years came and went nearly a year and a half ago.” She twisted to show me her left arm, and the two interlocking chain links tattooed there. Marks of service. “One for each term.”
I’d already seen them, of course, and I already knew what they meant. She was six and a half years into a ten-year commitment to serve Jake Tower and his syndicate. Her oath had been sealed with two linking tattoos, each containing a tiny bit of his blood—a flesh binding. Until the day her commitment expired and her tattoos faded into the dull gray of dead marks, she would be compelled to follow his orders, or she would die fighting the compulsion.
Syndicate service was a miserable way to live. And often a miserable way to die. Only three kinds of people joined voluntarily: the ignorant, the ambitious and the desperate.
Which category did Kori fit into? Which would be most believable for me?
“You must like it here, then, if you signed on for another term,” I said, trying to embrace the part I had to play.
Kori blinked, then took another swig of vodka, straight. Then she shoved the corked lid back into the bottle and pushed the Goose away, like it might be to blame for whatever she was about to say. “This is my home.”
I frowned. It felt like she was starting a new conversation, rather than continuing the one already in progress. “No, this is your job.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” she asked, and I let my frown deepen, so she would explain what I already knew, and I would listen and respond, and ask all the right questions, and with every minute that passed she would trust me a little more, because she would know I was no threat. She had all the power, because she had all the knowledge.
And because she thought she could cut my balls off with one hand while slicing my throat open with the other.
Kori exhaled slowly, and a brief glimpse of guilt flickered across her face, like she was already regretting the pitch she was about to throw at me. That told me she was neither ambitious nor ignorant—at least, not after more than six years of service, which came as no surprise, after what I’d overheard on the stairs.
And that only left desperate.
“When you sign on with a syndicate—any syndicate, not just this one—you’re not just taking a job, you’re becoming part of a community. Like an extended family. You’re getting job security, medical care, personal protection and virtually limitless resources. The syndicate isn’t just employment—it’s a way of life. A very stable, secure way of life.”
“Sounds awesome.” It also sounded like a very well-rehearsed speech. “What’s the catch? Is it all the following orders? Because honestly, that’s what I balk at.” To say the very, very least.
“There’s some of that, of course. But that’s not really so different from any other job, is it?” she asked, and I couldn’t help noting that now that I’d pointed out a flaw in the system, she was referring to it as a mere job again. “Any workplace is a hierarchy, right? There’s a CEO, management, and the rest of the employees. Everyone has a boss, except whoever’s at the top. That’s how we operate, too.”
“Yes, but in any other job, you can quit if you don’t like the orders.”
“That’s not true.” She smiled, like she’d caught me in a lie. “You can’t just quit military service if you don’t like the orders.”
“So, would you say service to the Tower syndicate is more like military service than like a civilian job?”
She had to think about that for a minute. “Yeah, I guess, only without the patriotism and gratitude from your fellow citizens. Large community. Great benefits. They even get chevrons for time in service.” She twisted to show me her arm again, to emphasize the parallel.
But I knew what she wasn’t saying—in the military, you can take the chevrons off at the end of the day, but the syndicate owns you for the life of the mark, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’re never off the clock. And the word no has no meaning. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever sign on for that.
“Okay, obviously following orders is what’s bothering you, and I can understand that. So why don’t we just lay the truth out on the table?”
“The truth?” I watched her in interest. The truth was a rarity in life in general and even more so in the syndicate. Only the fearless and the foolish wielded it so boldly, and I already knew Kori Daniels was no fool.
“Blinders are rare, and you’re the best I’ve ever seen. That makes you very valuable, and I’d bet my best knife that we’re not the only ones who’ve made you an offer?” Her sentence ended on a question, and I could only nod. “Right now, everyone’s playing nice and pulling out the best china because you’re being recruited. But if that doesn’t work, you’ll be hunted. And eventually you will be caught, and when that happens, you’ll be all out of choices. It’s a winner-takes-all kind of game.”
“I’m assuming there’s a silver lining to this cloud of doom?” The cloud that had been hanging over me since I was twelve years old, when my mother explained how the rarity and power of my Skill would shape the rest of my life. As a kid, I’d thought she was being paranoid. As an adult, I’d learned better.
“The silver lining is that at this stage in the game, you can still decide what mark you want to bear. Who you want to serve. Because you will wind up serving someone.” Kori shrugged and glanced longingly at the corked bottle of vodka. “Hell, I’m not sure how you went unnoticed as long as you did.”
Flying below the syndicates’ radar hadn’t been easy, and dipping beneath it again once this was over would no doubt be even harder.
“That’s a rather ominous bit of truth,” I said, committing to nothing.
Kori shrugged again. “It can’t be changed, so you might as well understand your options.”
“And those would be …?”
“The Tower syndicate, or some other, inferior organization.”
Or … door number three, the option she either didn’t know existed or didn’t believe possible: hide.
“And the others are inferior because …?”
“Because we have the best of everything.” She leaned closer, and I expected to smell vodka on her breath, but I couldn’t, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her, to see if I could taste it. Or maybe just to taste her.
I blinked in surprise at the thought, but Kori didn’t seem to notice. She was still talking.
“Jake wants you,” she said, staring straight into my eyes. “I mean he really fucking wants you, which gives you more power going into negotiations than most people have. You could get just about whatever you want out of him.”
Was it my imagination, or did she seem a little pleased at the idea of me taking Tower for all he was worth? More than pleased. She looked … excited. Her lips parted and her eyes shone with eagerness. She looked fierce, like the chain links on her arm could restrain her, but never truly tame her.
And as she watched me, probably waiting to see the gleam of greed that would tell her I was interested, I had a sudden, dangerous, treacherous
