My marks were dead.

“Kenley? What happened?” I demanded, trying to process her tears, and Ian’s look of shocked relief, and the newly dead marks on my arm, all while the clock ticked in my head, counting down the minutes until either Jake or the police came looking for me.

“Where’d you get those?” Ian rounded the end of the counter and crossed the room toward me, eyeing my new double handfuls of death. “Whose are they?”

“Jake sent a couple of men back with me. I ditched them at your hotel. What just happened to my arm?”

“Kenley broke the seal on your oath.”

I blinked, stunned, though I could feel the truth of his statement.

“You’re serious?” I hadn’t expected to see my marks die. Ever. I’d been sure I would die first.

“Of course I’m serious. Are Tower’s men alive?” Ian took Milligan’s gun from my left hand, checked the safety, then tucked it into the waistband of his pants.

“They were when I left. Hope you didn’t need anything from the suite. Pretty sure it’s all being logged into police evidence as we speak.” Ian’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry.” I stepped past him on my way to the kitchen, where my sister was bent over the counter clutching her head in both hands, eyes squeezed shut in pain. “They know you had nothing to do with it. I left a conscious witness.”

“Kori, what the hell happened?” Ian demanded, staring after me.

I set Harris’s gun on the counter, then pulled a clean rag from the drawer to the left of the sink and ran cold water on it. “Jake told me to bring you in. Immediately.” I helped Kenley onto the bar stool and pressed the cold rag to her forehead, offering what little comfort I could for what was obviously severe resistance pain from breaking her oath of loyalty to Jake.

I could hardly even process what she’d done, but I knew exactly how badly she must be hurting. “You okay? I need you to breathe through it, Kenni. We’re leaving in five minutes and you have to pack.”

“I’m trying.” Kenley took the rag from me, and her hand shook. “Are we running? There’s nowhere to go.” She moaned and clutched her stomach, and her rag fell to the floor. Then her hand slid into her back pocket and pulled out a folded scrap of paper, which she set on the counter, then pushed toward Ian. “Burn it.”

Ian grabbed a match from the box on the counter, then lit it and set the paper on fire. When the flames reached his finger and thumb, he dropped the charred scrap into the sink and exhaled slowly.

“What was that?” I asked, bending to pick up the rag.

“Nothing. How long will this last?” Ian asked, watching Kenley.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her disobey before, and she picked a hell of a way to start. Fortunately, it’s a terminal breach of her oath, so if she can ride this out, she’ll be fine.” Unlike an ongoing breach—such as refusing to obey an order—for which she’d suffer until she either gave in or died.

I contorted my shoulder for a good look at my left arm, where the two interlocking chain link tattoos had faded from iron-gray into a dull, muted gray. “How’d she do it? Did she burn my contract?” How the hell had she even gotten hold of it?

Kenley shook her head, one fist pressed against her gut, as if she could physically stop the pain. “I unsealed the binding.” Her voice was strained and her legs were shaking on the stool. “You’re free, Kori.”

I blinked at her. Then I glanced at Ian, brows raised in question. He nodded. I burst into tears. “How? Why?” Sniffling, I wiped my cheeks, but the girly fuckin’ tears just kept coming.

Kenley was crying now, too, but obviously trying to hold it back. “He said if I didn’t break your binding, Tower would kill you and put me…” Her words faded into unspoken thought and her mouth twisted into a grimace beneath another wave of agony. “So I just… I stopped wanting you to be bound to him.”

“What?” When had she ever wanted me bound to Jake?

“She removed her will from the seal,” Ian said as I rewet her rag and blotted her face. “The only way I could explain that to her was to tell her she had to stop wanting you to be bound to Tower.” He shrugged, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, claiming no credit for an event he’d obviously set into motion. “So, now you’re free.”

I smiled—I couldn’t help it—and for one short moment, I enjoyed the most wonderful words I’d ever heard.

Then I realized that in securing my freedom, Ian and Kenley had just screwed things up for his brother.

“Jake will never help you now.” I rubbed the dead marks on my arm, horrified by what my freedom had cost him.

Ian glanced at the ground, and guilt left deep lines in his forehead when he met my gaze again. “I don’t need him,” he said, his voice soft and low, like he was making a confession. “I never did. I need her.” He glanced at Kenley again, and I frowned as her grip on the countertop began to ease, the resistance pain finally ebbing.

Kenley’s mouth opened, and I could almost see the question hanging on her lips, but before she could ask what we both wanted to know, her front door opened and the guard-of-the-day stepped into the living room, gun drawn, but aimed at the floor.

“I’m supposed to take you all to Tower. Now.”

Shit. I was hoping to be gone before Jake got his ducks in a row.