“I want him whole. Preferably unharmed.”
“Another acquisition?” In the weeks before I was locked up, I’d done quite a few of them, collecting whoever Tower wanted for his pet project.
“Only as a last resort. I want him on staff. Willingly.” Because forced bindings were never as strong as those entered into freely. “Holt hasn’t signed with anyone yet. In fact, he managed to stay completely off the radar until two days ago, when the JumboTron at an NHL hockey game caught him darkening the entire arena during a riot on the ice.”
“How do you know it wasn’t just a power outage?”
“Because he blinded the arena from the outside in, starting at the perimeter and moving toward the ice from all sides equally. The general public thinks he’s just some idiot who saw the first lights go out before the camera did and pretended to be doing a magic trick. But I know what I saw, and I’m not the only one. Now that he’s been exposed, everyone wants him. I’ve officially extended an invitation, and he’s agreed to come to town as my guest and hear our pitch. You will be his liaison. You will show him the advantages of joining the Tower syndicate and make sure that he signs with us, or with no one.”
“I’m not a fucking recruiter, Jake.” I’d been part of Tower’s personal security team. I’d killed for him. I’d kidnapped for him. I’d done other things I desperately wished I could forget, but recruiting was a specialized skill—one I didn’t have. “I’m a soldier, and you need a salesman.”
“You are whatever I say you are, and when Ian Holt gets here, you will be his recruiter. You will be his girlfriend, his best friend, his therapist, his mother, or his dog trainer, if need be. You will do whatever it takes to put a chain link on his arm.” For emphasis, Tower glanced at the two black interlocking chain links tattooed on my own arm—the flesh-and-blood binding tying me to him until my term was up. “Whatever it takes, Korinne. Do you understand?”
I understood. “You want me to fuck him.” And if I refused—if I refused anything Jake told me to do—resistance pain from violating my oath to him would shut my organs down one at a time until I died screaming.
“I want you to give him whatever he wants. And if he wants you, then yes, you will bed him, and you better be the best he’s ever had, because if he refuses my mark, you will have to bring him in by force so I can drain him. And if that happens, I will kill you, and your sister will pay for your failure as you’ve paid for your latest mistake. She will serve out the years remaining on her contract in this room, under the same conditions.”
My blood ran cold, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “No one touches Kenley. You swore it when I signed on.” My little sister would be untouchable, in exchange for my service.
“And you swore that you would guard my life and my interests with your own.” Tower unbuttoned his shirt slowly, and I knew what he was going to do even before he pulled back the left half of the material to show me the fresh pink scar. “Your key card let the enemy into my house. Into my home, where my wife and children sleep. Your gun faltered where it should have fired, and I was shot in my own home, by my greatest enemy.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You failed,” Tower insisted. “You broke your word, and I have no reason to keep mine. If Ian Holt does not sign with me voluntarily by the end of his visit, I will have you executed, and your sister will pay the pound of flesh you still owe.”
Nausea rolled over me, and if I’d had anything to vomit, it would have landed in his lap.
“You have two weeks to get back in shape and make yourself presentable. This is your last chance, Korinne. Save yourself. Protect your sister. Get me Ian Holt.”
After Tower left, the lights stayed on, and I had several minutes to see the emaciated ruin my body had become. And to think. And to hate Jake Tower like I’d never hated anyone in my life. Then the door opened again, and my sister stepped into the room, a younger, softer reflection of the woman I’d been until Tower locked me up.
Kenley gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth, then she spoke from behind it. “What did you bastards do to her?”
Milligan stood behind her, staring at the floor. “I never touched her. I just work here.”
“Where the hell are her clothes?”
Milligan shrugged. “This is how he sent her. You’ve got fifteen minutes to get her cleaned up.” He backed out of the room and shut the door.
Kenley crossed the small space and set a canvas bag on the floor, then dropped onto her knees in front of me, brushing hair back from my forehead.
“How long?” I asked, staring at the mattress while she dug in her bag.
She pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to me. “Almost six weeks,” she said, and I could hear the sob in her voice, though she tried to hold it back.
“I’m fine.” I cracked the top on the bottle, scared by how much effort that took, then unscrewed the lid. I’d gulped half of it before I remembered I should go slow.
“You’re not fine. I thought you were dead. Jake kept saying you were alive, but he wouldn’t let me see you. I was sure he was lying, just to keep me working.” Tears formed in her eyes and when she blinked, they rolled down her cheeks.
“No. Don’t cry, Kenni,” I whispered, because they were listening. They were always listening, and they were probably watching through the one-way glass. I licked the moisture from my lips. “Don’t ever let those steel-hearted sons of bitches see you cry. If they know you can be broken, they’ll fuckin’ break you just for sport.”
Like they’d tried to break me.
She nodded, jaw clenched against sobs she was visibly choking back.
I opened my mouth to tell her it would be okay. I would make it okay. But then my stomach revolted, and I lurched for the toilet. I retched hard enough to wrench my injured shoulder, and the water came up. It was too much, too fast. I should have known better. I’d been sipping half handfuls of clean water from the back of the toilet tank since the bottles had stopped coming, but that was different from gulping half a bottle, ice-cold.
Kenley pulled my hair from my face and I sat up, wiping my mouth with the back of one bare arm. My stomach was still pitching, but there was nothing left to lose.
“No one knew where you were.” She handed me the bottle again, and I rinsed my mouth, then spit into the toilet, thinking about how wrong she was. Some people knew where I was. Some of them had seen me, through the one-way glass. “Tower was shot, and you were shot, then he woke up and you disappeared. What happened, Kori? No one knows what really happened.”
What happened? I’d been buried in the basement, at the mercy of the monsters. But that wasn’t what she was asking.
“Liv said she needed my help, so I went. But it was a trap. They were waiting for me. They took my key and used it to break in.” I was the breach in security that got one of our men killed, two more shot, and Tower’s prize blood donor—my murdered friend Noelle’s only daughter—taken. “Ruben Cavazos shot us both.” I ran my fingers over the dirty bandage on my shoulder.
I should have run, regardless of the risk. I would have run, if not for Kenley. I couldn’t leave her alone with Tower. Alone in the syndicate. My sister and I were a package deal, from start to finish.
“You’re lucky he didn’t have you killed,” she said, but I shook my head.
“He can’t. He still needs me.” I had no clue why I had to be the one to recruit Ian Holt, but if Jake didn’t need me, I would be dead.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” She stood and headed for the canvas bag,