Great. That was no better than shooting her myself.
“But, Ian, the consequences aren’t the problem here. The real hurdle is convincing her to break her own seal. Seals are held intact by will of the Binder. You can’t just hold a gun to her head and tell her to withdraw her will from the binding. She has to want to break the seal. And if you can’t get within shooting distance of her, what makes you think you can get close enough to explain what you want and convince her to want it, too? Steven doesn’t have forever, you know. Meghan can’t hold out much longer.”
I exhaled slowly, my brain racing. This should have been a no-brainer. My brother and his girlfriend—my best friend’s sister, whom I’d known her whole life—or a woman I’d known less than thirty-two hours. I couldn’t let Steven die, but every time I thought about killing to protect him, I saw Kori in my head. Pale hair, petite build and pixieish features alternately reflecting fierce determination and haunted pain. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to make her smile. I wanted to protect her.
I wanted her not to die a prolonged, agonized death, screaming my name in fury, hating me until her last breath.
I sank onto the couch again and met his gaze over the coffee table. “One more day,” I said. “Can Meghan hold on for one more day?”
Aaron looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What is it about this girl? You’ve only known her for a day.”
“You’d understand if you met her. She needs my help.”
He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slowly. “She doesn’t need you. She doesn’t even want you—you said that yourself. And even if she did, she’s not worth it. She’s a killer!”
“If she’s killed, Tower made her do it.”
His frown deepened. “And you think being bound to follow orders absolves her of any guilt?”
I exhaled slowly, trying to swallow a sudden surge of guilt and anger when what I really wanted to do was unleash it on him. “I’ve killed under orders, Aaron.”
“You were a soldier.”
“That doesn’t make it right. I’m no more innocent than she is, so if you think hating Kori will make it easier for you to kill her sister to save yours, you may as well hate me, too. She had nothing to do with what happened to Steven.” But we both knew I had, even if inadvertently.
“You’ve lost perspective,” Aaron said, and he sounded sad.
He was right. Being near Kori was like standing on an iron plate holding a compass. I couldn’t tell which way was north. I couldn’t tell what was right. I only knew that I couldn’t kill her sister, and just knowing one plan was impossible made the other look more doable. “One more day, Aaron.”
He frowned. “Ian, I’m not going to let my sister die.”
“I know. Just ask her for one more day.”
Aaron hesitated. He stared at me. And finally he sighed. “I’ll ask her. But if you haven’t broken the binding by this time tomorrow, I’ll do it myself.”
“It won’t come to that,” I insisted. But I couldn’t tell if he believed me.
Hell, I couldn’t tell if I believed myself.
Fifteen
Kori
I shadow-walked into my bedroom and didn’t even have to stretch to reach the light switch, possibly the only advantage to living in very cramped quarters. I had Kenley’s ruined sandals off before I even reached the door and I pulled her blouse over my head as I left the room.
The bathroom was two steps to the right of my room, but the door was closed and a line of light glowed beneath it, so I tossed the shirt through my sister’s open bedroom doorway and ducked into my room for a T-shirt, then stomped through the living room as I pulled it over my head. In the kitchen, I opened the cabinet over the microwave and stared at a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka.
Another drink wouldn’t fix anything. But it couldn’t hurt, either, and I’d thrown up everything I drank at Ian’s.
I was trying to decide whether to bother with a glass or gulp straight from the bottle when the bathroom door creaked open and Vanessa stepped into the living room, wearing her own robe this time.
She’d brought a robe.
“It’s getting crowded around here.” I set the bottle down and reached for a clean glass from the dish drainer.
“Sorry.” Vanessa shrugged and sat on the arm of the couch. “I didn’t think one extra toothbrush would make that much difference.”
I pulled an ice tray from the freezer and dropped it on the counter to break up the cubes. Kenley always overfilled it, so they never came out easily. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” I said, dropping the first cube into my glass, “but Kenley is off-limits. Untouchable.” At least until Tower decided whether or not to kill me.
“I did hear that.” She crossed the room and sank onto a bar stool across the counter from me, as if I didn’t scare her. But that couldn’t be right.
“Being a girl doesn’t exempt you from that.” I dropped in another cube, then poured an inch of vodka into the glass. Then I poured another inch.
“No, it doesn’t. What exempts me is the fact that she wants me here.”
I stared into Van’s eyes, trying to see the truth, to believe that what I wanted for my sister was even possible in the syndicate. Trying to believe in human connection that wasn’t based on a lie or born in pain. Could a new relationship possibly take root in Jake’s world without being choked by the bitter weeds he’d planted?
What if Vanessa was one of those weeds? I knew nothing about her, and Kenley couldn’t know much more. What if he’d sent her to get close to Kenley and earn her trust—maybe even her affection—so that after he’d killed me, he’d still have someone to threaten in order to control her.
