“What kind of protection?”
Kori exhaled heavily and fiddled with the knife next to her plate. “I’m not allowed to discuss the specifics of my contract with Tower. But life in the syndicate can be really hard for a pretty twenty-year-old woman with only one chain link on her arm. Especially one who doesn’t know how to shoot or fight. So I negotiated for a position with enough power to protect her. Then I defended that position by taking down everyone who got in my face, to make sure they all knew what would happen if they messed with either of us.”
She shrugged to punctuate what felt like a confession, and I could only stare at her, trying in vain to reconcile the beautiful, almost dainty-looking woman with the warrior I—and the entire west half of the city—knew her to be.
Kori picked up one of four silver spoons on the platter and sniffed at the single bite it held, then set the spoon down again and made a face. “I think the salmon is underdone.”
She was obviously trying to change the subject, and I decided not to push the issue. I didn’t know what to do with what she’d already told me, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take with her sitting across from me, barely-but-elegantly draped in thin black silk.
There was nothing under that blouse. There couldn’t be. Nothing but her.
“It’s smoked,” I said, picking up one of the spoons, just so I’d have something else to look at. And something to occupy my hands and my mouth, which seemed to be forming an alternate plan of their own, involving thin ribbons of black silk, bare skin and any room with a decent lock on the door.
“So it’s raw?” Kori looked horrified. “People actually pay someone to not-cook their food? Even cavemen had fire.”
I laughed. “Try it. You might like it.” I ate one of the bite-size appetizers in demonstration, but she only frowned. “Am I going to have to dare you?”
“Low blow,” she mumbled, choosing one of the three remaining spoons. “If I get sick from raw fish, I’m blaming you.”
“If you get sick from a thirty-five-dollar smoked salmon appetizer at one of the best restaurants in the city, I’ll nurse you back to health myself.”
That time she smiled. And ate a spoonful of smoked salmon. But she obviously had to force herself to swallow.
“Not for you?” I asked, laughing at the face she made. In answer, she pushed the platter toward me and took a drink of wine, but that only twisted her expression into a stronger display of dislike.
“I’m two minutes away from ordering a burger and a beer,” she threatened, pushing the wineglass away, too. “How can you drink this sh— Uh, this stuff?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” I said, lifting my own glass. “Much like the syndicate, I suppose.”
“I guess.” Kori shrugged and watched me from across the table. “The big difference between Jake and uncooked salmon is that eating what he serves will eventually kill you.”
Thirteen
Kori
After the waiter came to refill his glass—mine was still full—Ian excused himself to go to the bathroom. I watched him make his way across the restaurant, pointedly ignoring my wine, wondering for the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours what Ian was looking for from Jake. And how I would be able to live with myself once he was bound, knowing I was the one who’d led the sheep to slaughter.
Halfway to the bathroom, Ian turned to speak to someone, and my heart nearly stopped when I saw Julia Tower stand from the table where she and Jonah had just been served their own appetizer. No doubt Jake had sent them to make sure I was getting the job done. Treating Ian right.
She and Ian spoke, and she laughed at whatever he’d said, and suddenly I desperately wished I could read lips. She would hear the truth—or lack of—in whatever he said. As a Reader, Julia was her brother’s best and most trusted source of inside information. And one of my least favorite people in the world.
After another minute, she let him escape to the restroom, and if he’d come to hate her half as much as I had, the urinals in the men’s room must have been a much more welcome sight than her face.
When he disappeared around the corner, she looked right at me, then started across the restaurant in my direction.
Fuck!
“I have to say, you’ve impressed me with this one,” Julia said, sinking into Ian’s empty chair uninvited.
“Because I’m still alive?”
“Because he actually likes you. And he thinks you like him.” She picked up my wineglass and sipped from it, then held it as she crossed her legs and leaned closer, like she’d let me in on a secret. “I must admit, you’re playing this one very smart. Jake will be pleased.”
“Um…thanks?”
I never knew what to say to Julia, because I was never quite sure what she was talking about, but if I lied, she’d know it. So I usually treated her like I’d treat any snake in red satin—I avoided her like the plague. And when avoidance wasn’t possible, I tried my best to dodge both fangs and venom.
She twisted the glass, swirling the red wine, and I found myself watching the way light shone through it. Anything to avoid eye contact with her. But I couldn’t stop her from watching me.
“Uh-oh.” She set the glass down and lifted my chin with one finger. I slapped her hand away, but it was too late. She’d already seen…something. Or maybe she’d pretended to see something. I never could tell with Julia. Her silence was as toxic as her words. “He’s right, isn’t he? You actually like him.”
