Nine
Kori
“I need a drink. A strong one,” Ian said. We’d left Jake’s pet project behind two blocks ago, and he was still looking at me like he was disappointed in me. Like he’d started looking at me in the observation room, the moment he’d found out that I’d kidnapped for Jake. That I’d killed for him.
But that was stupid, because he didn’t know me well enough to be disappointed in me.
“Never let it be said that I stood between a man and his liquor. If you want food, too, there’s a decent Italian restaurant around the corner to your left.”
He shook his head firmly. “I don’t think I could keep it down, after what I just saw.”
“Okay. My favorite dive bar is half a mile up the street. Or we could head back to your hotel.” Personally I favored the bar, for the lack of beds and availability of liquor.
“What are the chances Cavazos would send men to ambush us in this bar of yours?”
“Slim to none, unless he wants them returned in pieces too small to identify. Dusty’s will be crawling with locals at one on a Saturday, half of them bound to Jake.”
“The bar it is.”
Ten minutes later, I pulled open the door to Dusty’s and descended two steps into familiar, comfortable shadows accompanied by the buzz of conversation, the clink of ice on glass, and the practiced cadence of sports announcers from several small, outdated televisions mounted in the corners of the main room. The floor was sticky, but the glasses were clean. This was one of my favorite places in the world.
“Who’s Dusty?” Ian asked, following me to a booth along the back wall.
“No idea. The owner’s a woman in her sixties named Patience.” I slid into the booth, and before Ian could pick up the greasy, laminated snack menu, a waitress stopped beside our table, notepad in hand. “What can I get ’cha?” she asked, making a decent attempt to hide the gum in her mouth. She was new.
“Stoli and Coke. And bring me another one in fifteen minutes.”
“And for you?”
Ian slid the single-page menu between the grimy, glass salt and pepper shakers. “Crown and Coke.”
“Another in fifteen minutes?” she asked, with a grin that went unreturned.
“We’ll take it play by play.”
“Be right back.” Then the waitress was gone, and I couldn’t pretend not to see the way Ian was still looking at me.
“What’s Tower doing with the blood?” he asked softly, when the silence between us became too much.
“I can’t answer that, but you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions. What’s usually done with blood donations?” I said, leading him to deductions I couldn’t confirm.
“Transfusions. Shit.” His eyes closed, and he inhaled deeply before opening them again. “He’s making transfusions of Skilled blood. Presumably for profit.”
“A logical assumption,” I said, and for once, that was truly all I had to add. When I’d last been allowed in the building, the project was only in its testing phase.
The waitress set our glasses down on white napkins, and Ian gulped half of his drink at once, then clenched his glass so hard his dark hands went pale at the joints. I understood his anger. The Skilled are generally uncomfortable even thinking about blood spilled in large quantities, and the personal security risk that represents. Thinking of it stolen and redistributed was enough to make me sick to my stomach, even though I’d had plenty of time to get used to the idea.
“Is it permanent?” he asked, when he finally lowered his glass. “Is Tower getting ready to arm the entire population with Skills?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” I said, already tired of dancing around things I couldn’t say outright. “After any transfusion, it only takes a few hours for the new blood cells to be absorbed by the body.”
The key to communicating points you aren’t allowed to make is speaking in generalities and implications. I’d had six years to polish my skills.
“So, the transfused Skills are temporary,” Ian said, but I couldn’t confirm that, so I lifted my glass for the first sip, wishing for the days when one drink was enough to relax me. Mostly because those were the days before Jake, and the syndicate, and the loss of my free will, and the start of my body count.
“Does it work on those who already have Skills? Can he strengthen someone’s existing ability, or give people multiple Skills?” His voice got deeper and more intense with each question, but his volume never rose.
“I honestly don’t know. I’ve been out of the loop for a couple of months, but I haven’t heard about anything like that.” I drained half my glass, then caught the waitress’s eye and held my drink up, wordlessly calling for another, several minutes early.
“So, what other criminal enterprises will I be aiding and abetting, once I’ve sold my soul?”
