Oath Bound (Unbound)

Twenty-One



Kris

My eyes opened, then closed again before the world could come into focus. Two half-blinks later, I managed to keep them open, but then exposure to the bright light brought pain roaring to life all over my body.

The headache was the worst. The pain at the back of my skull was sharp and intense, but another pain mirrored it behind my forehead, dull but persistent. A sure sign that I had a concussion—that my brain had been bounced around by whoever had hit me from behind.

But for another couple of seconds, I couldn’t remember actually being hit. Or where that had happened. All I knew was that I was now tied to a chair, my hands behind my back, my wrists already chafed by my bonds.

Having been in a similar position once before, I already knew that panicking would be a very bad idea. My energy would be better spent finding a way to free myself.

“Good morning, sunshine,” a familiar voice said, and when I looked up to find Julia Tower watching me from a folding chair four feet away, the rest of my memories slid into place.

A dark apartment.

The Curtis brothers, one dead, one tied up.

Then something had hit me from behind, and as I’d crumpled to the floor, struggling to keep my eyes open, someone had stepped up behind Chase Curtis and pulled a knife across his throat.

He’d died choking on his own blood as I lost consciousness.

I’d failed Sera again.

“Time to wake up now,” Julia sang in a falsely cheerful voice, tapping pointy-toed, high-heeled shoes on the stained concrete floor, and I forced my eyes to focus. “You and I are going to have a little chat.”

“I have nothing to say to you until you send Kenley home.” My voice was hoarse, and my throat was sore, and I wondered briefly if someone had tried to choke me while I was unconscious. Or maybe my throat had dried out from lack of use. How long had I been out?

Julia made a show of sniffing the air, which was completely unnecessary for Reading. “That smells like a lie.” Her forehead furrowed, perfectly manicured eyebrows dipping in disappointment with me. “Doesn’t matter, though. I didn’t expect you to cooperate without the proper motivation. Which is why we’ve brought your sister in to help motivate you.” She gestured with one hand, and movement to my left drew my gaze toward a typically beefy guard as he pulled a curtain back from the wall to reveal a long window.

Beyond the window, Kenley sat in a folding chair, in an otherwise empty room, which had probably once been an office. She was blindfolded, hands bound behind her back just like mine, and her head was slumped as if she was sleepy. But she looked otherwise unhurt.

My relief at seeing her intact was accompanied by a mental asterisk and the certainty that that fact was about to change. Why else would Julia show me my sister?

“When Korinne was still in our company, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect the baby of the family, and I’m betting the same goes for you.” Julia glanced from Kenley to me, her neatly painted lips curled in derision. “The Daniels’ family really believes that blood is thicker than water. Doesn’t it?”

“That’s an odd criticism coming from a woman who had her own brother murdered.” I glanced at the guards stationed around the room, hoping for a reaction, but none of them even blinked, that I could tell.

“They already know.” Julia crossed her ankles beneath her folding chair. “Most of them don’t care. Jake wasn’t exactly loved by most of his employees. Those who do object to his timely demise are prohibited from expressing their displeasure by the contracts binding them to me.”

I frowned as what she’d said sank in. “She isn’t Jake Tower’s heir,” I called, loud enough to be heard throughout the room. No one reacted.

“They know that, too. These are all my men.”

“New hires?” I didn’t think she’d answer. I was wrong. In fact, she seemed quite forthcoming, which probably meant she was proud of herself.

“Some of them.” Julia smoothed her suit jacket over the blue blouse beneath. “Others were on Jake’s staff, most of which knows all about Sera’s surprise inheritance, thanks to the curse of instant communication.”

“So glad to hear the mass texting worked.” Surely proof that Sera was smarter than her aunt.

“Not as well as you might think. Thanks to your baby sister’s generous blood donation, I’ve spent the past three days transferring bindings from Sera to me. Starting with the gunmen in this room. None of those newly bound employees were affected in the slightest by your wireless campaign.”

