“She’s lying,” Julia warned, and Jake nodded perfunctorily, like that’s what he’d expected from me all along. “Which is why she won’t be going alone. Lia, ask Harris and Milligan to come in here please.”

Julia stuck her head out of the office and gestured to someone I couldn’t see. A minute later, she held the office door open and Milligan—one of my basement jailers—and Harris stepped into the office. Both were members of Jake’s security team—men I’d worked with for years.

“You will escort Kori to pick up Ian Holt, then bring them back here. If she so much as hiccups without permission, haul her straight back to the basement, then bring me Holt and Kenley Daniels. Understood?”

Both men nodded. Neither looked at me.

Jake stepped close to me again, and every hair on my body stood on end. It was his calm that scared me. I knew people who’d killed in self-defense and many more who’d killed out of rage. But Jake was the only person I’d ever met who could order someone brutally tortured or slowly, viciously murdered without blinking an eye. Even someone he’d known for years and shared meals, and drinks, and conversations with. The suffering of others truly didn’t touch him. That knowledge terrified me because it told me he wasn’t human. Not in any way that counted.

And that meant there would be no mercy from him. No hope.

“This is your very last chance, Korinne,” he said, so close to me his breath brushed my ear. “If you mess this up, I will bury you in the basement and forget I even have a key. Your binding will expire and your mark will die, but you’ll stay buried, alone in the dark with the voices in your head, and no one will ask about you, because they’ll all think you’re dead. I will keep you there forever, Kori. Alive in body, but dead in every other sense of the word. If you want anything at all from the rest of your life—anything other than pain and dead shadows—think very carefully before you try to screw me over. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” There was nothing more to say.

Jake nodded and stepped back, dismissing me without a word as he rounded his desk and sank into his chair. When I left the room, escorts in tow, Jake was already speaking into the phone, demanding that an Intent to Sign document be sent over for Ian Holt.

Milligan and Harris followed me silently across the foyer, up the stairs, and into the darkroom while I did my best to ignore the buzz of impatience and fury tingling beneath my skin. Jake meant what he said, but I’d meant what I said, too. I wasn’t taking them to Ian, and they would never get their hands on my sister, either.

“Kori…?” Milligan said softly, as I pulled the door to the darkroom shut, closing us in with absolute darkness. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing—”

“Shut the fuck up and give me your hand,” I snapped, and a hand found each of mine in the dark, one thick and rough, the other smooth and strong. “When I tug, take two steps forward, then stop.”

Without waiting for their acknowledgment, I pulled them forward as hard as I could and they stumbled alongside me, out of the darkroom and into Ian’s bathroom, where I let them go and fumbled for the doorknob.

“Where are we?” Milligan asked, as I shoved the door open and stepped into the bedroom without them. Light flooded the bathroom, illuminating marble countertops, a hot tub and a dual-head shower.

“Holt’s suite. Stay here. I’ll go get him.”

“Hell, no.” Harris grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the bathroom. “I know what a Traveler can do.”

I turned on him slowly, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed in fury. “You have no fucking idea what I can do. Let go of me.”

“Not till we see Holt.”

“Let her go, Harris,” Milligan said, but I didn’t need his help, and I knew better than to trust his words or even glance at him.

Focus. Power. Speed. Those were the tools of survival.

“She’s not going anywhere without us,” Harris insisted. “Start walking.” He shoved me by the arm he still held, his fingers tight enough to bruise. I turned like I’d lead them into the living room, but instead I grabbed the hair dryer hanging from the wall by the door. Spinning, I jerked my arm from his grip, and swung the dryer at his head as hard as I could.

Harris reached for his gun instead of blocking my arm. The dryer slammed into his temple before he could draw his weapon, and he crumpled to the floor, unconscious, without even a whimper. Blood dribbled from the gash in his head, and pain ripped through mine—the beginnings of resistance pain for violating my oath of loyalty.

“Damn it, Kori,” Milligan swore as his partner fell at our feet, one arm draped over my shoe. Milligan already had his gun aimed at my thigh. “Are you trying to make Tower kill you?”

“Yeah. But that won’t do it.” Trying to ignore the steady waves of pain deep inside my head, I bent and pulled the pistol from Harris’s holster, and Milligan tensed, but didn’t shoot. “Was he there? In the basement?” I asked, but Milligan only frowned in confusion. “Did he fucking watch?” I demanded, and Milligan nodded.

I flipped the safety switch off and shot Harris in the thigh with his own gun. I wanted to kill him. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that the more I violated my oath, the worse I’d hurt.

“Motherfucker!” Milligan shouted, as the echo of violence thundered around us. He raised his aim to my chest. “Are you insane?”