Oath Bound

Julia sipped from her glass, looking at me in some odd combination of pity and delight. “The big city is going to swallow you whole, country mouse.”

I wouldn’t be around long enough for that. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Assuming your DNA test comes back as you say it will? Yes. We’re going to help each other. Tell me what you want, so I can determine what this favor is worth, Serenity Tower.” She set her glass on the desk blotter, then gave me a humorless little smile. “That sounds like the name of a building. A sweet, pretty little building where flowers grow in the front yard. So what is it you want from me, Serenity?”

“I want you to kill someone.”

The slight narrowing of her eyes was the only sign that she’d heard me, and after that, she only watched me, waiting for more. Making me uncomfortable with every second of the silence that stretched between us, until I had to speak, or risk losing my mind.

“It doesn’t have to be you personally.” I was just prattling by then, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never ordered a hit before, and suddenly I wondered if I was doing it all wrong. Was I supposed to use some kind of special code to avoid incriminating us both? Too late now … “I just need you to … coordinate. And pay.” No sense hedging about that part. If I’d had the money, I might have tried another … contractor. One who didn’t share my DNA.

Julia didn’t even blink. If she’d ever been flustered in her entire life, I couldn’t tell. “And what makes you think I would be able to help you with something like that?”

My pulse whooshed in my ears, but I was in too deep to turn back now. So I sucked in another breath, then forged ahead, full steam.

“I know who you are. Who you really are.” Which is why I’d never been closer than eight hours from the Tower estate in my life. Until now. “I know what kind of people you employ, and I know how you keep them loyal.” They were bound in service, their oaths sealed in blood-laced tattoos that would not fade until the day the bindings expired. If they expired. “And you’re not surprised that I know, because everyone knows. Your business comes from word of mouth. It has to come from word of mouth, because … well it’s not like you can advertise.”

“Is that so?” Julia was a statue. A living, breathing statue, her expression frozen in an almost convincing mask of disinterest.

My temper flared. “Help me or don’t help me. Either way, stop wasting my time.”

Julia exhaled slowly and this time when she met my gaze, hers was stripped of all pretense. “You get that impatient streak from your father,” she said, and I almost sagged with relief. “I assume the prospective target is the human-refuse pile who slaughtered your mother and the rest of your surrogate family?”

I blinked at her in surprise. “How did you …”

Her gaze flicked toward the laptop open on the desk between us, then returned to me. “Sera, there’s nothing about you that I don’t know or can’t find out.”

“Good.” I shrugged, refusing to be intimidated. I may not have grown up in a Skilled cartel family, but I’d faced scarier things than a woman with high-speed internet and cold eyes. “Then you shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out who that ‘human-refuse pile’ is. I have a description, and the police may have some of his DNA from the crime scene.” Easily the most difficult sentence I’d ever had to say aloud. “But that’s all I know.”

A short moment of silence followed, but I sensed that was less respect for my slain family than an opportunity for Lia to gather her thoughts.

“First of all, I’m very sorry for your loss.” Yet she sounded distinctly disinterested. “However, it sounds like what you really want is more complicated than simple closure on a family tragedy. You’re asking me to identify this killer, track him down and deal with him in some permanent manner. Right?”

I couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t once said anything incriminating. Which made me wonder if we were being recorded. Or if she thought we were being recorded.

“Yeah, I guess. Some painful permanent manner.” No sense in playing coy when I’d already said what I wanted, in front of whatever cameras may have been recording.

“Well, those complications raise the price.”

“I don’t have any money.” Not enough to pay what she was likely to charge, anyway. What little life insurance there’d been had barely paid for the funerals. Three of them.

“I would never charge my own niece for such a service,” Lia said, and I couldn’t tell whether or not the irony was intentional. “However, I do require something from you in return.”

“And that would be …” I shifted in my chair. It took every bit of willpower I possessed to keep from promising her whatever she wanted, right then and there. The price didn’t matter. I just wanted the bastard dead, my family’s deaths avenged with blood and pain, so that I could mourn them, then start to let them go. So I could gather the shattered remains of my life and try to piece them back together.