“That’s not possible.” I gave my arms an experimental tug, but the bindings held tight. And they felt sharp, more like a zip tie than a rope. The irony there was that they’d probably gotten the damn thing out of my pocket. “Kenni’s blood can’t be used to bind someone without her will attached to it.” And there was no way in hell that Kenley wanted to give Julia Tower any more power than she already had. “You’re lying.”

“If I were, you would never know it. But as it happens, there’s no need for lies. Kenley’s will didn’t seal the bindings. Mine did.” Julia watched me, waiting to see if I could connect the dots on my own.

Kenley’s blood, but Julia’s will...

Horror washed over me, and the room seemed to spin—the result of my entire world being knocked off-kilter. It shouldn’t have been possible. “A transfusion? You gave yourself Kenley’s blood?”

“Only a little.” Julia shrugged, and the casual gesture looked strange on her. “Honestly, I got lucky. If we’d been incompatible blood types, the transfusion would have been very risky for me. But I had little choice, thanks to you and Jake’s bastard daughter.”

“You had a choice.” I tried to move my legs, and discovered that my ankles were tied to the legs of the chair. “You could have chosen not to be a maniacal bitch.”

“Trust me, my way was easier.”

“So, what, you took a transfusion of Kenley’s blood, then sealed the new contracts yourself?” I said, and she nodded, looking more than a little proud of herself. But I could see what she was trying not to show me. There was a reason we were in a warehouse rather than in the Tower basement. “This is all you got away with, isn’t it? Just these men? You didn’t have time to reseal most of the bindings. Sera still holds them, doesn’t she?”

Julia’s scowl could have peeled the paint off a car. “Not for long. You’re going to bring her to me.”

“Never gonna happen.” My legs had less freedom than my arms. By my best guess, they were duct-taped to the chair legs, over my jeans.

“Oh, it will. But first, I need a little information from you, so we’ll all be prepared for my darling niece’s arrival.” Julia recrossed her legs in the opposite direction. “Does Sera have a Skill?”

I stared at her in silence.

“Are you really going to make me repeat the question?”

I shrugged as best I could with my hands tied at my back. “I don’t see what good that would do.”

“It wouldn’t do you any good at all. But I’m sure your sister would appreciate your candor right about now.” She made another off-hand gesture, and one of the guards turned and opened the door he stood next to. A moment later, through the glass, I saw the door to Kenley’s room open, and he stepped inside.

“You touch her, and I’ll kill you,” I spat, openly struggling against my bindings now, though I knew I had no shot at breaking them.

Julia gave me a small smile. “You’re going to try to kill me anyway, and I have no intention of touching your sister. But Lincoln has been looking forward to it all day. So, you answer my questions, or he’s going to give your sister something to cry about.”

He wouldn’t kill her. Julia couldn’t let that happen, without losing every binding Kenley had sealed. But he could hit her. Or cut her. Or burn her. And Julia would let him.

It killed me that I hadn’t been able to protect Kori from Jake’s fury—I hadn’t even known she was in danger until it was nearly over. But Kori was a survivor—a fighter with tough skin and even tougher insides.

Kenley was none of that. I couldn’t let them hurt her. But I couldn’t betray Sera, either.

“Does Serenity have a Skill?” Julia repeated, watching me while, in the other room, Kenley squirmed in her chair and said something I couldn’t hear through the glass.

When I didn’t answer, Julia rolled her eyes and dug something from her jacket pocket. Some kind of small remote. She pressed a button, and there was a short buzz of static, then my sister’s voice came over the tiny speaker, fuzzy with static.

“—there? I can here you breathing. Say something!” she screeched, and if she’d looked drowsy before, she sounded terrified now.

“Kenni!” I shouted, and Julia frowned at me.

“She can’t hear you. Answer the question. Does Sera have a skill?”

I couldn’t lie to Julia—a Reader—and get away with it. And I couldn’t refuse to answer without getting Kenley hurt. But I knew I’d hesitated too long when Julia picked up her remote and pressed a button, then spoke into it as if it were a handheld radio.

“Kenley, can you hear me?”

Through the window, Kenni’s head pivoted toward a corner of the room I couldn’t see, where—presumably—the speaker was mounted. “F*ck you, Julia!” she shouted, and I almost laughed out loud, in spite of the circumstances. She’d sounded so much like Kori!

