Twelve
Ian
I didn’t know Kori was there until she stepped out of the bathroom without warning, and I nearly jumped out of my own skin. I’d met shadows that made more noise. “You know, you should give a guy some warning. What if I’d been naked?”
She shrugged and followed me into the living room. “I could use a good laugh.”
“Ha ha.” But unless I was mistaken, she didn’t look horrified by the possibility.
“Your presence has been requested at syndicate headquarters,” Kori said, perched on the arm of the nearest couch.
“Now?” I asked, and she nodded. “And headquarters would be where?”
“Jake’s house. But don’t let that lull you into a misplaced sense of comfort.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I opened the minifridge and pulled out two sodas, then tossed one to her. “What does he want?”
“To talk business. And probably to apologize for your mistreatment at my hands.”
My brows rose in surprise and I spread my arms to take in the elegant suite around us. “If this is mistreatment, you can abuse me any day, Ms. Daniels.”
She laughed, and I watched her. Making her smile felt like a victory.
“So, what if I don’t want to report to Tower? What if I’d rather sit here and finish this soda with you?”
Her smile died a slow death. “Then I’d have to assume that you’re not seriously considering our offer. And I’d be obligated to relay that to Jake.”
“Obligated?” I said, and she shrugged.
“I can’t lie to him.”
I twisted the top from the plastic bottle and the soda inside fizzed briefly. “I take it he doesn’t bear bad news gracefully?”
Kori blinked and seemed to consider the question. “Honestly, he doesn’t get much bad news. Messengers tend to go out of their way to make sure they only bring him good news. Many a decision has been changed at the last minute by a messenger with a will to survive.”
I watched her, waiting for a smile, or a laugh, or even one sharply arched brow to tell me she was joking.
She had to be joking. Right?
I wasn’t going to take the chance, either way. I couldn’t afford to piss off either Kori or Tower until I had a clear shot at Kenley Daniels.
Standing, I screwed the lid back on my bottle and set it on the coffee table. “So, anything I should know about this meeting?”
Kori shrugged and sipped from her own bottle. “Don’t promise him anything. Ask for more than you expect to get, so he can talk you down a little and save face.”
“But I haven’t agreed to sign yet.”
“Exactly. This is his chance to try to buy you. Later, when you do agree to sign, the first draft of your contract will reflect whatever the two of you hash out in his office today. Nothing’s official until the ink has dried, but you want a good starting place. You need a good starting place.”
Except that I didn’t want to start anything with Jake Tower and his organization. I’d come here to finish things.
* * *
An hour and a half later, after endless rounds of verbal posturing, thin pretense and precisely worded defensive blocks from us both, Tower leaned back, hands resting on the padded arms of his desk chair, evidently satisfied.
I’d been very careful to ask for more than he’d give the typical recruit, to show that I knew my own value, but I only pushed the issue on a couple of points, mostly because I had no real intention of signing and I didn’t want to waste any more time making demands I would never see met.
In the end, Tower was satisfied that he was getting the better end of the deal, but not suspicious that his victory had come too easy. And by the time he pressed a button and asked his sister to bring in a round of drinks—signaling the end of our “business talk”—I was mentally exhausted. I’d had very little experience with negotiation, and overthinking everything I planned to say before I could say it had given me one hell of a headache.
When Julia Tower arrived with a tray of drinks, Kori opened the door for her, then followed her in from the foyer, and I felt myself relax a little at the sight of her.
Then I realized that was not the reaction I should have to the woman who was trying to get me to sign over my free will. Tower wanted me to be comfortable with her. He wanted me to trust her. He wanted me to be blinded with need every time I glanced into those big brown eyes, so I wouldn’t have the clarity and focus to understand what I’d be signing away when he put that pen in my hand.
But it wouldn’t work.
Sure, I wanted her. But if I let my guard down even for a second in this den of lions, one of them would bite my head off.
Tower frowned up at Kori from his desk chair. “How much of the business side of things have you shown Mr. Holt?”
She froze, and I remembered what she’d said about being unable to lie to him. Fortunately there was nothing stopping me from lying to Tower. “Not much,” I said. “Today I wanted to see downtown and get a feel for the syndicate’s structure. Kori was kind enough to oblige me.”
It wouldn’t occur to me until later that night to wonder why I’d lied for her without a second thought.
Tower glanced at his sister, then his gaze slid to me, and I felt the weight of it. This was different from how he’d looked at me at the party. This look was skepticism and surprise, and for a moment, I thought he’d call me on my lie. But then he only turned back to Kori and nodded, and Kori turned toward the door. We’d obviously been dismissed.
“Mr. Holt,” Julia Tower called, and Kori’s hand froze on the doorknob. “How are you enjoying your stay?”
“Very well, thank you,” I said, and Kori turned to face her slowly, dread written in every line on her face.
