Blood Bound (46 page)

Th#8217;ras an elaborate description coming from the woman who usually referred to me as
“la puta blanca.”
I decided that meant it was accurate.

Meika fumbled for my hand in the dark and I gave it to her reluctantly. “Take a couple of steps forward, when I squeeze your hand,” she said, and for once I felt no urge to argue. “Stop when I squeeze again.”

Before I could acknowledge the directions, she squeezed my hand hard enough to grind my knuckles together, then jerked me forward into the darkness.

I stumbled into obscurity, then righted myself in the artificial night of a cold room I’d never been in before. I was sure of that, even though I couldn’t see my own fingers in front of my face.

Meika dropped my hand as if it was made of fire, and in the next instant, I felt her absence like a safety net dropped from beneath me, leaving me flailing. I reached into the dark, and in the cold, still silence, panic gave rise to the thought that I’d given her too much credit. She’d probably dropped me in a bank vault, or a museum, or something like that.

But if she had, the joke was on her, because I still had Kori’s key card. They weren’t getting into Tower’s house without me.

Fortunately, two steps later my outstretched hand landed on a cold, smooth, featureless wall, and I decided I was where I was supposed to be. And that if I wasn’t, panicking would do no good.

After a couple more seconds in absolute darkness, doubts simmering on my mental back burner, the feel of the air around me changed and something collided with my back, shoving me forward.

Anne gasped, and I exhaled with relief so deep I almost cried. They’d nearly materialized right over me.

“Move over,
puta!
” Meika snapped in a harsh whisper. Then she was gone again, and I pulled Anne closer and backed up until my spine hit the wall. I had no idea how big the darkroom was, but it felt small enough to be claustrophobic, if I could have seen my surroundings.

Less than a minute later, the air felt different again—a change in pressure?—and I recognized the sound of Cavazos breathing less than a foot in front of me.

“Everyone ready?” I whispered, and got three hushed replies in the affirmative. “Okay, here goes…” I felt my way along the wall, then around the room until I felt the door, flush with the wall itself. Heart pounding in my ears, I dug my phone out of my pocket and flipped it open for the bare minimum of light. But after several minutes in absolute darkness, the dim glow of my cell display was blinding. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, then I glanced around briefly—trying not to see the ominous-looking air vent built into the ceiling—before sliding Kori’s key card into the scanner next to the door.

A small LED light flashed green, then metal whispered against metal as the dead bolt—obviously huge—slid back. And that was it. No hiss of released air pressure. No alarm announcing our home invasion. No computerized voice welcoming me into the future.

It was kind of anticlimactic, really.

I verified that my phone was on Silent, then slid it back into my pocket and pressed down on the lever-style door handle. I pushed the door open. Te rubber weather seal squealed softly against the floor and I froze, holding my breath, certain someone had heard, and the entire Tower arsenal was now being sent to intercept us. To
eliminate
us.

But the slice of hallway I could see was dark and quiet. And still. If we’d been detected, the squad coming to kill us was
really
good.

Carefully, I pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the hall. The others followed, and Cavazos let the door close slowly behind us—lit only by the flashing glow from a television somewhere down the hall.

We were upstairs—I could see the corner of a rail overlooking the first floor at one end of the hall—and there were at least a dozen doors opening on either side of the hallway ahead. Before choosing a direction, I closed my eyes and said Hadley’s full name in my head, vaguely aware that for the moment at least, I was the only one in the world who knew the entire thing. I felt for the pull of her energy signature—I
searched
for it—but came up with nothing. She was still too close to the Jammer to be detected. We’d have to find her the old-fashioned way.

I glanced at the railing one more time, then took off in the opposite direction, walking carefully, glad my boots were too well-worn to squeak on the tile. The others followed me, and we paused in front of every door to make sure no one inside would see us pass.

The third room on the left held the flashing television, but no sound. Leaning against the wall next to the open door, I pulled Cam’s silencer from my pocket and screwed it onto the end of the gun I’d borrowed from him. I peeked into the room slowly and carefully, gun aimed at the floor several feet ahead, safety off. Then I exhaled silently and slid the safety back into place.