“Your family resemblance is showing,” Julia warned. “Speaking of family, I have your brother here—”

“Kenni, just hang on. I’ll get you out—”

Julia spoke over me. “And you have his stubborn streak to blame for what’s coming. Lincoln?” She released the speaker button and Lincoln nodded.

“No!” I shouted, and Julia held the remote up, so I could see that her finger was still off the button. Lincoln couldn’t hear me.

A blur of motion through the window caught my gaze, and Lincoln punched my baby sister in the face. Still blindfolded, Kenley never saw the blow coming. She grunted in pain, and my pulse raced so hot and fast that my vision started to blur. Kenley’s chair rocked back and forth, and for one interminable second, I was afraid it would tip over and she’d hit her head on the floor, and if that happened, there was nothing I could do for her.

“Stop!” I strained so hard against the zip tie at my back that the plastic bit into my skin, and the sudden warmth told me I was bleeding.

If Kenley fell unconscious, would Julia make it stop? I honestly didn’t know. Unconscious people make terrible torture victims, because they can’t feel pain, but it was my pain Julia was counting on, and I would suffer each of my sister’s blows whether or not she was conscious.

Julia held the remote up to her mouth again and pressed the button. “Kenley? How you doing? Hangin’ in there?”

Kenley gasped and raised her head. Tears spilled beneath her blindfold and a horrible bruise was already forming at the center of the red patch on her left cheek. She turned her head to the side and spit blood on the floor—no reason not to, since Julia already had more than enough of her blood. Then she cleared her throat and sat straighter. “Just fine. Also? F*ck you. And f*ck Lincoln, whoever the hell he is. What kind of coward hits a woman while she’s blindfolded and tied to a chair?”

Lincoln actually chuckled. “I only work here,” he said, examining his knuckles, and I wanted to rip his throat out and watch his blood drain onto the floor. “If I had my way, this would be an entirely different kind of...session.”

Kenley bit her lip as silent tears rolled down her face, and my blood boiled. I recognized Lincoln now. He was the one who’d slit Chase Alexander Curtis’s throat.

“Hmm...” Julia turned back to me. “Someone’s been spending a lot of time with her big brother and sister. But I don’t think she’s as tough as Kori, no matter what she wants us to believe. Do you?”

I didn’t answer.

“Tell me about Sera’s Skill, or we’ll find out just how tough your baby sister is.”

She was now assuming Sera had a Skill, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a bluff or a conclusion she’d drawn based on the fact that I hadn’t claimed otherwise. Julia lifted the radio to her lips again and opened her mouth.

“Yes.” I glared at her. “Sera has a Skill.” That was the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

“Good boy,” she said, and I wanted to put my fist through her face. “And what is her Skill?”

But I’d figured out her game. “You already know the answer to that, don’t you?” She was testing me.

“I have my suspicions. She’s a Jammer, isn’t she?”

“Just like her father. Your brother.”

Julia nodded. She had known. But I was sure she didn’t know about Sera’s other Skill. No one did, other than the residents of our hideout house. And Julia couldn’t make me give her information she didn’t know she was missing.

“Sera didn’t know, did she?” Julia sat straighter, and her eyes lost focus with the thought. “She was telling the truth when she said she didn’t have a Skill, and the only way that’s possible is if she didn’t know she was Skilled. Which makes sense for a Jammer—there’s no intent required for her Skill.”

I shrugged. I was afraid to say anything, one way or another—Sera had obviously been blocking Julia’s Skill when she needed to get away with a lie, just like she’d done with Anne.

“It’s too bad, really, because I could use another Jammer—if she weren’t trying to usurp my position.”

“Sera doesn’t give a damn about your position, your money or your power. She didn’t ask to inherit the mafia, and she has no desire whatsoever to run it.”

Julia frowned at me. “You actually mean that. She spoke to you, didn’t she? She confided in you.” She frowned and glanced at the floor without waiting for my answer. “Why would she do that?” When she looked up, I saw comprehension written all over her coldly attractive features. “You’re not just trying to keep her for her Skill. You actually like her. Or is it more than that? Am I making you choose between your sister and your lover?”

