Blood Bound

“So, I either work with him because you’re asking me to, or I work with him because you’re threatening to ask me to. What kind of choice is that?” I demanded.

“It’s better than the choices I’m facing right now. The rest of my day includes picking out a casket and a black suit.”

Another low blow. “Why Cam?” I asked, hoping to talk her out of it before she caught on and actually compelled me.

“Because I’m short on cash but rich on resources, Liv.” Meaning the two of us, of course. “But if you’re willing to subsidize this project financially and you know someone better than Cam, then by all means.” She extended one arm toward the window and the city just now waking up. “So … do you know anyone better than Cam?”

Damn. “Other than me? No.”

Cam laughed out loud. “Still arrogant …”

“Confident,” I corrected. “And willing to back that confidence up with results.”

“Good.” He nodded, in what may have been the first look of respect I’d seen from him in more than six years. “Let’s go.”

“Um …” I hedged. “I have something to take care of first, and we’ll need those blood samples before I can get started.” I glanced at Anne with both brows raised, and she nodded, already standing. “So, I’ll meet you here at noon?”

“Liv, I really want to get this over with,” she repeated.

“I know, but I have a previous commitment.” I hesitated, dreading the next part. “Oh, and … urn … I’m going to need a retainer.”

“What?”

“You’re going to charge her?” Cam demanded, and that respect I’d seen was long gone. “She’s your friend.”

I bristled, even though I’d expected—and understood—his reaction. “A friend who’s compelling me to work for her.” And with you. I hated what they probably thought of me now, but I had no choice—a state of events I was starting to truly resent. “You need my help? Fine. But I need a retainer. It doesn’t have to be much. Five or ten bucks. Just … something to make it official.”

Anne looked as if I’d just danced on her dead husband’s grave, but she dug in her purse without a word. Something snapped open, and she handed me a five-dollar bill. “I don’t carry much cash, but I can get you more, later,” she offered, in spite of the hurt clear on her face.

“Don’t worry about it. This is plenty.” I paper-clipped the bill to a blank invoice and stuffed it into my desk drawer. Never in my life had I been more relieved to lose sight of a payment.

As they left my office, Cam glanced at me with a look of confusion and disappointment so strong it burned deep in my chest. But all I could do was stare back and hope he wouldn’t decide to put into words what his gaze was accusing me of.

I hated how he saw me now, and I hated knowing that his opinion of me would only worsen, if I kept my secrets. But my secrets kept him safe, and that was more important than what he thought of the life I’d chosen.

His safety was more important than anything to me. Even if he would never know enough to understand that.

Three

“Well, did that go how you expected?” Anne asked, as Olivia closed and locked her office door behind us.

“Nope.” I sighed and dug my keys from my pocket. “I figured it’d be worse. Do you believe her? About the Cavazos syndicate?”

“Yeah.” Anne dug her keys from her purse with still-trembling hands. “She’s hiding something, but that’s not it. She’s not a syndicate member.”

I shrugged, trying not to show how relieved I really was. “Yeah, I’m guessing that if he owned a piece of Olivia Warren, he’d want everyone to know it.” And she’d do everything she could to hide it.

The Liv I’d known and loved was beautiful and passionate, with a backbone of steel and a fiery temper. This new Olivia was everything my Liv had been and more. More steel. More fire. She couldn’t truly bend to someone else’s will—Anne had convinced, as much as she’d compelled—and those who wouldn’t bend could only break.

It would kill me to see Liv broken, even after what she’d done.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Anne asked, as I held the stairwell door open for her. “It sounds like she’s pretty good at what she does.”

“So am I. This’ll be easier and faster with us working together.”

But as much as I wanted to help Anne—to know without a doubt, for once, that I’d be taking a murderer off the streets—that wasn’t my primary motivation.

Olivia was the goal.

