“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth!” Gran called from across the room, and Vanessa burst into teary laughter.
“Okay, I have my phone. Let me know how it goes with Barker,” I said to Liv and my brother as I ushered Gran and Vanessa into the darkened bathroom.
Kris nodded and closed the door behind us as I took one of their hands in each of mine. Two steps later, we emerged in Meghan’s bathroom. “Nobody shoot, we come in peace!” I shouted, and Aaron stepped into sight in the hall, still clutching the broken arm he obviously hadn’t yet sought treatment for.
“Well, you can just step right back into that shadow and take your sister with you. If Tower tracks her here, we’re all as good as dead.”
“I’ll be back for her as soon as I can. For now, I need you to watch a couple of valuables for me while I go storm the castle.”
“No. No more women with prices on their heads…” Aaron started, shaking his head firmly, but his sister shouted over him from the bedroom.
“Bring them in here!”
I led Vanessa and Gran toward Meghan’s voice. Kenley struggled up from her chair in spite of obvious pain the moment she saw Van.
“This isn’t Europe,” Gran said as Kenni and Vanessa embraced. “You don’t have to kiss everyone you meet on the mouth, Kenley.”
I would have laughed, if I weren’t so close to tears.
“This is not a home for wayward women!” Aaron insisted.
“They’ll be out of your hair soon,” I said as Meghan gently began to examine Vanessa’s butchered arm. She obviously didn’t have the strength to heal three people at once—which explained Aaron’s persistent fracture—but most Healers knew more than a little about first aid, to supplement their natural Skills.
I took a deep breath, double-checked the gun I’d taken from Jonah, then marched back into Meghan’s bathroom, then into Jake’s basement through the hole I’d blown in the infrared grid. Vanessa’s cell was still dark, so I peeked into the hall cautiously. The bodies were all still there. Nothing had changed. I’d been gone less than ten minutes.
I spared a moment to grab extra guns from the downed men. Two went into my holsters and a third stayed in my hand, while I shoved their extra clips into my pockets. I’d never actually made an action-movie-style assault on a heavily guarded modern fortress, but I was pretty sure Hollywood was dead-on with at least two of the typical clichés: bullets would fly and blood would flow.
Properly armed, I walked right by the elevator—installed for easy transport of prisoners—and took the stairs instead. I didn’t want to be surprised by a room full of men aiming guns at me as soon as the doors slid open.
At the top of the stairs, I opened the door just wide enough to peek out. The foyer was empty, except for the usual guards, one at the foot of either staircase. No one in the basement had lived long enough to sound the alarm, but they’d be found as soon as Jake discovered he couldn’t raise Jonah on his radio. If not sooner.
I pushed the door open and stepped into an alcove off the foyer, my heart thumping painfully with each step. I glanced toward Jake’s office just as Julia pushed the door open and stepped out. A second later, movement from across the foyer caught my eye. Two armed men were getting on the elevator.
Shit. The elevator only went to the basement, and they would sound the alarm the minute they saw the bodies.
I turned back to Julia as she rounded the corner into the back hall, without noticing me—a blessing that would die with the first screech of the security siren. Then I stepped into the foyer.
“Hey!” the guard at the closest staircase shouted, drawing his gun, and I shot a hole through his left shoulder. He stumbled back onto the stairs as I shot his counterpart from across the room. But my silencer turned out to be pointless, because no sooner had the second guard fallen than the brain-skewering screech of the security alarm started wailing from everywhere.
Time was up.
Thirty-Two
Ian
“Won’t this look suspicious?” I whispered as Julia led me up the steps and into Jake Tower’s house, and I couldn’t help remembering the first time I’d walked that very path, only two days earlier. How could everything have fallen apart in such a short time?
“No, it’ll look like I’ve done my job,” Julia said, her steps bold and confident. “Jake sent me to pick you up, and that’s what I’ve done.”
“I don’t suppose you can sneak me in with a gun?”
She glanced at me in disdain, and I bristled even before she spoke. “You’re going to have to contribute something to this effort on your own.”
“You mean, other than pulling the trigger?”
“I mean finding a trigger to pull.” She opened the front door and marched inside like she owned the place. Like we hadn’t just been plotting the assassination of her brother, leash holder and the man who signed her paychecks. “I’ll take you into the office,” she whispered as we crossed the foyer, accompanied by the click of her heels on the marble. “But then I’ll have to go. If I’m there when you make your move, I’ll be obligated to stop you.”
I nodded, my hands steady, my spine steeled. With one shot, the man who’d sentenced Kori to six weeks of a living hell would be dead. Then I’d make my way to the basement and kill the man who’d delivered that hell, and both Kori and her sister would be free for good.
No doubt easier said than done, but never had a challenge promised a better reward.
“Wait here for a minute,” Julia said, and while she crossed the foyer for a private word with the guards at the stairs, I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted like a madman. I hit Send as she turned back to me and motioned for me to follow her.