I swirled the ice in my cup, thinking about all the possible answers. Things that would paint an accurate picture for him, but wouldn’t scare him or piss him off any worse than I probably already had with the whole black-market Skills operation.
“Well, there’re the classics, of course. He does huge trade in black-market blood samples and names. That’s where he got his start.” And those were the common-knowledge kind of things I was legitimately allowed to talk to Ian about.
“Whose names and blood?”
“Everyone’s. Anyone’s. Politicians are big business. Right before a big vote, we typically get an influx of requests from various lobbyists.”
Ian shook his head slowly and set his empty glass at the edge of the table. “I’d heard rumors… So they, what? Bind a congressman to vote a certain way?”
“Or to speak to certain key individuals whose opinions carry sway. Or to mention or avoid certain topics in interviews. Or whatever. There are about a million different ways to wag the dog.”
He started to ask another question, then waited while the waitress set down our fresh drinks and took the empty glasses.
“And Tower just sells these names and blood samples to whoever wants them?” Ian looked horrified. Again.
“Of course not. You can’t even get in to see him unless you have significant cash to flash, or some other resource he values. Usually important names and blood samples, or partial names and locations of potential new recruits.”
Ian sipped from his fresh glass, and I could smell the whiskey from across the table. “Don’t any of them notice that they’re being…compelled to do things? Or not to do things?”
I shrugged, swirling the ice cubes in my glass. “Anyone who knows what a binding is would recognize the symptoms, but if you don’t know who’s bound you and the Binder was strong enough to seal a nonconsensual binding, there isn’t much you can do to fight it, especially considering that resistance pain of just about any kind would keep you out of the big vote, or off the radio, or out of whatever spotlight you need to be in. So, worst-case scenario, whoever’s being bound won’t be able to push their own agenda, even if they manage to resist pushing yours.” I shrugged and finished my second glass. “And, of course, all transactions are nonrefundable, so Jake’s been paid either way. Win-win.”
“Unless you’re the one being bound.”
“Well, yeah.”
“And your sister’s the one who seals these bindings?”
“Most of them. She’s the best.”
“The best Tower has?” Ian said, looking up from his glass to meet my gaze in the shadows.
“The best I’ve ever seen. The best Tower’s seen, too. That’s why he keeps her so close.”
“So no one else can steal her?”
“Yeah.” But it was more than that. The seals Kenley had put in place were kept in place by her blood and her will. If those stopped flowing—if and when she died—any binding she’d sealed would be broken. Most of Jake’s indentured employees would go free. His deals with local politicians and businessmen would be void. His entire kingdom might very well collapse.
That’s why he kept Kenley close, and under twenty-four-hour armed guard.
But I couldn’t tell Ian that. I couldn’t tell anyone that. Unfortunately those with the most potential to hurt my sister already knew exactly what she was worth.
I shrugged, then motioned for the waitress to bring me a fresh drink.
“Is drunk the goal for the afternoon?” Ian asked.
I glanced at him in surprise. “Is three drinks enough to get you drunk?”
His brows rose. “Lush,” he accused.
“Lightweight,” I returned, and his eyes narrowed.
“I’ll have one more, as well,” he said to the waitress, when she picked up my empty glass. Then he met my gaze again as she left. “Your sister’s not his only Binder, though, is she? Surely he has a fail-safe. A redundancy, in case of system failure?”
I laughed. “Spoken like a systems analyst. And yeah, of course there’s another one.” But the truth was that Jake rarely used him. Barker was in his mid-sixties and already having health issues when Jake started the search for a new Binder seven years ago. In fact, Barker’s failing health was why Jake had started looking. He needed a new Binder in place to start sealing all service oaths—both new enlistments and reenlistment—long before the aging Binder died, and his seals died with him. It hadn’t taken Jake long to realize how powerful Kenley really was, and she quickly became the primary Binder. The single, fragile brick the entire structure rested on.