“F*ck off.”

Julia laughed again. “Oh, you Daniels siblings. You’re all guns, and knives, and flying fists on the surface, but on the inside there’s nothing but mush. Gooey touchy-feely pulp, rotting you from the inside out. Your emotional fragility is what makes you so easy to manipulate. So let’s try another question. What’s Sera’s other Skill?”

For a moment, I could only blink at her. How the hell had she known?

“What other Skill? No one has two Skills.”

Julia stared at me with both brows arched high, as if she was waiting for me to take it back. But I couldn’t tell her. The only advantage Sera would have, surrounded by Skilled mafia members who wanted her dead was the ability to negate their Skills.

When I said nothing, Julia pressed the button on her radio/remote again and said, “Again, Lincoln. Somewhere else this time.”

“Wait!” I shouted, but Julia didn’t wait. Neither did Lincoln. He pulled his fist back, and Kenley braced herself for the blow, and I hated myself for the fact that she had to do that. But I hated Julia more.

Lincoln punched my sister in the gut and she hunched over in agony, as far as her bindings would allow. For one long moment, her mouth hung open, silent, because she couldn’t suck in enough air to scream. So I shouted for her.

“You cold-hearted sadistic bitch! She can’t defend herself. She can’t even move. She can’t even f*cking see! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. In fact, like my late brother, I am blissfully unencumbered by traits like sympathy and pity, which keep people like you from doing what needs to be done. The only reason I haven’t killed you is that I need to know what Sera’s capable of. The only reason I haven’t killed Kenley is that I need her until I finish transferring the bindings. But I don’t need her unbruised. I don’t even need her conscious. And I certainly don’t need her...untouched.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. “Don’t.”

“Name Sera’s second Skill, or I’ll tell Lincoln he can do whatever he wants with your sister, as long as her heart keeps beating.”

“Why?” This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. “Why would you do that to another woman?”

Julia frowned, as though my logic confused her. “You seem to be under the impression that my ovaries came with a lifetime supply of empathy and compassion. I assure you that is not the case. Start talking.”

“Sera’s your niece.” Time was the only resource I had, distraction my only weapon. I had to keep her talking, even if that meant pissing her off. So long as she only took that anger out on me. “She shares your blood, and you tried to have her killed. You had her whole family slaughtered. And her baby... What kind of psychotic bitch has a baby murdered in its mother’s stomach?”

Julia stood, and I’d never seen her more pissed off. “Flattery won’t work, mostly because you’re giving me way too much credit.” She stalked closer, until she towered over me, staring straight into my eyes from inches away, and I itched to take her down. To put my hands around her throat and squeeze until her skin turned purple and her eyes popped out of her skull. “I had nothing to do with what happened to her family, but I can’t say I’m sad about the dead fetus. That’s one less Tower in line for my inheritance.”

“Would you call that irony when a truth-reader lies through her teeth? I know you had them killed. Sera knows you had them killed. And even if you pulled out a gun and shot me through the forehead in the next thirty seconds, I’d die satisfied with the knowledge that when she finds you, Sera is going to rip your heart right out of your chest. And if she’s not fast enough, Kori and Ian will fight her for the honor.”

“Dramatic. Nice imagery. You have the heart of a poet.” She crossed both arms over her suit jacket, the small remote secure in her right hand, and stared calmly into my eyes. “But none of that changes the fact that your sister is in a very small room with a very big man, about to suffer what is no doubt her worst nightmare. Start talking, or I swear on the entire Tower syndicate that I will give the order and we’ll both listen to her scream.”

“The resemblance to your brother is beyond creepy,” a new voice said, and though it was familiar, I couldn’t place the owner, and I didn’t even try. Julia turned, surprised, and all I could think about was that whatever this distraction was, it had bought me time. She’d pocketed the remote, and Kenley was still tied to her chair, her clothing intact.

Then I saw Mitch standing behind Julia with one hand on the doorknob, the other holding his shoes. His shirt was on backward, his pants were unbuttoned and his socks were mismatched.

