Shadow Bound

Kori blinked, and I glimpsed something she was about to dance around, without actually denying—a trick syndicate employees learned quickly. “You will never find a better financial opportunity than what Jake is offering you. You’ll never find a syndicate with better security or fringe benefits. But if you go into this thinking you can work Jake Tower with a smile and a joke, he will roast you alive, feast on your flesh, then pick his teeth with your fucking bones.”

“That may be the most honest thing you’ve said yet.” But I felt my smile slipping. “Colorful, too.”

Kori sank into her chair again, and I watched her face as understanding bled into fear for a moment before her defenses slammed into place and left me staring at a carefully blank expression. But she couldn’t undo what I’d seen. She’d shown me a glimpse of the gritty reality beneath the shining surface of Tower’s empire, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. At least, not until I had a chain link tattooed on my arm.

“So now what?” She gripped the arms of her chair like it was all that was holding her up.

“Now you take me out on the town. Show me the syndicate in its natural habitat.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Is there anything I can show you that’ll make a damn bit of difference?”

“Why else would I be here?”

Kori sat straighter, eyes flashing again, this time with new understanding. Possibility. “You need something from him.” I could practically see the bulb flare to light over her head, and I wanted to smile. “I’m a bad recruiter. I’m a suck-ass recruiter, but you haven’t even flinched over anything I’ve said or done, and that means you need something bad enough that you don’t care what you’d have to sign to get it.”

I arched one brow at her. “I do care what I’d have to sign over. But I also know that nothing in life is free.”

She frowned, like that cliché meant more than it should have for her, and I wondered what she’d paid for whatever she got out of signing with Tower. “So tell me what you need, and I’ll get it for you.”

I shook my head slowly. “That’s not how the game is played.” Because if she knew that what I needed was her sister’s corpse, she’d try to kill me where I sat. So why was I more disturbed by the thought of being hated by her than of being killed by her?

“Fuck the game. I don’t wanna play.”

“You don’t have any choice,” I said, and fury rolled over her in waves almost thick enough for me to taste.

“Don’t ever say that to me,” she growled, her hands clenched around the chair arms so tightly I was afraid she might break them off.

I exhaled slowly, backing carefully away from whatever psychological land mine I’d nearly stepped on. “That’s not what I meant. You have to play the game because I have to play the game. I want something Tower won’t want to give. Which puts me in a pretty difficult position.”

Kori actually rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you fully appreciate how badly Jake wants to secure your services. There isn’t anything he wouldn’t give you, if you ask nicely and do a little ass kissing. Money. Car. Apartment. Women. Hell, men, if that’s what you like.”

“I don’t—” I started, but she spoke over me.

“Recreational chemicals …” Drugs, of course. “Fine art. Exotic pets. A surrogate mother for your unborn child. He’d give you nearly anything, short of his own wife and kids.” She stopped abruptly, forehead furrowed with a sudden unpleasant thought. “Please tell me you don’t want his wife. Asking for Lynne would get us both killed.”

I scowled, repulsed by the thought. “No, I don’t want his wife.”

“What, then? Tell me, and I’ll get it.”

I arched both brows, trying to hide a grin. “You should be careful what you offer a man you just met. What if I asked you to kill someone for me?”

“You wouldn’t.” She leaned back in her chair, obviously comfortable with her assessment of me.

“You don’t know me, or what I want, or what I’m capable of. But I’m telling you that what I need, Tower’s not going to want to give me. So if you want to make your boss happy you may have to go around him to get it. Are you willing to do whatever that takes?”

Kori watched me, her expression carefully blank, her gaze steady and colder than I’d seen since the moment we met. “Maybe you belong here after all.”

Seven

Kori

“It all begins with the grunts. The foot soldiers, with just one chain link,” I said, when we were far enough from the doormen that they wouldn’t overhear me explaining the inner workings of the Tower syndicate to a man without marks.

“The bottom layer of the pyramid?” Holt said as we crossed the covered hotel entrance and stepped onto the sidewalk, greeted by honking horns, the bite of exhaust, and what little breeze reached downtown from the river.

“Exactly.” I wasn’t sure how much he already knew, so I started from the beginning. “This is the rank I highly suggest you skip, and I don’t think Jake will balk at that, if you ask nicely.”

“What’s he like?”

“Jake? He’s disciplined. Patient.” In the same way a cat is willing to wait as long as it takes for the best shot at its prey. “Jake likes order. Rules. Straight lines and neat little boxes. I couldn’t walk a straight line even stone-cold sober and neat boxes tremble in my presence. Which is probably why I’m constantly in trouble.”

“You? Trouble? I am shocked and appalled.”

I glanced up to see Holt watching me with no hint of a smile. “You may be the most sarcastic man I’ve ever met.”

“It’s a gift.” We stopped at the corner, but only had to wait a second for the light to change so we could cross the street. “So, what is a grunt’s primary duty?” Ian asked as soon as we stepped onto the opposite curb.

“Depends on the color of the mark. Rust is the most common. A rust-colored mark means unSkilled muscle. They’re sentries, on the lookout for anything that doesn’t belong. And they’re everywhere, whether you see them or not. They do much more than the police to keep crime rates down on this side of town.”

Unauthorized crime, anyway. No one intervened when Tower ordered someone found, punished or killed. But that was one of the things we didn’t talk about. One of many.

Ian glanced at the people all around us, carrying shopping bags, having breakfast at the outdoor tables spilling onto the sidewalk from various restaurants, or just rushing to and from wherever they had to be on a Saturday morning. “What’s green?” He nodded toward a woman stepping out of a coffee shop with a cardboard container of steaming paper cups. The two chain links on her arm were the color of tarnished copper.

“Green is for unSkilled service. She’s a secretary, or accountant, or something like that. She’s not muscle, but she’s not Skilled, either.”

“And there are red marks, too, I assume?”

“Yeah. Red for the skin trade, same as for most other syndicates, but they don’t work on the street. Private appointments only. Their clientele is established and wealthy, and unlike Cavazos, Tower marks them on their arm, same as all the other initiates. He doesn’t see the point of either degrading or hiding them by putting the marks on their thighs.”

Holt’s brows rose. “Prostitutes are people, too?”

“It’s just another way to serve.” I couldn’t spit the lie out fast enough. “Of course, whatever you want would be on the house—at least until he marks you.”

Ian scowled, and I wasn’t surprised. Jake was right; Holt didn’t want a whore.

“And your mark?” he asked, glancing at the half sleeve covering the top quarter of my left arm.

“Iron-colored links are for Skilled initiates, no matter what the position. I’m security, obviously, though no longer on Tower’s personal guard.”

“Why not? Did Tower get a splinter on your watch?”

Yeah. A big metal splinter to the chest. “Something like that.”

“So, after you recruit me—assuming you recruit me—what will your job be?”

“I don’t know.” I would never work as Jake’s guard again, nor would I be trusted to protect his wife or kids. “General security, maybe. Like the guards stationed every where at the party.”

Ian grimaced. “That sounds boring as hell.”