—the description of her sister.
“A pleasure,” I said on autopilot, as I released Kenley’s hand in favor of Kori’s, still reeling from the bait-and-switch. Only it couldn’t be a bait-and-switch, because Tower didn’t know I’d had anyone specific in mind as my liaison.
And I hadn’t known his mistake was possible, because Kori Daniels wasn’t possible. She was dead. Every single one of Aaron’s sources had said the same thing. She’d been a fixture at Tower’s side for years—a strategically visible threat—then she’d disappeared several weeks ago. Gone, with no trace and no explanation.
In the syndicate, that can only mean one thing.
Yet there she stood, clearly alive and breathing, and waiting for me to shake the hand she held out. So I did.
She let go of my hand almost the instant we touched.
“Kori will be your tour guide,” Tower continued. “She will also be your assistant, your chauffeur and your personal security while you are here. Anything you want, Kori will provide.”
But Kori looked like she’d rather perform CPR on a leper than ever touch me again, even if only to hand me a cup of coffee.
My thoughts raced while I struggled to recover from surprise and frustration, without showing either. “You have security experience?” I said as if I didn’t already know the answer, grasping at the only reasonable excuse I might have to reject her services. There had to be a reason she was no longer guarding the boss, and if he didn’t trust her, why should I?
“Six years on my personal security detail,” Tower said, and I was starting to wonder if my new liaison even had a tongue. “I assure you, Kori is everything you requested, and more.”
Something silent and angry passed between Tower and the taller, older Daniels sister as her jaw clenched visibly and his gaze went hard. Kenley Daniels stared at her feet in the awkward silence, and Jonah Tower smirked when Kori flinched first, and looked away from her boss.
“Well, then, Mr. Holt, I believe we’re scheduled to discuss business later, but tonight is for drinking, and dancing, and mingling. I have some other guests to greet, so I’m going to leave you in Korinne’s capable hands for the moment. Please make yourself at home in my home.”
With that, Tower guided his wife toward a couple I vaguely recognized from the cover of some financial magazine, and the rest of his entourage followed. Leaving me alone with Korinne Daniels, who held an untouched flute of champagne but showed no sign of sipping from it. Or of acknowledging my presence.
How could she be alive? Where the hell had she been for the past few weeks? I’d made sure that none of the other women photographed with Tower recently had pale blond hair, specifically to avoid this kind of mistake.
Weeks of research and study, down the drain.
“So …” I said, watching Kori watch the rest of the room, trying not to let frustration leak into my voice. “You’re one of Tower’s bodyguards?”
“Was,” she said, and her posture tensed almost imperceptibly as she stared at something over my shoulder. I twisted to see Jonah Tower guiding her sister through the crowd with one hand at her lower back, and when I turned back to Kori, I found her eyes narrowed, one fist clenched at her side.
Were Jonah and Kenley involved? If so, Kori clearly didn’t approve. Neither did I. Jonah Tower didn’t like me, which could make it very hard for me to get close to Kenley if they were together. Unless her sister trusted me …
I studied Kori as she watched them wind their way through the crowd, trying to assess her more clearly now that I was over my initial surprise at being saddled with the wrong Daniels sister.
Korinne was slightly taller than her sister, but much thinner. Too thin, really. Her hip bones showed through the material of her dress and the points of her collarbone looked like they might pierce her skin at the slightest pressure. Her makeup was expertly applied, but couldn’t quite cover the dark circles under her eyes or skin that looked sickly pale, in contrast to her sister’s naturally fair complexion.
Still, she was pretty, in a hard-edged, angry kind of way.
Kori glanced up and caught me staring, and I held her gaze. “What do you do now?” I asked, trying to pick up the thread of a conversation that already seemed destined to unravel.
“Now I babysit you,” she snapped, and I blinked in the face of such candor. Then almost laughed out loud. I’d expected Tower’s people to be overaccommodating and ingratiatingly polite. Perhaps even sycophantic. Unvarnished honesty was a surprise.
“I meant, what do you do for Tower? What’s your role in his organization?” When my question produced only a blank, half-puzzled look, like she wasn’t sure she even knew the answer, I tried again from another angle. “Would it be impolite of me to ask about your Skill, considering you already know mine?”
“Hell yes.” She flinched and rubbed her temple with one hand. Then she rolled her eyes at nothing. “I’m a Traveler.”
A shadow-walker, just like Aaron.
“I assume you’re good with a gun, since you used to be a bodyguard. Any other special skills?” But I could tell with one look at her closed-off expression that I’d picked the wrong approach.
Kori Daniels didn’t want to talk about herself. She didn’t want to talk to me. And she certainly didn’t want to relax. She looked a little like she wanted to rip my head off and spit down my throat. “A special skill?”
I nodded, and too late I realized she’d found innuendo where I hadn’t intended it.
