Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,103
his only reply.
“Sera, what the fuck?” I demanded. “How did you break Ned’s bindings? You’re a Binder now? How many Skills to you have?”
“Just the one. Er...two, I guess. But I’m not a Binder.”
“You have two Skills?” Mitch said, and Sera’s forehead furrowed in sudden concern.
“You can’t tell anyone that. Ever,” she said, and he scowled, then rubbed his own forehead, like he was getting a headache. Or thinking about breaching an oath.
“Why is he taking orders from you?” I demanded. “Why hasn’t he shot you? How did you break Ned’s binding?”
“While we’re asking questions, why was this fucker sneaking up on us?” Kori said from behind me, and I spun to find her in the hall, gesturing to Ian, who had an obviously dead man tossed over his good shoulder, dripping blood on the floor at his back. “How did you get in?”
“The lights are on a remote,” Mitch said. “When our Tracker hadn’t picked up your signal after an hour, we turned this one off and popped in to check. Since you’re obviously here, the only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that your psychic signal is being jammed. Any idea how that might happen?” He was looking at Sera, but she only stared back at him, refusing to confirm either of her Skills.
“Mitch. It’s been a while.” Kori eyed him and I realized they’d once been coworkers. Had she known Ned, too?
“Hey, Kori,” Mitch said as if they’d just bumped into each other at the watercooler. “Listen, there’s a pool going, and I’ve got five hundred bucks riding on you gettin’ shot in the head, so when the time comes, could you do me a favor and hold still?”
“You placed a bet on how she’d die?” Sera looked horrified, but Kori only shrugged.
“That bet never pays out. You’d think they’d eventually learn.”
“I feel like I’ve missed something.” Ian winced as he lowered the body to the ground and propped it up next to Ned. “What’s going on?”
“Kori’s evidently having a mobster’s reunion, and this asshole’s taking orders from Sera and blaming her for getting Ned killed. Also, he may know where Kenley is.”
“Where is she?” Kori dismissed everything else as unimportant. Sometimes I admired her single-minded focus. Other times, it drove me nuts. I couldn’t decide which kind of time this should be.
“I don’t know.”
“No lies, Mitch,” Sera said, and he turned to glare at her.
“I’m not lying. After what happened to Ned, do you think Julia’s likely to hand out classified information to every peon with a gun?”
“Speaking of guns, why haven’t you used yours?” I glanced pointedly at his pistol, still in Sera’s unsure grip. “And why are you taking orders from her?”
He deferred to Sera with a single glance and she cleared her throat nervously. “I...um...might have...inherited his binding. Kind of.”
“You kind of inherited his binding?” Ian’s voice echoed my own confusion.
“From Julia?” Kori frowned. “Does that mean she’s dead?”
They were all missing the most obvious piece of the puzzle—how Sera could have inherited anything from Julia Tower—but she answered before I could ask.
“Not that I know of.” Sera cleared her throat again and her hand clenched the edge of the grimy pedestal-style sink she leaned against. “I didn’t inherit from Julia. If I understand correctly, the bindings were never really hers in the first place. I inherited from Jake.”
“Wait, bindings? Plural?” Ian’s hand hovered over the butt of his holstered weapon, as if it was the only thing he was really sure of at the moment. I knew exactly how that felt. “Not just this one?”
“It’s...all of them.” Sera shrugged again, and her obvious confusion said she didn’t understand much more than we did. “Kind of.”
“Kind of?” Kori frowned.
“Julia still holds most of them. For the moment.”
“How?” I lowered my aim—my arm was aching—but not my guard. “How the hell could you inherit anything from Jake Tower?” But as soon as I’d asked the question, the answer seemed obvious, and for the second it took to sink in, the world seemed to grind to a halt all around me.
“Holy shit!” Kori actually staggered backward and stepped on Ian’s foot. “He’s your dad. Jake Tower was your fucking dad.”
“No...” I said, but no one was listening. I’d heard it. I understood it. But I couldn’t make sense of it. Sera was beautiful, and smart, and she loved and missed her family more than anything else in the world. She couldn’t even be related to Jake Tower, much less sired by him, because the Towers