“That makes two of us.”

“That makes all of us,” I corrected. “I wish you’d stop acting like you’re the only one saddled with a mark. At least yours comes with some measure of freedom and a nifty expiration date. I’m stuck tracking for Tower—not to mention whatever else he wants done—for the next four years, minimum.”

Liv’s face flushed with anger, and I recognized the building storm that was about to wreck us both. “You want to talk about that expiration date? Let’s talk about that.” She stood, fists clenched at her sides. “In six months, if I haven’t found Cavazos’s…missing person, I will officially be in default of my contract. Do you know what happens then? Have I mentioned that?”

I shrugged. “A really big headache?”

The look she gave me was so cold my teeth wanted to chatter. “If I default on my contract, I become his. Completely. Exclusively. Without restriction. In six months, unless I suddenly, miraculously develop the ability to track someone through a single middle name or get close enough to use a relative’s blood sample, I become the private property of Ruben Cavazos, compelled to obey his every word. Whatever he tells me to do. He can make me kill for him. Maim for him. Kidnap or steal. Or anything more personal and humiliating that strikes his fancy. This boundary tattooed on my thigh? Six months from now it becomes a fucking red carpet. For the rest of my life. So tell me again how I have it so good, Cam. ’Cause right now, that kinda feels like a fairy tale.”

For one long moment, I could only stare at her, drowning in a very private horror, and an even more private rage. I got homicidally pissed off thinking about the limited groping rights Cavazos had now. The thought of what he’d be able to do to her—or make her do—in six months sent bolts of protective rage surging through me, obliterating all rational impulses. My teeth ground together. My fists clenched so tightly my hands cramped. But I couldn’t find words to express any of that. They were all tangled up in the bitter lump in my throat, refusing to budge.

What came out instead was, “Why the hell would you let him seal a mark like that?” People all over the world were having their free will stolen or sold out from under them, like what had happened to Van. But Olivia had intentionally signed hers away!

Liv grabbed an unopened bottle of water from the coffee table and threw it at me, grunting with fury. I tried to duck, but the bottle hit my shoulder then fell to the ground, leaving a deep throb in the joint. “Why would I sign on for that? Why would I sell him my service, and my body, and my fucking free will? I did it to save your ass!”

I blinked in surprise. “To save…? What the hell does this have to do with me?” Other than my renewed determination to burn her contract to ashes, even if that meant dousing Cavazos with gasoline and lighting a match.

“You said you had a run-in with Ruben once,” she said, her eyes blazing with some toxic combination of anger, fear and some small measure of resentment. “Would that have been about eighteen months ago?”

“Yeah.” Confused, I sank onto the nearest bar stool. “Tower sent me to the south fork to pick up some loser who’d flaked on a loan extension. But when I got there, the target was… Well, I don’t know where he was. I’d tracked him there, and I could feel him there somewhere. But Cavazos’s men were everywhere. Evidently I got in the way of something they had going down, and his goons hauled me in.” One of them had smashed me over the head with a bat, and I’d woken up somewhere on Cavazos’s private property, tied up and bleeding, being questioned by the man himself.

Liv shook her head. “You didn’t get in the way—you were set up. Your target knew you were coming for him, so he sold you out to Ruben, in exchange for enough cash to pay off his debt.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. They messed with me for a while and asked me a bunch of questions I couldn’t answer, but then they let me go a day later. If he wanted me badly enough to pay for me, why would he just let me…?” My words faded into silence when she stared at the floor to avoid my gaze. “Liv, what the hell did you do?” I stood and tried to touch her, but she backed out of reach again.

“I traded my services for yours. You know how I’m tracking for Cavazos using only a name?” she asked, and I nodded again, stunned when the pieces began to fall into place. “That’s why he wanted you. I’d only dealt with him a couple of times, but I’d seen enough to know I didn’t want you to have to sign with him.” She barked a bitter laugh. “Of course, the joke’s on me—I didn’t know you’d already signed with Tower. I thought you were freelancing. Like me.”

And suddenly the devastating weight of my own unwitting involvement was too much to bear. I sank onto the couch, stunned. “You signed with Cavazos to…?”

“To keep you from having to,” she finished for me. “It was my fault you were in the city, and I thought you were freelancing in the south fork to stay close to me. I was…trying to protect you.”

She was trying to protect me.

My head spun a little, then the room spun a lot more. “You gave yourself to Ruben Cavazos—with no restrictions—to protect me.” Son of a bitch! My fist slammed into the coffee table and an empty water bottle fell over, then rolled onto the floor. “Why would you do that? Why the hell would you ever think I wanted you to do that? I’m supposed to protect you.”