Shadow Bound

And that only left desperate.

“When you sign on with a syndicate—any syndicate, not just this one—you’re not just taking a job, you’re becoming part of a community. Like an extended family. You’re getting job security, medical care, personal protection and virtually limitless resources. The syndicate isn’t just employment—it’s a way of life. A very stable, secure way of life.”

“Sounds awesome.” It also sounded like a very well-rehearsed speech. “What’s the catch? Is it all the following orders? Because honestly, that’s what I balk at.” To say the very, very least.

“There’s some of that, of course. But that’s not really so different from any other job, is it?” she asked, and I couldn’t help noting that now that I’d pointed out a flaw in the system, she was referring to it as a mere job again. “Any workplace is a hierarchy, right? There’s a CEO, management, and the rest of the employees. Everyone has a boss, except whoever’s at the top. That’s how we operate, too.”

“Yes, but in any other job, you can quit if you don’t like the orders.”

“That’s not true.” She smiled, like she’d caught me in a lie. “You can’t just quit military service if you don’t like the orders.”

“So, would you say service to the Tower syndicate is more like military service than like a civilian job?”

She had to think about that for a minute. “Yeah, I guess, only without the patriotism and gratitude from your fellow citizens. Large community. Great benefits. They even get chevrons for time in service.” She twisted to show me her arm again, to emphasize the parallel.

But I knew what she wasn’t saying—in the military, you can take the chevrons off at the end of the day, but the syndicate owns you for the life of the mark, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’re never off the clock. And the word no has no meaning. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever sign on for that.

“Okay, obviously following orders is what’s bothering you, and I can understand that. So why don’t we just lay the truth out on the table?”

“The truth?” I watched her in interest. The truth was a rarity in life in general and even more so in the syndicate. Only the fearless and the foolish wielded it so boldly, and I already knew Kori Daniels was no fool.

“Blinders are rare, and you’re the best I’ve ever seen. That makes you very valuable, and I’d bet my best knife that we’re not the only ones who’ve made you an offer?” Her sentence ended on a question, and I could only nod. “Right now, everyone’s playing nice and pulling out the best china because you’re being recruited. But if that doesn’t work, you’ll be hunted. And eventually you will be caught, and when that happens, you’ll be all out of choices. It’s a winner-takes-all kind of game.”

“I’m assuming there’s a silver lining to this cloud of doom?” The cloud that had been hanging over me since I was twelve years old, when my mother explained how the rarity and power of my Skill would shape the rest of my life. As a kid, I’d thought she was being paranoid. As an adult, I’d learned better.

“The silver lining is that at this stage in the game, you can still decide what mark you want to bear. Who you want to serve. Because you will wind up serving someone.” Kori shrugged and glanced longingly at the corked bottle of vodka. “Hell, I’m not sure how you went unnoticed as long as you did.”

Flying below the syndicates’ radar hadn’t been easy, and dipping beneath it again once this was over would no doubt be even harder.

“That’s a rather ominous bit of truth,” I said, committing to nothing.

Kori shrugged again. “It can’t be changed, so you might as well understand your options.”

“And those would be …?”

“The Tower syndicate, or some other, inferior organization.”

Or … door number three, the option she either didn’t know existed or didn’t believe possible: hide.

“And the others are inferior because …?”

“Because we have the best of everything.” She leaned closer, and I expected to smell vodka on her breath, but I couldn’t, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her, to see if I could taste it. Or maybe just to taste her.

I blinked in surprise at the thought, but Kori didn’t seem to notice. She was still talking.

“Jake wants you,” she said, staring straight into my eyes. “I mean he really fucking wants you, which gives you more power going into negotiations than most people have. You could get just about whatever you want out of him.”

Was it my imagination, or did she seem a little pleased at the idea of me taking Tower for all he was worth? More than pleased. She looked … excited. Her lips parted and her eyes shone with eagerness. She looked fierce, like the chain links on her arm could restrain her, but never truly tame her.

And as she watched me, probably waiting to see the gleam of greed that would tell her I was interested, I had a sudden, dangerous, treacherous thought. What would Tower give me, if I asked? Would he give me her?

