“Succinctly put,” Ian said, and his delivery was so deadpan I almost missed the sarcasm.

“But accurate.” Kori took the bottle back and turned to Sera. “So, what do you want to do with him? And make it quick. This is a very temporary hideout.”

Sera glanced at Mitch in confusion. “What do you mean? Why do I have to do anything with him?”

My sister frowned at me, then at Ian, and I realized that Sera truly understood even less about syndicate life than I did. “It’s like teaching a chimp to play poker,” Kori mumbled, then took a swig from the bottle while Sera bristled. “You own him.” Kori wiped her lips with the back of one hand.

“I what?” If Sera’s eyes got any wider, they’d take over her whole face.

“You own him. Metaphorically.” I reached down for the leg of her chair and turned her to face me. “Mitch’s binding is like a dog’s leash. You’re holding it. Ergo, you effectively own him.”

“Mitch is a dog?”

Kori laughed and nearly choked on another mouthful of liquor. “According to a couple of his exes, yes. But the point is that you can’t just drop the leash.” She frowned, then amended. “Well, you can, but if you just walk away from him, you’re responsible for whatever damage he does, or whatever damage is done to him.”

“I don’t understand.” Sera’s foot tapped rapidly under the table, as if her nerves knew Morse code.

Kori tilted the bottle up again in my peripheral vision and I turned to grab it, then slid it across the table toward Ian. “Do something with that, will you?”

He shrugged, then took a hit for himself.

Great. If my sister had a superpower, it would be the ability to drive those around her to drink—at superspeeds.

I slid the whiskey lid across the table toward Ian, then turned to Sera. “Okay. Think about it like this—if a dog attacks someone, who do they hold responsible?”

“The owner...” Sera’s voice trailed off at the end of the word, and I could practically see comprehension surface behind her eyes. “But that’s not fair. He’s a person, not a dog.” She glanced at Mitch, who was watching our exchange with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting to see how this would play out. “He makes decisions based on thought, not instinct. He has upper-level reasoning—relatively speaking.” Mitch scowled, and Ian chuckled. “He has logic and free will!”

“But he doesn’t. Not really,” Kori insisted. “His will is yours, and if he hurts someone because you didn’t tell him not to, whether you’re legally responsible or not, I have a feeling you’ll have a hard time dealing with the guilt of not having prevented it.”

My sister’s words struck close to home, and I realized that Sera and I were in a similar position. Sort of.

“Which is why I told him not to hurt anyone,” Sera said.

“But that’s a problem all its own,” I said. “For instance, under that order, he can’t defend himself or anyone else without your say so. So if we leave him here, he’ll be dead in...what?” I glanced at Ian for a second opinion. “An hour?”

He nodded.

“Maybe less,” I added. “Julia’s extra pissy since your fortuitous arrival. Which means she’s probably trigger-happy. Metaphorically speaking.” Had Julia Tower ever even held a gun?

“Don’t assume she can’t shoot just because you’ve never seen her do it,” Ian warned. “That woman holds her cards close to her chest.”

Kori snorted. “Hell, they’re practically in her bra.”

“But my point is that if she finds him, she’ll kill him. Assuming Cavazos doesn’t find him first.”

Mitch squirmed in his chair.

“Okay.” Sera shrugged. “Then I’ll just break his binding.”

“Hell, no.” Mitch stood, as if he actually had somewhere to go. “You may as well pass out guns and paint a target on my back. Didn’t you get the memo pinned to Ned’s chest?” He ran one hand through his hair. “That’s Julia’s way of saying she’ll kill whoever you set free.”

I shrugged. “So run.” I turned back to Sera with a frown. “That’s where we went wrong with Ned—we left him handcuffed to the fridge, like a sitting duck.” Not that ducks had hands. “Of course, if I’d known you’d broken his binding, I would have given the poor guy a running start.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” she insisted, her gaze silently pleading with me to understand. “I thought...” She let her words trail off when she realized Mitch was still listening, but we all knew what she’d thought, and we all understood why. She’d had no reason to trust us not to kill her or use her as a bargaining chip, if and when we found out how valuable she was.

I hated that I’d given her reason to think that.

“It doesn’t matter.” I made a mental note to reassure her of her safety later, away from stranger’s ears. Hopefully in private, where I could tell her other things that still needed to be said.

“Okay.” It was a struggle for me to pull my thoughts back on target. “You cut him loose and we’ll give him a head start. A Traveler can be hundreds of miles away by the time Julia finds out he’s gone.”

Mitch started to object again, and I turned on him, rapidly losing my patience. “You won’t be a priority. She probably won’t even bother looking for you, with us still out here wreaking havoc.”