Shadow Bound (Unbound) (37 page)

“But you didn’t,” I said, when understanding surfaced with sudden brilliant clarity. “Ian and I clicked in spite of your involvement, not because of it, and you hate that. You’re threatened by it, and that’s why you’re trying to tear us apart.”

Jake stood and pulled me up by one arm, then leaned in to growl directly into my ear, and if I hadn’t known he wasn’t allowed to touch me, I might have missed the flare of pain behind his eyes. “If you don’t watch your mouth, you might find yourself in another bed, performing a similar function for someone else who needs to be reminded that nothing and no one comes before the syndicate.”

“Do it,” Julia said, and the eager cruelty in her voice made me flinch. “Give her to someone else. She needs to be reminded who’s the boss around here.”

I held my breath, waiting for his decision, fighting the need to punch something.

Some
one.

Julia.

Jake let me go and turned to her with a scowl, and I’d never seen him so close to losing his temper. “That
was
her reminder,” he snapped. “She knows who the boss is, and she knows that’s not
you.
”

Julia flushed, but kept her mouth shut. A lesson I probably should have noted.

“Bring him in,” Jake said. “I have a statement of intent already drafted and I want Holt here within the hour.”

“An hour?” My heart thudded in my ears, racing in panic. “I can’t. I don’t even know if he’s out of bed yet. I need more time.”

“Lies…” Julia hissed.

Jake glanced at me in surprise, and I cursed silently. Nothing in my contract actually forbade me from lying to him, but with Julia there, I wouldn’t get away with it. I’d known better, but panic made me foolish and rash. I’d never been more afraid of anything than of signing Ian and losing him. Of seeing him every day, but not being allowed to touch him.

In that moment, facing monumental loss, I realized that I could love him. I might already. Either way I could no more lose him than I could lose Kenley.

I couldn’t let this happen.

“One hour,” Jake repeated, angry now. “He will sign, then you’re done with him.”

“You can throw women at him, but he won’t touch them and he won’t forget about me,” I said, rage burning deep inside me, fueled by my terror at the thought of losing Ian. “And you can send me to whoever you want, but I won’t fucking do it. I won’t bring Ian in, either. If he wants to sign on his own, fine, but I won’t be the one who hands him the damn pen. I want no part of it. I’ll kill myself first.”

Everyone had a limit, and Jake had just found mine.

“She means it,” Julia said, her eyes flashing in anticipation.

“Well, she’s wrong.” Jake slid off his desk and onto his feet again, and he stepped so close I could smell the coffee on his breath. But I held my ground. “You won’t kill yourself and you will bring Ian Holt in for the same reason you do everything else I tell you to. To keep your sister safe.”

I glared back at him, my fists clenching and unclenching at my sides. Viewed through the red-tinted lenses of my own rage, everything suddenly seemed so clear. So simple.

“That threat won’t work anymore. You already said I’m expendable.” Kenley would be fine without me. Jake still needed her.

“You aren’t afraid to die?” His gaze searched mine from a couple of inches away, and I stared back, letting him see the truth.

“There are days I fucking
wish
for death, Jake. Whether it comes from your hand or mine matters less every second, and your threat to kill me is starting to sound more like a promise.”

His brows rose in interest, and he glanced at Julia, who nodded to confirm the truth in my statements, and her cruel smile was reflected on her brother’s face. “Lia, go get Kenley Daniels and find a cell in the basement for her.”

My pulse spiked painfully, but I refused to let my fear show. “That won’t work.” Why hadn’t I seen it before? “If you’re going to have her tortured anyway, what’s her motivation to keep sealing bindings for you? Resistance pain doesn’t seem so bad, when your whole world is pain.”

Jake’s smile gave me chills. “I’m not going to have her tortured. I’m going to have
you
tortured, and she’s going to watch. How do you think your sweet little sister will react to seeing you beaten and humiliated, knowing there’s nothing she can do to stop it? Do you think she’ll still be psychologically stable after several days of hearing her only sister scream? Do you think she’ll ever forgive herself for not being able to protect you like you protected her?”

I closed my eyes, horror rolling through me, deeper with every word he spoke. In six years, I’d never seen Jake Tower bluff. He would do it, just because I’d pissed him off. And he was right—even if I survived another stint in the basement, Kenley couldn’t, even if no one laid a hand on her.

And he wouldn’t let me die. There would be no out for me, and there would be no recovery for her. There was only one way to stop Tower from signing Ian, caging Kenley, and putting me back where I’d sworn I’d never go again.

We had to run. Even if we got caught. Even if we didn’t get very far in the first place. Even if we spent the rest of our lives traipsing from one shadow to the next in search of peace.

“Stop,” I said, when Jake waved Julia toward the door, on her way to send for Kenley. “I’ll bring Ian in. Leave my sister out of this.”

“She’s lying,” Julia warned, and Jake nodded perfunctorily, like that’s what he’d expected from me all along. “Which is why she won’t be going alone. Lia, ask Harris and Milligan to come in here please.”