“I assume Korinne is treating you well?”
“Of course. She’s gone to great lengths to accommodate my curiosity.”
“Good.” Tower stood and rounded his desk toward the door, brushing Kori aside as he gestured for me to walk with him. “I’ve made reservations for you both in my name at Philemon’s. Best filet in the city.”
“Thank you, but that really wasn’t necessary,” I said, and Tower frowned.
“I’m afraid it was. I’m confident that Kori is an excellent tour guide, and she has certain other gifts to share, I’m sure, but her perspective on the syndicate may be a bit…narrow.” He stopped in the middle of the foyer and turned to look right into my eyes, ignoring Kori and his own sister like they weren’t even there.
“Your Skill is formidable and your strength is very rare. That makes you much more valuable than any common Traveler, if I may be blunt, and the trajectory we foresee for your future soars far higher than hers, which, frankly, has already declined from its peak. So go out tonight and eat and avail yourself of any other amenities we have to offer. But please keep in mind that while Korinne is at your disposal, we have many other, more sophisticated treats for you to sample, should your appetite change.”
He glanced at her on the last word, and Kori’s fists clenched at her sides, but she stared at the floor.
Tower pulled her aside then, while his sister tried to distract me with pointless small talk, and I could barely hear the single sentence he growled at her, his hand tight around her arm, though he flinched as if his grip hurt him, as well. “No. More. Bars.”
Minutes later, after another trip through Tower’s darkroom, we stepped into my hotel suite and Kori sank onto one of the couches, her expression carefully blank. She just sat there, staring at her hands, perpetuating the longest silence I’d endured since meeting her.
“He’s full of shit, you know,” I said when I couldn’t stand to see her like that anymore. Kori was like a bonfire, blazing with bright light and sometimes harsh heat, and Tower had just kicked dirt all over her, smothering the flames. I didn’t like seeing her light put out. In fact, sitting there watching her, I realized I hated it. “Ninety-five percent of sophistication is pretense. The other five percent is good wine, and I prefer the latter without the former.”
“What does that even mean?” she asked, without looking up.
“It means that I don’t want to trade you in for a more sophisticated model. I like the sharp edges and surprises.”
I told myself it was okay to say that. To admit a truth of my own, after all the truths she’d already shown me. I even tried to convince myself that telling her was part of my job. I needed her to like and trust me. But I’d obviously managed to say the wrong thing.
“Yeah. You like sharp edges,” she spat. “That’s why you wanted me to stop cussing, right?”
Damn.
“That was just a game, Kori. A stupid game to push your buttons. To see how you’d react, because…” I took a deep breath and leaned forward, hoping to catch her gaze. “Because you never do what I expect. But you’re right. It was a stupid game. Forget about it. The bet is off.”
“Oh, no, the bet’s still on,” she snapped, and a flare of anger finally burned through the shield of ambivalence she’d erected. “I’m not going to break my word. But for the record—” She stopped suddenly and looked away, hands clenched around the edge of the cushion she sat on.
“What? For the record, what?” I could practically taste the gritty honesty of whatever she’d been about to say, and I wanted to hear it, because whatever it was, it came from her soul. It was a truth about her.
“Nothing.”
“No, that was something. I want to hear it.”
Her eyes flashed in anger again. “You can stop pretending we’re on an even playing field, Mr. Holt,” she snapped again, and I flinched over her cold, formal use of my surname. “Until your signature is dry on Jake’s contract, you hold all the power here and I can’t afford to say anything that will make you mad.”
I blinked, surprised. “Why? You think I’m going to go tattle to Tower if you hurt my feelings? Is that really what you think of me, even after I lied about what you showed me today?” I demanded, and her anger faltered, just for a moment. “Tell me what you were going to say, Kori.”
Let me in. Just a little.
“Fine.” She sat back, arms crossed over her chest in a pose that was probably supposed to look unaffected, but really looked defensive. “For the record, I don’t care whether you like sharp edges or sophistication. I don’t care what you like in a woman, and I don’t care what Jake thinks about my social status. If you want to trade me in for a different ‘model,’ go ahead. You won’t be hurting my feelings.”
I shook my head slowly. “That’s not it,” I said, trying not to look disappointed. “That’s not what you were going to say. I can see it in your face.” I would be hurting her feelings if I traded her in. Which seemed to imply that she did, in fact, have feelings.
And finally she nodded. “This job—recruiting you—is my chance to get back into favor with Jake. I’m not cut out to be a recruiter, Ian. But I have to recruit you to get my life back.”
That felt closer to the truth, but there was still something she didn’t trust me enough to show me. But pushing would only drive her further away.
“Fine, then let the recruiting continue,” I said. “I believe we have reservations tonight, on Tower’s dime? Some fancy restaurant?”