That was one of the few tactical errors I could point out in Jake’s quest to own the whole city—he depended too much on my sister. He got away with that by signing me—someone who wanted Kenley safe even more than Jake did. I would do anything to protect my sister—unfortunately protecting her also meant protecting Jake’s interests. Which he’d counted on.
“How long has Kenley been working as a Binder?”
“That’s a complicated question. She’s been getting paid—” and locked away from the world “—for six and a half years. But she’s been binding since she was ten.”
“Ten?” Ian’s eyes widened and his mouth opened a little in surprise.
“Yup. In fact, I was part of the very first binding she sealed. It was an accident.”
“She accidently bound you to something?”
“To three of my friends. We were just messing around, like girls do, promising to always be there for one another, and Kenley said we should write it down. Looking back, it seems obvious that she was feeling the first manifestation of her Skill, but at the time, we didn’t know we came from Skilled blood. So we went along with her suggestion that we prick our thumbs and stamp them under this promise she’d scribbled on a scrap of paper, and that was that.”
“Wow. How long did the binding last?” Ian asked, and my laughter that time sounded bitter and tasted even worse.
“It’s still intact.” Sixteen years ago, my little sister had bound me to my three best friends—Olivia, Annika and Noelle—and I’d been tied to them ever since. That oath was the reason I’d had no choice but to help Liv and Anne when they’d called. That oath was the reason I’d gotten shot, the reason Jake got shot and the reason I’d spent six weeks being tortured in his basement.
“How is that even possible?” Ian frowned, and there was something new behind his eyes. It looked like…fear. But surely that was just the dim lighting playing tricks. He wasn’t scared of signing with Jake, so why on earth would he be scared of my little sister?
“I don’t know. She hadn’t had any training. My best guess is that the purity of her intent was off the charts. She really wanted us to be friends forever.” Another shrug. “She thought of them as her friends, too.”
“And did that work? Are you still close to the other three?” Ian looked fascinated, but I couldn’t miss the tight line of his jaw and the way his hand still clutched his glass.
“The binding worked flawlessly. The intent failed miserably.” And all of us had suffered from both.
“So you don’t talk to them anymore?”
I shrugged. “Noelle’s dead. Olivia and Anne…well, it’s not safe for us to see each other,” I said, and Ian frowned, like he wanted to argue. Like he might want to convince me that nothing was more important than our human connections—a concept my grandmother had drilled into me from the day my parents died. But I didn’t need to hear that from him. “Bindings never favor those being bound, Ian. Ever. Even most married couples who are totally, sloppily in love when they say the words will one day resent the binding that ties them together.”
His brows rose. “You don’t believe in love?”
“Of course I believe in love,” I admitted, and his eyes widened in surprise. “But I also believe that binding yourself to someone is the quickest, most efficient way to kill that love. Love should stand on its own feet, with no force or obligation.”
“So, you’d never sign a sealed marriage contract?”
“Hell no. Binding yourself to someone else is like literally tying yourself to them. Eventually the ropes start chafing and you can’t move without pain and the constant reminder that even if you wanted to leave, you couldn’t. When love has to be defined by an inability to leave, it isn’t really love. Real love is staying with someone because you want to be there, not because you have no other choice. Anything else is just lust, or obsession, or something less innocent.”
The waitress set our third drinks on the table, and I asked for the check and two glasses of water. But Ian was still frowning, still thinking through my discourse on love. “Is Tower bound to his wife?”
“Not in the way that you’re thinking.” He wasn’t obligated to stay with her, and the opposite was also true. “And she’s not bound to the syndicate, either. She’s his wife, not his employee.”
“And you like that about him?”
“No.” There was nothing I liked about Jake Tower, except the fact that he’d kept Kenley safe, even if he had his own reasons for doing that. “But I respect it.”
Ian nodded faster, like he understood. “But you don’t respect his business—the political influence that is his bread and butter?”
“Names and blood are his bread and butter. Which sounds kind of disgusting, when you put it that way. But he doesn’t limit himself to politics. He works with casting directors, record labels, and all kinds of the rich and soulless who’ll do and pay anything to slant the odds in their favor. He also has a growing reputation with patent holders and inventors in the technical sector. You wouldn’t believe how much money there is to be made in new tech. And how reluctant the designers are to give up their rights to their own inventions.”