Julia stuck her head out of the office and gestured to someone I couldn’t see. A minute later, she held the office door open and Milligan—one of my basement jailers—and Harris stepped into the office. Both were members of Jake’s security team—men I’d worked with for years.

“You will escort Kori to pick up Ian Holt, then bring them back here. If she so much as hiccups without permission, haul her straight back to the basement, then bring me Holt and Kenley Daniels. Understood?”

Both men nodded. Neither looked at me.

Jake stepped close to me again, and every hair on my body stood on end. It was his calm that scared me. I knew people who’d killed in self-defense and many more who’d killed out of rage. But Jake was the only person I’d ever met who could order someone brutally tortured or slowly, viciously murdered without blinking an eye. Even someone he’d known for years and shared meals, and drinks, and conversations with. The suffering of others truly didn’t touch him. That knowledge terrified me because it told me he wasn’t human. Not in any way that counted.

And that meant there would be no mercy from him. No hope.

“This is your very last chance, Korinne,” he said, so close to me his breath brushed my ear. “If you mess this up, I will bury you in the basement and forget I even have a key. Your binding will expire and your mark will die, but you’ll stay buried, alone in the dark with the voices in your head, and no one will ask about you, because they’ll all think you’re dead. I will keep you there forever, Kori. Alive in body, but dead in every other sense of the word. If you want anything at all from the rest of your life—anything other than pain and dead shadows—think very carefully before you try to screw me over. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” There was nothing more to say.

Jake nodded and stepped back, dismissing me without a word as he rounded his desk and sank into his chair. When I left the room, escorts in tow, Jake was already speaking into the phone, demanding that an Intent to Sign document be sent over for Ian Holt.

Milligan and Harris followed me silently across the foyer, up the stairs, and into the darkroom while I did my best to ignore the buzz of impatience and fury tingling beneath my skin. Jake meant what he said, but I’d meant what I said, too. I wasn’t taking them to Ian, and they would never get their hands on my sister, either.

“Kori…?” Milligan said softly, as I pulled the door to the darkroom shut, closing us in with absolute darkness. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing—”

“Shut the fuck up and give me your hand,” I snapped, and a hand found each of mine in the dark, one thick and rough, the other smooth and strong. “When I tug, take two steps forward, then stop.”

Without waiting for their acknowledgment, I pulled them forward as hard as I could and they stumbled alongside me, out of the darkroom and into Ian’s bathroom, where I let them go and fumbled for the doorknob.

“Where are we?” Milligan asked, as I shoved the door open and stepped into the bedroom without them. Light flooded the bathroom, illuminating marble countertops, a hot tub and a dual-head shower.

“Holt’s suite. Stay here. I’ll go get him.”

“Hell, no.” Harris grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the bathroom. “I know what a Traveler can do.”

I turned on him slowly, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed in fury. “You have no fucking idea what I can do. Let go of me.”

“Not till we see Holt.”

“Let her go, Harris,” Milligan said, but I didn’t need his help, and I knew better than to trust his words or even glance at him.

Focus. Power. Speed. Those were the tools of survival.

“She’s not going anywhere without us,” Harris insisted. “Start walking.” He shoved me by the arm he still held, his fingers tight enough to bruise. I turned like I’d lead them into the living room, but instead I grabbed the hair dryer hanging from the wall by the door. Spinning, I jerked my arm from his grip, and swung the dryer at his head as hard as I could.

Harris reached for his gun instead of blocking my arm. The dryer slammed into his temple before he could draw his weapon, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious, without even a whimper. Blood dribbled from the gash in his head, and pain ripped through mine—the beginnings of resistance pain for violating my oath of loyalty.

“
Damn
it, Kori,” Milligan swore as his partner fell at our feet, one arm draped over my shoe. Milligan already had his gun aimed at my thigh. “Are you
trying
to make Tower kill you?”

“Yeah. But that won’t do it.” Trying to ignore the steady waves of pain deep inside my head, I bent and pulled the pistol from Harris’s holster, and Milligan tensed, but didn’t shoot. “Was he there? In the basement?” I asked, but Milligan only frowned in confusion. “Did he
fucking watch?
” I demanded, and Milligan nodded.

I flipped the safety switch off and shot Harris in the thigh with his own gun. I wanted to kill him. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that the more I violated my oath, the worse I’d hurt.

“Motherfucker!” Milligan shouted, as the echo of violence thundered around us. He raised his aim to my chest. “Are you
insane?
”

“I might just be.” I stepped over Harris’s prone form and into the bedroom, and Milligan still didn’t fire. Because unlike his partner, he wasn’t an idiot. “I’m guessing we have about five minutes before building security gets here. I can tie you up or shoot you. Your call.”

“Kori, stop!” he shouted as I bent over the nightstand and ripped the phone cord from the wall. “Don’t make me shoot you!”