So that they would be avenged.

But the price did matter, the voice in my head insisted, sounding just like my mother. She’ll demand service, that voice insisted. She’ll make you sign on the line, and you’ll work for her forever to pay off this debt. His life for yours, Sera. It’s not worth it.

But I wouldn’t be dead, and he would be. That bastard’s death was worth a few years stuck in a less than ideal job. Worth whatever they made me do. And it wouldn’t be forever. It would just be for a few years, right? Service terms had limits, didn’t they?

People survive working for the syndicates. It happens all the time. Right?

I was already resigning myself to life under Julia Tower’s thumb when she leaned back in her chair again, watching me for a moment before she spoke. “I want you to disappear.”

“Excuse me?” Surprise made my voice squeak, but Lia only waited for my answer like she might if she’d asked for the last fry from my plate. But I didn’t know how to answer.

“If I do this favor for you, Sera, I want you to disappear. Forever. My brother’s wife and children are devastated with grief,” she said, and I frowned, picturing the children who’d nearly bowled me over in the foyer. Were they laughing and chasing butterflies over their father’s no doubt overpriced grave? No. But they weren’t crying and ripping their hair out, either.

“They don’t deserve this,” Lia continued. “I won’t put them through the additional pain and humiliation of finding out he sired a bastard with some slut he knew in high school.”

She said it with no visible emotion, her words just as cold now as her condolences had been minutes earlier.

My cheeks flamed. I shouldn’t have cared what she thought of me. Jake Tower may have been my father, but he was never my dad—that title would always go to the man my mother married, who’d loved me and my sister more than he’d loved his own life. And who would never have called me a bastard or insulted my mother.

But Lia’s insult hit its mark, and I knew that if I wanted to avenge my mother’s death, I would have to let the insult against her stand. And I would have to leave the Tower estate, so the Towers could continue to live in blissful ignorance of my existence, and the messy circumstances of my conception and birth.

No problem. After fewer than ten minutes spent with Julia, I never wanted to see her again.

“So, if I promise to go away after it’s done, you’ll … take care of this for me?”

“I’ll need more than a simple promise, but yes.”

“What does that mean?” But I was pretty sure I already knew.

“I need your word in writing. Sealed in blood.” She wanted to bind me to my oath, which would physically prevent me from ever going back on it.

My heart dropped into my stomach. I had no intention of going back on my word, but the thought of letting someone bind me to anything made me sick to my stomach. My mom had preached against that the way most mothers warn their kids not to talk to strangers, or run in the house.

Or jump off a cliff.

“Why? You have my word that I don’t want anything else from you, but someday I might want to get to know my … half siblings.” Just saying that felt strange. My real sister was dead, and she was the only sister I would ever have. Surely the only one I’d ever want. But … I’d just lost the only family I’d ever known. I wasn’t about to give up the right to ever get to know what few relatives I had left, even if they couldn’t replace what I’d lost. Even if they were rich, and spoiled, and quite possibly as vicious as our father and aunt.

My mother was an only child and her parents were dead. Jake Tower’s children were the last blood-based connection I would ever have to another human being. There was always the chance that one of those kids—probably not Kevin—would grow up to be a decent human being and parent to the only nieces and nephews I’d ever have.

I shrugged. “Or they might want to know me.”

“Sera, it’s those children I’m thinking about.” Lia pushed her laptop aside and folded her arms on her massive desk, meeting my gaze with an intense one of her own, like we’d suddenly become confidantes. “Lynn, their mother, is a sweet, beautiful woman, but between the two of us, she’s never been the brightest bulb in the chandelier, and right now she’s too blinded by grief to think clearly. But someone has to look out for the children. I’m not going to help you unless you’re willing to give up any claim to their inheritance.”

“Money?” I gaped at her. “You think I want your brother’s money?”

