Fifteen
Kris
“Oh, shit...” I tried to block the dead man from Sera’s line of sight, but I could tell by her suddenly rapid breathing that she’d already seen. She tried to push past me, but I refused to move. I’d already lost Kenley by letting her rush into an unknown situation, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Wait!” I whispered when she wouldn’t stop shoving. “It’s probably an ambush.”
“Bullshit.” Sera didn’t even bother to whisper. “They obviously knew we were coming—this was left here for us. If this were an ambush, they wouldn’t want us to know they knew we were coming.”
I had to think about that for a second; however, once I’d untangled her sentence, I couldn’t argue with it. But caution never hurts.
Kori and I fanned out for a quick search of the four other rooms emptying into the hallway, while Ian and his gun—fortunately, he’d been shot in his left shoulder—stood guard over Sera.
When we were sure the immediate area was deserted, I motioned for Ian to let her out of the men’s room. Sera shot an angry glance at me, but I was starting to get used to those. And I refused to feel guilty for trying to keep her safe. Angry-Sera was better than dead-Sera any day of the week.
Although agreeable-Sera would have been a nice change.
She knelt by Ned’s body, and when Kori and Ian took up posts on either side, I knelt with her to read the note pinned to the dead man’s bare chest.
His blood is on your hands.
“That’s Julia’s handwriting,” Kori said, and I looked up to see her staring at the note as if she’d seen a ghost. “She doesn’t usually get her hands dirty, but this time I’d bet my last drop of vodka that the bitch pinned it to him herself.”
“But how is his blood on our hands?” Sera said. “We let him live.”
Kori snorted. “That’s what got him killed.”
Sera stood and covered her face with both hands, then ran her fingers through her hair. Her hands were small. They looked softer than Kori’s and more feminine, with short rounded nails instead of bitten stubs. I wanted to touch one of them. Then she dropped them, and for a second she was looking right at me—until that seemed to make her uncomfortable and her gaze found the corpse again.
I tried not to be offended that she’d rather look at a dead man than at me.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath, obviously collecting her thoughts. Trying to mentally move past the dead body. “My guess is that if your sister was ever here, she’s gone now.”
“Kenley was here.” I was sure of that. “They knew we’d figure it out, after talking to Ned, so they moved her and left him here for us to find. Unless you think Julia left us a rotting welcome gift at every warehouse we might think to search?”
Sera shook her head and I watched her, studying her intense focus. “You think Julia killed Ned because he didn’t kill us? Or because she knew it would upset you? Or because he told us they moved the blood farm to a warehouse?” It was a trick question, intended to test her growing understanding of syndicate life. The answer was: D. All of the above. Julia had killed him because she could.
“He’s dead because she doesn’t know what he told us,” Sera mumbled, rereading the note for at least the hundredth time, and I shook my head.
“Julia Tower is a Reader. The only way to keep her in the dark is to say nothing, and Ned didn’t have that option. He was bound to her.”
Sera started to argue—I could see it coming before she even opened her mouth—then seemed to think better of it. “Either way, they obviously knew we were coming. My bet is that this place is deserted.”
“Or they want us to think this place is deserted, so they can ambush us when we search it.” The warehouse was a trap. It had to be. If Julia wanted us dead—and she did—and knew we were coming—which she did—why not take advantage of the opportunity?
“Okay.” Kori glanced from Ian to me. Sera looked miffed that she wasn’t being consulted about the plan. “This hall has two exits.” The only two doors we hadn’t checked, because they were locked. “You two go left, we’ll go right. Stay together. If it gets dangerous, go home. Immediately.”
Ian could make his own shadows for them to travel through, but I’d have to destroy the infrared lighting grid for a chance to travel. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” I reminded her.
“Well, it is hers.” Kori shot a pointed glance at Sera.
“What, the last mostly deserted building doesn’t count?” Sera demanded softly. “If I hadn’t seen that guard in time, Ian would have been hit in the chest, instead of the shoulder.”
My sister scowled. “And if you’d known how to disarm him, Ian wouldn’t have been hit at all.”
“If I haven’t already thanked you...thank you,” Ian said.
Kori turned toward the door on her end of the hall and he followed her with a reassuring smile at Sera.
“Is your sister always so bossy?” Sera whispered as we headed toward our locked door.
“Yeah. We let her think she’s in charge, because it’s easier than arguing with her. But if her way isn’t the best way, I do things my way.” I shrugged and leaned closer to whisper near her ear, hyperaware that Vanessa’s strawberry-scented shampoo made Sera smell like she might actually be edible. And I wanted a taste. “Sometimes I do things my way anyway, just to watch her head explode. Though I usually save that for when the cable goes out and everyone’s bored.”
At the end of the hall, I tried the doorknob one more time, to make sure nothing had changed. It was still locked. I glanced back just in time to see Ian pull a deep column of darkness out of nowhere for them to step through, then I holstered my gun and took a longer look at the door and lock.
It was an interior commercial door. Aluminum and hollow, with a standard doorknob lock. Easier to kick open than to shoot.
