Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) (34 page)

“I’m not going to shoot you,” I promised as Van shoved a pair of jeans into my hands. I changed from pj shorts into the jeans in Gran’s room in record time, while Kori rummaged in the hall closet for an extra holster. She showed me how to wear it, then slid two full clips into a pocket beneath my right arm and adjusted the straps quickly as I got accustomed to the feel.

I checked my clip, then chambered a round, double-checked the safety and slid the gun into my holster.

“Draw,” Kori said, her hand already on the closet door. She was eager to go. We both were.

I drew, but the movement was slow and awkward.

“Again.”

I holstered the gun and drew with my right hand, again. And again, the movement felt...strange. Kori made a couple of adjustments in the straps, then handed me a jacket and told me to try it again. I put the jacket on, then drew again. My draw was better that time. Smoother, even with the extra material. However, I still wasn’t quite confident that I wouldn’t accidentally shoot a hole in the borrowed jacket.

But I didn’t let her see that. Lots of people learn through on-the-job training, right? Trial by fire. If they could do it, so could I.

Kori nodded her approval, then waved me into the closet. She and Ian followed, and she closed the door. There was only darkness and silence for a moment, when I assumed she was making a mental search of the address Olivia had given her—fortunately, she was familiar with the building.

“The whole apartment is dark. At least, dark enough to travel into. Get ready.”

Her right hand bumped my left, and I took it, my right hovering near the gun, a conspicuous weight at my side. Then she tugged us forward.

Two steps later, the air around us changed as we stepped out of the closet and into Curtis’s brother’s apartment. Carpet muffled our steps.

The smell hit me with my next breath. Feces. And beneath that, the milder yet more alarming scent of blood.

Kori let go of my hand the instant her first foot landed on carpet. For a moment, she and Ian stood absolutely still, letting their eyes adjust to the slightly lighter room, so I did the same. Fortunately, the only light source was what bled through the blinds from the streetlight outside. We adjusted quickly.

On my left, Kori’s head turned as she scanned the room, and I knew Ian was doing the same. So I glanced around, too, and discovered that she’d walked us into the living room—the outline of a couch was a dead giveaway—less than a foot from the closed front door. Where we were least likely to bump into furniture. Where no one could sneak up on us without opening the door at our backs, which would serve as a warning.

Kori thought of everything.

I needed to think of everything, too.

Ian’s tall, dark silhouette took several steps toward the wall near the window. “Light?” he asked, and Kori’s profile nodded. Something clicked, and soft light flooded the room from a lamp in the corner.

The first thing I noticed was a pile of broken glass next to the end table holding the lamp. Something had been knocked off and shattered on the floor. The second thing I noticed were the bodies. Two of them. Even in the deep shadows cast by the table lamp, I recognized the one on the left. His light eyes were still open, now staring at nothing. But now he had two mouths, one gaping open below his chin, above the blood soaking his clothes.

Curtis wasn’t smiling now.

“Sera?” Ian said while Kori headed into the short hallway, gun drawn. She was checking for bad guys, though we all knew the place was deserted. Kris was gone.

“I’m okay,” I whispered, though I was anything but. Curtis was dead, but I didn’t see it happen. I didn’t get to see his life spilled along with his blood. I didn’t see recognition of me in his eyes as they lost focus.

He was dead, but he hadn’t died paying for his crimes against my family. I knew because Kris hadn’t killed him. The spiderweb was a trap. And now Kris was missing.

Somehow, that was worse than how Curtis had died. Without me.

“Kris didn’t do this.” I stood far enough away from the bodies that I could see what had happened to them, but didn’t have to
see.
Kris was right. Death is a horrible thing to see, even on those who deserve it. “He’s more of a gun man, right?”

“From what I’ve seen, yes.” Ian stood at my side, his weapon still drawn, but aimed at the floor. “Kori’s slit a few throats, but she doesn’t enjoy it, and I’d bet money this was done by a man who enjoys his work. Notice the details.”

But I didn’t want to notice the details.

I wanted to find Kris.

“The apartment’s empty,” Kori said, stepping back into the living room from the hall. But we all already knew that.