“That was fast.” Julia’s heels clicked on the concrete as she crossed the warehouse toward him, and I had to divide my attention between what they were saying, and what I was planning—some way out of this mess, for both me and Kenley. “Well?”

“They bought it.” Mitch’s grin was obscene, in size alone. “I have to say, my acting was superb, but the real clincher was your text. They wouldn’t have believed I had legitimate information for them if I hadn’t had yours to point out as false.”

“That’s why I do the thinking, and you do what you’re told.”

Mitch’s grin faltered, but then he rallied with a more intimate smile and reached for her waist. “I’m already half-dressed. Why don’t you tell me to do something else?”

Nausea churned in my stomach at the thought of them together. Of Julia intimately involved with anyone. I preferred to think of her as asexual. Which went along with the fact that she was also amoral.

She slapped his hand away. “If you ever touch me without permission again, I’ll have you skinned alive and rolled in salt.”

Mitch looked hurt for a moment, not by her threat, but by her rejection, and with sudden insight, I understood why he’d come back—he didn’t know how to be free. He’d tried to warn us. He’d tried everything he could think of to remain in Sera’s employ, and when she’d turned him down—when I’d run him off—he’d obviously come back to Julia. But...

“You told her about Sera? About her second Skill? How?” It shouldn’t have been possible. The one caveat to his freedom was that he couldn’t tell anyone about where we’d been that day or that Sera had a second Skill.

Mitch glanced at me, then at Julia, obviously asking silent permission for something. She waved one hand at me in a “be my guest” gesture and Mitch dropped his shoes on the floor and zipped his pants, then padded across the concrete toward me in sock feet.

“Your baby sister has no idea what a help she was on that front. I ‘snuck’ in to see her and begged her to break my binding. To free me. She has no idea Sera even exists, and once she’d broken my binding to Jake Tower’s bastard, I was free to renew my vows to the true heir.” He glanced back at Julia, evidently expecting to be rewarded with a smile or a word of gratitude, but as far as I knew, Julia was unfamiliar with both concepts. I also knew that the fact that he’d had information for her was the only reason she’d taken him back instead of killing him.

“Mitch, do you have a knife?”

“Not on me.” He banished disappointment from his face with visible effort. “I thought Kori and Ian would be less likely to shoot me on sight if I was unarmed.”

“Oh, that’s right. You were afraid to take a knife to a gunfight.” Julia rolled her eyes, then held her hand out to one of the two guards standing against the wall. He pulled a serrated hunting knife from its sheath at his side, then gave it to her, handle first.

My temper surged when she started across the floor toward me, wielding the knife like a conspicuous threat. “What do you know about Kristopher Daniels?” she said, and I realized she was talking to Mitch.

He shrugged. “Only what I’ve heard. He’s a Traveler, like Kori. Better with a gun than she is, but less experienced with knives. No word yet on his hand-to-hand.”

Julia stopped two feet in front of me, feet spread in her scary stilettos, hip cocked to the left, knife held ready at her side. “Is he worth keeping, if he could be persuaded to join the cause?”

Persuaded? She meant bound. And the only Binder in the city strong enough to make a nonconsensual binding stick was my little sister.

“It does seem like a shame to waste the resource, if you don’t have to.” Mitch pulled his shirt off and turned it right side in. “He’ll be useful for dealing with his sister, like Kori was. He’ll fight you, though.”

“Oh, good.” Julia held the knife up, and the serrated blade gleamed in the bright lights from overhead. “I love it when they struggle.” She turned to Mitch again and gestured with her knife. Your stuff’s over there on the table. Bring me a sheet of paper.”

I wanted to see what his “stuff”—presumably the weapons he hadn’t worn for fear of Kori and Ian—but I knew better than to look away from a psychotic bitch with a knife in her hand.

Something clattered on my left, and a minute later Mitch padded back into sight sliding a gun into his shoulder holster, a blank sheet of paper in one hand. He gave Julia the paper, and she knelt in her pencil skirt and heels to set it on the floor at my feet.