“Stand back,” I said, and Sera backed up to give me some space. Two heel kicks to the left of the knob, and the door swung open with minimal noise and no real mess.
I stepped into the dark interior office beyond and did a quick security check, then motioned for Sera to follow me inside. Though the only visible light came from an open supply closet, I could feel the infrared grid blazing above me, rendering every shadow shallow and useless.
The office held two metal desks, each with the drawers open and emptied. A laptop power cord trailed across the surface of each desk, but the computers themselves were gone, along with whatever information they’d contained.
The wall opposite the door I’d kicked in held a long glass panel overlooking the warehouse itself, a good six feet lower than the rest of the building. A quick glance inside showed that it was empty, too, except for a couple of abandoned medical gurneys and several scraps of tubing, IV bags, and other medical supplies on the concrete floor.
“They left in a hurry.” I crossed the room, toward the entrance to the warehouse. “Maybe that means they’re still setting up the new place.”
“Or that they already had it ready, just in case.” Sera followed me down the steel grid stairs into the body of the warehouse. There was a set of bathrooms on the far side of the huge room, both doors standing wide open, but other than that, I saw nowhere for anyone to hide.
“So, what?” She ran one hand down the length an abandoned gurney, and I wanted to tell her to stop—that there was no telling what she could catch. Then I remembered that Tower’s victims weren’t sick. They were kept unconscious for ease of handling. “They strap these poor people to the bed and drain them?” Sera looked horrified all over again now that she could see a little of what Jake Tower had started and his sister was continuing. “A little at a time, or all at once?”
“Kori didn’t mention straps, and these gurneys aren’t equipped with them. She says they keep the donors sedated via IV drip and they never take enough blood to kill. Tower was very interested in the renewable aspect of his...resources.”
“The bad guys are going green?”
“Only if the color refers to cash. They’re trying to milk every dollar they can out of each body before it finally gives out. The Towers are motivated by two things—money and power. The only things they like better than money and power are more money and more power. I think it’s some kind of chromosomal abnormality. They lack the genes for compassion and morality.”
Sera scowled and her green eyes darkened.
“What now?” I’d thought we were making progress. She was speaking to me again, and as soon as I had a moment alone with her, somewhere other than an enemy warehouse, I was prepared to declare myself an idiot and apologize for the night before. So why was she getting angrier with every word I spoke?
“Nothing.” She started across the warehouse toward the bathrooms.
“Sera, wait,” I said, and when she finally turned to face me again, her scowl had etched deep lines in her forehead. “Okay, I know you’re mad about what I said last night, and I know I deserve it—”
“I’m not mad. You were right.” Her gaze met mine with what looked like considerable effort. “I’m not in the best state of mind, and if I’d been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have thrown myself at the first available warm body.”
“I was just the first available...” Ouch. I tried to pretend it didn’t sting to hear that mine was a bed of convenience. That any port in the storm would have done.
“Yeah.” She shrugged, but the motion looked stiff and insincere. Or was I imagining that? “So...thanks. You saved us both from a big mistake.”
A mistake? My jaw clenched. Was she throwing my own words at me out of anger, or had we really switched positions so quickly?
“Anyway, you’re off the hook,” she continued, oblivious to my confusion. “I won’t be throwing myself at you anymore. I promise.”
“Um...okay.” I hid disappointment behind what I hoped was a casual smile. “But to prove I have no hard feelings, if you change your mind and decide to throw yourself at me again, this time I promise to catch you.”
Her brows rose in surprise. “Are you flirting? Because you should know, that kind of comes off as a mixed signal, after last night.”
“Sera, I’m so sorry about last night. I had my wires totally crossed, but today they’re all straightened out. I swear.”
The crook in her eyebrow said she was intrigued, but the downward tilt of her lips said she was also feeling cautious. I’d never wanted to turn a frown upside down so badly in my life. “I’m not sure what that means, Kris.”
“That means I want to be here for you. Whatever you need.”
“Thanks, but seriously, you were right. I shouldn’t jump into anything right now. I think we’d both regret that.”
She was wrong. But... “Hot chocolate, then. With or without the Peeps. Or a shoulder to lean on. A hand to hold. An ear to bend. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just promise you won’t dial me out next time you need something. Okay?”
Her frown finally died, but that caution still swam in her eyes. As if she wasn’t sure she could trust me.
I chuckled. “You really make a man work for it, don’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Work for what?”
“A smile,” I said, and her suspicion disappeared. “All I want is a smile. And you’re really making me work for it.” Okay, a smile wasn’t all I wanted. But it’s what I wanted first. I wanted to be able to make her think, just for a minute, about something other than what she’d lost. How she’d nearly died three times since meeting me. How we were no closer to finding the man who’d stolen everything from her.
I wanted to give her something. And I would start with a smile.
“This isn’t the kind of place that inspires smiles,” she pointed out. “And this isn’t exactly a happy time. There’s a dead man in the hall.”
“I’m happy he’s not you.”
