Seventeen
Kori
“I assume you know why we’re here,” Olivia said.
Cam flexed his fingers at his sides, like he wanted to be holding his gun, and I knew the only thing keeping his hands empty was his respect for me and the six years we’d both spent chained to Tower. Though we’d rarely actually worked together, Cam was the closest thing I’d had to a friend in the syndicate.
Until he’d left.
“You’re here because Cavazos’s first attempt was laughable.” And because I’d dared him to send someone more worthy, hoping he’d choose at least half of the pair now facing us. This was my only opportunity to talk to them without disobeying a direct order from Jake, and I needed to talk to them. I needed to understand why Liv had used me and Cam had abandoned me.
Yes, they’d been under orders, but so had I, yet I’d done everything I could to help them. And I’d paid for that in the basement.
“Olivia Warren?” Ian asked, and I actually looked away from the double threat of my former friends to glance at him in surprise. If Olivia and Cam hadn’t also been caught off guard, my mistake might have cost me my life.
Jake would kill me if I lost Ian.
Liv frowned. “How did you…?”
“Your reputation precedes you,” Ian said, and I did a quick mental inventory of every conversation we’d had since meeting at the party not quite forty hours earlier. I hadn’t told him Olivia’s last name. Names are power, and I wouldn’t have given him that much power over a friend. Even a friend who’d ambushed me, tied me up, stolen my key, and ruined both my career and my life. “I’m guessing this isn’t a friendly visit,” Ian said, and Cam actually chuckled over the understatement.
“This is business. But we’re free afterward if you want to get a drink.”
“I’m sorry, Kori,” Liv said. “This isn’t how we want it.”
“Any chance you could just claim you never found us?” Ian asked. “As a favor to an old friend?” He glanced at me for emphasis.
“That’s not how it works.” Olivia sighed, a sound heavy with reluctance, and directed her next words to Ian. “Ruben Cavazos extended an invitation, and it went unanswered. Come with us now and meet with him voluntarily. Pretty please.”
“And if I decline?”
“If you decline, there will be weapons and threats. Inevitably Kori will say something she doesn’t really mean and Cam will get his feelings hurt, and I don’t think anyone wants that kind of drama in a public park.”
“Is she serious?” Ian asked, and I nodded.
“Is she armed?”
I nodded again, my own fingers itching from lack of a weapon. “Gun on her right hip, blade on her right ankle. Unless something’s changed in the last two months.”
“A lot has changed,” Olivia said. “But not that.” She pulled her jacket back to reveal a pistol in a holster on her hip, then raised one brow at me in challenge. “As long as we’re playing nice, what’s your count? Three blades and a nine mil?”
“We’re unarmed,” I admitted, because she’d figure it out soon anyway, and Olivia laughed out loud.
“She means it,” Cam said, studying my eyes, and I realized he knew me better than Olivia did. I’d gone to school with Liv, but I’d truly grown up in Tower’s service, with Cam. “Jake won’t use her as security anymore, after what happened.”
“No thanks to you,” I snapped, my temper wound so tight I was afraid that if I inhaled too deeply, something would pop, and I’d just explode. “I have yet to earn back the right to bear arms.” No matter what the second amendment said. But I could use whatever I took from them until this little conflict was over.
“Sorry, Kori.” Olivia pulled her gun, aiming at the grass between us, but I held my ground and directed my reply to Ian, who looked just as calm now as he had in the alley the day before.
“She’s not going to shoot you, and she can’t shoot me,” I said softly, glad none of the other park-goers were close enough to see Liv’s weapon. But if things escalated, we were in for some very public trouble.
“Because of the childhood binding?” Ian asked, and Olivia glanced at me in surprise.
“Have you been telling stories, Kori?”
“Only the ones that are true.” My next words were for Ian, though I couldn’t take my attention off Liv’s gun. “She can’t intentionally hurt me, and if I ask for her help, she has to give it. Which, I’m willing to bet, would put her smack in the middle of two conflicting compulsions. Right, Liv?”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed, but both her gun and her voice held steady. “That sword cuts both ways, Kori. Don’t make me ask you for help taking Holt to Cavazos,” she said, and I groaned, mentally.