I hated the thought as soon as I’d had it. People can’t be given as gifts. They shouldn’t be, anyway. Especially people like Kori Daniels, whose nature obviously couldn’t be suppressed, even by direct orders. Giving her to someone else would be like caging a wild bird, only to see the bright, beautiful feathers you loved fall out and fade at the bottom of the cage.

But with that one lecherous thought, and the momentary failure of my own moral compass, I suddenly understood why someone might join a syndicate. Someone who wanted or needed something badly. Something he had no chance of getting on his own.

Everyone has a price. Tower’s advantage in life was that he knew that and had no problem exploiting it.

“What is it you think I should ask for?” I turned my glass up and drank until the ice cubes bumped my lip, Scotch scorching its way down my throat, where I wished it could purge that lascivious thought from me. I couldn’t afford to want the bait dangled in front of me. “What could I possibly ask for that would make it easier to take orders?”

“An extra chain link.” She poured more Scotch into my glass, and I watched her light up with excitement over an idea I obviously didn’t understand. She was beautiful in that moment. Intense, and dangerous.

“If I don’t want the orders that come with signing on for five years, why the hell would I sign on for ten?”

“You wouldn’t.” Kori smiled and pushed the glass toward me. “You’d ask—no, you’d demand a second mark for free. A five-year commitment, with the seniority of a second-tier initiate. With two chain links, there are fewer people who can boss you around, thus fewer orders to follow.”

“Why stop there? Why not ask for three or four links?”

Kori’s expression darkened, and that spark in her eyes died. She leaned over the bar to grope for something and when she sat down again, she had a plastic jar of snack mix in one hand. “Seniority comes with responsibility. The more you ask him for, the more he’ll want from you in return.”

Things I wasn’t going to want to do, obviously.

“Two is the perfect number.” She unscrewed the lid on the snack mix and offered me the jar. “You have enough rank to avoid static from the bottom two rungs, but not enough seniority to obligate you to do … things above your pay grade.”

I took a handful of pretzels and peanuts. “Things like what?”

Kori just scrounged up a small smile and shook her head. “Even if I knew what my superiors’ duties were, I couldn’t tell you. Some things—many things—you can’t know until you bear his mark.”

I wanted to pursue the issue. I wanted to ask her if Tower had ever given her an order she didn’t want to follow. If he’d ever made her do something that made her skin crawl or rotted a bit of her soul. But picking at her emotional scabs—making her talk about things she obviously didn’t want to remember—seemed cruel. Too cruel, considering what else I had to do. I hadn’t come into Tower’s territory to be recruited by Kori Daniels.

I’d come to kill her sister.

Five

Kori

I’d said too much. I could tell from the way he was sipping his second glass of Scotch, looking at me like I was some code he’d already started to crack. Like he could rearrange the words I’d spoken until they said what he needed to hear.

Holt knew what to ask. He knew what not to ask. I wasn’t sure whether I was playing him or being played by him, and that scared the shit out of me. I had to regain the upper hand, or Kenley would pay for my failure.

“You done with that?” he asked, and I followed his focus to the bottle of Goose.

“Almost.” I uncorked the bottle and took another swig, then pushed the cork back in.

“Well, you might as well take it with you,” Jake said, and I turned so fast the room spun around me. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame like he’d been there all night. “No one else is going to want any, after your mouth’s been on the bottle.”

I wondered how much he’d seen. How much he’d heard. But I got nothing from his expression, as usual.

“The alcohol will kill any germs,” I said, but I took the bottle with me when I stood. Never let it be said that I turned down good vodka. The shit under my bed at Kenley’s would take paint off a car.

“Are you ready to rejoin the party?” Jake said, as Holt finished his drink, still seated, and evidently unhurried.

Holt set his glass down, the remaining ice cubes small enough to swallow now. “Actually I’m kind of tired from my flight. I think I’m going to call it a night.”

Jake nodded. “Kori will drive you to your hotel. But I’m sure Nina and Julia would like to say goodbye before you go.” He stepped out of the doorway to let Holt pass, and when I started to follow, Tower blocked the doorway with his arm. “Korinne will meet you at the front door.”

