Shadow Bound (Unbound) (23 page)

“What the hell are you talking about?”

I needed another drink. If he was playing the game Julia said he was playing, I’d just ruined the illusion of the hunt. And possibly tied a noose around my own neck.

“Nothing. I just… I’m sorry.” I stood and headed for the minibar. “I just can’t pretend anymore. Playing your game is one thing, but pretending it isn’t a game is too much.”

“What game, Kori?” The couch creaked at my back as he stood, but there were no footsteps.

“You. Me. Recruitment. Fringe benefits.” I plucked another tiny bottle from the minibar and cracked the lid without even glancing at the label. Then I turned and met his gaze from across the room. “I’m what you asked for. I can’t say no. So I wish you’d quit trying to make this feel like something it isn’t and just tell me what you want me to do, so I can get it over with.”

His eyes widened. Then his dark eyebrows sank low over green eyes and his hands curled into fists at his sides. I knew that look. Hell, I’d perfected that look. He was going to hit something.

Me? Was he going to hit me, because I’d ruined whatever fantasy he was playing out in his head? And if so, how many punches could I throw before the resistance pain kicked in again? Would this be like it was with Jonah, brutal and violent? Or would this be a civilized conquest, grown-ups playing pretend, polite until the last stroke?

In the basement, I’d been trapped by dead shadows and crippled by direct orders. Mentally fighting hands and teeth I couldn’t see, crushed by weight I couldn’t bear, pinned, humiliated, hurt. Wishing for death, but too scared to reach for it.

Would I have the guts to end it this time? To fight back until I couldn’t move, drawing death closer with every punch I threw, in spite of the pain…

“Kori, what are you saying? Whatever I tell you to do, you have to do?”

I rolled my eyes and drained half the tiny bottle, wincing at the burn. “You knew that. You’ve known it all along.”

“No, I… I hadn’t thought about it like that. I hadn’t realized…” He closed his eyes and sank onto the couch, his head in both hands. Then his hands fell away and his head snapped up. His gaze met mine and held it. And I realized I believed him.

Ian truly hadn’t known. There was no game, except the one Julia was playing.

His forehead wrinkled, and each breath he released sounded angry. “Tower told you to…?”

My stomach tried to revolt, and I held down my dinner with nothing but willpower. If he hadn’t known what I’d been ordered to do, then he hadn’t thought of me as a whore. Until now.

“He told me to do whatever you want. He said if I wasn’t the best you’ve ever had…” But I couldn’t finish that sentence. I couldn’t admit the consequences to him. Not with him looking at me like that. Not with disgust dripping from his words, revulsion written in every line on his face.

It was obvious what he thought of me now. I may as well have a red chain link tattooed on my arm.

“That soulless son of a bitch.” He stared at the floor, fists opening and closing. Then he looked up at me with something new shining through the surface of his obvious anger. Was that…disappointment?

And suddenly I understood that I wasn’t the only one hurt by this. If Ian’s jokes, and obvious desire, and genuine conversation weren’t part of some game he was playing, then…he’d meant them. He’d meant it all. And somehow that realization cut even deeper than the latest knife Jake had shoved into my back.

“So, this isn’t real?” Ian demanded, anger edging out whatever pain I’d glimpsed from him. “Dinner? Telling me about your family? Was any of that true? Did any of that mean anything to you?”

I inhaled deeply. Slowly. I could admit that in spite of my orders and my own common sense, everything I’d said and done with him was real. That I liked him, and that’s why I’d tried to paint an accurate picture of life in the syndicate, even as I roped him tighter with Jake’s noose. But that wouldn’t be fair to either of us. We couldn’t be together, ever, even if Jake hadn’t ruined anything we could have had by ordering me to sleep with Ian. Julia had been right about that much. Once Ian officially joined the syndicate, he would quickly outrank me. And even if my lower standing didn’t put him off, association with me would do him no favors.

So I put on my work face. My stone-cold-bitch face. Because he was hurting just like I was hurting, and this time, the truth would only make that worse.

“This is a job. You are a job. Nothing more.” It was the most difficult lie I’d ever had to tell. And it wasn’t over. “After you, there will be another job. I don’t know what that job will be, since I’m clearly the world’s worst recruiter. But whatever that next job is, I’ll do it. Just like I’m doing this one. So…” I swallowed and met his gaze, refusing to let mine falter. I could do this. I had no choice. “So just tell me what you want me to do—what it’ll take to get you to sign with Jake—and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t believe you.” He said it softly, but his words were drenched in anger. I closed my eyes, desperately wishing I’d heard him wrong. Wishing I hadn’t seen the pain in his eyes. The denial. “I don’t believe you, Kori. The reason you’re a horrible recruiter is that you’re bad at selling something you don’t believe in, and you don’t believe in what you’re saying right now.”

“Yes, I do.” I turned and reached for the tiny bottle again, but he was there in an instant, pulling it out of my grip.

“No, you don’t. I can tell when you’re lying, and you’re doing it now.”

“Don’t pretend you know me,” I snapped, reaching for the bottle, but he tucked it behind his back. “We just met. You don’t know anything about me.”