I shook my head and tried to rephrase the question, but then she stepped closer, until she was in my personal space, not quite touching me, but so close air couldn’t have flowed between us. She went up on her toes, like she might nibble on my ear, or share some dirty little secret. Then she whispered, so softly no one else could have heard.
“I do have a special skill,” she murmured, her breath warm on my neck, her voice soft and low-pitched, with that hot, gravelly quality some women get when they’re really turned on, and my pulse raced a little in spite of my very clear objective. “I’m pretty good with knives. I’m so good, in fact, that I could sever your testicles with one hand and slice open your throat with the other, and you’d go into shock so fast you’d die without ever knowing you’d spilled a fucking drop of blood.”
Korinne settled back onto her heels and smiled up at me like she’d just promised to fulfill my dirtiest, most secret desire, and I felt the blood drain from my face.
This was not the woman I’d ordered.
Three
Kori
I sipped from my glass and enjoyed Holt’s shocked expression so much that I’d taken two more sips before I remembered I hate champagne. And for the first time since I’d woken up in the basement eight weeks before, I felt a little better. A little more like myself. Until I saw Jake watching me from across the room, fury dancing in his eyes. He couldn’t have heard me, but he could see that I’d scared his guest of honor—disturbed him, at the very least—and he was pissed. Jake tossed his head toward an alcove mostly hidden by the curve in the staircase, and I had no choice but to obey the silent summons.
“Be right back …” I mumbled to Holt, and cursed myself silently all the way across the room. I’d known better. I’d fucking known better, and I gave in to temptation anyway. I couldn’t afford to scare off Holt or piss off Tower—Kenley couldn’t afford my mistakes—yet I’d managed to do both after less than five minutes alone with the man whose Skill Tower valued more than he valued my life.
“What the hell did you just do?” Jake growled, hauling me into the alcove by one arm. I tripped over the stupid stilettos Kenley had insisted I wear and would have gone down on my face if Tower wasn’t holding me up.
“He asked if I have any ‘special skills.’ He said it just like that.” Like special meant depraved or perverted.
“Was I not clear before?” Jake’s eyes flashed with anger. “I only pulled you out of the basement two weeks ago for this job. For him. I don’t care what he says, or what he does, or what he wants,” he growled into my ear, squeezing my arm hard enough to bruise, though I’d die before I complained. “You will answer him with a smile, and the answer is always yes. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I snapped, and it felt good to throw the word back in his face, even if it tasted bitter on my tongue.
He let go of my arm, but didn’t back down. “I’m not going to bother listing all the things you are not allowed to say or do, because I recognize that while unsophisticated and often crass, your mannerisms have a certain crude charm, and for all I know, Holt might actually want to play ‘tame the beast.’ That’s up to you to determine. But however this plays out, I swear on every beat of my wife’s heart that if you don’t have Ian Holt eating out of your hand in forty-eight hours, you will pay for it with your life. And your sister will pay for it with the balance of hers. Do you understand what I’m saying, Korinne?” he demanded, and I nodded, but that evidently wasn’t enough, because he repeated the question.
“Yes. I fucking understand,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Good.” He stepped back and eyed me from head to toe without a hint of desire. Tower, for all his faults, worshipped his wife like she shit gold and bled wine, and I’d never once seen him even glance at another woman with any real interest. “You look like a lady for once. Now go pretend to be one,” he said. “And try to remember that though a sledgehammer may be the most prominent weapon in your verbal arsenal, it is seldom the most appropriate.”
“Jake, please,” I whispered, swallowing the lump of bitter pride in my throat. “I’m not the best woman for this job. If you really want him, you need a recruiter.” Someone who was used to wining, and dining, and kissing arrogant ass. Someone who was good at it. “Don’t you think Monica would be better suited to this? Or Erica?”
Tower’s gaze went hard, and I knew I’d overstepped. Again. “Without a doubt. But he doesn’t want Monica or Erica. The only other person in my employ who fits Holt’s description of his ideal physical type is your sister, and even if you were willing to let her wander all over town alone with a man she just met, I am not. I need her here, doing her job, where I know no one else can get to her.”
I wanted to protect my sister from the realities of life in the syndicate. He wanted to protect a very valuable asset from being poached or exterminated. Still, in the end, our goals were the same, so I couldn’t argue.
“Now take the man a fresh drink and apologize like you mean it. And do not give me a reason to have to repeat this conversation. That’s an order.” With that, Tower stepped out of the alcove and back into his party, smiling at acquaintances like he’d never had a sour thought in his life.
I started to make my way back to Holt so I could publicly choke on the crow Jake had shoved down my throat, but when I scanned the crowd, checking on Kenley out of habit, I found her with Jonah Tower, who smirked at me silently while he rubbed her bare back with one hand, until she shrugged out from under his touch.
And suddenly I wanted to vomit.
I backed into the alcove again and stayed there for another minute, fighting the flashes of memory that played behind my eyelids—a montage of pain and humiliation, overlaid with the terrifying certainty that if I failed, it would all happen again, this time to my little sister.
