“More so with the red mark,” she said. “It’s not so bad on this side of the river.”

I shook my head, horrified that she seemed to actually believe what she was saying. “If that’s really what you think, it’s only because they haven’t made you do something you don’t want to do yet. But that day will come. Jake Tower may not be renting you out by the hour, but he is using you for profit, one way or another. As long as you lack the ability to say no to something, you’re not truly free. You’re his.”

She shook her head, visibly frustrated. “You don’t understand. You’ve never been bound like I was,” she insisted, and the irony stung all the way into my soul. “For four years, I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t even complain. I could do what I was told, or die fighting the impulse.

“Now I work with computers, fully clothed, and I’m allowed to take down any bastard who tries to touch me. Which would you prefer?”

I exhaled slowly. “I’d prefer not to need permission to defend myself.”

Van blinked, and a single, unguarded thought crossed her expression. In that moment, I could see that I’d gotten through to her. It was like seeing the light for the first time in a decade—so many of us had forgotten the sun even existed.

“But you have a valid point, and I’m not trying to minimize that,” I assured her. “The difference between your first binding—the red ring to Cavazos—and your current one is the difference between full-on slavery and indentured servitude. The first time around, you were bound by force, and that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. In fact, it takes a very powerful Binder to be able to seal a nonconsensual oath. Most of those break as soon as the ink dries. Or the blood, depending on the binding method. Flesh bindings, bonds sealed with a tattoo, are a little more stable, but unless the Binder is a real rock star, all it takes is a couple of intentional breaches—something small enough to survive—and voilà, you have a dead mark, as worthless as the artist who inked it.”

Van frowned, obviously confused. “But my mark never died.”

“Which means that whoever sealed it was pretty dam badass. But that…” I gestured to the mark on her left arm. “That’s the way it’s supposed to work. The syndicate doesn’t give as much as it takes, but it has to give something. Otherwise no one would ever be willing to sign. It’s still not a fair trade for you—thus the indentured servitude—but at least you’re getting something in exchange for your service to Tower, right?”

“Yeah.” She looked a little relieved—as if maybe she hadn’t made the worse decision of her entire life—and I almost hated to burst her bubble. “I get protection. A salary. A family.”

“No.” That came out harsher than I’d meant for it to, and she practically jumped. “Protection, yes—at a cost. Salary, yes—because it doesn’t do them any good for you to starve to death before you’ve served your term. But Tower and his men will never, ever be your family.” Though considering that her own father had sold her into prostitution as a teenager, the distinction seemed a little less clear than it should have. “They won’t even truly be your friends. Not even Cameron.”

For a minute, Cam looked as if he wanted to argue. Then he just looked miserable. The truth does that to people.

“I have lots of friends in the syndicate,” Van insisted, and I almost felt sorry for her.

“No, you don’t, Vanessa. You can’t possibly, because any one of them would kill you with one word from Jake Tower, just like you would kill any one of them if he told you to. You can’t help it. Obedience is in the boilerplate contract. And since you signed willingly, this one would be much harder to get out of than the first one.”

She huffed, a harsh, bitter sound. “I don’t see how that’s possible, if the last binding was strong enough to hold me against my will.”

“How’d you get out of it?” I asked—she’d only served four years of a five-year term. If they were willing to sign her underage, against her will, there wasn’t much they wouldn’t have been willing to do to keep her, even after her contract officially expired.

“Cam got me out.” She glanced up at him, and my heart ached at the look that passed between them.

“How?” That was all I could manage through the bitter jealousy I had no business indulging.

“One night a few years ago, they rented me out to this bad apple. A real asshole. He…” She stopped and drank from a glass of water Cam set in front of her, and he took over the story, when it became obvious that she couldn’t.

“I found her on the side of the road, beaten half to death and barely conscious. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but she begged me not to.”

“So he brought me here.” Van glanced around the apartment, picking up the thread where he dropped it, and I hated myself for wishing she’d never been in his home. “I was here for nearly a week, but I couldn’t give him my name. I wasn’t allowed to. But he saw my mark, and he knew…what I was.”

Cam nodded, picking up the story again. “We talked, and bit by bit, I realized what had happened to her. How they got her so young. She coldn’t tell me who she was, but I finally convinced her to give me the name of the Binder.”

I glanced at Van in surprise. “You knew the Binder?”