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