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