“Philemon’s. They do have really good lobster.” And we’d missed lunch, as my growling stomach was quick to point out.
“Then we’ll both get one. Maybe two. Let’s go recruit me in style,” I said, and finally she smiled, a glimpse of a rainbow after the storm. “What’s the dress code at this fancy restaurant?”
Kori frowned. “You’re gonna need a suit. And they’ll probably make me wear a dress.”
“I thought you hated dresses.”
“I do.”
“And I have a bet to win. So we’ll both wear jeans?”
Her smile grew just a little. “Mr. Holt, I think we may make a rebel of you yet.”
After a quick trip back to her sister’s apartment, Kori stepped out of my bathroom in a low-cut, drapey black silk blouse that bared a two-inch strip of skin down the center of her torso, all the way to the bottom of her sternum. I wasn’t sure how the damn thing even stayed on, and I caught myself holding my breath when she turned, watching for accidental gaps in the material.
“Wow, you look beautiful,” I whispered when she stepped into the light, trying not to stare. I hadn’t meant to say it. The words fell from my mouth before I could call them back.
“Does this cover all my rough edges?” She held her arms out hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to be inspected. “’Cause I feel like it doesn’t cover much of anything.”
“Your rough edges are thoroughly hidden. But it’s good to know they’re still under there,” I said, my voice deeper than I’d intended it to be, my gaze glued to hers. My stomach twisted with nerves like I hadn’t felt since junior high. I clasped my hands at my back because that was the only way I could control them. I wanted to reach for Kori.
I was dying to touch her.
“I feel kinda stupid in the blouse,” she admitted, plucking nervously at the material. “But Kenley insisted this would keep me from getting tossed out of the restaurant.”
“Your sister has wonderful taste.” I crossed my arms over a pressed button-up shirt, tucked into my spare pair of jeans. Then I made myself think about Steven and Meghan—the mental reminder I needed in order to focus on the job at hand, rather than the woman in front of me. “Do you think she’d like to join us? Your sister?” Kori frowned, and I slid my hands into my pockets. “I’m interested in her role in the syndicate. I haven’t met many Binders.”
“She’s…with someone tonight.”
I shrugged. “So ask her to bring him. I’d love to get multiple perspectives on life in the Tower syndicate.”
Kori’s frown deepened. “I don’t think they’re ready to be seen out together. In public. Yet.” She reached for the bathroom doorknob. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” I buried my frustration, along with a sizable amount of guilt over the fact that I was about to dine in a five-star restaurant, while my brother lay dying, hidden away in his girlfriend’s childhood bedroom. “Let’s go.”
Kori took us through my darkened bathroom once again, this time into an alley behind the restaurant, deep with shadows in the setting sun. “Not the most glamorous way to travel, I know,” she admitted, as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. “But it’s definitely the fastest.”
Inside, the hostess wore an ankle-length black dress and a too-tight bun, and looked down her nose at our jeans. “We have a reservation for two,” Kori said.
“For what time?” She didn’t even look at the reservation list, as if she’d already decided we were lying.
“Actually I’m not sure. I didn’t make it,” Kori said, and the hostess’s gaze hardened even more.
“Mr. Holt? Ms. Daniels?” A man in an expensive suit plucked the list from the podium, brushing the hostess aside without even a glance. We both nodded, and the manager—who else could he be?—smiled like he was made of sunshine. “Mr. Tower reserved your table for the entire evening, so please take your time and enjoy your meal. Erin, if you don’t mind?” he said, gesturing for the hostess to show us to our table.
She took us to a quiet corner of the restaurant, where I somehow felt both sheltered and exposed, and before I could even glance at the menu, a waiter appeared to pour two glasses of red wine, explaining that Mr. Tower had selected it himself.
“Did he order our food, too?” Kori mumbled, and the waiter chuckled.
“No, but he did offer suggestions.”
We ordered several courses, and while we waited for the first of them, I sipped from my glass, watching her. “Tell me something about yourself. Something I don’t already know. Something about your family.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about the syndicate?” she said, staring into her wine skeptically.
“Okay, then, tell me something about your family and the syndicate. Is this the family business, or is it just you and Kenley? Are your parents bound? Any other siblings?” I knew I was pushing my luck, but I had to find some way of bringing her sister back into the picture before too much time spent with Kori made me forget my purpose, or hell, even my own name. She was Calypso, and I was starting to worry that she’d caught me. And the scariest part was that in spite of the guilt, and the lies, and the ugly truth of my mission, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be released.
Kori hesitated for one long moment, like she was trying to decide whether or not she could trust me. Then, finally, she spoke. “Kenley and I have an older brother, but he’s not syndicate, thank goodness. He’s his own brand of trouble, even without criminal ties.”
I didn’t ask her brother’s name, and she didn’t offer it. Either would have been a big faux pas among the Skilled, who know that names, like blood, carry power.
