“The boyfriend she was trying to get rid of?”
“That was a lie—she was actually trying to keep him. And he wasn’t technically her boyfriend. But she used Kenni’s blood to tie him into a particularly nasty Love Knot.” A binding preventing him from committing to anyone else.
“Damn. So, how did Tower get involved?”
“The Tracker was working for Jake, looking for a new Binder. He hit the jackpot with Kenley.”
I wasn’t seeing the park anymore, in spite of the children racing past every now and then on their way from the playground to the riverbank. I could only see half-formed connections—threads that didn’t quite meet.
Kenley had bound Steven to something unknown, at some time in the past, but he didn’t recognize her name or her picture. But Kenley wasn’t the only one who’d used her blood to seal a binding. Was it possible…?
“Wait, how would that even work? It’s a Binder’s will that actually seals a binding, right? If Kenley didn’t know what her blood was being used for, how could her will be there?”
Kori shrugged. “Evidently by giving her roomie permission to use the blood, she was contributing her will to whatever the roommate decided to use it for.”
“That’s scary as hell,” I said, and my voice sounded hollow.
“No sh—” Kori cleared her throat and started over, but I was too distracted to find humor in her near miss. “No kidding. Which is why she’s not allowed to hand her blood out anymore.”
We walked half a mile or so as we talked, following the sidewalk around the playground, a set of basketball courts and large patches of grass beneath sprawling trees. All around us, kids played and joggers jogged, enjoying their weekend in one of few green patches within the city limits. But I hardly noticed any of it. I was thinking about my brother and his girlfriend, and the invisible ties connecting them to Kori’s sister, and me to her by extension. How long had those connections been there? How had Steven only breached this mysterious binding two weeks ago, if it had been in place for the past six years, if my hunch was right.
At the dock, a line had formed as people waited their turn for boat rides, and just past that, Kori led me to a quaint walking bridge spanning one branch of the river. My footsteps echoing on wood was what finally brought me out of my own head.
“Is this still the west side?” I asked as we reached the apex and she stopped to lean over the rail, staring out at the river flowing beneath us.
“Technically, this is nowhere. This is the space above the river, and no one owns the river.”
“Like standing with one foot on either side of a state border?” I asked as she leaned so far over I was afraid she’d fall in.
“More like standing on neither side. I like it here. There’s no ground beneath us, so it feels like this place doesn’t really exist. And if it doesn’t exist, then I don’t exist when I’m here. And if I don’t exist, no one can make me do…anything.”
“Do you come here a lot?” I asked when she showed no sign of wanting to move on.
“No. If I did, it wouldn’t be special.” And she needed this place to be special—this place, where she didn’t exist—and I felt privileged to not-exist there with her.
“So, if that’s the west side…” I said, pointing back the way we’d come. “Then that must be the east side. Is the hot dog stand on the east side? Are we allowed to go there?”
“Yes, because that’s the south side. Neutral territory. The east side is over there.” She pointed over the bridge and I saw the actual fork in the river, beyond where we stood, and the east side, on the opposite side of the thicker part of the river, before it branched.
Kori finally turned away from the water and we crossed the rest of the bridge slowly, side by side. “Neutral territory, huh? So it’s safe for everyone?”
“No one is safe. No place is safe. The south fork is only neutral because no one’s been able to take total control of it yet. Cavazos has a regular presence here, as does Jake. If either of them backed down, the other would claim the fork and have a larger territory. So really, it’s land in flux. The heart of the struggle. Not coincidentally, the south fork has the highest crime rates of any area of the city.”
“And the best hot dogs?”
She laughed. “And the best hot dogs. The stand is just over there.” She pointed, and I followed her gesture to find a wheeled vendor’s cart with a faded, striped awning and a line of customers stretching out beyond it.
We were almost to the cart when Kori stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Her shoulders tensed and her fingers curled and uncurled at her sides. I started to ask what was wrong but before I could speak, a woman said her name.
“Hey, Kori.”
I looked up to find a man and a woman on the sidewalk in front of us, carefully spaced to block our path. We could have gone around them, of course, but their positions were more statement than true barrier. A command to stop. As was their identical stance, feet spread wide, as if they were expecting a fight. Jackets unbuttoned, for easy access to whatever weapons they were carrying.
The woman was unfamiliar, but I knew the man from Aaron’s research on the Tower syndicate. Cameron Caballero. The only man alive known to have gotten out of his contract with Tower before the term was up. Now he worked for Cavazos—a lateral move at best.
“Olivia,” Kori said. “I wondered when you’d show up.”
Seventeen
Kori
“I assume you know why we’re here,” Olivia said.
Cam flexed his fingers at his sides, like he wanted to be holding his gun, and I knew the only thing keeping his hands empty was his respect for me and the six years we’d both spent chained to Tower. Though we’d rarely actually worked together, Cam was the closest thing I’d had to a friend in the syndicate.