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Cam said, pulling his own gun smoothly.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” I insisted, desperately hoping I was right.
Olivia shrugged. “He shot me.”
“He was under orders.”
Cam took aim at my leg. “That hasn’t changed. Holt comes with us, or I shoot you. Don’t make me shoot you, Kori.” He didn’t want to spill my blood in a public park—more blood than I could possibly clean up—but he would.
“You owe me. Both of you.” I could hear the fury in my voice, and saying that was like popping the top on a shaken can of soda—the rest just came shooting out. “You used me. You got me shot, then you left me there to—” I bit my sentence off before the words could fall out into the daylight and leave me exposed by the truth. “You defected, without a word. Kenley heard it from one of the da—” Another pause, while I rerouted my sentence and I barely noticed Cam’s surprise over the aborted expletive. “From one of Jake’s secretaries.”
I studied him, trying to understand what had happened two months earlier, and latent anger at Cam crashed over me with the weight of every wrong I’d suffered in the basement. Alone. Because when he’d switched sides, he’d left me to bear the brunt of Tower’s fury.
Ian glanced from face to face, trying to make sense of a discussion he couldn’t possibly understand. “What am I missing?” he said finally, but no one answered.
“I had no choice,” Cam insisted, and I could read the guilt on his face. But I couldn’t see any regret. “Cavazos was going to let Olivia die unless I signed, and I didn’t have a chance to tell you. But I tracked you every day, to make sure you were alive.”
“He put me in the basement.” I shrugged and spoke through clenched jaws. “Obviously death is a mercy I haven’t yet earned.”
Cam looked like I’d just punched him. “I’m so sorry, Kor,” he said. “Tracking you was the best I could do.”
“Well, now you have a chance to make it up to me. Leave. Just tell Cavazos Ian is using a fake name and you couldn’t track us.”
“His name’s real and Ruben already knows we found you.” Liv’s gaze shifted to Ian. “Ruben knows everything he needs to know about you, which means you’re either stupid or naive for sticking with Tower when there’s a better offer on the table.” Liv frowned and her gaze slipped to me before centering on Ian again. “Or maybe it’s not Tower you’re sticking with…”
I ignored her inference and focused on the implied threat. “Whatever Cavazos knows, Jake knows, too,” I insisted. “And Ian’s made up his mind.”
“Really? Is that what he told Meghan Hollister?”
Ian froze at my side, and I glanced at him quickly before turning my attention back to Olivia’s words and Cam’s gun, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen Holt’s reaction. “Who’s Meghan Hollister?”
When Ian didn’t answer—I couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing—Olivia took over once again.
“Meghan is Ian’s girlfriend. They’ve been together for twelve years.”
I tried not to react, not to let my disappointment and anger show through on my face. Ian groaned, but I could practically feel his posture relax, his arm brushing mine. He seemed relieved. What had he thought she’d say?
“That’s not true,” he said to me, without taking his gaze off the threat. “She’s got her wires crossed. Meghan is my brother’s girlfriend.”
“Bullshit.” Cam bit the last syllable off, leaving a sharp edge to the word. “Your brother died seven years ago. KIA overseas. What kind of a gutless loser pawns off his lies on a dead serviceman?” Cam demanded, and Ian’s entire bearing changed, though he didn’t move a muscle. He was just suddenly taut. Furious. Wound so tight the slightest vibration might set him off.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ian said through clenched teeth. “I swear on my own name. Just please believe me, Kori. Trust me.”
I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t know who to trust. Nothing had made any sense since I got out of the basement.
Cam laughed, and again the sound was bitter. “Shows how well he knows you, huh?” Then he turned back to Ian. “Kori doesn’t trust anyone. She just doesn’t have it in her.”
“I don’t anymore,” I spat. “The last person I trusted was you,” I said, and Cam flinched.
“I’m sorry, Kori,” Olivia said.
But I couldn’t concentrate on yet another worthless apology, because I was busy trying to figure out something else. “Why are you still with Cavazos, anyway?” I asked Olivia, stalling for time to come up with a new plan, since the “you owe me” attempt had gone south. “I thought your mark died.”