I swallowed compulsively to keep my dinner down, breathing deeply, like Kenley had showed me. So far, when the basement resurfaced in my head, the only thing able to beat it back when I couldn’t take out my rage on the nearest boxing dummy was steady, measured breathing. Balancing each inhalation with an exhalation.
Kenley said I was imposing calm on everything else by instituting order in the most basic of involuntary functions. Or some shit like that.
I didn’t care how it worked. All I cared about was that it did work. Usually.
When I opened my eyes again, the buzz of conversation and laughter roared back into focus and the looming darkness of the basement was gone, at least for the moment.
Remember who you were before, Kori. I had to remember and become her again, or I might die without the chance to claim vengeance or reclaim the woman I’d been.
I straightened my dress—stupid fucking sequins—and squared my shoulders, then took one more deep breath and stepped back into the fray.
That was the only way I could think of this night and hope to succeed. The party was a battle to be fought, not with bullets, but with pointless social gestures and small talk. I could do this. Every polite smile would find its mark. Every swallowed curse would block a blow. And every bitter concession made to polite society would bring me one step closer to the goal. To signing Ian Holt and protecting my sister.
If the party was a brawl, then Holt was my enemy, but he couldn’t be beaten with fists or knives. He could only be lulled into submission—into lowering his guard—with subterfuge. With careful answers and gestures of compliance.
I could play that part. I’d have to play that part. Starting now.
I watched him as I closed in on my target, dodging hits from other combatants—Jake would call them guests—even as I armed myself with two fresh glasses of champagne from a tray carried by a passing waiter, an unwitting accomplice in my campaign.
Holt wasn’t bad-looking. In fact, he was actually kind of hot, blessed with broad shoulders, a strong chin, and the smooth, dark complexion only mixed parentage could give. Or maybe that was the champagne talking. I could toss back vodka all day long, but I’d never been able to think clearly on anything fancy. Probably from lack of practice.
While I was still several feet away, two familiar silhouettes stepped between me and my goal. They were both brunette and curvy, and less than two years bound, yet eager to make names for themselves. They were also on Jake’s shit list for refusing to believe after one crack at him that he could not be tempted to stray from his wife, even for a double dose of sin served hot and ready.
Within seconds of their arrival, Holt looked ready to flee the premises. I exhaled slowly and donned my mental armor, then stepped back onto the front lines, right between the two brash sluts, who gaped at me like I’d just insulted their strappy footwear.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” I said, handing Holt one of the glasses so I could link my arm through his. I couldn’t come up with a believable reason why they’d have to excuse us, so I didn’t bother. I just steered him away from the wild hyena women and through the crowd, half enjoying the angry looks they shot my way.
A victory is a victory. The venue is irrelevant.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the rescue,” Holt said. “But I’m forced to ask, in the interest of self-preservation … exactly how well armed are you right now?”
I laughed, and it wasn’t even forced. Probably because even with the smile hovering on the edge of his expression, his joke wasn’t really a joke—he was actually asking.
“Guns leave unsightly bulges in an evening gown.” Which I was only wearing under direct orders. “Tonight, what you see is what you get.” Jake had made it clear that I had not yet earned back the privilege of carrying weapons in his territory, after letting him get shot. “But don’t worry, there’s enough security in here to rival the U.S. Mint. No one could possibly get an unauthorized gun through the door.”
“I wasn’t worried about getting shot,” Holt said, as we wound our way through the crowd. “Perhaps ritualistically castrated and dismembered …”
“Okay, I’m sorry about the threat,” I said, though that wasn’t really true. “But they say you can’t underestimate the value of a good first impression.”
He stopped walking to frown at me. “Your idea of a good first impression is to threaten a man’s groin and his life in one breath?”
I shrugged. “Why? Would taking a breath in between improve the delivery?”
“I suppose not.” He drained the last inch of champagne from his glass, then set it on an empty tray as a waiter passed. Then he turned back to me, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “You’re not what I expected from Jake Tower’s envoy.”
“What did you expect?” I was honestly curious.
“Someone like her.” Holt nodded at something over my shoulder, and I turned to find Nina, Jake’s personal assistant, schmoozing with the lieutenant governor, one hand on his arm, her gaze locked with his as she laughed at whatever asinine story he’d just told. I’d heard every story he had. They were all asinine.
I started to ask Holt if he’d rather have Nina show him around—surely Jake wouldn’t make me play recruiter if the recruit didn’t want me around after all—but he was already speaking again, this time watching a group clustered near the windows on the west wall. “Or someone like your sister.”
I glanced at him in surprise, then followed his line of sight again to where Kenley stood against the wall, Jonah hovering near her like a kid eager to show off his prom date, and I realized Jake had probably told his brother to stick close to her, to remind me of what was at stake with this job.
Everything. That’s what was at stake.