Until he’d left.
“You’re here because Cavazos’s first attempt was laughable.” And because I’d dared him to send someone more worthy, hoping he’d choose at least half of the pair now facing us. This was my only opportunity to talk to them without disobeying a direct order from Jake, and I needed to talk to them. I needed to understand why Liv had used me and Cam had abandoned me.
Yes, they’d been under orders, but so had I, yet I’d done everything I could to help them. And I’d paid for that in the basement.
“Olivia Warren?” Ian asked, and I actually looked away from the double threat of my former friends to glance at him in surprise. If Olivia and Cam hadn’t also been caught off guard, my mistake might have cost me my life.
Jake would kill me if I lost Ian.
Liv frowned. “How did you…?”
“Your reputation precedes you,” Ian said, and I did a quick mental inventory of every conversation we’d had since meeting at the party not quite forty hours earlier. I hadn’t told him Olivia’s last name. Names are power, and I wouldn’t have given him that much power over a friend. Even a friend who’d ambushed me, tied me up, stolen my key, and ruined both my career and my life. “I’m guessing this isn’t a friendly visit,” Ian said, and Cam actually chuckled over the understatement.
“This is business. But we’re free afterward if you want to get a drink.”
“I’m sorry, Kori,” Liv said. “This isn’t how we want it.”
“Any chance you could just claim you never found us?” Ian asked. “As a favor to an old friend?” He glanced at me for emphasis.
“That’s not how it works.” Olivia sighed, a sound heavy with reluctance, and directed her next words to Ian. “Ruben Cavazos extended an invitation, and it went unanswered. Come with us now and meet with him voluntarily. Pretty please.”
“And if I decline?”
“If you decline, there will be weapons and threats. Inevitably Kori will say something she doesn’t really mean and Cam will get his feelings hurt, and I don’t think anyone wants that kind of drama in a public park.”
“Is she serious?” Ian asked, and I nodded.
“Is she arm
ed?”
I nodded again, my own fingers itching from lack of a weapon. “Gun on her right hip, blade on her right ankle. Unless something’s changed in the last two months.”
“A lot has changed,” Olivia said. “But not that.” She pulled her jacket back to reveal a pistol in a holster on her hip, then raised one brow at me in challenge. “As long as we’re playing nice, what’s your count? Three blades and a nine mil?”
“We’re unarmed,” I admitted, because she’d figure it out soon anyway, and Olivia laughed out loud.
“She means it,” Cam said, studying my eyes, and I realized he knew me better than Olivia did. I’d gone to school with Liv, but I’d truly grown up in Tower’s service, with Cam. “Jake won’t use her as security anymore, after what happened.”
“No thanks to you,” I snapped, my temper wound so tight I was afraid that if I inhaled too deeply, something would pop, and I’d just explode. “I have yet to earn back the right to bear arms.” No matter what the second amendment said. But I could use whatever I took from them until this little conflict was over.
“Sorry, Kori.” Olivia pulled her gun, aiming at the grass between us, but I held my ground and directed my reply to Ian, who looked just as calm now as he had in the alley the day before.
“She’s not going to shoot you, and she can’t shoot me,” I said softly, glad none of the other park-goers were close enough to see Liv’s weapon. But if things escalated, we were in for some very public trouble.
“Because of the childhood binding?” Ian asked, and Olivia glanced at me in surprise.
“Have you been telling stories, Kori?”
“Only the ones that are true.” My next words were for Ian, though I couldn’t take my attention off Liv’s gun. “She can’t intentionally hurt me, and if I ask for her help, she has to give it. Which, I’m willing to bet, would put her smack in the middle of two conflicting compulsions. Right, Liv?”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed, but both her gun and her voice held steady. “That sword cuts both ways, Kori. Don’t make me ask you for help taking Holt to Cavazos,” she said, and I groaned, mentally.
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Cam said, pulling his own gun smoothly.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” I insisted, desperately hoping I was right.
Olivia shrugged. “He shot me.”
“He was under orders.”
Cam took aim at my leg. “That hasn’t changed. Holt comes with us, or I shoot you. Don’t make me shoot you, Kori.” He didn’t want to spill my blood in a public park—more blood than I could possibly clean up—but he would.
“You owe me. Both of you.” I could hear the fury in my voice, and saying that was like popping the top on a shaken can of soda—the rest just came shooting out. “You used me. You got me shot, then you left me there to—” I bit my sentence off before the words could fall out into the daylight and leave me exposed by the truth. “You defected, without a word. Kenley heard it from one of the da—” Another pause, while I rerouted my sentence and I barely noticed Cam’s surprise over the aborted expletive. “From one of Jake’s secretaries.”