“She won’t do it,” I said, fighting chills as she ran the tip of the knife lightly down the left side of my neck without breaking my skin. “Kenley won’t bind me to you.”

“Oh, I think she will, if the alternative is your prolonged death and her own long-term suffering. She’ll bind you because she knows that as long as you’re alive, there’s still a tiny chance you could rescue her, or vice versa.” She pressed harder with her knife and my jaw clenched when the point bit into my skin. “Hope is more dangerous than any weapon ever wielded, Kristopher Daniels.” My name sounded like profanity, falling from her lips, and I wanted to tear her tongue out as warm blood dripped down my neck. “False hope, even more so. Your sister is going to bind you into a simple servitude contract composed of too few words to form loopholes, because the alternative is nothing she wants to think about.” She drew her left index finger up my neck, and it slid too easily over my skin, slick with blood, the key to any man’s undoing. “In fact, I think you’re going to tell her to bind you, because the alternative is something you won’t want to see or hear. Something you won’t want to know you caused.”

“I will tear your throat out the first chance I get.”

“There won’t be a chance.” Julia set down her knife and picked up the paper, then made a show of stamping her fingerfull of my blood at the bottom of the page, where my signature would go, if I were to sign the document that would precede it.

But I wouldn’t sign.

And that wouldn’t matter—not with Kenley sealing the binding.

Julia wiped the blade of the knife on her dark skirt, then handed it back to her guard. Then she pulled a pen from the purse she’d left on her chair and held the blank sheet of paper against the wall, so she could write on it. She scribbled for mere seconds. Only two lines.

My heart thumped so hard I could practically hear it. I was too far away to read the lines, but I could tell from the brevity that she was right—there weren’t enough words to form a decent loophole. It probably said something like, “Kristopher Daniels will protect me with his every breath and obey my every order, whether stated or implied.”

Julia Tower was every bit as much of a monster as the one she’d replaced.

“Watch him,” she said to Mitch, who now sat in her chair, putting his shoes on. Then she disappeared through the door, into the short hall that would lead her to the room where my sister was being held.

“You saw my family?” I said the minute the door closed behind Julia.

Mitch tightened the knot in his shoelaces, then set his foot on the floor and rested his elbows on his knees. “Just Kori. But her boyfriend and your girlfriend were with her.”

Through the window, on the edge of my vision, I saw Julia step into Kenley’s room. Lincoln stepped back to make room for her, and when Julia gave him an order I couldn’t hear, he pulled the blindfold from Kenni’s head.

Her eyes widened when she saw him, and fear glistened like tears in her eyes.

Mitch stood and stalked toward me with an arrogant swagger born of the fact that I was tied up, but he was free—an irony, if I’d ever seen one, considering that he was bound to Julia and I was, at least for the moment, in charge of my own decisions. “You’re still bleeding. I’m not going to pass up an opportunity like that.”

In the other room, Julia was still talking. She held up the oath she’d drafted, and Kenley glanced at it, then shook her head. Julia gestured angrily at me through the glass, and Kenley responded with what could only be a Kori-inspired string of expletives.

Mitch leaned closer, drawing my attention as he pulled a wadded-up tissue from his pocket. He leaned in to mop up the blood on my neck, and I lurched upright as hard and fast as I could, sacrificing balance for power. My forehead smashed into his and he stumbled backward stunned.

I wobbled on my feet, still tied to the legs of the chair.

The guard by the wall drew his gun as Mitch tripped over his own feet and hit the ground on his ass. “Don’t shoot! Julia wants him alive.”

The guard hesitated, and I took advantage of that moment to throw my full weight at the ground, using Mitch to cushion my fall. I twisted at the last second, driving my shoulder into his torso. I felt something crack, and Mitch howled over at least two fractured ribs.

When I looked up, the guard was almost on us, his gun in hand, but unaimed. I shoved my legs out straight as hard as I could, and was rewarded when the ties around my ankles slipped over the ends of the chair legs.