“I don’t know what you really want, Sera. I know your net worth, your college GPA and how much you paid for the heap of metal parked in front of my house, but I don’t know anything about you as a person, because you evidently felt no desire to connect with this side of your family until you needed something from us.” Her accusation was as sharp as her gaze, and I couldn’t really argue, though I felt my cheeks flame again. “But I will do whatever needs to be done to protect those children. If you really aren’t trying to steal their inheritance, you should have no problem swearing to that.”

“I don’t,” I snapped, struggling to think through the anger swelling rapidly to fill both my head and heart. The bitch was appealing to my morals on behalf of two half-orphaned children. I didn’t for a second believe that was her only interest in the matter, but I didn’t want anything from the dead father I’d never met, and I certainly didn’t want anything from her. Except this one favor. “Write it. I’ll sign it, and you’ll never see me again. I don’t want anything but the slow, painful death of the bastard who killed my family.”

“Wonderful.” Lia shifted in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “And, of course, you’ll be willing to give up the Tower name.”

“My name?”

“My brother’s name,” she corrected. “His children’s name. My name. You’ve never even used it, have you?” I shook my head, and she shrugged as if what she was asking was no big deal. “Then why would you mind giving it up?”

Why would I mind?

I started speaking before my thoughts had fully formed, fueled by anger, unburdened by forethought. “Because it’s my name. It belongs to me every bit as much as it belongs to you. Because for whatever reason, my mother wanted me to have it. Because whether you like it or not—hell, whether I like it or not—that name is part of who I am, and I don’t even know what that means yet, other than the fact that the aunt I share it with is a real bitch.”

Julia blinked, and I relished the glimpse of surprise that flickered across her expression, the first I’d seen so far. “You’re not thinking this through. There’s nothing that can be done about the fact that it belongs to you, so in that sense, it can never be taken from you. But you’d be safer using another name. Your stepfather’s? Or even your mother’s. You’ll be infinitely harder to Track if no one knows your real surname, Sera.”

Yet we both knew she wasn’t thinking of my well-being.

But that wasn’t the point. The point was that whichever last name I used was my decision. Mine. And no snotty rich bitch with a chip on her shoulder and blood on her hands was going to tell me what I could or couldn’t call myself.

But Julia Tower had yet to come to that conclusion. So I helped her along. “No.”

She stood and leaned forward, both palms flat on the surface of her desk. “I am the only person in the world who will do what you want done without asking for a dime in return. My price is simple. You will sign over your right to anything Kevin and Aria stand to inherit. Including their surname. Or I will have you removed from this property immediately, and you can hunt down this killer yourself, then spend the balance of your life behind bars, paying your debt to society. You have three minutes to make a decision.”

But there was no decision to be made. And Lia damn well knew it.

While I sat glaring up at her, resisting the urge to stand and start yelling, the office door opened behind me and Lia gestured for someone to come in.

I twisted in my chair to see a woman in her thirties carrying a manila folder. My aunt held out her hand and the woman marched past me to give her the folder. “That’s the best I could do, on short notice, but if you have another hour …”

Julia waved dismissively, and the woman’s sentence faded into a tense silence while my aunt read whatever the folder held. After several seconds, she lifted the top sheet of paper and scanned the next one. Then she flipped the pages back into order and closed the folder. “Sometimes simpler is better. Unnecessary language leaves room for loopholes. This will do. Send in the Binder.” She motioned toward the door, and the woman in brown headed for the foyer as though she was being physically pulled in that direction. As though she couldn’t wait to leave.

I knew exactly how she felt.

Julia sat, then slid the folder across the desk toward me. “Sign.”

“Now?” I could practically feel the blood drain from my face as I stared at the newly drafted binding document—the real reason she’d kept me waiting so long. She expected me to sign it right then and there, and the Binder she’d called for would seal my promise in blood—either his or mine. Or both.

I hesitated, my hand flat on the closed folder.

“Sign, or get out,” Julia said, and there wasn’t a hint of doubt in her voice. She’d already figured out that I wasn’t going to leave without getting what I came for. No matter what it cost.