I didn’t answer, because the answer didn’t matter. If I told the truth, she’d know. If I lied, she’d know. Silence was my only defense.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Kori,” she whispered while my blood rushed fast enough to make me dizzy. “You know this isn’t real. The reality is that he’s champagne, and you’re malt liquor.” She spat the last phrase like it actually tasted bad, and my fingers twitched in my lap, itching to curl into fists. But if I punched her, that punch would be the last I ever threw. “His career path will take him soaring, and yours has already landed you in the basement.”
“Shut up,” I growled, itching to call her all the names running through my head.
“I’m trying to help you, Kori. I’m trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”
That was a lie. It had to be. She would never help me, unless helping me somehow benefited her. But what could she possible gain from this?
“Just let him play his game. Let him fantasize until he’s satisfied, then he’ll sign with Jake and you’ll be off the hook. There’s no reason for you to get hurt by this.”
I shouldn’t have asked. I knew better than to ask. Just because she could read the truth didn’t mean she would speak it. But after everything I’d already shown Ian—everything I’d told him—if I’d given him that much power over me and he was playing some kind of game, I was screwed.
“What game?” I hated myself for asking. For giving her that opening. But I had to know.
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open in a staged display of surprise. She didn’t even try to make it believable. “Seduction, Kori. The game of seduction.” Fake surprise melted from her expression to expose her natural look. Malice. The snake was about to strike. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
I rolled my eyes. “He is not trying to seduce me.”
“I think this has gone beyond ‘trying.’”
“You are so full of…crap.”
She lifted one brow over my uncharacteristically tame language. “So, he hasn’t told you you’re beautiful? He doesn’t try to make you smile? He doesn’t look right into your eyes when he talks to you, so you feel important?”
“That doesn’t mean anything, except that he’s a nice guy.” Too nice for the syndicate. Too nice for me.
Julia leaned closer, looking deep into my eyes in search of what every predator wants: fear. “Then why did he lie about what you showed him this afternoon?”
Of course she knew he’d lied. She’d probably smelled his i
ntent before he even opened his mouth.
“Why do you think Jake let him get away with that?” Julia demanded, her voice hard now, a little too angry to be truly taunting. “Why do you think he let Holt cover for you?”
“Because he didn’t know?”
Julia’s frown deepened, and I realized she hadn’t wanted Ian to get away with his lie. She’d wanted Jake to punish me. “Jake knows everything. I make sure of that. He let Holt lie for you because that’s part of the game. Holt was playing the hero, protecting the damsel to win her over, and you fell for it.”
“You’re lying.” But I couldn’t even make myself believe that.
“Think about it, Kori.” She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed confidently over her chest. “Why would a man like Ian tolerate a woman like you? Why would he put up with brash and impulsive when he could have friendly and willing from any girl in Jake’s stable?”
I couldn’t answer. I had no answer.
“He’s kept you around for the same reason a lion would rather kill its own dinner than eat from a dish. He wants the hunt. He wants to play the game. Even if the game is rigged.” She shrugged, and her eyes flashed with cruelty. “After all, he will win. He gets to pretend to win you over with no chance of failure, because in the end, you’re a sure thing. Right? The key is to never let him feel like he’s hunting caged prey. The harder you feign disinterest, the more he will want you.” Julia leaned even closer, staring into my eyes, enjoying whatever she saw there. “You can do that, right? You can make him feel like this is real? Like he’s really working toward a prize?”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think past the horrible ache in my chest. I didn’t want to know what that pain meant, or how it could possibly hurt worse than what I’d lived through in the basement.
“I’m sorry, Kori,” she said, her words sweet, her tone vicious. “I guess Jake just doesn’t understand how badly a girl can be hurt by a game, if she doesn’t know she’s playing.” Julia drained the wine from my glass, then set it down. “Or maybe he doesn’t care.” She smiled sweetly, then, and made her way back to her own table, where Jonah sat watching us both.
I sat at the table alone when she left, silently cursing Ian for accepting Jake’s invitation, Jake for forcing me into this assignment and Jake’s mother for giving birth to any of her three hell-spawn children in the first place. But by the time Ian got back to the table, just as the waiter brought out two bowls of soup, I’d moved on to cursing myself for ever believing a word any of them said. I could blame Jake, Julia and Ian until the day the sun devoured the entire planet, but that would never erase the fact that I’d broken my own number-one rule.
Trust no one.
Me, Kenley and Kris. It had been the three of us against the world since the day our parents died, leaving us with a grandmother who hadn’t wanted kids of her own, much less grandchildren. They were the only ones I could trust. The only people I could lean on. Except that Kris was an hour away, and now Kenley had Vanessa. I was alone in a mess of my own making. And I had no idea how to get out of it.
“You okay?” Ian asked, lifting a spoonful of soup to his mouth.
“I saw you with Julia Tower,” I said, stirring my own soup with my spoon. “What did she want?”
