“I don’t want to do it,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to let him drain you, but you lied, and I’m as good as dead, and the only chance Kenley and I have now is if I hand you over and beg for mercy in exchange for turning in a mole.”

“Kori, please.”

She woke up then, and focused on me with startling clarity. Resolve surfaced behind her eyes, hardening her gaze like a shield slipping into place between us, and my heart hurt like someone was squeezing it, milking the life from me drop by drop.

“Get the hell out of my way, or I will break your jaw,” she growled through clenched teeth.

I crossed both arms over my bare chest and stood firm in front of the door. “Fine. Do it. I won’t hit you back. I don’t want to hurt you, Kori. I just want to explain.” She came at me, fists clenched and ready, and I rushed ahead, words spilling from my mouth like blood from a gaping wound, and I wanted to take them back as soon as I heard them because they were true, but they weren’t the truth. They were facts out of context, wielded like sword and shield. I said them to protect her, but I hated myself for it. For the foundation of lies supporting the most fragile and precious relationship I’d ever tried to build.

“The hockey game was a setup, yes, but I’m not here to poach your sister. I just needed to get Tower’s attention. Quickly. I need something from him.” Technically that was true. I needed his Binder. But I wasn’t going to poach her for someone else.

“So you’re not a systems analyst?” Her fists were still clenched, but they hung at her sides now. Her eyes were still narrowed in suspicion, but she was listening.

“No. I only type thirty words a minute and can barely work a cell phone.”

“But your name’s real. What kind of spy uses a fake backstory, but his real name?”

I shrugged. “What kind of recruiter shows her recruit the dark side of the syndicate, instead of the advantages?”

“I’m not really a recruiter,” she said.

“And I’m not a spy. Tower would have known inside a minute if I gave him a fake name.”

“So what are you doing here? What do you need from Jake?”

I exhaled slowly, working up to the last part—the truest of these truths out of context. “Tower has the resources I need to break the seal on a binding.”

Kori frowned. “Can’t be done. The best you can do is destroy the binding itself. Burn the paper it was sealed on it. Assuming it was sealed on paper?”

“It’s a name binding, so it probably was,” I said. “But we have no idea where that paper is. If it even exists.” For all I knew, Steven’s binding could have been sealed in graffiti on some wall a thousand miles away. The binding itself was a dead end. We had no choice but to break the seal.

“And ‘we’ includes Meghan? Who is she, really?” Her gaze held mine, demanding truth while trying to hide how much my answer actually meant to her.

“She’s really my brother’s girlfriend. Well, technically his fiancée, now. He proposed a couple of weeks ago.”

Kori frowned as the implications sank in. “Oh, shit, your brother’s the one who’s bound.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he bound to?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know, either. It’s bizarre, and scary, and infuriating. I have to get him out of it. That’s why I’m here.”

“So, you need to break the seal on a binding you can’t locate or identify…” she said, thinking out loud, and I nodded. “What makes you think Jake can help?”

“You said he did it for Kenley, when she got into trouble in college.”

“That’s why you keep asking about Kenley…” Kori looked so relieved I didn’t have the heart to correct her. Not that I could have anyway. Not while she was still bound to Tower.

“Do you know how he did it?” I asked, but she only shook her head.

“She never told me and I never asked. A lot of things go unsaid around here.”

“So, can I talk to her?” I was pushing my luck, and I knew it. But Steven didn’t have much time left, and I couldn’t tell Kori anything else until her binding was broken.

“We can’t leave here tonight, and she can’t come over without Jake’s permission and an escort. And I doubt he’ll let her, considering how much trouble I’m in right now. But I guess I can call her…”

I swallowed a moan. This wasn’t a phone-call kind of conversation, and it certainly wasn’t anything I could say in front of Kori, while Tower’s marks were still live on her arm. “It can wait until tomorrow,” I said at last, desperately hoping that was true. I was less than a day from losing both my brother and his fiancée, and I’d be lucky if my recruitment ruse with Jake Tower lasted that long.

The clock was ticking.

The noose was tightening.

And Kori was looking at me like I held her life in my hands. Because I did.

“You’re still going to sign, right?” she said, and there was a thread of steel beneath the fragile surface of her voice. “Or was that part of the act, to get you in the door? Because you know that whatever Jake did for Kenley, he won’t do that for your brother unless you sign.”

“I know.” But I had no intention of letting Tower anywhere near my brother. Or anywhere near Kori, if I had my way.