“Bastards. Where’s their team spirit?” Ian’s eyes sparkled in good humor for the first time since he’d seen Jake’s pet project.
“Always thinking of themselves,” I said, grasping at an opportunity to lighten the mood, because anything was better than the way he’d been looking at me earlier. “There’s no I in intellectual property.”
“So, where does Tower get these names and blood samples? I assume he doesn’t just go jabbing strangers with needles.”
“Don’t assume anything.” I drained the last of my drink and thanked the waitress when she set two glasses of water on the table. When she was gone, he watched me, waiting for me to continue. “Let’s just say there’s a nurse’s uniform hanging in my closet, and it’s not for Halloween.”
“Stealth phlebotomy. Illegal, immoral and incredibly dangerous. But also devilishly clever. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t my idea, and I’m not proud of it. There are a million other ways to do it, though. Shadow-walk into one of the older courthouses, where they still keep physical copies of birth and marriage certificates. Steal someone’s wallet. Break into the bloodmobile while everyone’s gone to lunch.”
“And you don’t feel guilty about that? About taking blood meant to save someone’s life?”
I shrugged, hoping he couldn’t read the thoughts behind my next words. “Guilt is one of those concepts that has no practical application.” And the truth was that the blood I took did save someone’s life. It kept Jake—not to mention my own body—from killing me for disobeying orders.
“So, what would I be doing, specifically. What did the last Blinder do?”
“Not as much as you’ll be able to do, that’s for sure.”
“Because I’m stronger?” He looked vaguely uncomfortable as he spoke, like he wasn’t used to honking his own horn.
“That and because you’re…um…” I made a vague gesture at his face, reluctant both to admit the truth and to understand that reluctance.
“I’m…um…left-handed?” Ian grinned. “A democrat? A nonsmoker?”
I huffed in irritation. He was going to make me say it. “Because you don’t smell like cheese, jiggle when you walk, or snort with every other breath because you refuse to get your sinuses flushed out. Also, you’re not…horribly offensive to the eyes.” I mumbled the last part, hoping he wouldn’t hear, yet wouldn’t ask me to repeat.
“Ms. Daniels, unless I’ve misinterpreted that colorful description of everything I’m not, it sounds like you just paid me a compliment.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what I did.” In fact, I’d gone out of my way to make sure that’s not what I was doing.
“Oh, I think it is. I think you just said that I’d be better at the job than Tower’s last Blinder was because I’m not unattractive. First of all, thank you. Compliment accepted.” He bowed his head slightly, like I’d just offered to crown him king of the universe. Then, in the next second, he pasted on a frown. “Second of all, I am offended on behalf of pretty people everywhere. I’m not just a chiseled jaw and eyes you could get lost in. I am worth more than the sum of my defined biceps, sculpted pecs and a six-pack you could scrub laundry on.”
I nearly choked on an ice cube. “You have a six-pack?”
“Okay, maybe a four-pack. At least a carton of hard lemonade. But my point is that you have no right to judge my potential as a crime lord’s lackey by my looks alone.”
I nodded solemnly. “Don’t hate you because you’re beautiful. Got it.”
His brows rose and I knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth. “You just called me beautiful.”
“My point was that you’ll be able to blend in when you need to and stand out when you need to, and Ray Bailey couldn’t do either of those. You’ll be able to flirt your way into secure spaces, then open the door for a Traveler to bring in the rest of the crew.”
“You’re saying that Tower will exploit me for my looks?” Holt asked, and at first I thought that was another joke. It seemed too obvious a statement to be serious.
“He’ll exploit everything you are and everything you have. Your job description will read something like, ‘whatever the hell Jake Tower wants from you.’”
Someone cleared her throat next to our table, and I looked up to see the waitress standing there with nothing in her hands. “Is there anything else I can get you two?” she asked, and I realized she was hinting at the check, which meant her shift was probably over.