“I’m happy about that, too.” She glanced at her hands for a second, then met my gaze again, and I could see it in her eyes. I almost had her. “I’m also happy that he’s not you.”
And finally she smiled.
I felt absurdly triumphant, and I’m sure my own goofy grin reflected that. Even if neither of our smiles would last. And they couldn’t, considering where we stood.
With another glance around the warehouse, solemnity returned, and Sera was all business again.
“Why do you think they left these two gurneys?” she asked, but she’d already drawn the same conclusion I had. I could see that in her eyes as she ran one thumb over a dark spot on the edge of the thin white sheet. “These two didn’t make it, right?” She looked up at me, and I could only shrug. “They poured bleach over the blood—I can smell it—but it’s still damp. We didn’t miss them by much. The cleanup crew, anyway,”
I couldn’t tear my gaze from that spot of blood. Until I noticed another one. And another, leading to a larger stain where the donor’s elbow might have been. Had the donor woken up and struggled? Had something gone wrong with the IV? Had Julia simply cut her losses on a couple of the more fragile donors, who might not be worth the trouble of moving?
“I’m sure Kenley wasn’t one of them.” The compassion in her voice drew my gaze.
“She wasn’t. Julia can’t afford to let her die.” But she wasn’t truly letting Kenni live, either. “Stay put while I check the bathrooms.”
Sera’s brows rose over what she evidently saw as an order.
“Please,” I added as an afterthought, and she gave me another small smile.
“See? That word really can work magic.”
I laughed, and as I crossed the floor toward the bathroom, I began composing a mental list of every possible way to use her “magic word” in my own favor. The entries were not all G-rated.
The men’s room door was open widest, so I checked that one first, careful not to turn my back on the ladies’ room, even with Sera there to shout if someone tried to sneak up on me. The men’s room was small and empty, and far from fresh, in spite of the fact that Julia’s people obviously kept plenty of bleach on hand.
The ladies’ room was just as small and empty, and only marginally cleaner.
With the restrooms clear, I crossed the room to tug on the padlock bolting the exterior door, then gave the rolling bay doors a tug, too. Everything was locked up tight, from the inside.
“Well, the cleanup crew didn’t go out this way,” I said, but when I turned to glance at Sera, she was gone.
“Damn it!” I drew my gun again and rechecked the bathrooms. “Sera!” I hissed, on my way up the steel grid steps, but the office and its supply closet were both empty. She hadn’t gone past me into the warehouse, so the only other option was...
“Sera!” I called again in an angry whisper as I backtracked into the well-lit hallway. The doors Kori and I had checked were still open, and all of the rooms were still dark, except for...the bathroom we’d traveled into. The door was barely ajar now, and the light inside was brighter than the hallway.
Would it have killed her to tell me if she had to pee? Or to go in the warehouse restroom, where I knew there was no one waiting to decorate the walls with our splattered brains?
I did a cursory scan of the rooms between me and the bathroom to make sure no one was luring me down the hall, only to sneak up behind me, and I was two doors from the lit restroom when I heard Sera’s voice. Whispering.
“You don’t have orders to kill me, do you? That’s why you hesitated,” she said, and my trigger finger twitched. Who the hell was she talking to? “That means you know who I am, right?”
Who she was? A Jammer? A Blocker? What did those have to do with why someone—Julia’s someone, most likely—had no orders to kill her?
I edged forward slowly and peered into the dark room on my right, but no answer came from whoever she was talking to—no verbal answer, anyway—and I was starting to wonder if she was talking to herself in the bathroom mirror. I hoped she was talking to herself, because if this was a trap, and she’d walked into it, she had no way to defend herself. Not without a spray bottle and a toilet plunger, anyway.
So why didn’t she sound as though she needed to be defended?
The room on my right looked empty at a glance, and a glance was all I had time for, if Sera was stalling, waiting for someone with a gun to show up and bail her out.
“And if you know who I am, you can’t kill me, can you? Not even if she tells you to. You can’t even raise a hand against me, right?”
Silence met her latest question and my heart beat harder as I crossed the hall silently to peer into the last room between me and Sera and...whoever was in the bathroom with her, real or imaginary.
“I think I’m starting to figure this out. You can’t hurt me, just like you couldn’t hurt her. Same game, new dealer, right?”
“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine,” a man’s voice said, and I stopped in my tracks. Either she’d actually found someone, or the other half of her split personality was decidedly unfeminine.
“You can call me Sera,” she said as I pushed that last door open, my pulse rushing so loud in my ears that it threatened to drown out her soft words. How close was she to getting shot? Why wasn’t she dead already? Was it true that he couldn’t kill her—whoever he was—and if so, why not?
“What else?” Sera said as I stared at a vaguely person-shaped outline in the last shadowy office between me and the bathroom. “Can you lie? That’s a stupid question, isn’t it? Even if you say no, how do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I can lie, unless you tell me not to,” the man said as I aimed my gun at the person-shaped shadow. It didn’t move, so I pulled a penlight from my left pocket and flinched when the power button clicked beneath my thumb. But neither Sera nor the man with her heard, and the shadow turned out to be a custodian’s uniform hung on the top handle of a filing cabinet.