“What are your intentions with my sister?” I said, twisting my glass on the counter when I couldn’t read anything definite in her eyes. I thought she’d laugh. I wouldn’t have taken that question seriously in her position. But her eye contact remained steady and she answered without so much as a smile.
“I intend to love her for as long as she’ll let me. Then a little longer than that.”
I blinked. Then I frowned. “You love her? You don’t even know her.”
“Love is supposed to last forever, Kori. Not take forever. But if it makes you feel any better, Kenley and I had been together almost a month before Jake locked you up.”
I pushed aside the dark flash of memory her reminder dredged up—it hadn’t been far from the surface anyway—and focused on the middle part of her statement. Three months. They’d been together for three months, and I hadn’t known?
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Vanessa shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her that. But here’s why I didn’t tell anyone. You know how when you’re a kid and you get a shiny new toy, you don’t want to share it for a while? You just want to keep it to yourself? It’s like that.”
I frowned. “Are you calling my sister your toy?”
“I’m calling our relationship shiny and new. And I’d really appreciate it if you could resist the urge to smudge it up for a while.”
“Why would I smudge up your shiny new relationship with my sister?”
“Because you’re worried about her. Or jealous. Or maybe both.”
I wanted to tell Van she was full of shit, but that didn’t feel true. I was worried about Kenley. Constantly. And as much as I loved her and as willing as I was to do anything to protect her, I’d never been more jealous of anyone in my life.
I hated myself for even thinking that, but it was true. I was jealous of the cocoon I’d wrapped around Kenley. Jealous of the decisions she’d never had to make. I was jealous of the fact that she could be with whomever she wanted, without wondering whether what she felt was real or was manufactured by a powerful man pushing her around a life-size chessboard like a pawn to be sacrificed at will.
I was jealous of how well Kenley slept at night, free from nightmares about a darkness she couldn’t master and a sentence she couldn’t escape.
; Desperate to reclaim the numbness, I picked up my glass.
“That won’t help,” Vanessa said, before I could take the first sip. “In fact, drinking can make the flashbacks harder to fight. Anything that impairs your concentration will.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped, then drained the glass, leaving only ice to clink in the bottom.
“Yes, I do.” She exhaled slowly. “You’re not the only one, Kori.”
“Get out.” I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t even think about it without feeling sick and wanting to break something. Someone. It was easier to drink until I didn’t have to think about anything.
Vanessa didn’t get out. She didn’t even get off the bar stool. “You need to talk to someone, and you obviously don’t want to talk to your sister.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you haven’t told her.” Van ducked to catch my gaze. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know.”
“Go away, Vanessa. This isn’t social hour and I don’t need your fu—” I’m not sure why I swallowed the word. I didn’t give a damn about that stupid bet, and I’d consider us all lucky if Ian hadn’t already called Jake and told him what I’d said. What I’d done. “I don’t want to play group therapy.”
“I understand. Just let me say one more thing, and I’ll let it go.”
“If you say it wasn’t my fault, I’m going to punch you in the face.” And I meant it. I wasn’t in denial and I had no patience for stupid therapeutic clichés. Or for therapy at all, for that matter.
“That’s true, but it’s not what I was going to say.” She leaned on the counter with both elbows and looked right into my eyes. “I was going to say that it will get better. Eventually, there will be days when you won’t think about it. Days you won’t see his face when you close your eyes.”
“I don’t see his face when I close my eyes,” I insisted, pouring another inch of vodka over the melting ice cubes. My flashbacks were all pain and the stench of his sweat. His breath. The fact that I hadn’t been able to see well enough to focus on his face was the only mercy. “But I do see him when they’re open. I see him every day, and every day I want to kill him. And one day I will.”
“Do you think that will fix it?” Van asked, and it took me a second to realize she was honestly curious. “Will killing him make you feel better?”
“I don’t know. And I doubt it matters. If I get the chance to kill him, it’ll be the last thing I ever do.” Because Jake would have me killed for killing his brother. “But at least he’ll get to hell before I do.”
* * *
After Vanessa went back to bed—Kenley slept through our entire conversation—I lay awake in my room, trying to assess the damage I’d done to both my life and my sister’s. Based on the fact that no one had burst into the apartment to haul us out, I had to assume that Ian hadn’t reported the night’s events yet. But there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t, and I had to be prepared for that very real possibility.
I needed a plan. Even worse than that, I needed a way out, if not for me, at least for Kenley.
The next morning, after a scant four hours of sleep, I waited until I heard Kenley get in the shower—I could tell it was her by the off-key singing—then I hurried into the kitchen, where Vanessa was starting a pot of coffee.