Holt glanced at me, then nodded and headed down the hall.

Jake closed the door behind him, and my hand clenched around the neck of the bottle I still held. “Explain,” he ordered.

“You said to do whatever it takes.”

“And recruiting Holt required Scotch from my personal liquor cabinet, in the off-limits portion of my home?”

I shrugged. “He has good taste.”

“Shall I assume the privacy helped you get to know each other?” he asked, and I nodded. “And does he like you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he want you?”

“I don’t—” I started, and Jake frowned. “Yeah, I think he does.” There’d been this look in his eyes a few minutes ago … “But it’s not personal. Anyone will do. We could send one of the girls to the hotel with him—”

Jake shook his head. “He rented a seventy-five-thousand-dollar car and drank my fifty-year-old Scotch. He’s either putting on airs or living beyond his means, but either way, he doesn’t want a common whore, Korinne. He wants something worth more. Someone with a little class. So dig deep and scrounge some up.”

I didn’t give a damn about the insult. I’d been called much worse than classless. But Holt had already seen me barefoot, drinking straight from the bottle. If classy was what he wanted, I wouldn’t be able to fool him. But I couldn’t tell Jake that, because if he thought I was worthless, I was as good as dead.

“Drive him to his hotel and walk him up to his room. Eat a breath mint, say please and thank you, and don’t trip over the damn heels,” he said, running one finger over the toes of the shoes I still held in my left hand. “Act like you’re worth something, and he might just believe it. And Korinne?”

“Yeah?” My cheeks were flaming now. I could feel it.

“If you ever come upstairs in this house again without my permission, I’ll put you back in the basement and let the guards draw straws. David’s eager to pay you back for the broken nose.”

It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep my hands from shaking. To pretend nothing he said could scare me. Jake didn’t buy it, but that didn’t matter.

What matters is the face you show the world, not the quaking mess behind it.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled up to the entrance of the Westmark Hotel and shifted into Park. The valet was waiting when I stepped out and handed the key to him, and the doorman had Holt’s luggage out of the trunk before I’d even rounded the car. He followed us inside with the bags while I led Holt to the elevator. I’d checked him in and picked up his key cards that afternoon.

Tower had reserved a three-room suite for him. It was nice enough to tell Holt he was valued, but not nice enough to inflate his ego. The suite said “we want you, but not as much as you think we want you.” And that might have worked, if I hadn’t already told him that he could pretty much get whatever he wanted in exchange for his signature—my little fuck-you to the puppet master pulling my own strings. Jake would get Holt in the end, but he would pay out the ass for him, if I had anything to say about it.

On the twenty-third floor, I tipped the bellhop, then closed the door behind him and made a mental note of all the rugs likely to trip me in Kenley’s stilettos. Then I began the tour.

“This is Jake’s favorite hotel,” I said, pulling back the curtains to show off the view. “They have twenty-four-hour room service. If you want something that’s not on the menu, just use Jake’s name. They’ll get you anything you want. And there’s a Jammer on duty ‘round the clock, so you can’t be tracked while you’re here.”

“Wow.” Holt stared out the window at the city, and even I had to admit the view was amazing. You could see the river from his room, and all the boats were lit up, like a string of white Christmas lights. And if you squinted just right, you could see where the river split, dividing the city into three parts: the east side, the west side and the south fork, like the bottom third of a peace sign. I rarely ventured out of the west side—Jake’s territory— because the chain links on my arm could easily get me killed east of the river, on Ruben Cavazos’s side of town.

“There’s no place like home, I know, but you’ll only be roughin’ it for a few nights,” I said, turning away from the window to take in the leather couches, thick rugs and huge flat-screen television. “Think you can manage?”

Holt pulled the curtains closed. “Only if the chocolate on my pillow is Swiss and the bottled water was flown in from France.”

“Hand-collected by crippled orphans from the fountain of youth itself,” I said, and he laughed, while I headed for the bedroom. I pushed open the double doors and sucked in a deep, shaky breath at the sight of the bed against the middle of the far wall. “King-size bed with pillow-top mattress,” I said, crossing the room with quick, efficient steps.

