Nine
Sera
I slept like crap in the unfamiliar bed, and twice I woke up to the sound of someone crying, but I was too tired and disoriented to tell who it was.
Several hours later, I woke to find myself immersed in some kind of twisted Rockwellian family portrait. The kitchen table was crowded with stacks of pancakes, piles of bacon and three different kinds of syrup—none of them sugar-free. While Gran refilled mugs of coffee with a grease-stained apron tied around her waist, my new, heavily armed acquaintances loaded plates with fat and processed carbs, then headed into the living room to seats that seemed to have been assigned long before I’d joined the gang.
They spoke around full mouths, tossing out ideas about where to look for Kenley, speaking over one another, traipsing in and out of the kitchen to refill plates the whole time. I gave up trying to follow the conversation after a few minutes, and the second time a strip of bacon was snatched from the platter an instant before I would have taken it, I started guarding my breakfast with my elbow, like a basketball player.
“You have to be quick around here, if you wanna eat.” Gran patted my shoulder, then tossed a grease-soaked paper plate into the trash. “A little aggression doesn’t hurt, either. I swear, it’s a miracle Kenley never starved to death, timid little thing. Not that they’d’ve let that happen. Kori always fixed her plate first, then ran her out of the kitchen so she wouldn’t get trampled.”
My family had been smaller. Quieter. Healthier eaters. Yet despite the differences, being surrounded by someone else’s family made me miss mine desperately.
After breakfast, I helped wash the dishes, then settled into a chair at the deserted table with my ruined computer bag. I’d been sorting through the remains of my memories—my mother’s photographs—for about ten minutes when Gran put a fresh mug of coffee on the table in front of me and asked me how long I’d known her daughter Nikki. Vanessa came to my rescue by distracting her, and I retreated back into my shell. Remembering. Mourning. Staring into the faces of my past around the bullet holes shot through several of the irreplaceable photographs and into my computer.
Vaguely, I heard life going on around me. Kris and Kori argued as if they were still in middle school and Ian played peacemaker as though he’d been born for the job. Vanessa alternately fretted over Kenley and raged at the bastards who would dare lay a hand on her, swearing vengeance with a furor I could never have imagined from the delicately grieving girlfriend the day before.
Olivia, the Tracker, stopped in for a bit to plot with the others, but then she was called away, either by Ruben Cavazos, her mafia-boss employer, or Cam Caballero, her mafia-employed boyfriend. I wasn’t sure which. I didn’t really care. All I could think about was that my vengeance had been put on hold while I sat there with nothing to do but remember, passively shielding the motely gang of violent do-gooders who’d promised to do violent good for me. Eventually.
My coffee had long since grown cold when Kris pulled out the chair next to mine and sat without asking or waiting for a welcome. “You okay? You don’t have to sit in here by yourself, you know.”
But I wasn’t alone. I was with my family, the only way I could be now. When I didn’t answer, he watched me in silence for a few minutes, and several times he took a deep breath, as if he might actually say whatever he’d come to say. But then he’d glance at the photographs and seem reluctant to invade my mourning ritual.
Then, after several more minutes and another glance at his watch, he started talking.
“Hey. I know this may not be a good time, but I have to ask you a couple of questions.”
“I’m done answering questions.” I sorted a picture of Nadia in her third-grade Halloween costume into a stack of others from that year.
“These aren’t personal, I swear. They’re work-related. Since you’re working with us now.”
I exhaled and picked up a picture of my dad playing his guitar. My eyes watered. “Fine.”
“What’s your range, approximately?”
“My range?” I looked up from my pictures to meet his gaze and discovered, now that the major light source was the incandescent bulb overhead, that his eyes were more blue than gray—the sun had long since stopped shining through the east windows. I’d been staring at pictures for half the day.
“Yeah. How far away from a person do you have to be to...jam him? His signal, I mean.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, then started over. “His psychic signal. How close do you have to be to a guy to make sure no one can Track him?”
I glanced at the single foot of space separating us. “Not this close.”