“It did.” Olivia scowled. “Then this big dumb ass signed on for a fifteen-year term to pay for my medical care.”
Cam transferred his gun to his left hand, which wasn’t a handicap for him, unfortunately, and lifted his left sleeve. Above the three chain links that had connected him to Tower—now the pale gray of dead marks—were three freshly inked black rings, one and a half of which were already dead and gray, like the chain links beneath them.
“She died, Kori,” Cam said. “I killed her, under orders from Tower, and Cavazos had doctors on hand, just standing there with a crash cart. He wouldn’t let them touch her until I signed.”
“So why are the marks half-dead?”
Olivia twisted to show her own bare arm, where there were two more rings, one half-dead. “Ruben said I could let Cam serve his fifteen years alone, or I could take half of it. Seven and a half years each, served together. A ring and a half for each of us.”
“Liv…” I moaned, my anger at Cam momentarily swallowed by my ache for her. “You were free.”
“And I will be again. But for now, Ruben’s still calling the shots, and if Holt doesn’t come with us peacefully, Cam has to put a bullet in your leg.”
Cam strengthened his aim with a double-handed grip, and Ian exhaled.
“Fine, I’ll go.” He held his hands, palms out in the universal posture of surrender. “Just leave her alone.”
“Ian…” I said, but he ignored me and stepped slowly toward Cam and Olivia. “Ian, stop.” I reached for him, but he stepped around my arm.
“Can we at least keep this civil?” he asked when Cam pulled a plastic cinch lock from his pocket. “Most hosts don’t tie up their guests.”
Cam didn’t even consider it. “Sorry, man. Turn around.” He handed the strip of plastic to Olivia, who holstered her gun to accept it.
The moment her gun disappeared beneath her jacket, Ian leaned to the left and kicked her square in the chest. She flew backward, and I lost an instant to surprise, then I lurched into motion.
Cam aimed at me, but Ian stepped between us, and wouldn’t move when I tried to shove him out of the way. “He can’t shoot me, which means he can’t shoot you through me,” he insisted, and I’ll admit it—I was impressed. He was both smart and evidently fearless. No matter what Jake paid for him, he’d be getting a bargain.
Olivia tried to get up, but I planted one foot on her chest, then squatted and snatched her nine millimeter from its holster while Ian danced the combat waltz with Cam, trying to stay between me and his gun. Then I stood and backed away from Olivia to aim at Cam.
My possession of a gun evened the odds. Their unwillingness to shoot Ian tipped the scales in our favor. Barely.
“How about we call it a draw, and retreat to neutral corners?” Ian suggested as we backed slowly away from them, while Olivia stood, fuming. “That way, everyone lives to die another day.”
“Sorry, can’t do it,” Cam said.
“I will shoot you,” I warned him, aiming at his thigh for emphasis.
Cam’s aim rose. “Likewise.”
“Okay, there has to be a way around this,” Ian said, backing slowly, carefully toward a gathering of trees that would block us from the hot dog stand. No one had noticed us yet, but that wouldn’t last. “You don’t want to shoot each other.”
Cam barked a bitter laugh and raised one brow at me. “Does he believe in Santa, too?”
“Kori, please,” Olivia said, and I could hear the stress in her voice. She loved us both and we were going to kill each other, if something didn’t change soon. We had no choice.
“Don’t say it, Liv,” I warned when I realized just how bad this was about to get. If she asked me for help, I’d have to respond in kind, and the conflicting compulsions and resulting pain would complicate things beyond recovery.
“Okay, let’s take this over there, out of sight of the general public.” Ian tossed his head toward the small grove of trees.
Cam glanced at Olivia without altering his aim, then he nodded. “Run, and I’ll shoot her.” He was talking to Ian, but still aiming at me.
“No one’s running.” I backed slowly toward the trees with Ian, and Cam and Olivia followed. As we walked, I talked, my brain racing, desperate for a way out. “What are your orders, exactly? Maybe there’s a loophole. A way we can all walk away from this.”
“There is—so long as at least three of us are walking east,” Cam insisted. “That’s the only way we’re all going to live through this.”