“Okay, then, let’s try this out. Are you here alone?”
“No,” he said. “My partner took the other wing.”
“Just one man?” Sera paused as I snuck back across the hall, and I had the feeling she was considering. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”
I’d come to the same conclusion. Kori and Ian could dispatch a lone gunman in their sleep. What I couldn’t figure out was why Sera was still alive.
“Okay. I suspect our privacy is nearing its end. Tell me where they put Kenley Daniels, and I’ll let you go. You have my word.”
“Like you let Ned go?” At the mention of the dead man, I glanced at him, still propped up across from the bathroom, less than a foot from me now. “You can see how well that worked out for him.”
I could see the speaker by then, through the crack where the bathroom door hadn’t quite closed. He was tall and fair-skinned. Reasonably thick, like most of Tower’s musclemen. But he had to be Skilled, to have gotten into a warehouse locked from the inside. Had he come through the bathroom, after we’d left it? Was that why she’d turned the lights on? To keep a Traveler from escaping?
But that made no sense, because he still had his gun, which should have meant he was the one in power. Yet his gun was aimed at the floor, and he showed no more inclination to use it than she showed fear of it.
“That wasn’t my fault. I set him free,” Sera insisted, and on the wall, the shadow of her hand pushed back the shadow of her hair, hanging over her silhouette.
“Which is exactly what got him killed,” the man insisted. “You broke his binding, and she has no use for those she can’t control.”
She? Julia? How the hell could Sera have broken Ned’s binding?
That was the last unanswered question I could take. I shoved the door open and aimed at the man’s head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Sera gasped, and the man swung his gun up in my direction.
“Stop!” Sera shouted, and he took his finger off the trigger. “Put your gun down. In fact, give me the damn thing!”
To my absolute shock, Julia Tower’s muscleman clicked the safety switch on, then handed his pistol to her by its grip.
Sera held it with the caution of someone who’s never pulled a trigger in her life. But to her credit, she didn’t set it in the sink behind her or drop it in the toilet to her left. Though she might have ejected the clip, if she’d known how.
“What the hell is going on here?” I demanded, still aiming at the man’s head. “How did you break Ned’s bindings?”
“Kris, stand down,” Sera said. “Mitch isn’t going to hurt anyone. Are you?” She glanced at the man with one brow raised, and Mitch shrugged.
“That’s up to you.”
She frowned. “Well, then...don’t hurt anyone.”
“Ever?” He stared back at her in challenge and seemed to enjoy her moment of confusion. “Even if someone tries to kill you, you want me to just stand there and let it happen, if the alternative is hurting him?”
“Of course not.” Sera glanced at me, then her tense focus slid to my gun before she turned back to Mitch. “Just...don’t hurt anyone until I say otherwise. Okay?”
That time a shrug was his only reply.
“Sera, what the fuck?” I demanded. “How did you break Ned’s bindings? You’re a Binder now? How many Skills to you have?”
“Just the one. Er...two, I guess. But I’m not a Binder.”
“You have two Skills?” Mitch said, and Sera’s forehead furrowed in sudden concern.
“You can’t tell anyone that. Ever,” she said, and he scowled, then rubbed his own forehead, like he was getting a headache. Or thinking about breaching an oath.
“Why is he taking orders from you?” I demanded. “Why hasn’t he shot you? How did you break Ned’s binding?”
“While we’re asking questions, why was this fucker sneaking up on us?” Kori said from behind me, and I spun to find her in the hall, gesturing to Ian, who had an obviously dead man tossed over his good shoulder, dripping blood on the floor at his back. “How did you get in?”
“The lights are on a remote,” Mitch said. “When our Tracker hadn’t picked up your signal after an hour, we turned this one off and popped in to check. Since you’re obviously here, the only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that your psychic signal is being jammed. Any idea how that might happen?” He was looking at Sera, but she only stared back at him, refusing to confirm either of her Skills.
“Mitch. It’s been a while.” Kori eyed him and I realized they’d once been coworkers. Had she known Ned, too?
“Hey, Kori,” Mitch said as if they’d just bumped into each other at the watercooler. “Listen, there’s a pool going, and I’ve got five hundred bucks riding on you gettin’ shot in the head, so when the time comes, could you do me a favor and hold still?”
“You placed a bet on how she’d die?” Sera looked horrified, but Kori only shrugged.
“That bet never pays out. You’d think they’d eventually learn.”
“I feel like I’ve missed something.” Ian winced as he lowered the body to the ground and propped it up next to Ned. “What’s going on?”
“Kori’s evidently having a mobster’s reunion, and this asshole’s taking orders from Sera and blaming her for getting Ned killed. Also, he may know where Kenley is.”
“Where is she?” Kori dismissed everything else as unimportant. Sometimes I admired her single-minded focus. Other times, it drove me nuts. I couldn’t decide which kind of time this should be.