“The hell I don’t. I know you love your sister more than you love yourself. I know you hate Jake Tower, even if you can’t ever say that out loud. I know that you cuss like a fish swims, but you haven’t spoken a single profanity in the last seven hours, and as near as I can tell, the only thing stopping you is the fact that you gave your word. I know that he makes you do things that rot your soul, and that you do them because you have to, but that you’ll never really forgive yourself.”

I stared at him, stunned, knowing I should argue. Knowing that for both of our sakes, I should have the courage to lie and tell him he was wrong. That he didn’t know me and he never would. But words had deserted me, for maybe the second time in my entire life.

“And I know they did horrible things to you. Things you never talk about. I know they tried to break you, but they failed, and that’s why Jake talks about you like you’re trash, when we all three know that’s not true. I think he hates you because even though he tried his best, he couldn’t break you. Which means he won’t ever really own you, no matter what he tattoos on your arm or anywhere else.”

His face blurred right in front of me, and it took me several seconds to realize why. To realize there were tears standing in my eyes and that I couldn’t get rid of them without letting them fall.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. He does own me.” And he would, as long as he owned Kenley.

“No one owns you, Kori. People like you can’t be owned. Putting chain links on your arm is like putting a lion in a cage. He may be locked up, but he’ll always be wild, and he’ll eat his handler the first chance he gets. You’re that lion, Kori, and I see you watching. Waiting for your moment. And it will come.”

“No, it won’t, because it’s not just me in that cage, Ian. Kenley’s there with me, and she can’t bite.”

He blinked, and something passed over his expression too fast for me to understand. Something complicated and…conflicted. Then he shook that thought off, whatever it was, and captured my gaze again. “So you bite for her, too. You fight for the people you love, no matter what.”

I shook my head, and to my horror, those tears fell. “I can’t.” I hadn’t cried in the basement. I’d screamed. I’d even begged. But I’d never cried. Yet here I was in no danger whatsoever, and I couldn’t stop the burning in my eyes, the hot trails down my cheeks. “I can’t.”

“So you’re just going to give up? You’re just going to do whatever he tells you to do? Let him pass you around to all his friends like a lit joint, until you’re all used up and worthless?”

A sharp bolt of anger shot through me and I swiped tears from my face with both hands. “That’s not… This is the first time. It’s not a regular thing.”

“And you really believe it won’t be?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. I hadn’t thought beyond getting through this one job, because there was a significant chance that wouldn’t actually happen, and if I was dead, I wouldn’t have to worry about the next assignment.

Ian studied my face, looking for something, and when he didn’t find it, he set the small bottle on top of the minibar. “So, if I’d asked you to stay the night, you would have done it? Not because you wanted to, but because he told you to?”

I sucked in a breath so deep my chest ached. “I wouldn’t have had any choice.”

“And last night, after the party? After knowing me less than eight hours? Would you have slept with me then?”

I could only nod miserably.

“And if I was a real asshole who hurt you and called you names? Would you be allowed to stop me?”

“Stop it. You already know the answer.”

“Yeah, I know it. I’m waiting for you to hear yourself say something awful enough to make you want to fight back.”

“I do want to fight!” I shouted, fury buzzing beneath my skin like an army of wasps. “But it doesn’t matter. That’s the real problem here, Ian. After everything I’ve shown you and everything you’ve figured out on your own, you still think fighting back is an option. You still think that if I close my eyes and wish hard enough, I’ll suddenly be able to break an oath sealed by one of the strongest—quite possibly
the
strongest—Binder in the world. But if there was a way out of this, you can bet your fancy rental car that I’d have found it myself. But there isn’t. Kenley and I are stuck exactly where we are, doing exactly what we’re doing, for the next four years.”

Assuming I lived that long.

I exhaled and met his gaze again, digging deep for the anger that fueled my heart like gasoline in an engine, because I’d rather be mad than wallow in the pain my next words would bring. “Now unless you’re actually planning to make me do what Jake told me to do, I’d like to leave. But as much as I hate to say it, I can’t go without your permission.”

He watched me, and emotions flickered over his face too fast for me to identify. But in the end, there was anger. Raw, pure anger of the highest quality. Rage. Ian wasn’t just angry, he was enraged.

I knew exactly how that felt.

“Go home, Kori,” he said through clenched teeth. “I think you should go home. Now.”

I nodded in acknowledgment, because I couldn’t bring myself to thank him for doing the only decent thing. Then I stepped into the hall and pulled the door shut behind me, and too late I realized I should have gone through the shadows in his bathroom. But I wasn’t going back into that hotel room. I couldn’t. Not after that.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move. I could only lean against the wall outside his suite, sucking air in through my throat over and over, only to lose it an instant later. He hated me. Worse, he pitied me. I’d seen it in his eyes. He was disgusted by what Jake had turned me into, and even more disgusted that I’d let it happen.

And the worst part was that I couldn’t argue with a damn thing he’d said. And if he told anyone—if Jake found out what I’d told him—Ian’s recruitment would be reassigned and I would wind up in the basement again.