“You’re tilting.” Kori tore open a sugar packet and a million tiny crystals spilled onto the counter. “What is it you think you’re diagnosing?”

“Your life. Your problems. Because frankly, I think those are one and the same.”

“Well, you got that much right.” She poured coffee into a second mug and dumped a packet of powdered creamer into it. “What’s your diagnosis?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes until the room stopped spinning. Then I met her gaze. “I think the reason you value the truth so highly, even when it hurts, is that you don’t experience much of it. Syndicate life seems to be lie after lie, strung together with cruel manipulation and brutal compulsion. So let me be completely honest with you for a moment.” Well, as honest as I could be without getting us both killed. “I like you. I like you a lot.”

Her eyes widened, and I couldn’t tell if she was surprised by what I was saying, or by the fact that I was saying it at all.

She started to reply, but I cut her off. I wasn’t done. “Yes, I wanted you to stay for a while last night, but not because I was playing some kind of sadistic game. I wanted you to stay because I like your company.”

Kori stuck a stirrer in her coffee. “Now I know you’re lying.” But her grip on the mug was tense, like she didn’t want to believe her own words.

“Why? Why is it so hard for you to believe that someone could want to be with you with no ulterior motive?”

“Because it’s never happened.” She set the full pot on the coffee table in front of me, along with an empty mug. “Everyone wants something. Even my sister needs me for protection.”

“Okay, but I bet she’d do as much for you as you’ve done for her, if she had the chance. Every now and then, someone may just want to be near you, Kori. Or do you honestly think Kenley would kick you out if you were no use to her?”

“No. But she’s my sister. You’re…”

“A job. I know.” And even hearing it from my own mouth stung a little. “But even if that’s all you see in me, that’s not all I see in you. I have no intention of reporting what happened last night to Tower. Nor will I report anything that happens today. I won’t tell him anything you don’t want me to. I swear on my life.”

“You’re serious?” She frowned, but I knew her skepticism ran much deeper than a cynical expression. “Why?”

“Because believe it or not, I’m not trying to hurt you, and I don’t want someone else assigned as my recruiter. So nothing that was said here will leave this room.” Except what I’d already told Aaron. “Think of this suite as our own personal Las Vegas. What happens here…”

“Stays here,” she finished, and I nodded. Kori sank onto the couch across from me and glanced at the coffeepot. “I’m not going to serve you. Unless that’ll get you to sign on. Or have I already ruined any chance of that?” She said it casually, but her eyes didn’t match her tone. My answer mattered. A lot.

I picked up the coffeepot and filled my mug, glad my stomach was finally starting to settle. “What will happen if I don’t?” I asked, but she only stared into her coffee. “The truth, Kori. You owe me that.”

And finally she looked up, anger flashing in her bold, aggressive gaze, like she was daring me to disagree with something she hadn’t even said yet. “If I can’t get you to sign, he’ll hurt Kenley to punish me. Then he’ll execute me.”

A bolt of anger burned through the center of my chest, and my jaw clenched. “Execute?”

She lifted her mug with shaking hands, and I felt like I was burning alive, consumed by my own rage. “Death by conflicting orders.”

“That’s sick. That’s not death, it’s torture.”

“It’s both. It’s also an object lesson. Public executions tend to keep the masses in line.”

I wanted to beat Jake Tower into the ground until the earth accepted him back.

“I’ll sign,” I said. My words were a lie, but my intent was true. I would do whatever it took to protect her from him, but that wouldn’t involve signing with Jake Tower. I wanted to free her from him, not enslave myself alongside her.

“Are you sure?” She looked so suddenly hopeful, yet so skeptical. So…guilty. Because she thought she was condemning me to a life like her own.

“Yes,” I said, and her obvious relief was like a ray of sunshine parting dark clouds. “But not today. I want today off. My last day as a free man. And I want you to spend it with me. If you want to.” I had to know that she wasn’t just following orders.

“Now more than ever. But don’t read too much into that.” She was actually grinning. “It’s a nice suite.”

There was something in her eyes when she said it. Something I liked. I wanted to know what scared her and what made her smile. I wanted to know what she’d wanted out of life before she’d joined the syndicate, and if that was what she still wanted.

“Was any of it true, Kori? About your parents, and your grandmother? Or was that just part of the role he made you play?”

“I can’t tell you everything,” she said, meeting my gaze. “But nothing I said was a lie.” She took another sip from her coffee, and the stiffness in her shoulders eased. She looked almost relaxed, and I realized she’d been tense since the moment I’d met her, and probably for years before that.