Blood Bound (45 page)

“Sorry, Kor,” Anne whispered. “You shouldn’t have taken Hadley.” Then Anne headed into the living room, cradling her own stomach, as if seeing Kori gagged and restrained actually nauseated her.

“Let’s put her in a chairI said, pocketing Kori’s phone. I checked the safety on her gun, then stepped into the hall, where Michaela stood waiting like a child about to meet Santa.

“Better search her first,” she suggested, a creepy but confident light dancing behind her eyes. “That’ll be harder once she’s strapped down.”

Kori’s brows rose in wordless question and she craned her neck for a better look at Meika, obviously trying to place the face. When Cavazos ordered his wife out of the way, Kori stiffened visibly and I realized she’d thought Cam was holding her.

Ruben forced her down the hall and into the living room with a series of short shoves, and she stared at Michaela the whole time, still clearly trying to identify her. Then, finally, her eyes widened again, and she started shouting behind the tape. She’d recognized Meika.

Kori twisted viciously in Ruben’s grip to face me, wordlessly demanding an explanation even as he jerked her around again.

“Hadley’s his daughter.” I reached between her backside and his pelvis—
not
a pleasant place to be—to search her pockets, while she shouted inarticulately, and this time I thought I heard her say, “Elle.”

“Yeah, she’s Elle’s, too. I know it’s weird.” But that was all the explanation I had time for. Her left pocket was empty, except for a convenience-store receipt for an overpriced pint of ice cream.

Kori fought Ruben’s grip even harder, kicking the air, trying to throw us all off balance as I slid my hand into her right back pocket. She understood now—I could hear it in her voice, feel it in her struggles. She knew she’d brought the two most powerful syndicates in the country into a head-on conflict. And that her boss had no idea it was coming.

Finally, I pulled a blank white plastic key card from her right back pocket and held it up for everyone else to see. Anne looked relieved, and Meika looked…aroused—a fact I decided not to focus on.

I handed Kori’s gun to Anne—couldn’t risk Meika picking it up—and searched Kori myself, because I didn’t trust either Ruben or his wife not to find a way around his promise not to hurt her. But when my gaze met hers, she finally stopped struggling and just blinked at me. Then said what might have been “please” behind her duct-tape gag. There was something she needed to say. Maybe something I needed to hear.

I exhaled slowly, trying to decide. “If you ask me or Anne for anything, I’m going to let Ruben knock you out. Do you understand?”

Kori nodded eagerly. So I peeled the tape from her mouth.

“Liv, please—” She stopped suddenly, biting off an instinctive request, then started over with a rephrase. “You can’t do this,” she said, as I removed a knife from the sheath strapped to her belt. “If I don’t go back, he’ll take it out on someone else.”

“Hadley?” Cavazos jerked her arms hard enough that Kori grunted in pain.

“No. She’s fine. Playing video games on a fuckin’ sixty-inch flat screen. He doesn’t want to hurt her, I swear.”

I removed two more blades from Kori’s boots—electing to ignore the hungry look Meika eyed them with—and gestured toward the chair Anne had pulled out from the table.

“We need cuffs. Or rope,” Meika said, eyeing her husband. “Bedside table drawer?”

Cavazos nodded, and my stomach churned with sudden nausea at the thought of…whatever he’d had planned for the two of us in that bedroom. “There may be a ball-gag.”

“You’re sick,” I spat, as Anne edged closer to me and farther from him.

Ruben chuckled. “That’s a matter of perspective. Fear and adrenaline heighten other physical sensations, you know.”

I palmed Kori’s largest blade, getting a feel for the weight. “They just make me want to kill someone.”

He shrugged. “I’m not taking anything off the table.”

A minute later, Meika returned from the bedroom, accompanied by inarticulate sounds of surprise and disgust from Cam. “Just swear they’re not for Liv!” he shouted down the hall.

Kori heard him and opened her mouth to shout, but Ruben slapped one hand over it.

“No, I’m fine!” I called back.

“’Kay. Carry on,” Cam said, then the door closed and—presumably—he put his headphones back on.

“He’s kinda hot when he blushes,” Meika said, glancing back toward the bedroom.

“Bitch!” Cavazos snapped, and for a moment I thought he was talking to his wife, until I looked up to find him shaking his right hand, flinging small drops of blood all over the pale Berber. Kori grinned and licked a single remaining drop from her upper lip.