“Why didn’t they stay?” I holstered my gun, relieved more by its absence from my hand than by its comforting weight at my side. “If this trap was for me, and Kris showed up instead, they had to know we’d come after him, right? So why are they all gone?”

“Julia’s already lost half a dozen perfectly good gunmen to our ragtag little band of outlaws,” Ian said. “I doubt she was eager to lose any more. Especially if she’s actually lost other employees, thanks to the viral campaign.”

That made sense. “So where’s Kris? She didn’t kill him, right? If so, she would have left him here with the Curtis brothers...” My words sounded like a guess, but felt more like fact. “Maybe Cam can track him again. Or Liv, if we have a sample of his blood.” I glanced at Kori with both brows raised. “Do we have a sample of his blood?”

She shook her head. “He’s careful to destroy every drop he loses. I think you’re right, though. He’s alive, but Cam won’t be able to track him if Julia still has him, and neither would Liv, even if we had a blood sample. Julia will be Jamming his psychic signature.”

“Why does she want him?” I couldn’t figure that out. She needed Kenley, but Kris should have held no value to her.

“She doesn’t.” Ian pulled a piece of paper off the fridge, and the watermelon-shaped magnet that had been holding it in place clattered to the floor. “She wants
you.
” He handed me the note. “Careful. It’s still wet.”

An inarticulate sound of disgust bubbled up from my throat as I realized that the note I now held had been written in blood. Literally. Chase Curtis’s blood, if I had to guess—there was plenty of it available.

But my disgust melted in the face of both fear and rage when I read the still-dripping words.

Let’s trade. Sera for Kris. I’ll be in touch.

“Is that irony?” I stared at the note, reading it for the third or fourth time. “I think that’s irony.” I’d thought Kris wanted to trade me for Kenley, but now Julia wanted to trade me for him.

“Okay. So...I’ll go. I mean, I was going to go in anyway.”

Kori shook her head, her jaw clenched in fury. “Doesn’t matter. She’s not going to trade him. She’ll kill him as soon as she has you.”

“No, she won’t. I won’t let her. She can’t hurt me and she has to do whatever I tell her to, right?” Surely the infamous bindings were going to work in our favor, for once....

Ian shook his head that time. “There are too many loopholes. She’s bound to you by the same contract that kept her bound to Jake—the same contract she worked around to have him killed. She could do the same to you.”

“And that could be as easy as not being there in person when we go for the trade,” Kori added. “If she’s not there, you can’t give her orders. And if her people have orders to kill whoever shows up, she’s not specifying that they kill you—thus she’s not violating her contract—but you’ll still be dead.”

Which was exactly how and why she’d had my family killed—hoping to catch me in the crossfire without actually putting a hit out on me.

“Shit.” How was it possible that the contracts and system of loyalties were so complicated, but the ways around them were so frustratingly simple?

“Okay. So, if she’s not going to give him back, we’ll have to
take
him back. Along with Kenley.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Kori knelt for a better look at Curtis, and my stomach churned. “Sorry you didn’t get your revenge killing. I know how bad that sucks. But you’re welcome to share mine. Julia Tower’s as responsible for what happened to your family as Curtis was, which means we both have a claim on her life.” She stood and met my gaze in the dull light from the table lamp. “Help us get Kris and Kenley back, and I’m willing to share the kill.”

“You couldn’t stop me from either one if you tried. How do you think she’ll be in touch? And when?”

“I don’t know, but we’re not going to wait—” Before she could even finish her sentence, Kori’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She frowned and pulled it out, then turned the cell around so Ian and I could see the screen. The text was from Kenley’s phone, but we both knew the Binder hadn’t sent the message.

Bring Sera to the warehouse at the corner of Bonner and Lexington. I will trade her for your brother.

“It can’t be that easy, right?” I said as Kori pocketed her phone without even considering a reply. “I know she’s not really going to trade, so what are the chances he’s really in that warehouse?”

“Slim to none.” Ian scrubbed one hand over his short-cropped hair. “We can try tracking him, but I’d bet my life she has a Jammer sitting right next to Kris. If he’s even still alive.” The words looked almost as painful for him to say as they were for me to hear, but he didn’t shy away from them.

“He’s alive,” Kori said. “She’ll know we’ll want proof of that before we agree to anything. And she won’t offer Kenley as part of the trade because she knows we’ll recognize that as a lie.”

