“Gwendolyn, out!” Julia shouted as I fell backward into my chair, my legs numb from shock. The guards guided Lynn, gently but firmly, toward the door at about the same moment I realized I still held the pen Lia had given me.

Business holdings? What did that even mean? Properties? Companies? Buildings? Cash?

It’s yours, Sera. All of it.

Lynn’s words played over in my head as I watched the guards escort her forcibly out of the office.

The truth hit me in that moment, like a burst of light in front of my eyes—painful, disorienting and nearly blinding.

I’d just inherited Jake Tower’s criminal empire.

Two

Kris

“So, how many is that, Kris?” My sister Korinne perched on the arm of the couch, one knee drawn up to her chest, thick hair tucked behind her ear. We’d both inherited our dad’s blond hair, but hers was several shades paler than my own. “How many poor, unfortunate souls have we freed from the corrupt clutches of the Tower machine?”

“As of today?” I did a quick tally of the names listed in the notepad on my lap. “Twelve. With three more strong possibilities.”

“Only twelve?” Kenley, my youngest sister, groaned from an armchair in the corner. If she were a couple of inches taller, she and Kori could have been twins. “It feels like a hundred.” Kenni looked exhausted, yet much younger than her twenty-six years, as if trauma had somehow left her more innocent than it had found her. More fragile.

Vanessa handed Kenni a cool rag, still damp from the kitchen faucet. “We knew breaking the bindings would be tough, but that last one was easier, right?”

“Yeah. If by easier, you mean just as hard as the eleven before.”

Van stood and wedged herself into the oversize chair behind Kenley, who scooted forward to make room for her. Kenni leaned back with her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder, and Van laid the cool rag over her forehead, offering wordless comfort in the face of the enormous task we’d all undertaken. A task that felt more impossible by the day.

A binding is like a metaphorical—and metaphysical—rope, tying one person to another. Or one person to his oath. Or one person into obedience or employment. My sister Kenley was one of the most powerful Binders in the world, but she would gladly have given up her Skill, if that meant escaping the notice of syndicate leaders who wanted to “hire” her for her ability.

The problem with syndicate employment is that it isn’t just a job, it’s an existence. Worse. It’s indentured servitude, wherein the employee is obligated to do whatever the employer requires, within the bounds of the contract they signed and sealed, usually in blood. For however long that contract lasts.

A five-year term is the standard. Five years in syndicate service feels like an eternity.

Kenley and Kori each served six and a half.

Before Jake Tower died, Kenley was the most important cog in the Tower syndicate machine—the gear that kept the engine running. Tower’d had administrators, accountants, clerical staff and laborers to do the day-to-day work. He’d had muscle—like Kori—to enforce the rules. He’d even had a pool of highly specialized lawyers on-staff to write iron-clad employment contracts.

And he’d had Kenley to seal those contracts, locking people into his service in bindings so strong that only she could break them.

Of course, the terms of her own contract had prevented her from freeing anyone she’d bound into service, but now that she was no longer a Tower employee, she was trying to do the right thing. To free all the people she’d enslaved by breaking the bindings she’d sealed for Jake Tower, which had transferred to his sister, Julia, upon his death.

We were all trying to help her, but the process was slow. And difficult. And dangerous, because Julia Tower didn’t want those bindings broken. Each one Kenley psychically severed robbed Julia of another employee, eroding the source of her inherited wealth and power.

“I know this sucks, Kenni, and I hate being stuck here as much as anyone.” Kori glanced around at the house where we’d spent almost every waking moment of the past three months, hiding from Julia Tower and her henchmen. I could practically see cabin fever raging behind her eyes. “But it could be worse, right? At least there’s no resistance pain.”

The binding enslaving Kenley to the Tower syndicate had been broken when I’d killed the Binder who’d sealed it. Okay, there may have been some doubt about whose bullet actually hit him first, but the point is that since the Binder was dead, breaking the bindings she’d sealed was no longer in violation of Kenni’s oath. Which is good, because when you resist a sealed oath, your body starts to shut down one organ at a time until you give in and keep your word.

Or you die.

But even without the resistance pain, breaking each binding one at a time was still long, mentally exhausting work for Kenley, even with the rest of us pitching in to identify and contact those who wanted out of their oaths to Tower and to coordinate the secure, clandestine meetings.

The project had taken over our lives, and it was as much a survival effort on our part as an effort to liberate those who wanted freedom. As long as Julia Tower had employees bound into her service, she’d have the resources and power to eventually hunt us down and eliminate the threat we represented.

“So, who’s next?” Ian Holt sank onto the couch next to Kori, and she leaned into him, a display of trust and affection I’d rarely seen from her. I don’t know how he got through her mile-thick outer shell, but I do know that I’ve never seen her happier. And I know that Ian helped free Kori, Kenni and Vanessa from that bastard Jake Tower, and that he’d stuck around to help us free everyone else Kenley had been forced to bind. As far as we were all concerned, Ian was part of the family, even if Kori never got around to putting a ring on his finger.