Oath Bound. Rachel Vincent

have killed anyone to get to you, or to any one of us, but you will never convince me that you’d have pulled one of her meathead laborers through the shadows to ‘protect’ him.”

      There was no use arguing with her when I couldn’t explain myself without mentioning the notebook, and I couldn’t tell her about that because I’d never told anyone about the notebook or about how I’d filled it. About how, for the first time, one of those indecipherable lines had made sense, and I’d pulled Sera through the shadows just in time to prevent us both from being killed.

      If the woman in the yellow scarf was real, then everything else I’d written down could be real, too. What had I missed in that notebook? What had I ignored? What other horrible things could I have prevented?

      “Go talk to her, Kris. We can’t keep her tied up, but we can’t afford to let her go, and the only other option isn’t going to sit well on my conscience.”

      “You have a conscience?” I went for the obvious joke, so I wouldn’t have to think about what she was really saying, because if I thought about that, Kori and I would fight.

      I hadn’t fought with Kori in a very long time. For a very good reason.

      “I have a conscience and you have a brain, and I suspect they’re both getting rusty, so let’s put them to use. Kenley needs us, and your Sera’s getting in the way.”

      “I know.” But if Sera did work for the Towers, she might be able to help us find Kenley. “Did Liv catch Kenni’s scent?”

      “Not a trace.” Kori didn’t look surprised. When the Towers wanted someone to disappear, that someone disappeared.

      “They won’t kill her,” I whispered, trying to reassure us both. Killing Kenley would release Julia’s remaining employees from their bonds of servitude and obedience, and that was the last thing Julia wanted.

      “I know. But the Towers are capable of far worse than death.” Kori shook her head, jarring loose memories I could almost see floating beneath her carefully controlled expression. She nodded once, curtly, then headed back into the bedroom, where she studied Sera’s face again with no sign of recognition. “She’s definitely not one of Jake’s, but if she’s Julia’s, you can’t trust a word she says without third-party verification.”

      “You knew him?” Sera’s eyes widened and a little of her hostility melted beneath the curiosity she couldn’t quite hide. It looked genuine, and I was as fascinated by what she didn’t know as I was by what she might be able to tell us. “You actually knew Jake Tower?”

      Kori sank onto the bed, which put her at eye level with Sera. “I knew him very well.” She shrugged out of her jacket and pushed up her short left sleeve to reveal two chain links tattooed on her upper arm, now the faded gray of dead marks. “I served him for six years—most of that spent under his direct supervision—which is how I can say with absolute confidence that he was one of the cruelest, most recreationally sadistic men to ever walk this earth.”

      Sera shifted uncomfortably in her chair, but didn’t break Kori’s gaze. She looked the way I felt every time a pill I had to swallow got stuck in my throat.

      “I knew his brother, too, until I had the privilege of ending the bastard’s cold-blooded existence,” Kori continued. “I know Julia Tower better than anyone should ever have to know Julia Tower, and with every single breath I take, I regret my decision to let her live. Instead of cursing my own foot when I stub my toe, I’ve taken to cursing the foul womb that produced all three of the Tower siblings. Their family tree is rotten all the way to its decayed-ass roots, and I don’t see how Jake’s kids—as innocent as they look now—can possibly rise above the malice and brutality that is their birthright.”

      Sera flinched as though she’d been slapped, and Kori frowned.

      “You never met him, did you?” she asked. Sera shook her head. “But you know Julia?”

      “I just met her today. You …” She blinked and shrugged, as if her shoulders were sore. “You killed Jonah? Jake’s brother?”

      “Yes.” Kori’s eyes glittered with the memory, but her gaze was unflinching. “I stabbed him in the throat with a chunk of porcelain from a smashed toilet, and the only regret I have about killing him is that so many people were denied the opportunity to see him die.”

      “Damn, Kori,” I said, and my sister glanced up at me for a second, then returned her attention to an obviously shell-shocked Sera.

      “Does that bother you?”

      Sera stared at her lap, evidently considering the question, and when she finally looked up, her gaze was so sharp it could have drawn blood. “Did he deserve it?”

      “Jonah Tower was a rapist, torturer and murderer.” Kori spoke as if the words meant nothing to her, hiding the truth behind a battered stoicism that made my chest ache. “He was a sadist son of a bitch who deserved a much longer, more painful death than he got.”

      “Then may he rot in hell for all of eternity.” Sera’s voice hinted at everything my sister’s hid. There was a perilous depth to her conviction, and I wondered just how closely to the edge she was teetering. How little would it take to send her tumbling over the edge? Why did I want so badly to pull her back from that abyss?

      I knew nothing about her—not even her last name—but I recognized so much of what I saw in her. There was pain behind her anger. A lot of pain. I may have been a convenient target—I had locked her up in a strange house—but I wasn’t the true cause of either her pain or her anger.

      “How did Jake … die?” Sera asked.

      “Ian shot him,” I said.

      Kori nodded. “It was a clean death. Fast. Better than he deserved.”

      “Ian is …” Sera glanced at both of us, in turn.

      “He is the other half of my soul. The good half.”

      It was amazing to see the change in my sister when she talked about Ian. She was still fierce and dangerous—Korinne would never be anything less. But with his name on her tongue, she looked as if she may not hate the world after all. Not the whole world, anyway.

      “But you didn’t kill Julia?”

      Kori shook her head slowly, looking as if she was remembering that day, and I remembered it with her. Though the Towers were a huge obstacle in my life’s work, I’d never been in their house before that day. I’d never dealt with any of them face-to-face. “I wanted Julia to suffer. She deserved to suffer,” Kori said. “I changed my mind a second later, when I realized that leaving her alive would really mean making the rest of the world suffer, but by then I’d lost my chance.”

      “Why did you hate them?” Sera asked. “I mean, other than the whole ‘birthed from an evil womb’ thing. What did they do to you?”

      For a minute, I thought Kori might actually answer. That she might finally talk to someone other than Ian about what woke her up screaming in the middle of most nights. Kenley knew part of it. I think even Vanessa knew more than I did. I’d started to ask, once, but Gran, in a rare moment of absolute lucidity, told me to leave it alone.

      I did, because when she’s thinking clearly, Gran is never wrong.

      But after nearly half a minute of considering, Kori only stood and glanced at me on her way to the door. “You got this?” she asked, and when I nodded, she disappeared into the hall and pulled the door shut behind her.

      “Is she okay?” Sera asked as I sank onto the bed, where my sister had been seconds earlier.

      “Kori’s always okay.” Even when she isn’t. “All right. Here’s what I need you to understand. I don’t know you—”

      “I understand that.”

      I resisted the urge to growl at her. The woman was as infuriating as she