“I don’t know.”
“No lies, Mitch,” Sera said, and he turned to glare at her.
“I’m not lying. After what happened to Ned, do you think Julia’s likely to hand out classified information to every peon with a gun?”
“Speaking of guns, why haven’t you used yours?” I glanced pointedly at his pistol, still in Sera’s unsure grip. “And why are you taking orders from her?”
He deferred to Sera with a single glance and she cleared her throat nervously. “I...um...might have...inherited his binding. Kind of.”
“You kind of inherited his binding?” Ian’s voice echoed my own confusion.
“From Julia?” Kori frowned. “Does that mean she’s dead?”
They were all missing the most obvious piece of the puzzle—how Sera could have inherited anything from Julia Tower—but she answered before I could ask.
“Not that I know of.” Sera cleared her throat again and her hand clenched the edge of the grimy pedestal-style sink she leaned against. “I didn’t inherit from Julia. If I understand correctly, the bindings were never really hers in the first place. I inherited from Jake.”
“Wait, bindings? Plural?” Ian’s hand hovered over the butt of his holstered weapon, as if it was the only thing he was really sure of at the moment. I knew exactly how that felt. “Not just this one?”
“It’s...all of them.” Sera shrugged again, and her obvious confusion said she didn’t understand much more than we did. “Kind of.”
“Kind of?” Kori frowned.
“Julia still holds most of them. For the moment.”
“How?” I lowered my aim—my arm was aching—but not my guard. “How the hell could you inherit anything from Jake Tower?” But as soon as I’d asked the question, the answer seemed obvious, and for the second it took to sink in, the world seemed to grind to a halt all around me.
“Holy shit!” Kori actually staggered backward and stepped on Ian’s foot. “He’s your dad. Jake Tower was your fucking dad.”
“No...” I said, but no one was listening. I’d heard it. I understood it. But I couldn’t make sense of it. Sera was beautiful, and smart, and she loved and missed her family more than anything else in the world. She couldn’t even be related to Jake Tower, much less sired by him, because the Towers were a nest of snakes willing to bite one another’s heads off if that’s what it took to climb to the top of the heap.
And every time one of us had said something along those lines—that Tower’s family tree was rotten to its core—we’d inadvertently been insulting Sera. Implying that she was rotten, as well, by virtue of a shared root system.
No wonder she couldn’t trust us with her secrets. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hated us.
“He was my father,” Sera corrected Kori, and I noted that Mitch didn’t look surprised. “He was never my dad. I never even met him, but after hearing about him from you guys, I can honestly swear to you that I’m nothing like him. Nothing like him.”
Her tense tone and wide eyes seemed to be hinting at something beyond her actual words—something she evidently didn’t want Mitch to hear—but it wasn’t until she glanced at my gun again that I understood.
She thought I was going to shoot her, if not right then and there, then eventually. She truly thought my hatred of all things Tower extended to her.
I flipped the safety switch on my pistol, and she exhaled softly in relief. But her frame remained stiff and her focus kept flitting between me, Kori and Ian as she spoke. She was on alert.
She didn’t trust us.
“I don’t think Jake even knew I existed,” Sera continued.
“He didn’t.” Kori looked stunned. Astonished. Her mind had been blown. “There’s no way in hell that he would have let anyone else raise you if he’d known you existed. Even if there was no emotional attachment whatsoever, you’re too valuable an asset to be wandering around out there, unprotected and uninstalled in the Tower machine.” She glanced at the ground, then up at Sera again, her eyes even wider now. “This kind of makes sense. Kinda. I mean, it’s crazy, but in a totally logical way.”
“Not following you, Kor...” I said, and I obviously wasn’t the only one.
My sister rolled her eyes at me. “Jake Tower was a Jammer.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “That’s classified information.”
Kori shrugged. “It was. When he was alive and I was bound to him. Neither of which still applies.”
“But Tower hired Jammers,” I pointed out. “Anne said he hired one of the best in the country as his kids’ nanny.” So they couldn’t be tracked and targeted by his enemies, which were numerous.
“Camouflage,” Kori said. “That, and a backup system, for when he’s not home. His theory was that the less people know about you, the less vulnerable you are. It works the same with names, obviously.”
“What’s your other skill?” Mitch asked Sera, as if they were the only two in the room. No one answered.
“We need to get out of here. When Julia’s Trackers realize they can’t pick up Mitch and his partner, they’ll be on us like flies on a corpse.”
Yet even with Mitch nominally under Sera’s control, I didn’t trust him, and I certainly wasn’t going to take him with us to one of our usual meeting places, so he could later report to Julia, either under orders—if he was somehow faking loyalty to Sera—or for pay. But we couldn’t leave him there; we weren’t done with him yet.
There was so much Sera still didn’t understand...
“Ideas?” Ian glanced at each of us, but Sera didn’t know the city, I’d spent very little time there myself, and Kori seemed reluctant to say whatever she was thinking aloud, where Mitch would hear her. Finally, she leaned toward Ian and stood on her toes to whisper into his ear.
