Shadow Bound (Unbound) (20 page)

That felt closer to the truth, but there was still something she didn’t trust me enough to show me. But pushing would only drive her further away.

“Fine, then let the recruiting continue,” I said. “I believe we have reservations tonight, on Tower’s dime? Some fancy restaurant?”

“Philemon’s. They
do
have really good lobster.” And we’d missed lunch, as my growling stomach was quick to point out.

“Then we’ll both get one. Maybe two. Let’s go recruit me in style,” I said, and finally she smiled, a glimpse of a rainbow after the storm. “What’s the dress code at this fancy restaurant?”

Kori frowned. “You’re gonna need a suit. And they’ll probably make me wear a dress.”

“I thought you hated dresses.”

“I do.”

“And I have a bet to win. So we’ll both wear jeans?”

Her smile grew just a little. “Mr. Holt, I think we may make a rebel of you yet.”

After a quick trip back to her sister’s apartment, Kori stepped out of my bathroom in a low-cut, drapey black silk blouse that bared a two-inch strip of skin down the center of her torso, all the way to the bottom of her sternum. I wasn’t sure how the damn thing even stayed on, and I caught myself holding my breath when she turned, watching for accidental gaps in the material.

“Wow, you look beautiful,” I whispered when she stepped into the light, trying not to stare. I hadn’t meant to say it. The words fell from my mouth before I could call them back.

“Does this cover all my rough edges?” She held her arms out hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure she wanted to be inspected. “’Cause I feel like it doesn’t cover much of anything.”

“Your rough edges are thoroughly hidden. But it’s good to know they’re still under there,” I said, my voice deeper than I’d intended it to be, my gaze glued to hers. My stomach twisted with nerves like I hadn’t felt since junior high. I clasped my hands at my back because that was the only way I could control them. I wanted to reach for Kori.

I was dying to touch her.

“I feel kinda stupid in the blouse,” she admitted, plucking nervously at the material. “But Kenley insisted this would keep me from getting tossed out of the restaurant.”

“Your sister has wonderful taste.” I crossed my arms over a pressed button-up shirt, tucked into my spare pair of jeans. Then I made myself think about Steven and Meghan—the mental reminder I needed in order to focus on the job at hand, rather than the woman in front of me. “Do you think she’d like to join us? Your sister?” Kori frowned, and I slid my hands into my pockets. “I’m interested in her role in the syndicate. I haven’t met many Binders.”

“She’s…with someone tonight.”

I shrugged. “So ask her to bring him. I’d love to get multiple perspectives on life in the Tower syndicate.”

Kori’s frown deepened. “I don’t think they’re ready to be seen out together. In public. Yet.” She reached for the bathroom doorknob. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” I buried my frustration, along with a sizable amount of guilt over the fact that I was about to dine in a five-star restaurant, while my brother lay dying, hidden away in his girlfriend’s childhood bedroom. “Let’s go.”

Kori took us through my darkened bathroom once again, this time into an alley behind the restaurant, deep with shadows in the setting sun. “Not the most glamorous way to travel, I know,” she admitted, as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. “But it’s definitely the fastest.”

Inside, the hostess wore an ankle-length black dress and a too-tight bun, and looked down her nose at our jeans. “We have a reservation for two,” Kori said.

“For what time?” She didn’t even look at the reservation list, as if she’d already decided we were lying.

“Actually I’m not sure. I didn’t make it,” Kori said, and the hostess’s gaze hardened even more.

“Mr. Holt? Ms. Daniels?” A man in an expensive suit plucked the list from the podium, brushing the hostess aside without even a glance. We both nodded, and the manager—who else could he be?—smiled like he was made of sunshine. “Mr. Tower reserved your table for the entire evening, so please take your time and enjoy your meal. Erin, if you don’t mind?” he said, gesturing for the hostess to show us to our table.

She took us to a quiet corner of the restaurant, where I somehow felt both sheltered and exposed, and before I could even glance at the menu, a waiter appeared to pour two glasses of red wine, explaining that Mr. Tower had selected it himself.

“Did he order our food, too?” Kori mumbled, and the waiter chuckled.

“No, but he did offer suggestions.”

We ordered several courses, and while we waited for the first of them, I sipped from my glass, watching her. “Tell me something about yourself. Something I don’t already know. Something about your family.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be talking about the syndicate?” she said, staring into her wine skeptically.

“Okay, then, tell me something about your family
and
the syndicate. Is this the family business, or is it just you and Kenley? Are your parents bound? Any other siblings?” I knew I was pushing my luck, but I had to find some way of bringing her sister back into the picture before too much time spent with Kori made me forget my purpose, or hell, even my own name. She was Calypso, and I was starting to worry that she’d caught me. And the scariest part was that in spite of the guilt, and the lies, and the ugly truth of my mission, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be released.

Kori hesitated for one long moment, like she was trying to decide whether or not she could trust me. Then, finally, she spoke. “Kenley and I have an older brother, but he’s not syndicate, thank goodness. He’s his own brand of trouble, even without criminal ties.”

I didn’t ask her brother’s name, and she didn’t offer it. Either would have been a big faux pas among the Skilled, who know that names, like blood, carry power.

“What about your parents? Are they bound to Tower?”

“No, they died when I was a kid,” she said, and I blinked in surprise.

“Mine died a few years ago,” I said softly, and I recognized the echo of old pain in her eyes. “Who raised you?”

“My grandmother, and no, she’s not syndicate, either. In fact…” Kori exhaled, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “In fact, she doesn’t even know Kenley and I are bound. If my parents knew, they’d probably come back from the dead just to yell at us.”

“So, how did you wind up bound to Tower?”

“I…um…” She stared at the stark-white tablecloth. “That’s kind of a personal story, and it’s not entirely mine to tell.”

Not entirely hers? My curiosity doubled. “So just tell me your part,” I said. “You have my word it will go no further. If that means anything.”

I desperately wanted my word to mean something to her, but at the same time, I was fully aware that it shouldn’t. I had been lying to her all along, and the lies would have to continue, but this part was true. I wouldn’t betray this trust.

“I signed on to be with Kenley,” she said after a moment of thinking it over. “I couldn’t leave her here alone. She’s not like me. She doesn’t have any hard edges or any self-protective instinct. She’s sweet. And nice. She would have been eaten alive.”

But that didn’t make any sense. The only thing I knew about Kenley Daniels—other than what I’d learned from Kori—was that she’d sealed my brother into a nonconsensual binding strong enough to kill him. And she must have done it by accident, because my brother didn’t use his own name. She
had
to be aiming for me.

How could someone with enough power to seal the wrong person into a binding he hadn’t consented to possibly be the sweet, innocent sister Kori had sold herself to Jake Tower to protect?

“You okay?” Kori asked, but I barely heard her, and I only distantly noticed the tray of one-bite salmon and rice appetizers the waiter set in the center of the table.

“You joined to protect your sister?”

She nodded. “I joined to try. But there’s only so much I can do.”

“What makes you think she needs protection?”

Kori frowned, like she may have heard me wrong. “The fact that she’s here. Kenley got into some trouble when she was in college, and one of Jake’s scouts swooped in promising to clean up her mess, in exchange for her services. She was terrified, and naive, and very young. She thought she had no other way out, so she signed up. Two days later, she showed up at my brother’s New Year’s Eve party in tears, begging for my help. But there was nothing I could do. She’s a piss-poor negotiator and her binding had already been sealed. All I could do was negotiate protection for her in exchange for my own services.”

“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?”