I nodded, my hands steady, my spine steeled. With one shot, the man who’d sentenced Kori to six weeks of a living hell would be dead. Then I’d make my way to the basement and kill the man who’d delivered that hell, and both Kori and her sister would be free for good.

No doubt easier said than done, but never had a challenge promised a better reward.

“Wait here for a minute,” Julia said, and while she crossed the foyer for a private word with the guards at the stairs, I pulled my phone from my pocket and texted like a madman. I hit Send as she turned back to me and motioned for me to follow her.

Julia threw open the door to Jake’s office and marched inside, then held the door for me. “Out,” she said to the two extra men in the room, one standing guard at Jake’s back, the other seated in a chair in front of his desk. “Mr. Holt has come to negotiate his contract.”

Tower didn’t even stand. “My men are sworn to secrecy on private matters,” he said. “Anything you say will stay in this room.”

“But they won’t,” I insisted. “Or this negotiation is over.”

Jake’s left brow rose. “You’d walk out over a little compromised privacy?”

“I’d walk out over too little ice in my whiskey.” I turned to Julia. “Four cubes.”

She scowled, but made no complaint. I’d given her the excuse she needed to leave the room.

Tower looked more amused than truly threatened, but he waved the men out of the room. “Go check on Kori Daniels. She was giving Jonah fits a few minutes ago.”

I tried not to laugh, hoping whatever fits she’d given Jonah hadn’t resulted in any more bruises for her.

“Can I get you anything?” Julia asked her brother, one hand on the door as the men crossed the foyer toward the elevator behind her.

“Call Barker and find out where that Intent to Sign document is. I want Mr. Holt bound by Kenley Daniels, but Barker will do for the preliminary document.”

Julia nodded and stepped out of the room.

“Oh, and, Lia, pay a visit to Kori and explain exactly what will happen to her if she doesn’t give up her sister. Quickly.”

Julia nodded again and disappeared into the foyer.

“Nothing will happen to her,” I said, sinking into one of two chairs in front of Tower’s desk.

“What?”

“Nothing will happen to Kori,” I repeated. “I want that written into the contract. You will release her and swear that she will have no further contact with you or anyone in your organization. Ever. When I have that written and sealed, I will sign.”

“No deal.” Jake stood and rounded his desk to sit on one corner of it, and his jacket parted to reveal the gun at his hip. If I could get it, this would all be over.

“You don’t need her,” I said, waiting for opportunity to knock. Negotiation was pointless, since I wasn’t going to sign. “You’ve already got me here, and your Trackers can find her sister without Kori’s help. Assuming Kenley can stand the resistance pain long enough to get out of the city. Kori’s useless to you.”

“Korinne is a living object lesson, Mr. Holt. My people know what she did, and if I don’t make sure she lives and breathes pain until the instant she dies, someone else will think they can get away with what she did. And I can’t let that happen.”

I shrugged. “So tell them she’s dead.”

Tower folded his arms over his chest. “They need to see her die.”

“I think you need to see her die. But I swear on my own life that if you kill her, you will never have my service.”

Tower watched me carefully. Thinking. Hopefully weighing his options. While I bided my time. My moment hadn’t yet come.

“Why Kori?” he asked at last, studying my face like he couldn’t quite make sense of it. “I’m afraid I don’t see the attraction.”

“That’s because you are threatened by her strength, while I am bolstered by it. But you don’t have to understand that,” I said, pleased to hear that my voice sounded much calmer than the rest of me felt. “You just have to let one of us go. Which do you want more, my service or her death?”

Tower’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched in anger—a first from him, at least that I’d seen. But before he could answer, a screeching siren echoed from all over, visibly startling us both.

Tower stood, eyes wide. “Security breach!” he shouted into the radio he’d grabbed from his desktop. And suddenly I realized what had happened. Kori was free. Everyone would be gunning for her.

My time had come.

“Lock the door,” Tower said, reaching for the phone on his desk—no doubt an internal, secure line.

I lunged for his gun instead. Tower fought me and the gun went off in its holster.

He screamed and blood ran down his leg. Tower slapped one hand over the wound and I took the gun.

I backed up, aiming at him, and Tower leaned over his desk, fumbling for the top drawer. I fired before he could get it open, and blood poured from the new hole in his chest.

“No!” Kori shouted behind me, and I spun to see her standing in the doorway, gun drawn. Kori raced around me and pressed her free hand to the wound in Tower’s chest. Blood ran between her fingers, but she was already covered in blood anyway, though I couldn’t find any wounds, at a glance. “No, don’t die!”

She turned to me, still trying to stop the bleeding, and the siren stopped screeching as suddenly as it had begun. But it rang on in my head. “I told you not to kill him!” Kori shouted, like she could still hear the ringing, too, as footsteps pounded toward us from the foyer. “He has an heir clause!”