Sometimes I thought about that night and the months afterward, and I hated her. Then I hated myself, for still wanting her. She was pissed at me for making her show her arm—for making her do anything—but my relief at the sight of her smooth, bare arm was like nothing I’d ever felt. Part joy, part memory and part aching possibility. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else’s hands on her, much less some asshole’s mark of ownership.

But she wouldn’t talk to me voluntarily, and that left me no choice but to corner her, which Anne had unwittingly helped me do. Now Olivia couldn’t just hang up on me or close the door in my face. Now she’d have to listen to me. She’d have to talk. She’d have to tell me to my face why she’d ruined my life and stolen my future….

“What happened between you two?” Anne asked, clicking a button on her key chain to unlock her car doors. She slid into the driver’s seat and I settled in next to her.

“I don’t know. But I’m damn well going to find out.”

New Year’s Eve Six years ago

“Remind me what we’re doing here again.” I wrapped my arms around Olivia’s waist, watching the party over her shoulder. She smelled like vanilla, and I wanted a taste.

“It’s New Year’s Eve. Stop being so antisocial. “

“Oh, I want to socialize—on a very selective basis. I want to be very, very social with you.” I ducked into the warm space between her neck and her hair and dropped a kiss beneath her ear, where the scent of vanilla was strongest. She shivered and twisted to face me, winding her arms around my neck.

“You just don’t like my friends. “

It wasn’t that I didn’t like them—I didn’t know most of them. “In the three years since I met you, you’ve hardly even mentioned them, and never once introduced me to anyone but Anne. Why would you want to spend New Year’s Eve with people you haven’t seen in years, instead of with me?”

“I am with you.” She kissed me to punctuate her point. “But they’re my best friends. “

“From high school. That was years ago. “

“Some bonds last forever, Cam. “

I was kind of hoping she’d say that.

“Thanks for coming.” She turned to pick up her drink from the corner of an end table. “Even if you do look like you’d rather be skinned alive. “

“Not skinned …” I muttered, as she returned a greeting from some tall, fair-haired guy I didn’t recognize. “But maybe shot.” The last-minute party invitation had derailed my plans for the evening, but I had a backup plan—an empty room, a quiet moment and the small but clear diamond in my pocket. I kept touching it, to make sure it was still there, and every time I thought about it, I got a little queasy and a little high on adrenaline.

I glanced at my watch, and that adrenaline surged again. Half an hour to go …

She would say yes. I wasn’t worried about that. I’d planned and I’d waited, to make sure everything was right. We’d both finished college. Her parents liked me. She was still waiting tables and I was still selling tools, but I had a big interview scheduled, and her prospects were endless. The real jobs would come, and until then, we’d call our tiny apartment cozy and joke that we could make our own warmth when the car’s heater gave out again.

But all that was icing. She’d say yes because she wanted me as badly as I wanted her. I could see that every time she looked at me. I could taste it in every hungry kiss and feel it in every fevered touch. This was right. We were right.

“That’s Kori’s brother, Kristopher,” she said, as the blond guy saluted us with an open beer. “This is his house. “

Had he looked at her a little too long? Smiled a little too much? My arms tightened around her before I realized what I was doing. “Were you two a couple? “

“Kris?” Liv laughed and twisted to whisper into my ear. “You jealous?” She bit lightly on my earlobe.

“Mmm … Should I be?”

“Nah. When I was fifteen, we made out in his basement once, for, like, two minutes. Then Kori found us and threatened to kick the crap out of us both if she ever saw that again.”

“Which one’s Kori?” I asked, looking over her shoulder again when she turned and pressed her back against my chest.

“The one in the corner.”

I followed Liv’s gaze to an athletic woman with white-blond hair, pouring from a bottle of vodka as if she’d started waaay before her last birthday. “I like her already.”

Liv laughed. “Yeah, that’ll last until the first time you piss her off. Noelle, though—you’d like Elle. “

“The brunette? She seems like fun.” She sat surrounded by a crowd, cracking them up with some animated story I couldn’t hear.

“She is. Elle’s supersmart, but she skipped college in favor of travel. I was always kind of jealous of that.” Liv sighed. “She always said she wanted to live life instead of learning about it.”