“She was asking about you,” he said, and I watched him carefully, wishing for the first time in my life that I was a Reader rather than a Traveler. Shadow-walking had always made me feel safe and kind of stealthy, because I could get out of almost any situation armed with nothing more than a decent shadow. But whether or not Julia had been lying, she’d showed me one thing for sure—I could shadow-walk away from danger, but I couldn’t walk away from the truth. Hell, lately I couldn’t even identify it.
What if I’d been wrong about Ian from the start? What if it was all a game and everything I thought I knew about him was a lie? What else could I have been wrong about?
“What did you tell her?” I asked, when he studied my face, frowning.
“I told her you’ve been the consummate hostess. That you’re beyond reproach, and that her brother couldn’t have chosen anyone better to show off his empire and its many, varied offerings.”
But Jake hadn’t chosen me. He’d just given Ian what he asked for.
“So, you’re enjoying yourself?” I heard the hollow note in my voice, but I couldn’t fix it. I didn’t know how to act like I was having fun when Julia had just pulled the rug out from under my feet and stuck around to watch me stumble off balance. I was angry, and confused, and more scared than I would ever admit, and it took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from spewing profanity into the heavens.
Unfortunately self-restraint was a poor substitute for gratitude and a love-struck gaze, or whatever Ian expected to see, if Julia was telling the truth. And suddenly I realized she’d known that. Had she set me up to fail, by telling me about Ian’s game, knowing I couldn’t play along if I knew I was playing at all?
Or was the whole thing a lie intended to make me paranoid and even more shrewish than usual?
“Well, this isn’t exactly a vacation,” Ian said, answering a question I’d forgotten I asked. “Why? What’s wrong, Kori?”
“Is there something you want from me that you haven’t gotten?” I demanded softly, holding his gaze. Silently daring him to tell me the truth, if there was anything to be told.
“Well, yes.” He frowned. “Last I heard, you were still trying to figure that part out.”
Right. Whatever it was that would make him sign. “And what you need from Jake, it’s not some kind of game, is it? You’re not just playing a game here?”
Ian pushed his soup bowl toward the middle of the table and leaned closer, his gaze holding mine captive. “No, Kori. I know I joke a lot, and the truth is that I like to see you smile. You don’t do enough of that. But I’m not playing games with your boss. I came here with very serious intent. I swear on my own free will.”
And that I believed. But whether he’d meant to or not, he’d misunderstood what game I was talking about.
“What brought this up?” he asked, handing his half-empty bowl to the waiter who already held mine. I hadn’t taken a single bite. “Did Julia say something to you?”
“We don’t get along,” I admitted. “Which sucks, because Jake listens to her.”
“Well, I gave her nothing negative to report, so try to forget about her.” He smiled at something over my shoulder. “Your lobster is here.”
I made it through the rest of the meal without losing either my mind or my temper, mostly because the food—the parts I recognized, anyway—was amazing and when I got back from my own restroom break, Ian had ordered something with vodka in it to replace the second glass of wine I’d turned down.
I tried to tell myself that he was being nice, not manipulative, but that was hard to believe because in my world the reverse was almost always true. Even a second drink and a huge slice of the most delicious chocolate cake I’d ever tasted weren’t enough to completely settle my nerves. Julia’s interference led me to look for hidden meaning in everything Ian said. She made me overanalyze every smile, every second of eye contact. And she wasn’t finished.
After dinner, I ducked into the restroom one more time, and when I came out of the stall, she was standing at the row of sinks, watching me in the mirror. “It’ll be tonight,” she said, her mouth hardly moving as she dabbed gloss onto her lower lip. “He sounds like he’s ready to move in for the kill. So to speak.”
I squirted citrus-scented sanitizer on my hands. “What, you’re psychic now, too?”
“You don’t have to be psychic to see what’s obvious. When you drop him off, he’ll ask you to stay for drinks. Then he’ll just ask you to stay…”
She turned to leave, then twisted to glance at me in the mirror one last time, her palm flat on the door. “Don’t make it too easy for him, okay? Even a caged rabbit struggles a little before it’s caught.” Then she pushed the door open and left me staring at my o
wn reflection, breathing too fast, my blood pumping fear and anger through my veins.
I tried to breathe, like Kenley had shown me. In and out, exhaling all the hate and pain. But this time it didn’t work. This time memories weren’t the problem, so burying them couldn’t help. If Julia was telling the truth, I was trapped as thoroughly now by my own bindings as I’d ever been by the basement walls. And knowing what was coming didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
You can do this. You have to do this.
I sucked in one last deep breath, then turned for the door, determined to cling to dignity until the last possible moment. But then the rage inside me crested and a wordless shout of fury erupted from my mouth. I whirled toward the sink and my fist slammed into the glass above it. The mirror shattered and slices of it fell everywhere, breaking into smaller shards in the sink basins and on the floor at my feet. And for about three seconds, I felt better.