Three
Kori
I sipped from my glass and enjoyed Holt’s shocked expression so much that I’d taken two more sips before I remembered I hate champagne. And for the first time since I’d woken up in the basement eight weeks before, I felt a little better. A little more like myself. Until I saw Jake watching me from across the room, fury dancing in his eyes. He couldn’t have heard me, but he could see that I’d scared his guest of honor—disturbed him, at the very least—and he was pissed. Jake tossed his head toward an alcove mostly hidden by the curve in the staircase, and I had no choice but to obey the silent summons.
“Be right back…” I mumbled to Holt, and cursed myself silently all the way across the room. I’d known better. I’d fucking known better, and I gave in to temptation anyway. I couldn’t afford to scare off Holt or piss off Tower—Kenley couldn’t afford my mistakes—yet I’d managed to do both after less than five minutes alone with the man whose Skill Tower valued more than he valued my life.
“What the hell did you just do?” Jake growled, hauling me into the alcove by one arm. I tripped over the stupid stilettos Kenley had insisted I wear and would have gone down on my face if Tower wasn’t holding me up.
“He asked if I have any ‘special skills.’ He said it just like that.” Like special meant depraved or perverted.
“Was I not clear before?” Jake’s eyes flashed with anger. “I only pulled you out of the basement two weeks ago for this job. For him. I don’t care what he says, or what he does, or what he wants,” he growled into my ear, squeezing my arm hard enough to bruise, though I’d die before I complained. “You will answer him with a smile, and the answer is always yes. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I snapped, and it felt good to throw the word back in his face, even if it tasted bitter on my tongue.
He let go of my arm, but didn’t back down. “I’m not going to bother listing all the things you are not allowed to say or do, because I recognize that while unsophisticated and often crass, your mannerisms have a certain crude charm, and for all I know, Holt might actually want to play ‘tame the beast.’ That’s up to you to determine. But however this plays out, I swear on every beat of my wife’s heart that if you don’t have Ian Holt eating out of your hand in forty-eight hours, you will pay for it with your life. And your sister will pay for it with the balance of hers. Do you understand what I’m saying, Korinne?” he demanded, and I nodded, but that evidently wasn’t enough, because he repeated the question.
“Yes. I fucking understand,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Good.” He stepped back and eyed me from head to toe without a hint of desire. Tower, for all his faults, worshipped his wife like she shit gold and bled wine, and I’d never once seen him even glance at another woman with any real interest. “You look like a lady for once. Now go pretend to be one,” he said. “And try to remember that though a sledgehammer may be the most prominent weapon in your verbal arsenal, it is seldom the most appropriate.”
“Jake, please,” I whispered, swallowing the lump of bitter pride in my throat. “I’m not the best woman for this job. If you really want him, you need a recruiter.” Someone who was used to wining, and dining, and kissing arrogant ass. Someone who was good at it. “Don’t you think Monica would be better suited to this? Or Erica?”
Tower’s gaze went hard, and I knew I’d overstepped. Again. “Without a doubt. But he doesn’t want Monica or Erica. The only other person in my employ who fits Holt’s description of his ideal physical type is your sister, and even if you were willing to let her wander all over town alone with a man she just met, I am not. I need her here, doing her job, where I know no one else can get to her.”
I wanted to protect my sister from the realities of life in the syndicate. He wanted to protect a very valuable asset from being poached or exterminated. Still, in the end, our goals were the same, so I couldn’t argue.
“Now take the man a fresh drink and apologize like you mean it. And do not give me a reason to have to repeat this conversation. That’s an order.” With that, Tower stepped out of the alcove and back into his party, smiling at acquaintances like he’d never had a sour thought in his life.
I started to make my way back to Holt so I could publicly choke on the crow Jake had shoved down my throat, but when I scanned the crowd, checking on Kenley out of habit, I found her with Jonah Tower, who smirked at me silently while he rubbed her bare back with one hand, until she shrugged out from under his touch.