“But if you’d skipped college, we never would have met,” I pointed out. “Then we’d both be miserable for the rest of our lives, with no idea why.”

Liv laughed. “Another tragedy averted by the lure of a state-school education.”

“What’s up with Anne tonight?” I asked, as the redhead—the only one of Liv’s friends I’d spent any time with—staggered past us with a full plastic cup.

“Another breakup. It must suck to know when people are lying.”

I shrugged. “I guess. But it’d be convenient to know when they aren’t, right? “

“After hearing Anne cry, I’m starting to think that doesn’t happen much anymore.” Her frown deepened. “And I kind of want to break some asshole’s face. “

I held her tighter, just because I could. Because she was fierce, and beautiful, and mine.

“After the countdown, let’s go outside. Kris has a telescope, and there are no clouds tonight …”

“It’s freezing out there.”

Liv smiled. “I’ll keep you warm. “

“I’ll let you.” Outside was fine with me. The party was too crowded for my taste anyway.

I glanced at my watch again. Eleven forty-eight. My pulse rushed so fast I spent the next few seconds mentally tallying my drinks. But it wasn’t the alcohol, and it wasn’t the party. It wasn’t the wintertime freeze or even the way Olivia felt in my arms, as if nothing could go wrong as long as I was holding her. It was the look in her eyes, as if there was no one in the room but me.

And in twelve minutes, that would be true. In twelve minutes, our lives would change for the better. Forever.

“Hey, looks like you ‘re out.” I looked pointedly at her plastic cup.

“No, I’m—” she began, glancing down into the dark liquid.

I snatched the cup from her and drained it in one swallow, barely tasting the whiskey mixed with her soda. “Now you are.”

She shoved me, but couldn’t quite pull off a frown. “You owe me a refill.”

I grinned. “Be right back.”

I headed toward the makeshift bar until I was sure she’d lost sight of me, then veered toward the front door, dropping her empty cup in the trash on the way. Outside, the wind cut through my sweater like needles and my feet slid on muddy slush.

Three cars down from the crowded driveway, I unlocked my trunk and carefully unwrapped the spare blanket to reveal a bottle of champagne—the best I could afford—and two tall glass flutes.

It had to be perfect. This would be the beginning of the rest of our lives, and I wanted to get it right. We would count down toward midnight together, then I’d show her the ring when the party crowd shouted the number three. I would ask her to marry me at the stroke of midnight, and then every year after, no matter what time zone we were in, we would celebrate the New Year at that exact moment. Because we wouldn’t just be celebrating the beginning of a new calendar year—we’d be celebrating the beginning of our lives together.

The ring and the wedding ceremony were formalities, to make everyone else happy. The promise was for us. Our word. Our binding. Our future.

Carrying the champagne in one hand, the glasses in the other, I ducked into the house as someone else was coming out, ignoring the raised eyebrows and whispers as I made my way through the crowd, scanning the faces to make sure Olivia wasn’t watching.

She wasn’t. She was talking with her friend Noelle—evidently the only sober friend she had—and they both looked upset. But that wouldn’t last long. No longer than the next ten minutes, by my guess …

At the end of the hall, I pushed open the door to the home office I’d scouted out earlier. The only other choice had been Kris’s bedroom, which would have been weird, at best. I set the champagne on the computer desk and arranged the glasses on either side of it. Then I closed the office door and made my way back to the party.

Noelle walked off as I approached, and I couldn’t interpret the look she gave Liv. Olivia was crying.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I tried to pull her close. But she stepped out of reach, tears standing in her eyes. “This isn’t going to work, Cam.”

“I know. I just set up a little private party for us, back there …” I tried to guide her through the crowd but she wouldn’t move.

Liv wiped tears from her face and blinked up at me, and people were watching now. Kristopher What’s-his-face stepped forward, puffed up like a bulldog, as if he thought whatever was wrong with her was my fault.