The room was a bedroom with an attached bathroom, set up a bit like a motel suite. The occupant—a slightly thickening man in his mid-fifties—was sound asleep in his recliner, head flopped forward, chin dragging his chest.

I led the others past the open door quietly, and when we were clear, Cavazos stepped close to whisper into my ear. “Ray Bailey,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the room we’d just passed. “Tower’s best Blinder.”

Unwilling to speak, I gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged. “I do my homework. Tower probably knows who you and Meika are, too.”

Which meant we’d be shot on sight. Of the four of us, Anne was the only one who might survive discovery, because if Tower had done his own homework, he’d know she’d raised Hadley and had no affiliation with the Cavazos syndicate. And that she was no threat to him.

“Olivia, we can’t leave him,” Ruben whispered, and Anne and Meika turned back to watch us, Anne visibly antsy. “If this goes wrong, he’ll be used against us. We’ll be blinded and vulnerable.” Ruben pulled his gun and started to step into the bedroom, but I put one arm out to stop him.

“You can’t shoot him—he hasn’t done anything.”

“Everyone’s guilty of something.” He pushed my arm out of the way and stepped silently into Bailey’s room, over my whispered protest.

“Wait!” I grabbed his arm Cavazos shoved me back and pulled the trigger without hesitation. His gun
thwupped,
and the far side of Bailey’s head exploded in a shower of red droplets.

I blinked through my own shock and Ruben hauled me out of the room by my good arm, whispering fiercely in my ear. “It was us or him. If you don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done, then stay the hell out of my way.”

In the hall again, scrambling for composure, I realized that the Bailey’s own television had covered the sound of his murder. Anne hadn’t seen or heard, thank goodness.

“What happened?” she asked, but I only shook my head and led us farther down the hall, hating Ruben a little more with each step.

We passed several more closed doors until there was only one room left—open and spilling light into the hall—before a ninety-degree turn to the right. Pressed against the wall, I listened for sound from inside the room, but heard nothing.

So I peeked.

And froze at what I saw. A bed, unmade, with blankets spilling over the edge. A chair, clothes tossed over the back. And a dresser, two drawers open and spilling jeans like a denim spider had tried to crawl out. I might have assumed the room had been searched—in a hurry—if not for the framed photo standing on the dresser. Kori, around fourteen years old, one arm around her younger sister, Kenley, the other around their older brother’s waist.

Kori’s room had been a mess as long as I’d known her. That much clearly hadn’t changed.

“Those were his employees’ rooms,” I whispered as we rounded the corner into another empty hall. “All of them.” We’d shadow-walked into the wrong wing of the house.

The hall ahead held rooms full of books, theater seating and a projection screen, or collections of couches. One room held a pool table and an oak bar. But they were all empty, and at the end of that hall was another right-hand turn, leading to more rooms. This hall was different, though. I could feel it. This hall was populated, and that could only mean one thing.

“The family wing,” Cavazos whispered, and I nodded, having come to the same conclusion.

At the end of this new hall was another set of stairs and a rail presumably overlooking the same great room we’d glimpsed before. And between were six doors on one side of the hall, half open, half closed, and one grand, double set on the other side—obviously the master suite. Closed, thankfully.

We snuck down the hall, on pins and needles, fully aware that any sound could trigger a lockdown and get us all killed. Pulse roaring in my ears, I glanced carefully into each room we passed—most were unused guest rooms—and discovered that Michaela had been right. What looked like normal, if opulent family quarters was actually more of a fortress. The windows each bore decorative but functional iron bars. The ceiling was dotted with recessed lighting—an entire grid of infrared bulbs, no doubt blazing in the nonvisible spectrum of light. And the walls, I’d bet anything, were solid concrete beneath expensive paneling.

Two of the rooms obviously belonged to children—privileged, overindulged children—but both beds were empty. Which I found odd, until a couple of doors later, when I peeked into a plaom lined with shelves full of toys and carpeted in thick rubber mats.