“No, I think we’re fine.” I set my credit card on top of the bill—the syndicate would reimburse me after I filed the receipt—and she slid both into the pocket of her black apron. Then she picked up my empty short glass and when she turned to say something to Ian, the glass she held slammed into Ian’s full glass of water. Which then slammed into mine. The water from both glasses poured over the edge of the table and onto my lap like a miniature waterfall. An ice-cold waterfall that splashed all the way up to my chin and soaked through my jeans so fast I may as well have been sitting on a glacier.
The waitress stared, frozen. And for a moment, I was too stunned to move.
Then that moment was over.
“Son of a motherfucking, ass-reaming, shit-eating, hell-dodging soulless bitch!” I stood too fast and my head swam, and the water poured down my pants to form freezing puddles in my boots.
Ian burst into laughter, the waitress burst into tears, and more profanity exploded from my mouth so fast I couldn’t even tell what I was saying. But the whole damn bar heard it.
“I’m so sorry!” the waitress blubbered. “Here, let me help.” She pulled off her grease-stained black apron and started wiping at my crotch until a growl rumbled up from somewhere deep inside me.
“Get. The fuck. Off me,” I said, so soft I barely heard the words. She backed away, clutching her apron in one shaking fist.
“I’m so sorry. Let me take care of the bill.” She set my credit card back on the table.
“It’s coming out of your check,” the bartender called from across the bar, and the waitress flinched.
“That’s not necessary.” Ian dropped a fifty and a twenty on the table, then grabbed my credit card and reached for my arm. But he stopped just short of touching me and held one hand out toward the back of the bar instead, gesturing for me to go first.
I stomped stiffly toward the bathroom, acutely aware that everyone was watching me. There was no sound, other than our footsteps. No silverware clanged. No ice cubes clinked. There was just me and my walk of shame.
In the back hall, Ian held the door to the tiny, one-person women’s room for me, then followed me in and bolted the door while I cursed under my breath. “It’s just a little water,” he said, pulling handfuls of brown paper towels from the dispenser next to the sink.
“It’s fucking Niagara Falls in my pants. With ice.”
“There is a backlog of crude jokes in here just begging to be cracked,” he said, tapping his own temple for emphasis. “But I want you to know that I’m holding them all back out of respect for your pain. I, too, have been the victim of an ice-water crotch deluge. There’s no way to bear it gracefully.”
“You’re fucking right about that.” And frankly, I was surprised to hear that he knew any crude jokes.
He chuckled again while I snatched the first handful of towels from him and started blotting my pants. “You can’t help it, can you?”
“Can’t help what?” I was cold. And wet. And starting to shiver, which pissed me off.
“Profanity flows through your veins like blood, doesn’t it? I bet you can’t go a single day without bursting into a string of expletives foul enough to set a nun’s habit on fire.”
“The hell I can’t,” I mumbled, and he laughed again. “I said I could. I didn’t say I would.”
Ian stared down at me, green eyes practically shining with amusement, and my pulse spiked when I realized how small the bathroom was, and how close together we stood. “I dare you.” The words were soft, his voice intense, like he was challenging more than just my proclivity for profanity.
I had to reach around him to drop the first handful of wet paper towels into the trash, and for one dizzying second, the full length of his body was pressed against mine, because there was nowhere else to go. “What are we, twelve?” I asked, desperately hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in my voice.
“No self-respecting twelve-year-old would balk over a simple dare.”
“I’m not balking,” I insisted, suddenly short of breath now that the shocking cold of spilled water had given way to the body heat building between us in the small space. “This is not what I look like when I balk.”
“You’re right.” He tilted his head, pretending to study me from another angle. “This is definitely the face of cowardice. It’s a subtle difference.”
“Smart-ass.” I took the next handful of tissues as he offered them. “Fine. But for the record, this is a stupid fucking dare. What are the terms?”
“It’s a bet, not a contract negotiation.” He shrugged. “Don’t cuss. If you do, you lose.”