“No.” Liv crossed her arms over her chest. “I mean us. This isn’t going to work. I don’t … I don’t want this anymore, Cam. I’m sorry. “

I couldn’t process what she’d said. It just didn’t make sense. And by the time the truth sank in, Liv was halfway across the room, on her way to the front door.

“Olivia!” I started after her, but Kristopher and three of his friends stepped into my path. “She wants to leave. Let her go.” I didn’t have the coherence to form words, but my fists flew on instinct. I’d bloodied Kristopher’s nose and laid one of his friends out cold before the other two managed to toss me onto the front porch. But by then, Liv was gone. Along with our car.

I sank onto the steps, colder inside than out, reeling from what she’d said, but I still hadn’t truly heard. She’d dumped me. In the middle of a party full of people I’d never met. Ten minutes before I was going to ask her to marry me. It didn’t make any sense.

The front door opened behind me, and I shifted to make room for whoever wanted past.

“You okay?” Liv’s friend Anne sat next to me on the top step, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “I saw what happened.”

“Then you know I’m not okay.”

“Liv took the car?”

And everything else that had ever mattered to me. But I could only nod. “Want a ride?”

“No, I want a drink. Lots of them. “

Anne nodded, as if she could taste the truth in my words. She probably could. “There’s a Hudson’s half a mile from here.” She stood, wobbling on her feet—she’d probably already had too much. “That’s where I’m headed. You’re welcome to come.”

I stared up at her, and I could see the pain on her face. Whatever this asshole had done to her had hurt her. A lot. I could sympathize—there was now a gaping hole where my own heart had been minutes earlier.

“I’m driving …” I pulled the keys from her hand, and she only smiled and led me to her car. I started the engine as the guy on the radio counted down the last three seconds of the year.

“It was a shitty year anyway.” Anne punched the radio power button. “Maybe this one will be better. “

“Not likely,” I mumbled, as I pulled away from the curb. “Happy fucking New Year.”

Four

“Hey, Liv,” Tomas said, as I pulled open the heavy back door before he could push it open for me. You’d think he’d quit trying. “You’re late.”

“Yup. Passive resistance.” I put my hands behind my head and spread my feet so he could pat me down, then clomped across the kitchen, my boots echoing on the marble tile.

“He doesn’t like it when you’re late,” Tomas called out from behind me, unwilling—or maybe disallowed—to leave his post at the back door.

I turned to face him, walking backward as he rubbed the row of three interlocking blue rings tattooed on his exposed left bicep, indicating his midlevel rank in the organization and his position as syndicate muscle. “Exactly.”

Tomas shook his head slowly, half amused, half worried, and I wondered how much shit he’d had to take because of my twenty-minute tardy. East of the river, the concept of not shooting messengers was unpopular at best. I felt kinda bad about that. Really.

I crossed the foyer and ignored the main staircase in favor of the dim hallway beyond, where two of the three doors were closed. Bypassing the open guest bathroom, I stopped in front of the only door on the left and paused for a deep breath. The kind of breath you take before you step into the sewer, hoping you won’t have to inhale again before you’re out. But you will have to, and every breath you take will remind you that you’re standing knee-deep in someone else’s filth, and that no matter how hard you scrub afterward, you’re never going to feel truly clean again.

Then I pushed the door open and walked in without knocking.

Confusion sparked in the disconnect between my eyes and my brain, before comprehension was rerouted through my ears. It was the heavy breathing that finally clued me in. There was a girl in his lap, behind his desk, nibbling—or maybe sucking—on his neck. Or maybe his ear. And the rhythmic rise and fall of her body said that kissing wasn’t the extent of this little demonstration.

They knew I’d come in, but the show didn’t stop—a consequence of those twenty minutes I’d made him wait—and it wouldn’t stop until I officially acknowledged that I’d seen. But the joke was on him. I didn’t care who he screwed, and the sight of him being ridden by the nanny, or the maid, or whoever it was this week wasn’t going to improve my punctuality. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But since I was already there.

