With sudden insight, I understood what I should have known all along. If I killed Tower’s Binder and toppled his empire, he’d kill Kori for letting it happen. And I wasn’t naive enough to think her death would be either quick or painless.

I dug my phone from my pocket and my fingers pressed buttons automatically. Aaron worked the night shift, but he answered on the third ring. “Is it done?”

“I can’t do it, Aaron.” I let my head fall against the back of the couch, one hand over my eyes to cut the glare from the light overhead. “I can’t kill her.”

“Fuck.” For a moment, there was only silence, except for the distant sound of heavy machinery running in the background. Then Aaron groaned. “I’m coming over.”

Several seconds later he walked out of the darkened bathroom in stained jeans and a T-shirt stamped with his company logo. He took a glance around, then headed straight for the open minibar, where Kori’s half-empty bottle still sat. “So what’s with all the drama?” He sniffed her minibottle, then drained it. “Go ahead and air your girly feelings so I can laugh at them, then kick your ass back into the game.”

“This isn’t a game. I can’t do it.”

“Which part?” He grabbed another tiny bottle, then dropped into an armchair and stared at me over the coffee table. “The part where you get wined and dined and put up in a fancy hotel room while Steven and Meghan are slowly dying in a great deal of pain? Or the part where you get to spend all week with a beautiful woman at your beck and call, while I work my ass off in a factory to keep all three of us fed and clothed while they can’t work? Because in case you can’t tell from the ripe scent of man-sweat I’m rubbing into your chair, in the real world, this doesn’t qualify as a hardship.” He spread both arms to indicate the luxury Tower had thrown at me.

“Tower is psychotic. He’s fucked her up beyond what I can explain, and I can’t kill her sister after everything she’s already been through.”

“So we’re talking about the sister, not the target?” he said, and I nodded. “What’s she been through?”

“She won’t tell me. But it’s bad. They talk about her like she’s a piece of trash he just hasn’t gotten around to throwing out yet. And he’s using her like human currency.”

“Meaning…?”

“He told her to sleep with me.”

Aaron shrugged and cracked open the minibottle. “I’m still waiting for the psychotic part.”

“Aaron, he fucking gave her to me, like she’s some thing he can use however he wants. Like she’s part of the signing bonus. How would you like to see your sister treated like that?”

Aaron leaned forward in his chair and tossed the bottle cap onto the coffee table, where it slid across the surface and clattered to the floor. “My sister is in no danger of being treated like a slave or a whore because she wasn’t stupid enough to sign away her free will in exchange for paycheck and a tattoo.”

“Kori only joined to protect her sister, and she signed on as security. She never agreed to be used like this.”

Aaron drained his minibottle and stretched to set it on the end table. “She had to know it was a possibility, and you knew what this would be like. You know he has whores as well as assassins and you know damn well that one’s just as dangerous as the other. But you swore to my sister that you would save them both. Now you’re backing out because you’re too sensitive to call a whore a whore?”

“She’s not a whore.” Frustrated, I scrubbed my face with both hands, wishing I had something to shoot, or hit, or stab, so I could pretend I was killing Jake Tower with all the enthusiasm that task deserved. “You should have seen her. She couldn’t even leave without my permission, and I think telling me that actually made her sick.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“Hell no! I didn’t touch her.”

“Then you’ll come out smelling like roses. You’re the honorable man who didn’t take the bait. So pull up your big-boy pants and apologize for the misunderstanding. Explain that you didn’t realize this was supposed to be a full-service tour and you would never have made her do anything she didn’t want to do. The facts will back you up on that, since you didn’t touch her.” Aaron shrugged. “Voilà. You’re right back on schedule.”

“On schedule to kill her sister.”

“Well…yeah. That is what you came here to do.”

“When exactly did you forget that Kori’s a victim in this?” I demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “Around the time I started asking questions about her.” Aaron sighed and stared at his hands for a moment, then made eye contact. “After I dropped you off this afternoon, I called a few of my local contacts and asked them what they knew about Korinne Daniels, other than the fact that she’s evidently back from the dead.”

“And…?” I said, certain I already knew at least part of what he had to say.

“The word from a couple of former syndicate members—guys willing to talk so long as their names never come up—is that she impressed Tower from the start. Not his most powerful Traveler, but she’s a hell of a fighter and she’s got nerves of steel. Word has it she disabled half of his household security team in a matter of minutes, just to get Tower’s attention. That got her assigned to his personal security detail pretty quickly. One of the guys says he took a special interest in her. Nothing dirty, from what I can tell—”