I opened the folder, my hand shaking with rage. It doesn’t matter, I told myself, as I picked up the pen she slid toward me. You don’t need them. You’ve never needed them.

But what if those kids needed me someday? What if Kevin or Aria needed help from a relative who didn’t have a chunk of ice in place of her heart or wasn’t the dim bulb in the proverbial chandelier? Was there anyone in this cesspool of corrupt power they could count on? Could money buy friendship or trust?

The only thing I knew for sure was that if I didn’t sign, the man who killed my entire family would never see justice. The police can’t catch a Skilled criminal, much less convict him.

I scanned the first page, only half reading my own promise to forfeit any and all birthrights, including the Tower surname. I’d scribbled the first three letters of my name on the line at the bottom of the second page when the door flew open behind me and slammed into the wall.

“Sera?”

Startled, I turned so fast the pen left a long black line across the bottom of the page. Gwendolyn Tower stood in the doorway, as perfectly put together as any picture of her I’d ever seen, except for the puffy, pink flesh around her eyes.

She blinked at me and I wondered what she was seeing. Did I look like her husband? Why didn’t she look surprised? Lia had implied that Lynn and her children knew nothing about me.

Then Gwendolyn’s gaze slid past me. “Julia, what the hell are you doing? Did you tell her?”

My pulse spiked. Tell me what?

Lia stepped around the corner of her desk, ready to intercept her sister-in-law. “This is business. It’s none of your concern.”

“Tell her!” Lynn Tower shouted, and the guard standing behind her flinched, then looked to my aunt for some instruction.

“Go back to your room.” Julia took Lynn’s arm while I watched in stunned silence. “I’ll explain everything when we’re finished here.”

Lynn turned to me then, her eyes damp, her gaze strong. “It’s yours, Sera. All of it. Jake’s personal property and assets went to me, but his business holdings go to his oldest child. Don’t let her cut you out.”

“Gwendolyn, out!” Julia shouted as I fell backward into my chair, my legs numb from shock. The guards guided Lynn, gently but firmly, toward the door at about the same moment I realized I still held the pen Lia had given me.

Business holdings? What did that even mean? Properties? Companies? Buildings? Cash?

It’s yours, Sera. All of it.

Lynn’s words played over in my head as I watched the guards escort her forcibly out of the office.

The truth hit me in that moment, like a burst of light in front of my eyes—painful, disorienting and nearly blinding.

I’d just inherited Jake Tower’s criminal empire.

Two

Kris

“So, how many is that, Kris?” My sister Korinne perched on the arm of the couch, one knee drawn up to her chest, thick hair tucked behind her ear. We’d both inherited our dad’s blond hair, but hers was several shades paler than my own. “How many poor, unfortunate souls have we freed from the corrupt clutches of the Tower machine?”

“As of today?” I did a quick tally of the names listed in the notepad on my lap. “Twelve. With three more strong possibilities.”

“Only twelve?” Kenley, my youngest sister, groaned from an armchair in the corner. If she were a couple of inches taller, she and Kori could have been twins. “It feels like a hundred.” Kenni looked exhausted, yet much younger than her twenty-six years, as if trauma had somehow left her more innocent than it had found her. More fragile.

Vanessa handed Kenni a cool rag, still damp from the kitchen faucet. “We knew breaking the bindings would be tough, but that last one was easier, right?”

“Yeah. If by easier, you mean just as hard as the eleven before.”

Van stood and wedged herself into the oversize chair behind Kenley, who scooted forward to make room for her. Kenni leaned back with her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder, and Van laid the cool rag over her forehead, offering wordless comfort in the face of the enormous task we’d all undertaken. A task that felt more impossible by the day.

A binding is like a metaphorical—and metaphysical—rope, tying one person to another. Or one person to his oath. Or one person into obedience or employment. My sister Kenley was one of the most powerful Binders in the world, but she would gladly have given up her Skill, if that meant escaping the notice of syndicate leaders who wanted to “hire” her for her ability.