Kris’s cheeks actually flushed. Across the kitchen Kori laughed out loud and her brother glared at her. “I mean, assuming you’re at the center of a vaguely spherical psychic dead zone, for lack of a better term, what’s the diameter of your influence? How far can you spread your wings, so to speak?”
“I have no idea.”
“Seriously?” Kori took the first bite of a candy bar, then spoke around it. “You seriously don’t know the extent of your own abilities?”
“How is that possible?” Kris asked, and when I noticed Ian and Vanessa watching us from the kitchen doorway, I realized story-hour had commenced.
I shrugged. “My family wasn’t Skilled. I didn’t even know I was Skilled until I was nearly eighteen.”
Kris whistled, looking impressed, though I wasn’t sure why.
Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “Steven and I knew practically from birth. But then, our mom was pretty paranoid.”
“Our parents didn’t tell us until Kris started demonstrating Skills, but that was way earlier than eighteen,” Kori said, and I wondered how old they’d been when their parents had died.
“That’s the thing.” I slid the photos back from the edge of the table so they wouldn’t fall, unsure of who to look at as I addressed the entire room. “I’m a Jammer. I didn’t accidentally walk through the shadows in my own room, or suddenly start calling my friends liars. Jamming is really a whole lot of nothing. Literally. I don’t even do it on purpose. It just kind of...follows me.”
“So you can’t control it?” Vanessa’s gaze flicked to Kori. “Didn’t you say some Jammers can turn it off?”
Kori nodded, still watching me. “And some can restrict or expand their zone. You probably could, too, if you tried it.”
“Maybe.” But I’d never had any interest in narrowing my zone of influence, because I’d never wanted to be found.
“So, if your family isn’t Skilled, how are you Skilled?” Van asked, and I remembered that she had no Skill. She probably knew less about the whole thing than I did. Though that hardly seemed possible.
I picked up a photo of me with Nadia and my parents, and handed it to Kris, who studied it for one long moment, then passed it around. “My mom had me before she met my dad. She and my dad are—were—unSkilled, but my biological father wasn’t.”
When everyone had had a look at my heartbreak, Van handed the photo back to me. Everyone was somber now, out of respect for my loss.
“So, what about him?” Kris seemed to be studying my eyes, like he could read more in them than I would say aloud. “Your biological dad?”
“I never met him.” And since Anne was gone, I had no trouble leaving it at that—a technical truth hiding an even deeper one.
“Okay.” Kris cleared his throat, bringing us back on task, whatever that task was—and there was now obviously a point to this line of questioning. Which had turned personal after all. “Since we don’t know your range and we don’t have time to figure it out now, we’ll need you to come with us.”
“Come with you where?”
“To get Kenley back.” Vanessa said it as if it should have been obvious. “We think we know where they’re keeping her.”
“Why are they keeping her alive, exactly?” I regretted the question almost immediately. I’d just lost my whole family. I should have been more sensitive to their potential loss. “Sorry. I just... The Towers haven’t demonstrated any particular respect for human life, that I’ve seen, and no one’s actually explained why they need Kenley alive.”
“They can’t kill her.” Kris glanced at Kori and Ian, who were leaning against the counter, side by side. They both nodded, so he continued. “Kenley sealed the contracts that bound Jake Tower’s employees to him. The bindings Julia Tower inherited when he died.”
Whoa...
I stared at the table, trying to hide my stunned reaction. “You can inherit someone else’s bindings?”
Kris shrugged. “Only under certain circumstances.”
“With very well-thought-out contracts,” Kori added.
Ian took her hand. “And the strength of one of the world’s best binders.”
“So...what you’re saying is that when Jake Tower died, his sister inherited all of the bindings that tied his employees to him? So they’re now her employees?” I’d known she’d taken over the business, but I’d assumed any employees blood bound to her had taken the oath voluntarily, after Jake died. But if I understood what they were saying, none of those employees had been given any choice in the matter. Their contracts had been transferred without their approval.
“Yes,” Kori said. “Which means she can’t kill Kenley without losing nearly every employee she has.”