The bathroom was next and I breathed a little easier just being out of the bedroom—until I remembered that the giant whirlpool tub was built for two. As was the walk-in shower with dual showerheads. I stared, frozen, desperately trying to summon words that wouldn’t come, until his footsteps echoed behind me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” I turned to see Holt in the doorway, blocking my path whether he meant to or not. “This is the bathroom, obviously.” I brushed past him before he could step back and headed straight for the front room, where the exit called to me with singular purpose. But I stopped at the cabinet beneath the television instead. “And the best part is the minibar, fully stocked with overpriced snacks and alcohol.” I pulled open the door to show off the selection. “I recommend … well, all of it. Help yourself. Take everything you can carry, and call down for more if you get the munchies in the middle of the night. It’s all on Jake.”

I looked up from the minibar to find Holt watching me, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and confusion, which I wished I could clear up for him. But I couldn’t. I headed for the door and had one hand on the knob before I spoke. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

The words burned my tongue, and I wanted a drink to put out the flames. Something strong enough to make the next part easier. Bearable. Maybe.

“No, I think I’m good,” he said, and I blinked, sure I’d heard wrong. He didn’t want …?

But I wasn’t going to question my good fortune.

“Okay, then, I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast. Around nine? Or did you want to sleep in?”

“Nine’s fine,” Holt said, and I dropped the key to his rental car on the small table next to the door.

“Good night.” I was in the hall before he could respond. The door closed on whatever he was saying, and I took off down the hall, only pausing long enough to step out of my shoes, half convinced that if I didn’t run, he’d change his mind and call me back.

My heart racing, I jogged past the elevator and into the stairwell, hoping for a shadow deep enough to walk through, but the stairs were lit up like a fucking runway, and I couldn’t reach any of the bulbs to bust them. So I jogged down the first flight, then stopped on the twenty-second floor to use the elevator—no way I was going to walk down twenty-one flights of stairs.

On the first floor, I crossed the lobby like my bare feet were on fire and only breathed easy when I stepped outside, into the night, and spotted the entrance to an alley at the corner of the building.

Unlit alleys are the downfall of many an airheaded horror-movie bimbo, but they were my escape. My own personal transportation system, with free, unlimited rides.

I dashed past the doormen and valet attendants, still holding my sister’s shoes, and ran into the alley, already picturing my room in Kenley’s apartment, kept dark for situations exactly like this. My bare feet pounded from the grass onto the broken pavement, and a rock bruised my foot on my second step. With the third step, my foot landed on carpet, and a step after that, I collided with my own bedroom wall, and the rebound knocked me on my ass.

Dazed, I dropped the shoes and leaned back against the foot of the bed. A second later, my bedroom door flew open and the overhead light flared to life. “What the hell was that?” Kenley demanded, one hand still clutching the doorknob.

“Sorry. I forgot how small this room is.”

“No more running starts, Kori,” she said, letting go of the door to cross her arms over her chest. “You’re gonna break your nose on the wall.”

I half hoped she was right. A broken nose would make me ugly. And if I was ugly, Jake might pull me off the Holt job in favor of a prettier face.

Of course, knowing my luck, he’d kill me as punishment for messing it all up, then carry out his threat against Kenley, even though I wasn’t there to see her abused. It would be just like him to try to make my afterlife miserable, too.

“How’d it go?” Kenley gave me her hand, and I let her pull me up. “Did you have to sleep with him?”

“No.” Not yet, anyway.

She turned me by my shoulders and unzipped my dress. Which was really her dress, loose on me now, where it would have been tight two months earlier. I let the material slide to the floor, and she picked it up when I stepped out of it. “Is it just me, or does he look familiar?” Kenley said.

“It’s you, and half the planet. The whole world saw that news clip.”

“I kind of feel sorry for him,” Kenley said. “They’ll all be after him now.” They, being the rival syndicates, of course.