Now free from the chair, my hands still tied at my back, I waited until the guard was almost on me, then rolled off of Mitch and twisted to the side. When the guard hesitated to shoot me a second time, I wrapped my feet around his left ankle and bent my knees, pulling as hard as I could. His leg slipped out from under him and he went down on his right hip on the concrete. Hard.

The guard groaned, and I sat up, then spun on my ass. In position, I leaned back and brought both heels of my boots crashing down into his skull. Blood burst from his nose and his eyes closed. His hand went limp and his gun clattered onto the concrete. I slammed my heels into his throat, crushing his windpipe. He gurgled and choked, but did not regain consciousness.

He’d be dead in minutes. I couldn’t afford to leave a trained fighter alive at my back.

Mitch backed away from me on his ass, one arm pressed to his side, struggling to get to his feet. He seemed to have forgotten he had a gun, which supported my theory that he’d been a glorified taxi service for Jake Tower, rather than hired muscle. No one with any real training would have forgotten he was armed, even with a couple of broken ribs and a bruised ego.

I couldn’t see the window from the floor, but the fact that Julia hadn’t sent in more guards said that she and Lincoln hadn’t yet noticed what was happening, and my stomach churned over the thought of what would be horrible enough to hold their attention for so long.

My pulse whooshing in my ears, I rolled onto my knees, then stood—a challenge in equilibrium for sure. But the next part was an even bigger challenge. Balancing on one foot, I bent in half and tucked one leg to my chest, then slid my bound wrists beneath my own backside and slid that leg through the loop formed by my arms. I repeated with the other legs and my hands were in front of me, still bound, but now much easier to use.

Bending, I snatched the dead guard’s gun and aimed at Mitch, who’d finally made it to his feet. “Lift your gun from your holster with two fingers and drop it on the ground.”

“F*ck you.”

I took aim at his chest, and he swallowed visibly, then reached for his gun.

“Slowly.”

Mitch lifted his gun from his holster with his thumb and forefinger, then bent to set it on the ground.

“Kick it to me.”

He did, and I bent to catch it with my foot. “Does Julia have a Jammer?”

He answered without hesitation. “She did. You just kicked him in the face until he quit breathing.”

I wanted to shoot him. I wanted to shoot him so badly. But he was unarmed. That would be murder.

Julia was a murderer, if by proxy. I was not.

Instead, I crossed the space between us in four steps aiming at his heart. “You don’t have to—” he said when I got close enough to see the fear in his eyes, and I slammed the grip of his own gun into his right temple. Hard.

Mitch crumpled to the ground, and I kicked him in the head for good measure. Then I dropped his gun into my holster and knelt to dig his phone from his pocket. I dialed Kori from memory, but my finger froze on the last number when I turned toward the window to find Kenley’s room empty.

You can’t see the whole room, I reminded myself as I pressed that last button. She’s fine.

I hadn’t fired the guard’s gun, so the chances of them having heard the fight were slim.

I held Mitch’s phone to my ear, and Kori answered on the third ring. “Who the hell is this?”

“It’s me.”

“Kris!” Something scratched the phone, and her next words were muffled. “It’s Kris!” Then she was back. “Where are you? Where’s Kenley? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Julia’s around here somewhere, and I don’t know how many men she has, but I could use as many extra hands as you have. Kenley’s...in trouble. I’m going to find her. But I just killed the Jammer, so you should be able to track me.”

“Cam’s already on it,” she said.

“How’s Sera?” I jogged across the warehouse floor toward the panel of switches on one wall. “Is she okay?”

“Scared. Pissed off. Armed and dangerous. She’s something else, Kris.”

“I know. Tell her I’ll see her soon.” I hung up, shoved the phone into my pocket, then slammed my hand down on the bay of switches. The lights all went off at once, and the large room was now barely illuminated only by the light shining through the window into Kenley’s room. There was plenty of darkness through which Kori could bring in our allies, and just enough light to lead me to the door Julia had disappeared through.

I opened the door and aimed down the short hallway, but it was empty. Three doors opened into the hallway, but they were all closed. The first had a square window cut into it, glowing with light from within.

I peeked inside, and my heart stopped beating. Lincoln had my sister pinned to the wall, out of sight from the window.