And suddenly I wanted to vomit.
I backed into the alcove again and stayed there for another minute, fighting the flashes of memory that played behind my eyelids—a montage of pain and humiliation, overlaid with the terrifying certainty that if I failed, it would all happen again, this time to my little sister.
I swallowed compulsively to keep my dinner down, breathing deeply, like Kenley had showed me. So far, when the basement resurfaced in my head, the only thing able to beat it back when I couldn’t take out my rage on the nearest boxing dummy was steady, measured breathing. Balancing each inhalation with an exhalation.
Kenley said I was imposing calm on everything else by instituting order in the most basic of involuntary functions. Or some shit like that.
I didn’t care how it worked. All I cared about was that it did work. Usually.
When I opened my eyes again, the buzz of conversation and laughter roared back into focus and the looming darkness of the basement was gone, at least for the moment.
Remember who you were before, Kori. I had to remember and become her again, or I might die without the chance to claim vengeance or reclaim the woman I’d been.
I straightened my dress—stupid fucking sequins—and squared my shoulders, then took one more deep breath and stepped back into the fray.
That was the only way I could think of this night and hope to succeed. The party was a battle to be fought, not with bullets, but with pointless social gestures and small talk. I could do this. Every polite smile would find its mark. Every swallowed curse would block a blow. And every bitter concession made to polite society would bring me one step closer to the goal. To signing Ian Holt and protecting my sister.
If the party was a brawl, then Holt was my enemy, but he couldn’t be beaten with fists or knives. He could only be lulled into submission—into lowering his guard—with subterfuge. With careful answers and gestures of compliance.
I could play that part. I’d have to play that part. Starting now.
I watched him as I closed in on my target, dodging hits from other combatants—Jake would call them guests—even as I armed myself with two fresh glasses of champagne from a tray carried by a passing waiter, an unwitting accomplice in my campaign.
Holt wasn’t bad-looking. In fact, he was actually kind of hot, blessed with broad shoulders, a strong chin, and the smooth, dark complexion only mixed parentage could give. Or maybe that was the champagne talking. I could toss back vodka all day long, but I’d never been able to think clearly on anything fancy. Probably from lack of practice.
While I was still several feet away, two familiar silhouettes stepped between me and my goal. They were both brunette and curvy, and less than two years bound, yet eager to make names for themselves. They were also on Jake’s shit list for refusing to believe after one crack at him that he could not be tempted to stray from his wife, even for a double dose of sin served hot and ready.
Within seconds of their arrival, Holt looked ready to flee the premises. I exhaled slowly and donned my mental armor, then stepped back onto the front lines, right between the two brash sluts, who gaped at me like I’d just insulted their strappy footwear.
“You’ll have to excuse us,” I said, handing Holt one of the glasses so I could link my arm through his. I couldn’t come up with a believable reason why they’d have to excuse us, so I didn’t bother. I just steered him away from the wild hyena women and through the crowd, half enjoying the angry looks they shot my way.
A victory is a victory. The venue is irrelevant.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the rescue,” Holt said. “But I’m forced to ask, in the interest of self-preservation…exactly how well armed are you right now?”
I laughed, and it wasn’t even forced. Probably because even with the smile hovering on the edge of his expression, his joke wasn’t really a joke—he was actually asking.
“Guns leave unsightly bulges in an evening gown.” Which I was only wearing under direct orders. “Tonight, what you see is what you get.” Jake had made it clear that I had not yet earned back the privilege of carrying weapons in his territory, after letting him get shot. “But don’t worry, there’s enough security in here to rival the U.S. Mint. No one could possibly get an unauthorized gun through the door.”
“I wasn’t worried about getting shot,” Holt said, as we wound our way through the crowd. “Perhaps ritualistically castrated and dismembered…”
“Okay, I’m sorry about the threat,” I said, though that wasn’t really true. “But they say you can’t underestimate the value of a good first impression.”
