“What do you expect?” the guard demanded, suddenly almost bold in spite of the gun still pressed into the base of his throat. “I’m the guy they left behind to guard an empty building. How high would you expect that guy’s security clearance to be?”

“He’s got a point.”

Kris groaned in frustration. “Fine.” He withdrew his gun and backed away from the guard slowly, still aiming at the man’s head. “The rest of this is up to you,” he said, and it took me a minute to realize he was talking to me, because he was still looking at the guard zip-tied to the refrigerator.

“What’s up to me?”

“Whether he lives or dies.”

The guard stiffened again, and my heart slammed against my chest as I stood and backed away from them both. “Why? Why is that up to me?”

“Because you have the most to lose if we let him live. Julia already knows what I’m up to. Your participation in our mission to destroy her will be news, and not the kind of news she’s going to take well. So...your call. Shoot him or leave him?”

As far as I knew, the guard didn’t deserve death. He hadn’t actually shot at Kris. He’d been cooperative to the best of his ability, in spite of restrictive bindings. But Kris was right. If we left him, he’d have no choice but to answer any question Julia asked, assuming my understanding of his bindings was anywhere near accurate. Then she’d know that I...

That I what? What could she learn from interrogating Ned? That I wasn’t being held hostage anymore? That I was willingly working with the enemy? Those conclusions couldn’t be hard for her to draw on her own, considering that she’d been willing to kill me not once, but twice—she had to know I was the one who’d snuck back in to raid my own car.

“Let him live.”

Kris’s aim didn’t drop. “You sure?” he asked, and I nodded, but he only frowned. “Can I talk to you in the hall, please?”

I followed him out of the room reluctantly and pulled the door almost closed in the all-white hallway. “What?”

“I just want to make sure you understand how dangerous leaving him alive really is.”

“Because I’m a simpleton, who can’t be trusted to make a decision without a man’s guidance and supervision?” Ass-hat.

“Calm down, Wonder Woman. That’s not what I’m saying.” He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his bare chest, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I’m just saying that if you’re new enough to the workings of the Skilled syndicate to be unfamiliar with the color-coding system, you may be even less familiar with the level of cruelty and depravity that goes on within the privacy of the Tower estate.”

“Okay. Fair point. But I figure that—worst-case scenario—leaving him alive will give Julia Tower reason to want me dead. Right?” I asked, and he nodded. “News flash—that already appears to be the case. Which means we have no legitimate reason to kill the poor asshole bound into her service.”

Into my service, if...

If what? What would it take to claim my inheritance? If I could claim the bindings she had temporary control of, could I then break them? Could I release the people Kenley Daniels had bound into indentured servitude?

A new world of possibilities blossomed before me, and my head swam as they swirled around me in a vortex of blood, and oaths, and death, and freedom. Beneath all that, Kori’s insistence that sometimes freedom only comes through death made me nervous, both for Ned and for myself.

Kris’s gaze narrowed on me, and I couldn’t tell if he approved of my logic. The part I’d explained aloud, anyway. And finally he nodded. “Okay. We’ll let him live. Let’s find some bleach and clean up, so we can get out of here. I’ll text Kori for an update on Ian.”

“There’s bleach in the bathroom,” I said, already on my way back into the snack room to retrieve it. Kris was pressing Send on his phone when I handed him the jug of bleach and a roll of hand towels. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Ned. Unless you’re as bad at cleaning as Gran says you are at cooking.”

His brows rose. “Trick question. Either I admit incompetence, or I get stuck with the dirty work.”

“You catch on quick.” I gave him a smile that felt like a lie on my lips, then gestured for him to hurry.

Once he’d disappeared into the room where Ian had been shot, stepping over the dead guy in his path, I quietly closed the break room door and knelt next to Ned, armed with his gun. He didn’t need to know I had no idea how to use it.

Ned scowled at me. “What, you’re going to shoot me now, after you talked that psycho into letting me live?”

“He’s not a psycho. Though I understand the mistake. I thought the same thing when I first met him.”

“Did he tie you to a refrigerator and hold a gun to your throat?”

“No. He kidnapped me and trapped me in a house with no exits. So I know he’s an acquired taste. But this...” I waved the gun for emphasis, and he flinched as if it might go off in my hand, which made me suddenly nervous, even though the safety was engaged. “This has nothing to do with him. I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“I’m guessing I have no choice but to answer?” he snapped with a glance at the gun, and I shrugged.

“That’s what we’re about to find out. Do you know who I am, Ned?”