I studied him, trying to understand what had happened two months earlier, and latent anger at Cam crashed over me with the weight of every wrong I’d suffered in the basement. Alone. Because when he’d switched sides, he’d left me to bear the brunt of Tower’s fury.
Ian glanced from face to face, trying to make sense of a discussion he couldn’t possibly understand. “What am I missing?” he said finally, but no one answered.
“I had no choice,” Cam insisted, and I could read the guilt on his face. But I couldn’t see any regret. “Cavazos was going to let Olivia die unless I signed, and I didn’t have a chance to tell you. But I tracked you every day, to make sure you were alive.”
“He put me in the basement.” I shrugged and spoke through clenched jaws. “Obviously death is a mercy I haven’t yet earned.”
Cam looked like I’d just punched him. “I’m so sorry, Kor,” he said. “Tracking you was the best I could do.”
“Well, now you have a chance to make it up to me. Leave. Just tell Cavazos Ian is using a fake name and you couldn’t track us.”
“His name’s real and Ruben already knows we found you.” Liv’s gaze shifted to Ian. “Ruben knows everything he needs to know about you, which means you’re either stupid or naive for sticking with Tower when there’s a better offer on the table.” Liv frowned and her gaze slipped to me before centering on Ian again. “Or maybe it’s not Tower you’re sticking with…”
I ignored her inference and focused on the implied threat. “Whatever Cavazos knows, Jake knows, too,” I insisted. “And Ian’s made up his mind.”
“Really? Is that what he told Meghan Hollister?”
Ian froze at my side, and I glanced at him quickly before turning my attention back to Olivia’s words and Cam’s gun, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen Holt’s reaction. “Who’s Meghan Hollister?”
When Ian didn’t answer—I couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing—Olivia took over once again.
“Meghan is Ian’s girlfriend. They’ve been together for twelve years.”
I tried not to react, not to let my disappointment and anger show through on my face. Ian groaned, but I could practically feel his posture relax, his arm brushing mine. He seemed relieved. What had he thought she’d say?
“That’s not true,” he said to me, without taking his gaze off the threat. “She’s got her wires crossed. Meghan is my brother’s girlfriend.”
“Bullshit.” Cam bit the last syllable off, leaving a sharp edge to the word. “Your brother died seven years ago. KIA overseas. What kind of a gutless loser pawns off his lies on a dead serviceman?” Cam demanded, and Ian’s entire bearing changed, though he didn’t move a muscle. He was just suddenly taut. Furious. Wound so tight the slightest vibration might set him off.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ian said through clenched teeth. “I swear on my own name. Just please believe me, Kori. Trust me.”
I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t know who to trust. Nothing had made any sense since I got out of the basement.
Cam laughed, and again the sound was bitter. “Shows how well he knows you, huh?” Then he turned back to Ian. “Kori doesn’t trust anyone. She just doesn’t have it in her.”
“I don’t anymore,” I spat. “The last person I trusted was you,” I said, and Cam flinched.
“I’m sorry, Kori,” Olivia said.
But I couldn’t concentrate on yet another worthless apology, because I was busy trying to figure out something else. “Why are you still with Cavazos, anyway?” I asked Olivia, stalling for time to come up with a new plan, since the “you owe me” attempt had gone south. “I thought your mark died.”
“It did.” Olivia scowled. “Then this big dumb ass signed on for a fifteen-year term to pay for my medical care.”
Cam transferred his gun to his left hand, which wasn’t a handicap for him, unfortunately, and lifted his left sleeve. Above the three chain links that had connected him to Tower—now the pale gray of dead marks—were three freshly inked black rings, one and a half of which were already dead and gray, like the chain links beneath them.
“She died, Kori,” Cam said. “I killed her, under orders from Tower, and Cavazos had doctors on hand, just standing there with a crash cart. He wouldn’t let them touch her until I signed.”
“So why are the marks half-dead?”
Olivia twisted to show her own bare arm, where there were two more rings, one half-dead. “Ruben said I could let Cam serve his fifteen years alone, or I could take half of it. Seven and a half years each, served together. A ring and a half for each of us.”
“Liv…” I moaned, my anger at Cam momentarily swallowed by my ache for her. “You were free.”
“And I will be again. But for now, Ruben’s still calling the shots, and if Holt doesn’t come with us peacefully, Cam has to
put a bullet in your leg.”
Cam strengthened his aim with a double-handed grip, and Ian exhaled.
“Fine, I’ll go.” He held his hands, palms out in the universal posture of surrender. “Just leave her alone.”
“Ian…” I said, but he ignored me and stepped slowly toward Cam and Olivia. “Ian, stop.” I reached for him, but he stepped around my arm.
“Can we at least keep this civil?” he asked when Cam pulled a plastic cinch lock from his pocket. “Most hosts don’t tie up their guests.”