In the center of the room was a big pile of pillows and giant beanbags, illuminated by a huge flat-screen television—was that sixty inches?—glowing with the solid blue screen that shows up after the DVD has run its course. In front of the television, a little boy slept sprawled half over a beanbag three times his size and half over his sister’s tiny legs. They were out cold.

Not ten feet away, a woman slept curled up on a plush leather couch, facing both the kids and the television, a novel open on the floor beneath her outstretched arm.

“Slumber party?” I whispered to Anne, and she nodded.

“Probably in Hadley’s honor.”

“That’s Katherine George,” Meika whispered, pointing to the woman asleep on the couch. “We tried to get her for Isa, but Tower got to her first. Jammer nannies are in high demand among the wealthy.”

Ohhhh.
The nanny was the Jammer. No wonder she lived with Tower—she had to be near his children. And while she was Jamming their energy signatures, she’d been Jamming Hadley’s, too. But…

“Where’s Hadley?” Anne asked. There was a third beanbag half-draped with a fuzzy pink blanket, but she wasn’t in it.

Before I could answer, the rush of running water sounded from inside the room, and a moment later, a door squealed open, backlighting a small form in the bathroom doorway. Hadley froze with one look at us, and the blue light from the television lit her face as it cycled through surprise, fear, then blessed recognition. Thank goodness we’d brought Anne.

Thank goodness neither of the other children had to pee.

Hadley opened her mouth, but Anne put one finger to her lips and waved her daughter forward silently, miming tiptoed walking. Hadley nodded, then tiptoed across the room without even a glance at the sleeping nanny. Anne pulled her out of the doorway, then wrapped her in a hug, and even in the dimly lit hallway, I could see the tears in her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Anne whispered, and Hadley nodded, eyes wide and still sleepy. “Good.” Anne hugged her again. “Let’s go home.”

“Who are they?” Hadley whispered, staring up at Ruben and Michaela as we tiptoed back down the hall, and I wondered if she thought this whole thing was a dream. I wondered if she could keep thinking that, and wake up in the morning completely untraumatized.

Then Hadley noticed my gun, extra-long and intimidating with the silencer, and I realized that a
little
trauma was inevitable. Survival was the goal.

“They’re…” Anne began, as I hid the gun behind my leg, and I watched her struggle for words. It wasn’t the time to explain about Hadley’s parentage and Cavazos and his wife could hardly be called friends. “They’re helping us,” she finally explained, and Hadley only stared up at Ruben—who stared back, openly curious—then squatted to be on her level and stuck one hand out for her to shake.

“Hi. My name is Ruben.”

Hadley took his hand hesitand shook it until Anne started tugging her gently down the hall.

Ruben rose and as we retreated, as silently and carefully as we’d come, a spot on my inner thigh began to burn—a tiny ring of fire—and I smiled through the minor pain. My mark had just died. I was no longer bound to Ruben Cavazos.

I hadn’t truly believed it would happen until that moment. In the back of my mind, I’d always assumed something would go wrong. I’d fail to actually physically hand the child to her father, or to jump through whatever crazy hoop I didn’t remember from the contract I’d signed. Or—Heaven forbid—Hadley would get caught in the cross fire and die before she’d officially been returned to her father.

But now that was all over. I was unbound. I was free of Ruben. Free to be with Cam. And
cedo nulli
had regained its meaning for me. All that was left was to lead our little expedition safely out of enemy territory, and I could start trying to free Cam from his binding, so we could live the rest of our lives however the hell we wanted.

We turned the corner onto the hallway connecting the two wings and with Hadley’s hand in Anne’s and that fresh, blissful burn on my thigh, I was feeling cautiously optimistic for the first time in a year and a half. Thanks to Elle’s foresight, Kori’s unwitting but heartfelt assistance and Anne’s determination to get her daughter back, I’d done the impossible—I’d found the child with no name and rescued a friend’s daughter. I felt invincible.

Right up until the alarm started shrieking all around us.

“Shit!” Meika shouted, but I could hardly hear her over the high-pitched screeching pouring from overhead. Hadley started crying, and Anne pulled her daughter close, eyes wide with terror, trying to see everywhere all at once.