The problem with syndicate employment is that it isn’t just a job, it’s an existence. Worse. It’s indentured servitude, wherein the employee is obligated to do whatever the employer requires, within the bounds of the contract they signed and sealed, usually in blood. For however long that contract lasts.

A five-year term is the standard. Five years in syndicate service feels like an eternity.

Kenley and Kori each served six and a half.

Before Jake Tower died, Kenley was the most important cog in the Tower syndicate machine—the gear that kept the engine running. Tower’d had administrators, accountants, clerical staff and laborers to do the day-to-day work. He’d had muscle—like Kori—to enforce the rules. He’d even had a pool of highly specialized lawyers on-staff to write iron-clad employment contracts.

And he’d had Kenley to seal those contracts, locking people into his service in bindings so strong that only she could break them.

Of course, the terms of her own contract had prevented her from freeing anyone she’d bound into service, but now that she was no longer a Tower employee, she was trying to do the right thing. To free all the people she’d enslaved by breaking the bindings she’d sealed for Jake Tower, which had transferred to his sister, Julia, upon his death.

We were all trying to help her, but the process was slow. And difficult. And dangerous, because Julia Tower didn’t want those bindings broken. Each one Kenley psychically severed robbed Julia of another employee, eroding the source of her inherited wealth and power.

“I know this sucks, Kenni, and I hate being stuck here as much as anyone.” Kori glanced around at the house where we’d spent almost every waking moment of the past three months, hiding from Julia Tower and her henchmen. I could practically see cabin fever raging behind her eyes. “But it could be worse, right? At least there’s no resistance pain.”

The binding enslaving Kenley to the Tower syndicate had been broken when I’d killed the Binder who’d sealed it. Okay, there may have been some doubt about whose bullet actually hit him first, but the point is that since the Binder was dead, breaking the bindings she’d sealed was no longer in violation of Kenni’s oath. Which is good, because when you resist a sealed oath, your body starts to shut down one organ at a time until you give in and keep your word.

Or you die.

But even without the resistance pain, breaking each binding one at a time was still long, mentally exhausting work for Kenley, even with the rest of us pitching in to identify and contact those who wanted out of their oaths to Tower and to coordinate the secure, clandestine meetings.

The project had taken over our lives, and it was as much a survival effort on our part as an effort to liberate those who wanted freedom. As long as Julia Tower had employees bound into her service, she’d have the resources and power to eventually hunt us down and eliminate the threat we represented.

“So, who’s next?” Ian Holt sank onto the couch next to Kori, and she leaned into him, a display of trust and affection I’d rarely seen from her. I don’t know how he got through her mile-thick outer shell, but I do know that I’ve never seen her happier. And I know that Ian helped free Kori, Kenni and Vanessa from that bastard Jake Tower, and that he’d stuck around to help us free everyone else Kenley had been forced to bind. As far as we were all concerned, Ian was part of the family, even if Kori never got around to putting a ring on his finger.

“Um …” I checked my list again. “Rick Wallace.” I glanced at Kori. “What do we know about him?”

She shrugged. “He’s a Silencer. Average strength. Mid-thirties. He’s also a world-class asshole who’s literally never heard ‘no’ from a woman, because he sucks the sound right out of the word every time one tries to say it. I’m not surprised he wants out from under Julia Tower, but I’m kind of surprised he’d contact us, considering how many times I’ve threatened to cut his tongue out and serve it to his latest ‘date’ on a toasted hot-dog bun.”

Ian made a face. “That’s disgusting,”

Kori nodded solemnly. “So is Rick Wallace.”

“Agreed. But no one deserves to be tied to Julia Tower,” Kenley insisted, and Kori kept her mouth shut, though she obviously wanted to argue. “When and where is the meeting?”

“Meghan’s parents’ house,” Ian said. His sister-in-law had offered to let us use the house when she and his twin brother left town.

“Olivia’s already securing the site,” Kori added. “We’re supposed to meet her there in half an hour. If you’re sure you feel like it.”

“I’m fine.” Kenley squared her shoulders and sat straighter. “Let’s just get it over with.”