I frowned up at him, trying not to see the flecks of brown in his green eyes, almost mesmerizing from such a close vantage point. “You’re a piss-poor negotiator. Do yourself a favor. Take a lawyer with you when you meet with Jake.”
“I kind of feel like I need one now.”
“You and me both. State your terms.” Was the air-conditioning even on? How could I be so warm now, when I was freezing a minute earlier?
“Twenty-four hours. No cussing. No exceptions.”
“What about life-and-death situations? No one could keep from cussing with a knife in her back or a bullet lodged in her chest,” I said, plucking at the wet material clinging to my legs—until my hand brushed his thigh, and I froze, half embarrassed, half…intrigued.
“Are you planning to be shot or stabbed in the next twenty-four hours?” he asked, like he hadn’t even noticed, and I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved by that or insulted.
“Were you there in the alley? If I get hurt, it’ll be in the line of duty, keeping your ass from getting poached.”
“No exceptions,” Ian insisted. “But if that’s too much for you…?”
I frowned up at him. “You are such a child. Fine. No cussing for twenty-four hours. Starting now.” I pulled my phone from my pocket to glance at the time. “Two thirty-four p.m. What do I get when I win?”
He smiled and spread both arms, and for a moment, I thought he was offering himself as the prize, and I flushed at the thought. For just a second. “My undying respect.”
I didn’t even bother to hide my disappointment. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
His left eyebrow rose. “My respect has no value to you?”
“That’s not what I…” In fact, for no reason I could explain, considering that we’d just met, I did want his respect. But I also wanted free will, a billion dollars and a bathtub full of Häagen-Dazs, and I wasn’t going to get any of those, either. “How ’bout we assume the fair market value of your undying respect is…a bottle of Grey Goose. The big one. Because your respect means that much to me.”
He laughed. “Oddly, I’m flattered.”
“But are you ready to put your money where your mouth is? I dare you to go the rest of your visit without slacks.”
His mouth actually dropped open a little in surprise. “You want me to take off my pants?” he said, and when I realized what my dare had sounded like, I could feel my cheeks flame. But I couldn’t make my tongue work right.
“That’s not what I… I mean, I dare you to wear jeans for the rest of your visit, instead of slacks. And no tie. I bet you can’t go the next four and a half days without your stuffy, corporate zombie clothes.”
His grin seemed to warm his face, like he might still be thinking about that first misinterpretation of my dare. “Why four and a half days? You’re only on the hook for twenty-four hours.”
“To make up for the difference in the degree of difficulty. Unless you don’t think you can do it.”
“You’re on. And if I win?”
“What do you want?” I asked, and regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
Ian stared down at me again from inches away, so close I could feel the heat from his skin through both layers of clothes. I could see what he wanted—some hint of it, anyway—in his eyes. And again, my breath deserted me.
“A compliment.”
“What?” His answer was so unexpected I couldn’t even make sense of it.
“If I win, you have to tell me what you like best about me. With a straight face.”
“That’s it?” Was his ego that malnourished?
“That’s it.” His smile was a quiet challenge, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was some kind of trick.
“Fine. Let’s get out of here.” I unbolted the door and turned off the light, and his hand slid into mine like he’d been planning that since the moment he’d closed the door behind us. I stepped forward—there was only room for a single step—and he walked with me. A second later, we were in the bathroom of his hotel room, left dark on purpose that morning.
He let go of my hand and pulled the door open, and light poured in from the bedroom, but I stayed put when he stepped into it. “I have to go change, and I need to report to Jake after that. Will you be okay for a couple of hours?”
“I’ve been staying home by myself since I was nine, Kori.”
“So you’ve got it down by now, right? I’ll see you back here at four.”
Ian nodded and started to close the door, then stopped and looked at me, and there was something in his expression I couldn’t quite identify. “Will we be working together?” he asked. “If I sign with Tower?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “Probably. But you never can tell with Jake. Why? Is that a deal-breaker?” I was joking. At least, I was trying to. But he didn’t laugh.
“Quite the opposite. I think that may be the only thing that would make wearing his chain links bearable.”