Blood Bound. Rachel Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ sat up, clutching the rag in one hand. “Olivia, I don’t need you to cut his throat with a scalpel and frame the governor’s personal physician. I don’t need the best. Hell, I can’t afford the best. Proficiency will suffice, and from what I’ve heard, you’re more than proficient.”

      What? “I don’t care what you’ve heard, I do not kill people for money!” Much. Anymore.

      Not just for money, anyway.

      My head throbbed again, but this headache was stress-induced. She wasn’t backing down, and I couldn’t tell her why I needed her to. And thanks to the original oath, I couldn’t just ask her not to ask me to kill someone. Noelle had called that the no-wishing-for-more-wishes clause—like a contractual paradox. It couldn’t be done.

      Anne frowned. “But you work for Ruben Cavazos.”

      “Freelance. I freelance for Cavazos.” Which was precisely why her request was so dangerous for me. “And for Adam Rawlinson, and for anyone else who can pay.” Except for Jake Tower. Working for both sides of the Skilled black market would be like putting a bullet in my own head—only more prolonged and painful. “But all I do for them is find people.” Usually. “What the client does with the target after that is their business. I don’t get involved with that side of it.” Not without a very good reason—and money doesn’t count.

      “So Cavazos doesn’t … own you?” She blinked through her tears, watching me carefully, and if I hadn’t known her most of my life, I might not have realized what she was doing. What she was looking for in my eyes.

      Anne was a Reader—a human truth detector—born with an ability most law enforcers worked years to develop. Only her Skill was virtually infallible, and it couldn’t be turned off. Which was why she hadn’t dated much in high school—turns out sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Or at least temporary consolation. Shen must have been the most honest man on the face of the planet.

      “Say what you mean, Annika.” I knew what she meant, of course, but … “If you’re going to come in here and pull on the strings of a fifteen-year-old oath, you could at least have the guts to ask me what you really want to know.”

      “Fine,” Anne said, and I recognized the rare flash of temper in her eyes. “Olivia, are you bound to Ruben Cavazos? Because that’s what they’re saying about you out there.” She nodded toward the window overlooking the street below. “They’re saying you quit Rawlinson’s team because you’re bound to Cavazos and he’s taking a cut of your freelance fee—along with whatever else he wants from you.”

      My temper burned like indigestion, and I fought the need to stand in defense of my reputation—the only real asset a freelance Tracker has. “Who’s saying that?”

      Anne glanced at her hands again, stalling. Then she looked at the door I still hadn’t locked. I followed her gaze as the glass panel swung open and Cam stepped in from the hall.

       Damn it!

      “Lurking in dark hallways?” I said, my hands hidden in my lap to hide how tightly they were clenched. “Isn’t that a little cliché, even for a stalker—I mean Tracker?”

      “You wouldn’t have heard her out if you knew I was here,” he said calmly, and I couldn’t argue.

      “You told her I’m bound to Cavazos?” I had to force my jaw to unclench as I stood, leaning with both palms flat on my desktop. “You used to be above spreading unsubstantiated rumors.”

      “Those with Skills live and die by the word on the street, Olivia. Especially in this city.”

      Yeah. It was that dying part that worried me.

      “Look, I may be country mouse in the big city,” Anne started, still seated while Cam and I stood, “but I’m not stupid. I know Cavazos is selling blood and names on the black market, and I know he has his homegrown army out there doing the dirty work.”

      But if that was all she knew, she really was country mouse.

      “He’s not the only one. Jake Tower has this city by the balls, and everyone west of the river’s so afraid of his men—”

      Anne stood, interrupting me smoothly with that same quiet confidence I’d envied in childhood, then hated in adolescence. “What I need to know from you is whether you’re part of that army. Is Ruben Cavazos pulling your strings, Liv?”

      “Right now, you ‘re pulling my strings.” And pushing all the wrong buttons. “You need to back off, Annika. Before I have to push you back.”

      “She has a right to know what you’re tangled up in, Liv,” Cam insisted quietly, and I exploded, as always, the roaring fire to his smooth, hard ice.

      “Screw her rights. What about mine? You two can’t just ambush me, make me work for you, then question me like a criminal so you can be sure none of my dirt’s going to rub off on you.”

      “Ask her to pull her sleeve up,” Cam said to Anne, though his gaze never left mine. “To see if she’s marked,” he added, when she hesitated in obvious confusion.

      Anne sighed, but even the weary grief that had moved me earlier couldn’t calm me now. “Are you going to make me ask?” she said softly.

      Hell no. I wasn’t going to give her—or anyone else—any more power over me, if I could possibly help it. “You wanna see?” I spat, gathering the hem of my T-shirt in both hands. I jerked the material over my head and dropped it into my chair, then stood watching them both, in only jeans and a bra. “Fine. Look.”

      Cam swallowed thickly—the only outward sign that the sight of my bare skin still affected him—then his focus zeroed in on my arm automatically. “Cavazos’s first mark is a small black ring on the left bicep. She’s clean.”

      I was clean? As opposed to dirty? “Fuck you!” Cam flinched, and I recognized the regret that flickered across his expression before he could hide it. “That’s not what I … I just meant …” He closed his eyes while I tugged my shirt back over my head, glad for the half second it shielded me from their scrutiny and judgment.

      When I sank into my chair, dressed, but still pissed, Cam settled onto the arm of the couch. “I made Anne promise to let you out of this if you were bound to one of the syndicates.” Because, having lived in the city almost as long as I had—I was pretty sure he’d followed me there—he understood how dangerous and complicated her favor could make things for anyone sworn to serve on one side of the black-market divide.

      It was very … compassionate of him, and it took real effort for me to deny the sudden rush of my own pulse. Because compassion was the last thing I needed from Cam Caballero. “I don’t want your pity, or sympathy, or whatever this is.”

      “Fortunately, it looks like you don’t need it,” he said, with another glance at my now covered arm. “So let’s move on.”

      Irritated that he seemed to be taking control of things, I turned back to Anne. “I’ll find your husband’s killer, and I’ll take you to him. But you can kill him yourself,” I said, careful not to actually refuse to do the second part of her request.

      Anne paled, and Cam stood, СКАЧАТЬ