When she dropped onto the balls of her feet again he met her gaze with his brows raised. “Seriously?”
“You got a better idea?”
Before I could ask what the hell they were talking about, Ian shrugged, and Kori turned to me, then motioned for me to bend so she could whisper into my ear. She gave me an address, but it took me a second to realize why Ian was surprised by it. We were going to the east side. Cavazos’s territory.
“Can you find the place?” Kori said before I could ask the questions ready to tumble from my tongue.
I nodded. “But what about—”
“Just try to keep it quiet,” she interrupted, before I could finish my question. “With Sera there to jam us, no one will know we’re there, unless you announce it.”
Sera looked bewildered, but obviously understood that we couldn’t give her an explanation in front of Mitch.
I pushed my sleeve up and laid her hand on my right arm, so that her fingers touched my skin. I really wanted to hold her hand, but it wasn’t the time. Or the place. Or more than remotely likely to happen. Then I clicked off the safety on my gun, and though it felt strange to be touching both Sera and a weapon at the same time, I aimed right-handed at Mitch and pinned him with a scowl. “You so much as twitch on the way and I’ll blow a hole right through you.”
Before he could answer, I grabbed his wrist, touching as little of his flesh as possible, and nodded at Ian, who turned off the lights. I tugged both Sera and Mitch forward before either of them could object or ask anything, and a couple of steps later our shoes landed on thick carpet.
Even the sound of our breathing was different in this new room, muffled by carpet and furniture I could hardly make out in the darkness.
I let go of Mitch as soon as I was sure we were in the right place, but Sera’s hand didn’t leave my arm as I tugged her to the side—out of Kori’s path—and I made no move to disengage from her hand.
A second later, the quality of the air changed and two new, connected shadows stepped out of the greater darkness, their shoes whispering against the carpet. “Kris?” Kori said.
“Yeah.” Sera started to let go of my arm, but I put my free hand over hers and squeezed, a silent comfort in the dark.
“There’s a light switch between the door and the window. To your left.”
I turned and made out the rectangle of pale light outlining a drape-covered window, then felt on the wall for a switch. My fingers found it and flipped the switch on, and light flooded the room to reveal a small but expensively furnished apartment around us.
“Where are we?” Sera’s gaze hardly skirted Mitch as she took in our surroundings.
“One of Ruben Cavazos’s apartments on the east side,” Kori said. “It was supposed to be his love-shack for Liv, but she never gave it up. To him, anyway.”
The rest of us objected all at once.
“Shh!” She glanced at the walls. “You want the neighbors to hear?”
“Kori, this won’t work,” Ian said, practically tearing the words from my own tongue. “This is suicide.”
“Bullshit. It’s perfect. Cavazos has no idea we’re here, and Julia would never think to look on the east side. And she can’t track us, as long as we have Sera.” Her hard gaze took in Mitch’s astonished face, then slid to Sera. “Tell him never to mention this.”
Sera let go of my arm and caught Mitch’s gaze. “Don’t ever mention this apartment to anyone. Or tell anyone we were on the east side,” she added as an afterthought.
Mitch nodded, his jaw clenched in anger. Or frustration. Or both.
“Okay.” I glanced around the apartment, taking in the galley-style kitchen, open dining area and hallway presumably leading to a bedroom and bathroom. “This will work, for the next half hour, at least.” It was better than getting caught and slaughtered at Julia’s warehouse.
I caught Mitch’s attention and pointed at the table, which only had four chairs. “Sit. In the corner, where we can all see you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, silently refusing to move until Sera rolled her eyes and said, “Do it.”
Mitch mumbled something angry and profane, but took the seat I’d pointed out. I sat in the chair across from him and pulled another one out next to mine for Sera. Ian took the fourth chair while Kori dug around for something in the kitchen.
“Okay. So you’re Jake Tower’s biological daughter,” Ian said, picking up the discussion almost exactly where we’d left it in the warehouse.
Sera set Mitch’s gun on the table, out of his immediate reach and picked at the fingernails of her left hand. “According to Julia, I’m his bastard.”
He gave her an infectious grin. “That means little, coming from a world-class bitch.”
Sera smiled, but I couldn’t really enjoy the sight because my mind had already kicked into overdrive. “That’s how you got in to see her,” I said, thinking aloud, and Sera practically squirmed with discomfort. “You’re family.”
“Of the illegitimate, publicly embarrassing sort, yes.”
Kori closed one cabinet door and moved on to inspect the contents of the next. “That’s the best kind of family.”
I ignored the grin she shot me.
“No, the best kind of family is the kind you can count on.” Sera frowned. “My mistake was hoping that Lia would help me, just because we share the same blood.”
“Your only mistake was not knowing enough about the Towers,” I insisted. “And that wasn’t your fault. But if you’d known them better, you’d have known they never do anything for free. Even for family.”
She nodded pensively. “You’d think I would have picked up on that from the way she and Gwendolyn were arguing when you broke into the house.”