But I hardly heard her. That made no sense. Why would Jake leave his employees to his sister, but his business assets—properties and capital, presumably—to his oldest living heir?
He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t leave the employees to Julia and the cash and infrastructure to...me. Those bindings were part of his business holdings. They had to be.
I sat back in my chair, stunned.
I hadn’t just inherited money and buildings, and whatever dummy corporations they were shielded by. I’d inherited people. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe.
I’d inherited the fucking mafia!
With sudden, nearly blinding clarity, I understood why Julia had wanted me to sign away any claim to my inheritance and why, when that fell through, she’d been willing to kill me. As long as I lived, the Tower empire wouldn’t truly be hers.
Kris saw the shock on my face and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I know. It’s kind of creepy to think about.” But he didn’t know. Not what I knew, anyway. “But those bindings are the only thing keeping Kenley breathing, and that’ll only last until Julia has a chance to rebind the employees to her directly, using another Binder. Cutting both Jake and Kenley out of the process. She’s already started, and once she’s finished, she won’t need Kenley alive.”
“Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t be able to rebind them,” Vanessa said. “We all signed non-competition clauses from the start. But since she’d be rebinding them to the same organization, just under different leadership, the noncompetition clause doesn’t seem to be functioning like we’d like it to.” She shrugged thin shoulders. “Or at all. Fortunately, it’ll take her a while to break all the bindings and institute new ones, making Kenley completely obsolete.”
“Okay. Give me a minute.” I gripped the edge of the table. My head was spinning. The whole damn room was spinning. “How sure are you that Julia Tower inherited all that from her brother?”
Kori and Kris glanced at one another and something unspoken passed between them, but it was his sister who answered. “Trust me—Jake’s people would never follow orders from Julia unless they had to.”
Okay, that made sense. But nothing else seemed to. I needed more information, but I couldn’t outright ask for it. “Why would he leave everything to his sister instead of his wife? Or his kids?” What I really wanted to know was how Julia had wound up with what he’d intended to leave to his children.
“He left some stuff to Lynn,” Kori said. “Personal stuff. The house is hers, but Julia gets to live and operate there, because it’s always been the home base of the syndicate. But Jake would never have left business stuff to Lynn. She knows next to nothing about what he does, other than that it’s illegal, immoral and pays very, very well.”
“And technically, he did leave the business to his kids. The oldest, anyway.” Kris looked disgusted by the mention of the little...rascal. “His name’s Kevin. But he can’t inherit until he’s twenty-one, and until then, Julia has total control.”
“Power of attorney?” That would explain her obvious authority.
“More like regent.” Kris scooted his chair closer to the table and met my gaze with a solemn one of his own. “No one thinks either of Jake’s kids will make it to twenty-one. Julia can’t afford to let that happen. She’s not allowed to hurt them, or outright ask anyone else to, but she had the same restrictions with Jake and still managed to have him assassinated.”
Everyone glanced at Ian, who nodded solemnly—Julia had used him to kill her brother.
“How do you know all this?” Surely the Towers hadn’t advertised the terms of Jake’s will...
“Kenley.” Kris smiled at the mention of her name. “She bound Julia as the executor of his will.”
The executor. Not the beneficiary. So why were his guards still following her orders, if their bindings actually belonged to me? Because they hadn’t been formally introduced to the true heir? Because the will hadn’t yet been properly executed? Because I hadn’t claimed my inheritance?
Whatever the reason, Julia couldn’t afford for me to inherit. She’d keep trying to kill me—likely as collateral damage in the fight against the Daniels clan—until she succeeded.
If Kris hadn’t kidnapped me, would I be dead already? Had I been minutes away from a bullet to the brain, that day in her office?
I wasn’t sure enough of that to give him credit for saving my life, instead of nearly getting me killed. But I was sure that there was nowhere else in the city safer for me at that moment than with this band of heavily armed criminals—now that they’d decided not to kill me themselves.
But they would kill me in a heartbeat, if they found out I was the new head of the Tower syndicate.