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat loudly, one hand still on the door handle. They both froze, pretending to be surprised, and the girl lifted her head, tossing long, straight black hair over her shoulder. And that’s when I saw her arm.

Oh, shit.

Beneath the usual interlocking rings, two in this case, her left bicep was tattooed with three beautifully lettered words in a golden band all the way around her arm—a sealed oath and a symbolic wedding ring she could never take off.

Fidelitas. Muneris. Oboedientia.

Fidelity. Service. Obedience.

Michaela. Shit, shit, shit! He wasn’t fucking the staff, he was fucking his wife.

That was new.

Ruben Cavazos peered at me over her shoulder, dark eyes shining. He looked at least a decade younger than his age—his early fifties—yet easily a decade older than his wife. “Olivia. Join us?”

I raised one brow. “Is that an invitation or an order?”

“It is an option.”

“Then this is my refusal.”

He laughed, and Mrs. Cavazos scowled in profile at the room in general. He couldn’t actually order me to sleep with him—or them—a fact I reminded him of often. But I wasn’t sure if his wife knew that.

He patted her thigh, bared by the skirt hiked up to her waist and trailing between his legs. When she only leaned down for another kiss, his expression hardened, and the next slap was hard enough to make me wince.

Michaela stood, and her skirt fell to her knees, covering the fresh red splotch from his hand. She straightened the blue gauzy material as she turned to me, dark eyes blazing with a fury she probably had no idea we shared. “You’re late,” she spat, by way of greeting, excuse, explanation and a general “fuck you.”

“Mea culpa.” I didn’t hate her like she hated me. I’d tried, over and over, and failed every time. Instead, I pitied her, and that just pissed her off even more.

“Meika, bring in a glass of Scotch for Ms. Warren,” Cavazos said, and his wife stopped two feet from the door, glaring at me openly.

“Ruben, it’s ten in the morning,” I said, then glanced at her, trying not to let pity leak into my expression.

“Coffee’s fine.”

She stomped past me, muttering angrily in Spanish, too fast for me to pick up anything more than bitch. I heard that one a lot.

Cavazos laughed. “Close the door,” he called after her, and she slammed it hard enough to shake the framed photos on the wall—a gallery of Ruben Cavazos, pictured with every city official and national and foreign dignitary he’d ever met.

He stood, zipped his black slacks and circled his desk to sit on the front corner.

I dropped into one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. “She hates me.”

“With a rather colorful intensity.” He chuckled again. “Do you blame her?”

“I blame you.”

More laughter. His good moods were scarier than his anger, at least to those who knew him well. “Think of her hatred as a compliment.”

I thought of it as a problem. Michaela followed orders, just like everyone else bound to her husband. But she also took full advantage of every moment that wasn’t governed by an order and every possibility she wasn’t specifically ordered not to take. If she got the chance, she’d kill me. Or die trying.

Either way, she had my respect.

“What happened with the apartment in Florida?” he asked, all traces of humor gone.

“I got hold of the superintendent two days ago. It’s still rented to a woman named Tamara Parker, and she’s approximately the right age, but the description doesn’t fit. And he’s not with her, Ruben. She lives alone.”

“A landlord never really knows how many people live in a unit. And looks can be changed.”

“Yes, but unless your Tamara Parker gained two hundred pounds and changed her skin color, I think we’ve hit another dead end. She gave you a fake name, and she’s not using it anymore.”

His sigh was so frustrated he almost sounded human. But I’d been fooled by that too many times to let my guard down now. “What about him?”

“Nothing new.” I shrugged. “I get a faint tug from the middle name, but without more to go on, I can’t even tell what direction he’s in, much less how far away he is. He could be across the country, or across the street. We’re going to have to approach this from another angle.” Damned if I know what angle, though …

“Agreed.” Ruben blinked, then met my gaze with fresh determination, and I realized he was about to change the subject. “Why were you on High Street in the middle of the night?” he asked.