“You should have seen how pissed off Julia was about that!” Mitch’s eyes shone with malicious amusement from his corner and I wasn’t sure which of us he was talking to. “You’d have loved it. The bitch threw a full-out temper tantrum when you two disappeared through the closet, breaking shit and yelling at people. The rookies were quaking in their boots.”
I’d bet money they weren’t the only ones.
“I’m sure she’s regretting that now.” Kori shot a conspiratorial glance at Ian.
“Why?” I was already irritated that I hadn’t figured it out yet.
My sister pulled a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the cabinet next to the refrigerator. “Because the best way to bury a rumor is to shut the fuck up about it.”
“That’s why you believed me when I told you who I was?” Sera frowned at Mitch, fingering the grip of his gun on the tabletop as I began putting the pieces together for myself.
Mitch nodded. “We all saw how furious the Tower bitch was, and when you told me she wasn’t Jake’s real heir, it just kinda clicked. Nothing in the world would piss her off worse than having her entire kingdom yanked out from under her.”
“That’s why she wants you dead,” I said, and everyone glanced at me like I’d just figured out why water is wet. “Cut me some slack,” I snapped. “The evil machinations of a usurped mafia queen are a little new to me.”
“Me, too.” Sera stared at the gun beneath her hand, but her gaze seemed to lose focus.
“Oh, shit!” I sat up straight as a devastating piece of the puzzle that was the Tower family tree fell into place.
“What?” Sera said, and they were all staring at me.
“Julia did it. She put the hit out on your family. Only she wasn’t trying to kill them—she was trying to kill you.”
“What?” Sera sat straight in her chair, confusion warring with disbelief behind her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“Because it makes sense,” Kori said, looking impressed by my insight for once, and I could only nod. “Who stands to gain the most from your death?”
“Lia...” Anger took over Sera’s features as comprehension set in. “She tried to kill me before I even came to her. And when that didn’t work—when she got my family instead—I walked right into her hands!” She closed her eyes and scrubbed her face with both hands. “How could I be so stupid?”
“You’re not stupid.” I pulled her hand away from her face and held it for one self-indulgent moment. “You just don’t think like a mafia queen. Personally, I think that’s to your credit.”
“But not to my benefit. If I’d understood what I was walking into, I never would have gone in there in the first place.”
“So, what? You needed a favor and thought Daddy’s side of the family owed you one?” Kori unscrewed the lid from the whiskey and dropped it on the table, and I couldn’t tell whether she thought Sera was ballsy or stupid. Or both.
Sera held her gaze. “I wanted justice and she’s the only connection I had who could get it for me. At the time.”
Mitch snorted. “The Towers aren’t in the justice business. They’re more revenge kind of people. Vengeance, if you’re lucky.”
Sera’s eyes flashed and I got another glimpse of the hellcat who’d tried to castrate me with a steak knife. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“If you’ve really inherited a piece of the Tower pie, you’ll never have to beg for anything again. Once you get that target off your back.” Mitch leaned his chair back on two legs, balancing with one hand pressed against the wall. “Coincidentally, I happen to be in the market for a new job. Need some Skilled muscle?”
“I’ve got her covered,” I snapped, and both Sera and Kori glanced at me in surprise. “We,” I clarified, when I’d realized what I’d said, and how they’d probably—rightly—interpret it. “We’ve got her covered.”
Mitch shrugged and set his chair down, then launched into a pitch too polished to be spontaneous, eyeing Sera across the table. “What do you want me to do then? Personal chauffeur? No car needed. The dark is my highway, anywhere you want to go. Or maybe you’d like a more personal kind of service?” His brows rose and his gaze raked over her with the innuendo, and I wanted to beat him until his blood stained my cuticles and soaked into Cavazos’s expensive carpet.
“Ew, no!” Sera said, and I almost laughed at Mitch’s insulted expression.
“Like I said, we’ve got her covered,” I insisted, and then they were all staring at me again, and it took me a second to realize what I’d just said. “Not like that. This isn’t that kind of...” Damn it. I snatched the bottle of whiskey from Kori and started over, while Ian made no effort to hide a grin. “I mean we’ve already got two Travelers, and Sera doesn’t need you. For anything.” I tipped the bottle up and took two swigs, hoping they’d all think it was the alcohol that made my cheeks burn.
“Succinctly put,” Ian said, and his delivery was so deadpan I almost missed the sarcasm.
“But accurate.” Kori took the bottle back and turned to Sera. “So, what do you want to do with him? And make it quick. This is a very temporary hideout.”
Sera glanced at Mitch in confusion. “What do you mean? Why do I have to do anything with him?”
My sister frowned at me, then at Ian, and I realized that Sera truly understood even less about syndicate life than I did. “It’s like teaching a chimp to play poker,” Kori mumbled, then took a swig from the bottle while Sera bristled. “You own him.” Kori wiped her lips with the back of one hand.
“I what?” If Sera’s eyes got any wider, they’d take over her whole face.
