were a nest of snakes willing to bite one another’s heads off if that’s what it took to climb to the top of the heap.
And every time one of us had said something along those lines—that Tower’s family tree was rotten to its core—we’d inadvertently been insulting Sera. Implying that she was rotten, as well, by virtue of a shared root system.
No wonder she couldn’t trust us with her secrets. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hated us.
“He was my father,” Sera corrected Kori, and I noted that Mitch didn’t look surprised. “He was never my dad. I never even met him, but after hearing about him from you guys, I can honestly swear to you that I’m nothing like him. Nothing like him.”
Her tense tone and wide eyes seemed to be hinting at something beyond her actual words—something she evidently didn’t want Mitch to hear—but it wasn’t until she glanced at my gun again that I understood.
She thought I was going to shoot her, if not right then and there, then eventually. She truly thought my hatred of all things Tower extended to her.
I flipped the safety switch on my pistol, and she exhaled softly in relief. But her frame remained stiff and her focus kept flitting between me, Kori and Ian as she spoke. She was on alert.
She didn’t trust us.
“I don’t think Jake even knew I existed,” Sera continued.
“He didn’t.” Kori looked stunned. Astonished. Her mind had been blown. “There’s no way in hell that he would have let anyone else raise you if he’d known you existed. Even if there was no emotional attachment whatsoever, you’re too valuable an asset to be wandering around out there, unprotected and uninstalled in the Tower machine.” She glanced at the ground, then up at Sera again, her eyes even wider now. “This kind of makes sense. Kinda. I mean, it’s crazy, but in a totally logical way.”
“Not following you, Kor...” I said, and I obviously wasn’t the only one.
My sister rolled her eyes at me. “Jake Tower was a Jammer.”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “That’s classified information.”
Kori shrugged. “It was. When he was alive and I was bound to him. Neither of which still applies.”
“But Tower hired Jammers,” I pointed out. “Anne said he hired one of the best in the country as his kids’ nanny.” So they couldn’t be tracked and targeted by his enemies, which were numerous.
“Camouflage,” Kori said. “That, and a backup system, for when he’s not home. His theory was that the less people know about you, the less vulnerable you are. It works the same with names, obviously.”
“What’s your other skill?” Mitch asked Sera, as if they were the only two in the room. No one answered.
“We need to get out of here. When Julia’s Trackers realize they can’t pick up Mitch and his partner, they’ll be on us like flies on a corpse.”
Yet even with Mitch nominally under Sera’s control, I didn’t trust him, and I certainly wasn’t going to take him with us to one of our usual meeting places, so he could later report to Julia, either under orders—if he was somehow faking loyalty to Sera—or for pay. But we couldn’t leave him there; we weren’t done with him yet.
There was so much Sera still didn’t understand...
“Ideas?” Ian glanced at each of us, but Sera didn’t know the city, I’d spent very little time there myself, and Kori seemed reluctant to say whatever she was thinking aloud, where Mitch would hear her. Finally, she leaned toward Ian and stood on her toes to whisper into his ear.
When she dropped onto the balls of her feet again he met her gaze with his brows raised. “Seriously?”
“You got a better idea?”
Before I could ask what the hell they were talking about, Ian shrugged, and Kori turned to me, then motioned for me to bend so she could whisper into my ear. She gave me an address, but it took me a second to realize why Ian was surprised by it. We were going to the east side. Cavazos’s territory.
“Can you find the place?” Kori said before I could ask the questions ready to tumble from my tongue.
I nodded. “But what about—”
“Just try to keep it quiet,” she interrupted, before I could finish my question. “With Sera there to jam us, no one will know we’re there, unless you announce it.”
Sera looked bewildered, but obviously understood that we couldn’t give her an explanation in front of Mitch.
I pushed my sleeve up and laid her hand on