Liv’s gaze hardened again. “Right after you drag me back to the cave by my hair, right? Damn, you can be a real asshole sometimes.”

“Then why would you sign over the rest of your life for me?” I demanded, standing, even though the room still felt a little unstable.

“Because I love you!” she shouted, anger flashing in her eyes, as if loving me was some kind of bitter curse. And maybe it felt that way, after everything she’d been through. “Because that’s the only way he would let you go. He knows you’re better with names, so trading my services for yours didn’t benefit him. He wouldn’t make the deal without knowing he stood to gain something if I failed. But I still have six more months to find his…missing person, before he can collect on the penalty.”

“Can you do it? With this relative’s blood sample?” Because I couldn’t have. Liv’s talent with blood went way beyond anything I could have done.

“I don’t know. If I’m close enough to feel the pull…probably. Maybe.”

“How close do you have to be?” She advertised her services with a range of eighty miles, but she’d been better than that when we were together in college—back when she was still an amateur, not even regularly using her Skill.

Liv hesitated, but only for a moment. “Three hundred miles, give or take.”

Holy shit… I sank onto the couch again, stunned. That was nearly double the range of the next best blood Tracker I knew. If Cavazos knew how good she really was, he’d never let her go. He’d find some way to keep her, even if she fulfilled her contract.

She shrugged. “I know it sounds like a lot, but considering that the target could be anywhere in the world, my range could be a thousand miles, and I’d still be useless without something else to go on. I have to narrow down the possibilities before tracking even becomes an option, and I’ve been trying to do that for the past year and a half with no luck.”

“Okay…” I nodded, my brain racing so fast my head was starting to hurt. “But that means we still have six months to destroy your contract.”

Liv barked a bitter laugh. “You think I haven’t thought of that? I have no idea where he keeps his signed contracts. For all I know, they’re not even in the country, and they’re most definitely stored in a fireproof vault, under armed guard, and probably shielded by the best Jammers in the world. Those contracts are Ruben’s lifeblood. He’d put everything he has into protecting them. We’re never going to find them, and even if we did, we’d never get to them.”

“The hell we won’t. I’m not just going to let him have you, Olivia. And neither are you.”

She exhaled slowly. “The only way out of this is to fulfill my contract.”

“And you can’t tell me who he’s looking for?”

She shook her head.

I shrugged. “That’ll make it harder for me to help, but not impossible.”

“There’s nothing you can do, Cam. I can’t even give you the name I’m tracking.”

Another shrug. “So I’ll get it from someone else. You sold your soul for me, and I’m going to help you get it back.”

She shook her head, slowly, sadly, and sank onto the couch next to me. “I love you for trying, but it won’t work. No one else knows the name I’m tracking.”

I felt my brows rise as what she was saying sank in. “No one?” She shook her head, and I frowned. “No one in the whole world? Just you and Cavazos?”

This time she nodded, eyes narrowed as if she’d just stumbled upon my train of thought. “No one knows this name, other than me, except for Ruben Cavazos. He’s the only one,” she said, eyeing me meaningfully.

And the only possible way that Ruben Cavazos could be the only one in the world to know someone’s name was if… “It’s his kid,” I said, and Liv’s sudden smile brightened her entire face. “That’s why you only have one name. You’re tracking the middle name he gave his own kid.”

“I cannot confirm that,” she said, grinning like a fool. “I can’t even discuss it.”

“Yet I can’t help noticing you’re not denying it.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then let me follow that path a little farther….” I closed my eyes, thinking. “He doesn’t know the rest of the kid’s name, so that means he’s probably never met him. You said it’s a him, right?” I said, and she smiled again. The kid was a son. “And I’m guessing you would have tried tracking the boy’s middle name with the last name Cavazos.” Again, no confirmation. She couldn’t discuss it. “And based on the fact that you’re still tracking a single name, I’m assuming the mother—whoever she is—gave her son a different last name. Probably her own.”

Liv shrugged and sat on the coffee table in front of me. “That, I honestly don’t know. I have no clue what the mother’s real name was—the one she gave Ruben was fake. But I know, as of this evening, that Meika had her killed years ago.”

“That’s what you were talking about earlier….” When she’d said Cavazos’s wife had his first mistress killed. “Which means this son must have been conceived years ago. So why is he just now looking…?”

“He didn’t even know—” Liv flinched and one hand flew to her forehead, obviously the source of the pain. “Okay, evidently that’s prohibited information.”