“Don’t.” I grabbed the T-shirt slung over the end of my bed. The one I’d slept in the night before. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for him. He’s the idiot who revealed his Skill on national television. He’s gonna have to sign with someone. It may as well be Jake.” Holt’s imprisonment may as well keep me alive and keep Kenley out of the basement.

“What’s he like?” she asked.

“He’s fine. Normal. Kinda funny. He doesn’t deserve this.” What I was doing to him. What I had to do to him, to save myself and my sister.

“No one deserves this.” Kenley laid the dress across the bed and pulled a hanger from the closet, then stood staring at it, like she’d forgotten what to do with it. “I’m so sorry, Kori,” she said, and I could hear the unshed tears in her voice.

“No.” I pulled the T-shirt over my head, then lifted her chin, making her look at me. “You have nothing to be sorry for, so don’t start this again. Please.”

Kenley burst into tears and I pulled her into a hug, holding her until the wrenching sobs fractured into smaller cries, then broke down into teary hiccups I could handle. “This is all my fault,” she said, wiping her cheeks when I let her go. “I’m so sorry for getting you into this.”

“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have.”

Six years earlier, at twenty years old, Kenley had still been sheltered and naive, because we’d made her that way. Kris, Gran and I had tried to protect the baby of the family, and instead we’d turned her into a victim, ready-made for a world full of predators. I shouldn’t have been surprised when one found her. And I couldn’t let her serve her time alone. “Besides, I signed on voluntarily. I make my own damn choices.”

“Not anymore,” she insisted. “And that’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault. But I can’t argue with you about this anymore.” I let go of her, and exhaustion washed over me, pulling me toward sleep with a force I couldn’t resist. “Not tonight, okay, Kenni?”

She nodded and picked the hanger back up. “I’m sorry. You’re not well yet. Two weeks isn’t enough time for anyone to recover from … whatever they did to you. You still look half-starved.”

“Some women do this to themselves on purpose, you know. Others pay to get this look.” I spread my arms, trying not to see how thin I still looked in the mirror.

“Those women are crazy.”

“No argument from me.” I pulled a pair of fuzzy socks from my top drawer and stuffed my feet into them, trying to make up for the abuse they’d endured most of the night.

Kenley slid the straps of her dress into the notches on top of the hanger. “So, do you know what you’re going to do? How you’re going to snag him?”

I followed her with the stilettos when she carried the dress into her own bedroom. “I’m going to snare him with my demure manner and natural charm, of course.”

Kenley laughed.

“I don’t think Jake realizes how much he’s bitten off with this one, and I’ve tried to tell him I’m not a recruiter, but he won’t listen to reason.”

“It could be worse, though, right?” She hooked the hanger over the top of her closet door and knelt to dig through the junk on the floor. “I mean, he could be making you throw yourself at someone hideous, like the Tracker Monica had to reel in last month. He’s truly—” She flinched when she realized what she’d said. I’d been locked up last month. All month. And I had yet to meet whatever ogre Monica had recruited to replace Cameron Caballero, when Cavazos bought out his contract. “Well, trust me, he’s hairier than a gorilla and he smells even worse. At least Holt’s clean. And he’s nice-looking, right?”

I dropped the shoes into the box she held open for me. “He must be, if you noticed.”

Kenley flushed and slid the box onto a stack of others in one corner of her closet. “Like you didn’t.”

I shrugged. We’d never actually talked about her taste in men. Or lack thereof. But I didn’t give a damn whether she slept with men or women, or both at once, so long as it was her choice. So long as she wasn’t being used for anything except the bindings she’d been recruited to seal.

“What the fucking hell is this?” She slid one hand behind the dress still hanging on her closet door and pulled the material closer to her face.

“You sound like a kid playing dress up when you cuss. Give it up. You lack the skill.”

Instead of answering, she held the dress out to me. “How did you manage to get blood on my dress at a formal party, Kori?”

“Shit. Sorry.” I sank onto her bed and folded my legs beneath me. “I thought I avoided the spray.”

“Whose?”

“David’s,” I said, and she waited, obviously expecting more of an explanation, so I rolled my eyes and sighed. “He started it.”