“Is it just me, or does blood always seem to fall on white carpet?” Meika said, ripping a long strip of duct tape from the roll.

“I’ll clean it in a second.” Cavazos shoved Kori into a chair and secured her hands at her back with the handcuffs Meika had set on the floor at his feet. They were the real kind—no fuzz or padding. Not what I’d choose for play. If I were to choose such a thing for play.

Meika shoved Kori’s ankle against the leg of the chair and reached up for the strip of tape her husband held ready. Kori’s free foot shot up. The toe of her boot slammed into Meika’s chin. Meika fell backward with an “oof” of pain, then rolled onto her knees holding her jaw, eyes flashing in fury.
“Puta!”

She stood, fist pulled back for a blow, and I stepped in front of Kori, hoping she wouldn’t kick me, too. “Meika, back off! You’d do the same thing in her position.”

“I
will
go through you to get to her.”

“No, you won’t,” Cavazos said, and when Anne gasped, I glanced up to find him holding a knife to Kori’s throat, her chin gripped tightly in his other hand. I didn’t
think
he’d really kill her, but he’d definitely cut her if he had to. The boat had sailed on “playing nice.” “Tape her legd keep your hands to yourself.”

“Liv, what’s your plan?” Kori asked while Meika taped her to the chair, her words kind of mushed together by Ruben’s grip on her face. “If you go in guns ablazin’, they’ll mow you down.”

“They’ll never know we’ve been there until Hadley’s back with her mom. After that—” I glanced at Cavazos and he released Kori’s head while I threaded a second holster onto my shoulder harness at the table “—I don’t care what you do to Tower. Stomp him into the ground. Just don’t touch the kids.”

“No!” Kori shouted. “You can’t kill Tower!” she insisted, and the thin thread of panic in her voice rang a harmonic note in me. I glanced up to find her eyes swimming in fear as she strained against the chair she was taped to.

“Oh, I assure you I can.” Cavazos knelt in front of her, hands on her knees for balance. Or maybe just because he wanted them there. “And I plan to enjoy it.”

Kori craned her neck to see me around him. “Liv, if Tower dies, his bindings will all be transferred to someone else. To his successor.”

Oh, shit.
I hesitated and lost count of the 9mm rounds I’d been counting. I’d thought that if Cavazos killed his longtime rival, all Tower’s people would be free of their bonds. Including both Kori and Cam.

“Clever,” Ruben said, and I could practically see the gears turning in his head. No doubt his team of lawyers would soon have a new clause to draft. “Who’s his successor?”

Kori looked at him as if he’d just asked her who shot Kennedy. “I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.” She dismissed him again and her gaze pleaded with me as I loaded an extra clip. “Liv, if you let him kill Tower, I’ll wind up…in a very bad position. And so will Cam.”

“A bad position? Like…working for someone you hate?” With a glance at Cavazos, I dropped the clip from my gun and slid a fresh one into place until it clicked home.

“Married to someone you want to kill?” Meika suggested.

Kori actually rolled her eyes. “No, much fuckin’ worse than those.”

“Like missing your daughter?” Anne asked softly, and the entire room fell silent.

Kori slumped against her bindings, as Ruben knelt to clean up his own spilled blood. “Yes, actually. Kinda like that. Only I don’t have a daughter,” she added, before any of us could ask. Then she turned to me again. “You may think you and Cam are star-crossed now, but if you kill Tower, things will be worse for the two of you than you can even fucking imagine.”

I dropped the newly loaded gun into my left holster. “I have a pretty good imagination.” Which was why the drawer full of ropes and handcuffs bothered me.

“Olivia. Nothing good will happen if Tower dies.” She closed her eyes, then met my gaze again. “Take Hadley home—I’d help you if I could. But don’t kill Jake Tower. You have to trust me on this.”

And the funny thing was that I did. I believed her.

“Okay,” I said finally, dropping the second pistol into the holster beneath my right arm, and Meika propped both hands on her hips, scowling at me.

“
Niña,
I don’t think you understand how this works.
La puta
in the chair doesn’t get to say how things go.”

“Neither does the bitch who killed Hadley’s mother,” I snapped, and Kori glanced at Meika in surprise, which morphed quickly into fury.

“Is there anything else we should know? Anything you can tell us?” I asked

“Yes, and no,” Kori said. “In that order.”