He stopped walking to frown at me. “Your idea of a good first impression is to threaten a man’s groin and his life in one breath?”
I shrugged. “Why? Would taking a breath in between improve the delivery?”
“I suppose not.” He drained the last inch of champagne from his glass, then set it on an empty tray as a waiter passed. Then he turned back to me, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “You’re not what I expected from Jake Tower’s envoy.”
“What did you expect?” I was honestly curious.
“Someone like her.” Holt nodded at something over my shoulder, and I turned to find Nina, Jake’s personal assistant, schmoozing with the lieutenant governor, one hand on his arm, her gaze locked with his as she laughed at whatever asinine story he’d just told. I’d heard every story he had. They were all asinine.
I started to ask Holt if he’d rather have Nina show him around—surely Jake wouldn’t make me play recruiter if the recruit didn’t want me around after all—but he was already speaking again, this time watching a group clustered near the windows on the west wall. “Or someone like your sister.”
I glanced at him in surprise, then followed his line of sight again to where Kenley stood against the wall, Jonah hovering near her like a kid eager to show off his prom date, and I realized Jake had probably told his brother to stick close to her, to remind me of what was at stake with this job.
Everything. That’s what was at stake.
Kenley and our brother, Kris, were all I had left, and Kris had his hands full with our grandmother. Kenley was my responsibility, and I couldn’t let her down. Even if that meant conning some clueless asshole into service at Tower’s whims.
“Kenley would make a terrible tour guide,” I said, more to myself than to him, still watching my sister play the wallflower. She wouldn’t give Jonah any excuse to touch her. “She doesn’t get out much.”
“Out of what?” Holt asked, and I forced my mind back to the conversation at hand.
“Outside. Jake keeps her close at hand. Because of the nature of her work.” And too late I realized how that probably sounded.
“Your sister lives here? In Tower’s house? Do they…? Um…?”
I scowled. “No, my sister isn’t screwing the boss.” Nothing could be further from the truth. “She’s his top Binder—the only one he really uses anymore—so he keeps her close to keep her safe. She has a small apartment near here.” And she was always under guard.
“Oh.” Holt looked relieved, and briefly I wondered why he cared who Jake was screwing. Was he a prude or a perv?
“I used to live here, though,” I said, picking at the seams of his reaction. “In this house.”
“You used to…?” He glanced from me to Jake and back, and I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as he tried to puzzle out a polite way to ask a crude question.
I rarely bother with polite. Makes things much simpler.
“Were you and he…?” Holt let the question trail off to its obvious conclusion.
“Do you ever finish a sentence?” I asked, and his cheeks darkened slightly as his brows rose in challenge.
“Do you ever think before you speak?”
I blinked, surprised. Jake said impulse control was my biggest character flaw. I’d always assumed he meant my tendency to hit first, then survey the situation as an afterthought, but Holt was clearly caught off guard by the verbal version of that.
“That’s your problem.” I backed slowly toward the foyer, leaving him to follow. “You think too much.”
“I don’t consider caution and forethought a problem.”
“It takes you forever to order at a restaurant, doesn’t it? And to pick out a tie?” I stepped closer and flicked his obnoxious little bow tie, then turned and stepped into the foyer, desperately hoping Kenley’s stupid stilettos didn’t seize that moment to betray me on the slick marble. Why do women insist on crippling themselves with footwear obviously designed by sadists?
Holt caught up with me, his mouth open to reply, but I spoke over him. “I tell you what. If you can dig up enough nerve to ask what you really want to know, I’ll answer the question.”
“Nerve isn’t the issue.” He stared straight into my eyes, practically daring me to argue. “What makes you think I care, one way or another?”
“The fact that you think too much. You overanalyze everything, like life’s one big puzzle you can solve, if you can just find the pattern, and now you’re thinking that neurotic tendency will help you figure out where you stand with one of the most powerful men in the country. You asked for a blonde liaison, and he gave you a blonde, so you’re thinking—correctly—that that means he really wants you.”