“So, we find her and we take them both back.” I leaned against the fridge, careful not to touch anything for fear of leaving fingerprints at the scene of a crime. “We know where she’s not.” The warehouse on the corner of Bonner and Lexington. “That only leaves...the entire rest of the city for us to search.” I hoped I didn’t look as frustrated as I sounded.

Ian turned to Kori. “I assume she’s not at Tower’s house. For one thing, that’s too obvious. For another, if the viral campaign worked, they may have run her off. We have to assume she still has some loyal employees, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to take Kris. But it’s entirely possible that she doesn’t have Kenley anymore.”

“Then who does?” Kori stepped over the pool of blood surrounding the Curtis brothers and sank onto the arm of their couch. “If she lost enough employees to lose control over Kenley, how long do you think it’ll be before whoever’s running the blood farm figures out that killing Kenni will free them all permanently? What if that’s already happened?
Can
it happen?” She stared at the shadowed carpet, lost in thought. “I can’t remember whether or not my oath to Jake prohibited me from killing his Binder— I wouldn’t have hurt her anyway.”

“I think it’s time we make some calls and find out exactly what our viral campaign has done to the Tower infrastructure,” I said, and Kori looked up at me, drawn from her thoughts by the possibility. “Worst-case scenario—we’ll find out it failed entirely. Which means Kenley’s still alive and Julia has her. And if it hasn’t failed, I can get information from anyone whose binding was transferred to me.”

Kori nodded, already pulling her phone from her pocket.

“I think I can save you a lot of trouble on that front.”

Ian whirled toward the new voice as Kori stood, and they were both already aiming guns at the man-shaped shadow in the short hallway before it even occurred to me to draw my weapon.

“Relax. I’m here to help.” Mitch stepped into the dimly lit living room, but no one relaxed. No guns were holstered.

Kori made a show of flipping the safety switch on her gun. “Go out the way you came in, or I
will
blow your brains out the back of your head.”

Mitch shrugged, still looking at me as he answered her. “That would make it hard for me to tell you what I know.”

“Wait. Let’s hear him out.” If he really had information, we needed it. Badly.

“He’s not bound to you anymore, Sera.” Ian glanced at me briefly, but his aim at Mitch never wavered. “He could be lying. He could be here to kill you.”

“I could,” Mitch confirmed with another shrug. “But that’s more work than I’m willing to do without a direct order or the promise of a paycheck, and since I’m a free man now...I’m actually on my way out of town. Which was your suggestion.”

“Then why are you here? How’d you know we’d be here?” I moved to stand between Kori and Ian, one hand on my own holstered gun, but the added threat wasn’t necessary. Either of them could blow him into several pieces before I could draw, much less aim.

“I’m here because I made a mistake after we parted ways, and I want to fix it. And I didn’t know for sure that you’d be here. It was an educated guess.”

“Educated?” Ian said.

“Yeah. That mistake I mentioned? After I left you guys on the east side yesterday, I went back to Julia.”

“Why?” I couldn’t make sense of it. Why would a free man go back to the woman who’d held his chains? And why would that woman let him live when she’d killed everyone else I’d freed?

“Because I’ve been bound to the Towers since I was nineteen years old. I wasn’t highly valued or promoted very quickly, but syndicate life is all I know, and my talents hold no value in any other line of work. When you let me go, I didn’t understand what you were giving me. I felt as if I’d been thrown out on my ass with nowhere to go. So I went back to what I knew.”

“Why didn’t she kill you?” Kori demanded, gaze narrowed in suspicion we all seemed to share.

“Because I didn’t tell her what you did. Fortunately, she never actually asked me if my binding was converted. She only asked if I’d gotten a text from any of you, and my answer to that was an honest ‘no.’”

“So she thinks you’re still bound to her?” Ian didn’t lower his aim, but he no longer looked likely to shoot in the next few seconds.

“Yeah. I figured that was the safest bet.”

“So you knew we’d be here because you knew how Julia got Kris?”

“I was here when she took him. I knew you’d follow him eventually and my plan was to wait for you here—half an hour would have been my limit, since I’m on my way out of town—and as fortune would have it, here you are. No waiting necessary.”