“Great.” I pulled my jacket on over the shoulder holsters and grabbed my smallest duffel, then glanced at the others. “Let’s go.”

“Olivia!” Kori called, as I headed toward the brightly lit hall, Cavazos close at my back. I stopped, but didn’t turn. “What?”

“He’ll kill you if he catches you.”

“Oh, good,” I said, already walking again, as Anne slapped another piece of tape over Kori’s mouth. “No one’s tried to kill me in hours.”

Twenty-Nine

I
n the hall, I turned to make a
shh
gesture to Ruben, Meika and Anne, then pushed the bedroom door open. The motion caught Cam’s eye and he took his headphones off, but didn’t rise from the edge of the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room.

“I need you to stay here,” I said, when he shot me a nervous, questioning look.

He nodded reluctantly and took his cell back when I handed it to him. “You know I wish I could help with…whatever you’re doing.”

“I know.” I also knew that it took a very trusting man to turn his back on the kind of job I was about to pull and believe that everything would be okay just because I said it would. I touched his cheek, letting the stubble scratch my palm, desperately hoping this job wouldn’t make a liar of me. I needed to survive the night, even if I might one day die at his hand. At least we’d have the years between, and I had to believe that a few short years with him were better than a lifetime without him.

“I don’t want to do this without you…” I began, but he shook his head.

“Don’t say anything else. I can’t know what
this
is,” he said, and I nodded. “But I don’t want you to do it without me, either.”

If all went well, what we were about to do would rescue Hadley and free me from Cavazos. But Kori and Cam would be screwed. Hell, they probably already were. Cam and I would have to run. Forever. But I could handle that, as long as we were together.

“Be careful,” he said, and I nodded, then I pueR headphones back over his ears. I kissed him, letting the moment linger, in case it was our last, while the ache in my chest swelled and threatened to devour me. Then I backed into the hall without breaking eye contact until Cavazos closed the door and stepped in front of it to capture my attention.

“I need your word that you won’t kill Tower,” I said. Ruben shook his head slowly, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “We’re not leaving until I have your word.”

Cavazos nodded firmly. “Fine. We don’t need you to get into Tower’s house.”

“But you need me for backup, and you sure as hell need me to find Hadley. What do you think the chances are that he’s keeping her anywhere near one of the darkrooms?” When he didn’t answer, I turned to Michaela. “How close is Isabel’s room to any of the exits?”

She didn’t reply, but I could see the answer in her face. Isa was more closely guarded than the president. It would be no different for Tower’s kids, and we had every reason to suspect Hadley was being kept very near them. Maybe even
with
them.

“Hadley won’t come with you,” Anne added, sounding very much like that mother lion again. “She doesn’t know you. She’s never even seen you. And she knows to scream if a stranger ever tries to take her.”

“You don’t want to traumatize your own daughter, do you?” I asked, and Meika glared at me, clearly pissed over the reminder of her husband’s infidelity. But she didn’t try to stab anyone. Maybe my little talk had gotten through to her.

“Beyond that,” Anne added, “if you want her to trust you—ever—you’re going to need my help.”

I was so proud of her I almost smiled, in spite of the circumstances.

“Fine,” Cavazos said at last, and I could see that eagerness was eating at him, too. “You have my word.”

But without his blood to seal the deal, his word was worth no more than the unrealized ideals tattooed across my own back. Fortunately, as soon as I’d united him with his daughter—however temporary—the mark on my thigh would die and I would no longer have to obey his orders. Which meant I’d be free to stop him from killing Tower. Or to die trying.

“Okay…” I turned back to Meika. “Take me first, then Anne, then Ruben.” That way she couldn’t just disappear with her husband and leave us behind. “Once we’re there, I’ll take point.” Because I’d be tracking. Or trying to, just in case the Jammer moved far enough from Hadley for me to get a read on her. “Ready?”

The others nodded. Cavazos looked distinctly uncomfortable with following someone else’s lead, but he didn’t openly object.

All four of us piled into the bathroom and Meika stood in the middle of the floor. “It’ll take me a minute to find his darkrooms,” she said, and I pictured her closing her eyes in concentration, though I couldn’t see a single detail of her face in the darkness. “Okay…” she said finally. “I can feel two of them. Two cool, dark spots in a raging inferno of light.”