Julia threw open the door to Jake’s office and marched inside, then held the door for me. “Out,” she said to the two extra men in the room, one standing guard at Jake’s back, the other seated in a chair in front of his desk. “Mr. Holt has come to negotiate his contract.”
Tower didn’t even stand. “My men are sworn to secrecy on private matters,” he said. “Anything you say will stay in this room.”
“But they won’t,” I insisted. “Or this negotiation is over.”
Jake’s left brow rose. “You’d walk out over a little compromised privacy?”
“I’d walk out over too little ice in my whiskey.” I turned to Julia. “Four cubes.”
She scowled, but made no complaint. I’d given her the excuse she needed to leave the room.
Tower looked more amused than truly threatened, but he waved the men out of the room. “Go check on Kori Daniels. She was giving Jonah fits a few minutes ago.”
I tried not to laugh, hoping whatever fits she’d given Jonah hadn’t resulted in any more bruises for her.
“Can I get you anything?” Julia asked her brother, one hand on the door as the men crossed the foyer toward the elevator behind her.
“Call Barker and find out where that Intent to Sign document is. I want Mr. Holt bound by Kenley Daniels, but Barker will do for the preliminary document.”
Julia nodded and stepped out of the room.
“Oh, and, Lia, pay a visit to Kori and explain exactly what will happen to her if she doesn’t give up her sister. Quickly.”
Julia nodded again and disappeared into the foyer.
“Nothing will happen to her,” I said, sinking into one of two chairs in front of Tower’s desk.
“What?”
“Nothing will happen to Kori,” I repeated. “I want that written into the contract. You will release her and swear that she will have no further contact with you or anyone in your organization. Ever. When I have that written and sealed, I will sign.”
“No deal.” Jake stood and rounded his desk to sit on one corner of it, and his jacket parted to reveal the gun at his hip. If I could get it, this would all be over.
“You don’t need her,” I said, waiting for opportunity to knock. Negotiation was pointless, since I wasn’t going to sign. “You’ve already got
me here, and your Trackers can find her sister without Kori’s help. Assuming Kenley can stand the resistance pain long enough to get out of the city. Kori’s useless to you.”
“Korinne is a living object lesson, Mr. Holt. My people know what she did, and if I don’t make sure she lives and breathes pain until the instant she dies, someone else will think they can get away with what she did. And I can’t let that happen.”
I shrugged. “So tell them she’s dead.”
Tower folded his arms over his chest. “They need to see her die.”
“I think you need to see her die. But I swear on my own life that if you kill her, you will never have my service.”
Tower watched me carefully. Thinking. Hopefully weighing his options. While I bided my time. My moment hadn’t yet come.
“Why Kori?” he asked at last, studying my face like he couldn’t quite make sense of it. “I’m afraid I don’t see the attraction.”
“That’s because you are threatened by her strength, while I am bolstered by it. But you don’t have to understand that,” I said, pleased to hear that my voice sounded much calmer than the rest of me felt. “You just have to let one of us go. Which do you want more, my service or her death?”
Tower’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched in anger—a first from him, at least that I’d seen. But before he could answer, a screeching siren echoed from all over, visibly startling us both.
Tower stood, eyes wide. “Security breach!” he shouted into the radio he’d grabbed from his desktop. And suddenly I realized what had happened. Kori was free. Everyone would be gunning for her.
My time had come.
“Lock the door,” Tower said, reaching for the phone on his desk—no doubt an internal, secure line.
I lunged for his gun instead. Tower fought me and the gun went off in its holster.
He screamed and blood ran down his leg. Tower slapped one hand over the wound and I took the gun.
I backed up, aiming at him, and Tower leaned over his desk, fumbling for the top drawer. I fired before he could get it open, and blood poured from the new hole in his chest.
“No!” Kori shouted behind me, and I spun to see her standing in the doorway, gun drawn. Kori raced around me and pressed her free hand to the wound in Tower’s chest. Blood ran between her fingers, but she was already covered in blood anyway, though I couldn’t find any wounds, at a glance. “No, don’t die!”
She turned to me, still trying to stop the bleeding, and the siren stopped screeching as suddenly as it had begun. But it rang on in my head. “I told you not to kill him!” Kori shouted, like she could still hear the ringing, too, as footsteps pounded toward us from the foyer. “He has an heir clause!”
“Yes, he does,” a new voice said, and I turned to find Julia in the doorway, two large men at her back. “Or rather, he did.” She glanced pointedly at her brother and I followed her gaze to find Jake’s eyes open and staring blankly at some point near the top of the wall. “Call the police and report a break-in,” she ordered, and the men stepped past her. “Speak to our man in Homicide. He’ll take care of the details.”
The first guard brushed Kori aside, and she sank onto her knees next to the wall, defeat dulling her eyes as one man picked up Tower’s desk phone and began dialing.
“Don’t fret, Korinne,” Julia said. “The evil king is dead, thanks to your loyal lover.” She spread her arms and gave me a broad smile. “Long live the queen.” She stepped closer and ran one hand up my arm, practically purring. “Jonah was never Jake’s heir.” She trailed her fingers over my shoulder and across my chest, and the movement became bold as she watched my face for shock, or anger, or whatever she’d expected me to feel in the face of her betrayal.