“What about your parents? Are they bound to Tower?”
“No, they died when I was a kid,” she said, and I blinked in surprise.
“Mine died a few years ago,” I said softly, and I recognized the echo of old pain in her eyes. “Who raised you?”
“My grandmother, and no, she’s not syndicate, either. In fact…” Kori exhaled, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “In fact, she doesn’t even know Kenley and I are bound. If my parents knew, they’d probably come back from the dead just to yell at us.”
“So, how did you wind up bound to Tower?”
“I…um…” She stared at the stark-white tablecloth. “That’s kind of a personal story, and it’s not entirely mine to tell.”
Not entirely hers? My curiosity doubled. “So just tell me your part,” I said. “You have my word it will go no further. If that means anything.”
I desperately wanted my word to mean something to her, but at the same time, I was fully aware that it shouldn’t. I had been lying to her all along, and the lies would have to continue, but this part was true. I wouldn’t betray this trust.
“I signed on to be with Kenley,” she said after a moment of thinking it over. “I couldn’t leave her here alone. She’s not like me. She doesn’t have any hard edges or any self-protective instinct. She’s sweet. And nice. She would have been eaten alive.”
But that didn’t make any sense. The only thing I knew about Kenley Daniels—other than what I’d learned from Kori—was that she’d sealed my brother into a nonconsensual binding strong enough to kill him. And she must have done it by accident, because my brother didn’t use his own name. She had to be aiming for me.
How could someone with enough power to seal the wrong person into a binding he hadn’t consented to possibly be the sweet, innocent sister Kori had sold herself to Jake Tower to protect?
“You okay?” Kori asked, but I barely heard her, and I only distantly noticed the tray of one-bite salmon and rice appetizers the waiter set in the center of the table.
“You joined to protect your sister?”
She nodded. “I joined to try. But there’s only so much I can do.”
“What makes you think she needs protection?”
Kori frowned, like she may have heard me wrong. “The fact that she’s here. Kenley got into some trouble when she was in college, and one of Jake’s scouts swooped in promising to clean up her mess, in exchange for her services. She was terrified, and naive, and very young. She thought she had no other way out, so she signed up. Two days later, she showed up at my brother’s New Year’s Eve party in tears, begging for my help. But there was nothing I could do. She’s a piss-poor negotiator and her binding had already been sealed. All I could do was negotiate protection for her in exchange for my own services.”
“What kind of protection?”
Kori exhaled heavily and fiddled with the knife next to her plate. “I’m not allowed to discuss the specifics of my contract with Tower. But life in the syndicate can be really hard for a pretty twenty-year-old woman with only one chain link on her arm. Especially one who doesn’t know how to shoot or fight. So I negotiated for a position with enough power to protect her. Then I defended that position by taking down everyone who got in my face, to make sure they all knew what would happen if they messed with either of us.”
She shrugged to punctuate what felt like a confession, and I could only stare at her, trying in vain to reconcile the beautiful, almost dainty-looking woman with the warrior I—and the entire west half of the city—knew her to be.
Kori picked up one of four silver spoons on the platter and sniffed at the single bite it held, then set the spoon down again and made a face. “I think the salmon is underdone.”
She was obviously trying to change the subject, and I decided not to push the issue. I didn’t know what to do with what she’d already told me, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take with her sitting across from me, barely-but-elegantly draped in thin black silk.
There was nothing under that blouse. There couldn’t be. Nothing but her.
“It’s smoked,” I said, picking up one of the spoons, just so I’d have something else to look at. And something to occupy my hands and my mouth, which seemed to be forming an alternate plan of their own, involving thin ribbons of black silk, bare skin and any room with a decent lock on the door.
“So it’s raw?” Kori looked horrified. “People actually pay someone to not-cook their food? Even cavemen had fire.”
I laughed. “Try it. You might like it.” I ate one of the bite-size appetizers in demonstration, but she only frowned. “Am I going to have to dare you?”
“Low blow,” she mumbled, choosing one of the three remaining spoons. “If I get sick from raw fish, I’m blaming you.”
“If you get sick from a thirty-five-dollar smoked salmon appetizer at one of the best restaurants in the city, I’ll nurse you back to health myself.”
That time she smiled. And ate a spoonful of smoked salmon. But she obviously had to force herself to swallow.
“Not for you?” I asked, laughing at the face she made. In answer, she pushed the platter toward me and took a drink of wine, but that only twisted her expression into a stronger display of dislike.
“I’m two minutes away from ordering a burger and a beer,” she threatened, pushing the wineglass away, too. “How can you drink this sh— Uh, this stuff?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” I said, lifting my own glass. “Much like the syndicate, I suppose.”
“I guess.” Kori shrugged and watched me from across the table. “The big difference between Jake and uncooked salmon is that eating what he serves will eventually kill you.”