When I opened the door, I could hear her sobbing. Begging. I crossed the floor in three steps and pulled him off her by one shoulder. He was huge, but I’d caught him by surprise. One more shove, and I had him against the wall. He shouted something inarticulate and went for his gun, but I was faster. I put the barrel of my .40 against his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Blood and brains flew everywhere. I let him go, and Lincoln’s body slid down the wall, then thumped to the floor.

The first sound I heard, while the thunder of gunfire still echoed in my head, was my sister’s raspy, shocked breathing. Her shirt was torn open. Her hair was splattered with blood and gray matter. Her eyes were huge. Her face was bruised. But she was fine.

Kenley launched herself at me, and I held my gun to one side while she hugged me, unable to return the gesture with my hands bound. “Are you okay?” I asked, right into her ear, to make sure she could hear me above the ringing in both our ears.

She nodded, and her hair caught on my stubble. “I want to go home, Kris.”

“I know. Cut me free, and let’s go.”

She pulled a knife from Lincoln’s belt and cut through my zip tie, then dropped the weapon as though it was on fire.

I glanced into the hallway, and when I found it empty, I led her into the main warehouse, still dark from when I’d left it minutes earlier. I had her hand in mine, my eyes closed, and my focus already on the hall closet in our hideout house, when light flared to life all around us.

“Drop your gun, or Kenley takes a bullet in the leg,” Julia said, and I froze, Kenni’s hand still trapped in my grip. Heels clicked on the concrete behind me, and a second later Julia stood in front of me, still coldly put-together in her dark suit and stilettos, while my sister and I were accessorized with Lincoln’s blood and brains.

Four men fanned out around her, pointing guns at us, and the shuffle of shoes on concrete said there were at least two more at our backs. Shit! Where were Kori and Ian?

“Drop it,” Julia repeated, and I clicked the safety on, then tossed my gun toward her. It landed almost halfway between us.

“Kris...” Kenley was terrified. “I’m not going to bind you to her. I’m not going to. I don’t care what she does.”

“Without a binding, your brother has no value to me. If you won’t bind him, I’ll have to kill him.” Julia gestured to the guard on her left, who raised a 9 mm pistol and pointed it at my chest.

Gunfire exploded and I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain.

The pain never came. I kept breathing. Something thumped heavily to the concrete.

Kenley gasped.

Julia shouted.

I opened my eyes to find the man who’d been aiming at me now lying on the floor with a hole in his forehead. Before I could process that, people started shouting and guards raised their weapons.

Kenley’s hands flew up to cover her ears. She dropped into a squat. I dropped with her and wrapped her in my arms, then turned my back to the gunfire.

Three more shots rang out in rapid succession, echoing over one another, half-deafening me.

Three more of Julia’s men hit the ground, without firing a shot.

Julia backed away from us, her eyes wide and scared. I let go of Kenley and lurched for my gun, then turned in time to see Ian and Kori each fire one more time, standing just inside the door. Julia’s last two men hit the ground, and suddenly Kenni and I were surrounded by bodies.

I stood, gaping at the scene around me, too shocked to truly process it, beyond the obvious blood spilled and lack of living opponents.

Kori lowered her weapon and ran for Kenley, while Ian held Julia at gunpoint from across the room. My sisters embraced, both bawling, and my own eyes watered at the sight of them together again.

Movement to the right drew my attention and I turned to see Olivia and Cam step in from the hall. “What, you didn’t leave any for us?” Liv pouted.

“The rest of the building’s clean,” Cam said. “If she has any more, they’re not here.”

I turned to Julia, aiming at her chest. “How many more are there?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“How many?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Another shot rang out from behind me, and Julia stumbled backward. Blood bloomed on her blouse, then spread to the jacket covering it. “They won’t be hers when she’s dead.”

I turned so fast the room spun around me. Sera stood three feet behind me, still aiming at Julia. She lowered her gun and smiled at me, and for the first time since I’d met her, she looked happy.

Three steps later, she was in my arms, and for the first time since I could remember, my world made sense. Before she could do more than hug me back, I whispered in her ear. “I will never let you go again.”