“You’re on track so far,” he admitted, amusement peeking around the edges of his skepticism.
“I know.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a Reader now?”
I almost laughed. “Hell no, I’m still just a Traveler.” Readers, like Julia Tower, read the truth in a person’s words. I read people. Their posture. Their expressions. The things their brains didn’t even know their bodies were saying. That was the one quality I had that might actually come in handy for a recruiter.
Holt looked relieved, and I wasn’t surprised. Readers make people nervous. Everyone lies, and no one wants to be called on it.
“So what else am I thinking?” he asked, and his grin said this had become a game.
I was not a fan of games, but when I played, I liked to win. So I swallowed my trepidation over the direction the discussion was headed and pressed forward, wearing my game face.
“You know Jake wants you. But now it’s a little more complicated than that, right? If I’m Jake’s sloppy seconds and you take a big bite, it’s gonna look like you’re satisfied with his leftovers. And that’s going to lower your value. But on the other hand, he’s given you what you asked for, and turning your nose up at a gift from Jake Tower could look like a massive insult. And you wanna play hard-to-get, not difficult-to-stomach, right?”
Holt’s green eyes were huge. “And you think I overanalyze things?”
But I was right. I could see that much in the irritated way he crossed both arms over his chest, wrinkling his expensive jacket. He’d expected to study Jake, and his offer, and his people, but he hadn’t expected a common escort to study him back. Much less be good at it.
I shrugged and smiled, then turned away from him and started across the foyer, calling softly over one shoulder, “Fine. Then don’t ask.”
His shoes squeaked after me on the marble, and I knew I had him. “Okay, I give up,” he called, grabbing my arm from behind. I froze at his touch and had to remind myself that it meant nothing. I was flirting with him—albeit under orders to seduce him on behalf of the entire syndicate—so I couldn’t justify freaking out over evidence that I was getting the job done.
But neither could I stop myself from pulling my arm from his grip, though I tried to disguise the movement by ducking into an alcove, drawing us both out of view from most of the rest of the party. “I admit it,” he said, stepping close enough that I wanted to back up, but there was nowhere left to go. “I want to know.”
With the wall at my back and Holt blocking my path, I felt like the world was closing in on me. My pulse raced with encroaching panic. But I’d brought us here, out of sight, and I was still in control of this little word game.
“Then grow some balls and ask,” I said, staring straight up into his eyes, silently daring him.
One eyebrow arched in response to my challenge. “Were you sleeping with your boss?”
I shook my head solemnly. “I have never once fallen asleep in Jake Tower’s company.” In fact, it was tempting to try to blink one eye at a time when he was around, so I could keep the other one on him at all times.
Holt rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I know what you asked.” I couldn’t tell if he was adorably old-fashioned, hopelessly shy, or simply reluctant to offend a syndicate representative with a question about a very powerful man’s personal life. “If that’s not what you wanted to hear, then say what you mean.”
“You’re bossy.”
I laughed. “And you’re nosy, so get it over with. No more euphemisms. Bite the bullet, or I’m gonna have to tell Jake you don’t have the balls for this job.” That was a total bluff, of course. Jake would like him better with neither a mouth, nor the balls to use it.
That time when Holt frowned, I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off or intrigued. Until he stepped closer, leaving no room between us at all, and I realized he was a little of both. “Did you fuck your boss?” he demanded, his voice lower and grittier than it’d been a moment before.
“Hell no.” I slid along the wall, sidestepping him, and my heart didn’t slow to normal speed until I’d regained personal space, and both flight and fight seemed possible again. Just in case. “Jake doesn’t screw around on his wife.” He wouldn’t, even if he weren’t contractually prohibited from touching another woman. At least, that was the rumor. “And FYI, he’ll have you shot for looking at her for more than a few seconds at a time, unless she’s talking directly to you.”
“That’s crazy.”
I shrugged. “That’s love.”
That hint of a grin was back. “Isn’t that what I said?”