“How much do you love my sister?” I asked, sliding onto a bar stool in front of her.
She eyed me from across the counter. “As tempted as I am to demonstrate how incredibly none-of-your-business that is…” She set the bag of coffee grounds between us and met my gaze head-on. “I love her enough to be terrified that her feelings aren’t as strong.”
“And what if that’s true? Do you love her enough to protect her even if she doesn’t love you as much as you love her? Do you love her enough to fight for her?”
Vanessa tied her robe at her waist and planted both hands flat on the counter between us. “Kori, my dad sold me into the skin trade as a teenager,” she said, and for a second, I couldn’t think beyond the horror that thought brought with it. “Your sister is one of only two good things to happen to me since I was fifteen. The other was Cam Caballero. I lost my best friend when he left, and Kenley is the only thing I have left. I would do anything for her.”
I smiled in relief. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
“Should I be worried?” she asked, pouring grounds into the filter.
“Terrified. We all should be.” I took a deep breath, then launched into a quick summary of the trouble my sister and I were in. “If I can’t get Ian Holt to sign with Jake in the next couple of days, I’m under orders to…make sure he can’t sign with anyone else. And if that happens, Jake will have me executed.” Though I doubt I’d be lucky enough to score a simple bullet to the brain. “But not before he puts Kenley in the basement. He’s going to make her pay for my failure.”
Vanessa dropped the bag and coffee grounds spilled out onto the counter. “I assume you have a plan?”
“Not much of one. I need you to stay with her today and text me if there’s so much as a knock on the door. Text me if you guys go anywhere and let me know who he sends as security.” Because Kenley wasn’t allowed out alone. “And if her guard gets a text or phone call, let me know.”
“Why?” Vanessa scooped most of the spilled grounds into her cupped palm, then dropped them into the trash. “Why today?”
“Because last night I messed up, and if Holt tells anyone, we’re all screwed.”
“Okay, so why don’t we just run? Or hide, if we’re not allowed to run,” she said, and I had to remind myself that Vanessa was unSkilled, and even though she worked for and was bound to Jake, she wasn’t as familiar with my world as she should have been. As she’d need to be, to help protect Kenley.
“Because if Jake tries to get in touch with Kenley and can’t find her, he’ll know something’s wrong and he’ll send them after us. Why set off an alarm when we may not have to? Holt obviously hasn’t told anyone yet.”
“Do you think he will?”
“I don’t know. And it may be worse if he doesn’t.” After what I’d told him, I couldn’t imagine Ian being willing to sign with Jake, no matter what he hoped to gain in the negotiations. And him refusing to sign would be much worse than just tattling on me. “But either way, if someone comes for Kenley, I need you to take her and run. Don’t look back and don’t stop for anything. Don’t use public transportation or credit cards. And destroy your phones. Steal whatever you need, and get out of town, then call me from a pay phone. If I don’t answer, call my brother. Kenley knows his number.”
“What if he doesn’t answer?”
If Kris didn’t answer, that would mean Jake had already gotten to him, too. He wasn’t syndicate, so he’d be harder for Jake to find than I would be, but Jake would find him, and he’d use Kris to get to Kenley.
He’d use anything and anyone to get to Kenley.
“If Kris doesn’t answer, keep running and don’t look back.”
Vanessa nodded solemnly. She looked scared but determined, and I felt a little better knowing that I’d made the right call in enlisting her help. Other than me and Kris, no one would work harder to protect Kenley.
The shower stopped running in the bathroom, and I leaned closer to Van over the counter. “Don’t tell her about this unless you have to run,” I whispered. “She’ll put herself in Jake’s path if she thinks it’ll help me.”
Vanessa nodded again, and this time she wasn’t just watching me, she was studying me. “I never had a sister…” she said, and I wondered how her life would have been different if she’d had someone to look out for growing up. Or someone to look out for her.
The bathroom door opened and Van blinked, then slid the filter into place above the coffeepot.
“Hey,” Kenley said, and I turned to find my sister standing in the doorway wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping on the floor. “You staying for breakfast? I’m thinking
omelets.”
“Can’t. I gotta grab a shower, then head out.” I brushed past her into the hall, then stopped and tugged her into my tiny bedroom with me. “Why didn’t you tell me about Vanessa?”
Kenley frowned. “That I’m gay, or that she’s my girlfriend?”
“That you’ve been together for three months. How could you get so serious with someone without even telling your sister you’re dating?”
“We’re not really dating, exactly.” She flushed and glanced at the ground, where her toes had curled into the carpet, a nervous habit she’d had since she was a kid. “And I didn’t know if it would go anywhere at first. Then you disappeared, and I couldn’t tell you.”