“You own him. Metaphorically.” I reached down for the leg of her chair and turned her to face me. “Mitch’s binding is like a dog’s leash. You’re holding it. Ergo, you effectively own him.”
“Mitch is a dog?”
Kori laughed and nearly choked on another mouthful of liquor. “According to a couple of his exes, yes. But the point is that you can’t just drop the leash.” She frowned, then amended. “Well, you can, but if you just walk away from him, you’re responsible for whatever damage he does, or whatever damage is done to him.”
“I don’t understand.” Sera’s foot tapped rapidly under the table, as if her nerves knew Morse code.
Kori tilted the bottle up again in my peripheral vision and I turned to grab it, then slid it across the table toward Ian. “Do something with that, will you?”
He shrugged, then took a hit for himself.
Great. If my sister had a superpower, it would be the ability to drive those around her to drink—at superspeeds.
I slid the whiskey lid across the table toward Ian, then turned to Sera. “Okay. Think about it like this—if a dog attacks someone, who do they hold responsible?”
“The owner...” Sera’s voice trailed off at the end of the word, and I could practically see comprehension surface behind her eyes. “But that’s not fair. He’s a person, not a dog.” She glanced at Mitch, who was watching our exchange with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting to see how this would play out. “He makes decisions based on thought, not instinct. He has upper-level reasoning—relatively speaking.” Mitch scowled, and Ian chuckled. “He has logic and free will!”
“But he doesn’t. Not really,” Kori insisted. “His will is yours, and if he hurts someone because you didn’t tell him not to, whether you’re legally responsible or not, I have a feeling you’ll have a hard time dealing with the guilt of not having prevented it.”
My sister’s words struck close to home, and I realized that Sera and I were in a similar position. Sort of.
“Which is why I told him not to hurt anyone,” Sera said.
“But that’s a problem all its own,” I said. “For instance, under that order, he can’t defend himself or anyone else without your say so. So if we leave him here, he’ll be dead in...what?” I glanced at Ian for a second opinion. “An hour?”
He nodded.
“Maybe less,” I added. “Julia’s extra pissy since your fortuitous arrival. Which means she’s probably trigger-happy. Metaphorically speaking.” Had Julia Tower ever even held a gun?
“Don’t assume she can’t shoot just because you’ve never seen her do it,” Ian warned. “That woman holds her cards close to her chest.”
Kori snorted. “Hell, they’re practically in her bra.”
“But my point is that if she finds him, she’ll kill him. Assuming Cavazos doesn’t find him first.”
Mitch squirmed in his chair.
“Okay.” Sera shrugged. “Then I’ll just break his binding.”
“Hell, no.” Mitch stood, as if he actually had somewhere to go. “You may as well pass out guns and paint a target on my back. Didn’t you get the memo pinned to Ned’s chest?” He ran one hand through his hair. “That’s Julia’s way of saying she’ll kill whoever you set free.”
I shrugged. “So run.” I turned back to Sera with a frown. “That’s where we went wrong with Ned—we left him handcuffed to the fridge, like a sitting duck.” Not that ducks had hands. “Of course, if I’d known you’d broken his binding, I would have given the poor guy a running start.”
“I couldn’t tell you,” she insisted, her gaze silently pleading with me to understand. “I thought...” She let her words trail off when she realized Mitch was still listening, but we all knew what she’d thought, and we all understood why. She’d had no reason to trust us not to kill her or use her as a bargaining chip, if and when we found out how valuable she was.
I hated that I’d given her reason to think that.
“It doesn’t matter.” I made a mental note to reassure her of her safety later, away from stranger’s ears. Hopefully in private, where I could tell her other things that still needed to be said.
“Okay.” It was a struggle for me to pull my thoughts back on target. “You cut him loose and we’ll give him a head start. A Traveler can be hundreds of miles away by the time Julia finds out he’s gone.”
Mitch started to object again, and I turned on him, rapidly losing my patience. “You won’t be a priority. She probably won’t even bother looking for you, with us still out here wreaking havoc.”
“Bullshit!” Mitch’s eyes were wide, his nose crinkled in a bizarre display of fear.
“Sit,” Sera said, and he sat reluctantly, then scooted his chair closer to the table and leaned with his elbows on it, watching us all.
“She’ll look for me and she’ll find me, because her other Travelers can move just as fast as I can. And I will be a priority, because Jake taught her how to do business. She has to kill me, or everyone else will think Sera can be their savior. Which is exactly why she’s killed most of the people your dumb-ass sister set free.”
“What?” My stomach sank into my heels, weighing me down. Julia had killed the people Kenley had freed? “Do you know that for a fact? They’re dead?”
“Not all of them.” He turned to Kori, sitting on the edge of his chair as if he still wanted to stand, and his next words carried special, bitter weight. “A couple of them are still in the basement, wishing they were dead. In front of a live studio audience.” Then he turned back to Sera. “She’s going to hunt down everyone you set free until you stop doing it or she gets to you, just like she got to Kenley. And you’re a bigger fool than I can even comprehend if you don’t believe that.”