“Ah, a cynic.” I sank onto a gold-padded bench against one wall of the foyer. “You may fit in here after all.”
Holt sat next to me. “So, why did you live here, if you weren’t…with him?”
And, the euphemisms were back. “Jake used to keep a small staff on hand at all times. But he moved everyone out a few weeks ago.” The day after I’d accidentally punched a hole in his home defense system and gotten him shot. “Now it’s just his family, the nanny, and whichever guards are currently on duty.”
“Smart.” Holt nodded thoughtfully. “And he really doesn’t cheat on his wife? At all?”
“Nope. Not once, that I know of. Why?”
“I want to know who I’ll be working for. If I sign on.” He glanced to his right, toward the party still going on in the main part of the house. “A man like that, with plenty of money, in a position of extreme power over dozens of beautiful women…” He glanced at me, as if to say I was one of those beautiful women. Or maybe he was pointing out that I was powerless. “It has to be tempting to sample the goods. It’d be easy to get away with. In certain circles, it’s practically expected, right?” he said, and I could only nod. “But Tower’s loyal to his wife. That says something, doesn’t it? Something about him, as a man?” Holt watched me closely, studying my reaction, and an uneasy feeling churned deep in my stomach.
Most syndicate employees didn’t have the luxury of caring what kind of man Tower was, or what kind of business he did. They signed on because they were desperate for something they couldn’t get for themselves. Usually money, protection or services only a syndicate could provide. Why else would you sign over even part of your free will to someone who doesn’t give a damn whether you live or die, so long as you do both in service to the syndicate?
But Holt was different. He actually gave a damn. Which could make him very hard to recruit.
“Doesn’t that also say something about the way Tower runs his organization?” He waited for my answer, staring into my eyes like he wanted to see past them and into my thoughts, and suddenly I recognized the ploy, and my teeth ground together.
Ian Holt wasn’t naive enough to believe that a man with Jake’s power and breadth of influence had climbed to the top of the hill without stepping on a few heads. Or that fidelity to his wife translated into any kind of integrity in business. He knew what the Tower syndicate was like—at least, he thought he knew—and this was a test to see which I would choose: loyalty to my boss or honesty to the potential recruit.
Assuming I had any choice in the matter. And he had no way of knowing whether or not I did.
He’d see through a lie—he seemed to be expecting one anyway—but I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth about Jake and the syndicate, even if he already knew most of it. Or even some of it. Which brought up an even bigger problem.
If Holt already knew what kind of man Tower was and what kind of business he ran, why did he accept Jake’s invitation in the first place? I could only think of two possible reasons. First, Holt had no moral qualms about syndicate business or lifestyle. Or, second, he couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging whatever moral qualms he did have. Which meant he was either corrupt or desperate.
But then a third, even worse possibility occurred to me and that uneasy feeling in my stomach swelled into a roiling discomfort. What if Holt was neither of those? What if he was just some curious, greedy asshole looking to get everything he could out of Jake before politely turning down our offer and walking away with his free will intact?
If that happened, I would have to harvest Holt’s blood instead. And if I handed over nothing but blood from a venture this expensive, when what Tower really wanted was Holt’s service, Jake would kill me. But first he’d give Kenley to Jonah, down in the basement, so that the last thing I ever heard would be my sister screaming.
Bile rose in my throat, and I swallowed a sip of warm champagne to keep it down. And when I looked up, I realized that Holt was still waiting for my answer to a question I’d almost forgotten.
“Does Jake’s fidelity to his wife say something about how he runs the organization?” I said, rephrasing the original question, and Holt nodded. “Yeah, I guess it does. There’s nothing Jake wouldn’t do for his wife, and even less he wouldn’t do for the syndicate.”
Including kill me and torture my sister.
The thought of damning someone else to the hell I was living in made me want to light my own hair on fire and take a bath in gasoline. But I would do it. I’d do whatever it took to make Holt sign.
I had no other choice.