“I know,” I said, and her hand fell away. Her eyes narrowed, then her jaw clenched as she read the truth in my statement. “Jonah’s a sadistic monster, but not overburdened by brains. Jake wasn’t stupid enough to leave his kingdom in reckless hands, and you’re not stupid enough to think you could control Jonah—unless he was bound to you.”
“None of that matters now,” Kori said, standing, still stunned by Jake’s death, and still holding her gun. “Jonah died voiceless, in a pool of his own blood. In the basement. I’d call that irony, except it seems so fucking fitting.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed further, and her fists clenched at her sides.
“What do you want us to do with her?” The remaining guard asked, aiming at Kori even as Kori took careful aim at Julia. And behind her, I caught a blur of motion and a brief glimpse of a welcome, familiar face in the foyer.
“Nothing. You are free,” Julia said to Kori. “I suggest you go out the way you came in, now, before the police arrive and start to draw the inaccurate conclusions I have every intention of fostering.”
“Sure.” She chambered a round in her gun and shifted her aim up to Julia’s head. “Right after I send you after your brothers.”
The sudden bolt of pain in my head was almost enough to paralyze me, but I’d been expecting it. “I can’t let you shoot her.” I stepped between Kori and Julia, whom I’d sworn to defend.
“Ian?” Kori stared at me, confused. Heartbroken.
“Ian is my new bodyguard.” Julia ran one hand lightly over my shoulder from behind, and I hated her touch almost as much as I hated the pain and betrayal shining in Kori’s eyes. “My own personal bringer of the night. You’ll have to kill him to get to me. And I don’t think you want to do that, do you, Korinne? In fact, I don’t think you want anyone else to do that, either, do you?”
Kori lowered her gun, but didn’t holster it. “What did you do?” she whispered, her eyes alive with pain.
“I did what I had to do. I can’t let you hurt her. But you’re more than welcome to hurt him.”
“What?” Julia demanded as I turned, and she spun to follow my gaze. Olivia Warren and a tall blond man stepped into sight in the foyer, with Barker between them, still wearing the grease-stained shirt he’d worn an hour earlier.
“Ian?” Kris said, and I nodded. “Kenley gave me your message. Here’s what you asked for.” He pushed Barker forward a single step, without letting go of the Binder.
Julia’s men raised their guns, but Kris and Olivia were faster, even with each holding one of Barker’s arms. Their silencers thwupped, and Julia’s men fell, their guns unfired.
Julia gasped, then she opened her mouth to shout for more help.
“Don’t.” Olivia aimed at her head. I pulled Julia out of reach of both Kori and Olivia—I had no other choice.
“Break Kenley’s and Ian’s bindings, and I’ll let you live,” Kori said, aiming her gun at Barker now.
“If you even think about it, I’ll have your tongue cut out and shoved down your throat so that you drown in your own blood,” Julia spat.
Barker stared at her, terrified and confused.
Kori shrugged. “At least my way’s quicker and less painful. I’m sorry.” She aimed, and her gun thwupped once. A neat hole appeared in Barker’s head, and he fell over backward in the middle of the foyer.
Kris and Olivia both stepped away from him as Kori took aim at Julia. And this time, I let her. Because I could.
“I’m unarmed,” Julia said, her tone reasonable, her fear almost hidden by steady hands and a firm jaw.
“You’ll never be unarmed as long as there’s a tongue in your mouth and a brain in your head,” Kori spat. “It was your idea to turn the lights off wasn’t it? In the basement. It was your idea to let me rot in the dark.”
“Jake wanted to kill you,” she said, arms held out, displaying her defenselessness. “I saved your life.”
“Because you wanted me to suffer.”
Julia couldn’t argue with that.
“Don’t worry,” Kori said as the first police sirens wailed in the distance. “I want you to suffer, too. Everyone’s gonna know you betrayed the king of the castle. And Kenley’s going to take away your loyal subjects, one at a time.”
 
; Across the foyer, a door opened, and armed men came running toward us. Kris and Olivia ducked into Jake’s office, but Kori didn’t seem to notice. She moved closer to Julia with every word, threatening the new queen with her very presence. “And when you fall from the throne, and the castle comes crumbling down on you, I want you to remember who pulled down the first stone.”
Kori holstered her gun as I began to gather shadows from the corners of Jake’s office. Julia backed slowly away. Kori smiled. Then she kicked Julia square in the chest.
Julia flew backward into the foyer with an oof of stolen breath. She landed hard on her ass, her mouth open, her legs sprawled in front of her.
Kori slammed the office door shut as the first bullets whizzed toward us, over Julia’s head. Glass shattered, and we all ducked. Kori grabbed my hand while Kris took Olivia’s. I pulled the shadows up and around us, and Kori exhaled, her hand warm in mine. I could feel her smile, even if I couldn’t see it.