“It’s different because I hate every minute of it. Every single second. I feel like I’ve rolled around in the mud and it’s oozed into my nose and ears, and other places I can’t even reach, and I’ll never get clean. I feel filthy. I fight the binding with every breath I take. But you’ve been bound to Tower for six years and until today, I bet you never even thought about trying to get out of it. Hell, you reenlisted and took an early promotion! That’s the difference, Cam.”

“That’s not a difference—it’s like looking in a mirror. You think I want to be bound to Tower? Or to anyone else? Believe it or not, I don’t like marching in their little rows, following orders like a tin soldier. But I don’t have any choice, and from where I’m standing the only difference between your situation and mine is that at least I’m serving on my feet.”

I felt my cheeks flame and fought to turn humiliation into anger, because then at least I’d be in control of my own emotions, if nothing else. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t what it looks like….”

Cam stood, all puffed up with fury, but I could see the fear and pain in his eyes. He was hiding behind anger, just like me. “Well, that’s good, because it looks like that’s Ruben Cavazos’s live mark on your thigh!”

“Okay, that part’s what it looks like, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means. I’m not in the skin trade. This is nothing like what happened to Van. And I’m not spying on you, nor am I trying to recruit you. You and Anne came to me, remember?”

“Olivia, Tower’s men shot me, just so I’d need their help, then be in their debt. I know how this works. I know what the syndicate—either syndicate—will do to get whoever they want. And I know what a mark on the thigh means. If he’s not turning you out, he’s keeping you in.” His voice cracked on the last words, and my heart felt as if it was cracking along with his, one excruciating inch at a time. “You’re his personal whore, just like Nick said.”

“No, I am not.” Pain and anger coiled so tightly inside me that I could no longer tell the difference between them. “And don’t you ever say tat to me again.” I stomped across the room toward him and propped one bare foot on the coffee table, then pulled Van’s skirt up so he could see the mark again. “Take a closer look,” I demanded, but his gaze never left mine, his eyes shiny with unspent, angry tears. “Look at it!” I shouted, and finally he did. One quick glance.

“It’s not red, Cam,” I pointed out. “I’m not his whore, or anyone else’s. In fact, that mark is like a fucking chastity force field. Thanks to our contract, he can’t go past it without my permission. Which he has never had, nor will ever have.”

Cam exhaled, his relief almost palpable. Then he frowned. “If you’re not…sleeping with him, why the hell is his mark on your thigh?”

“Because if you give him an inch, he’ll take the whole damn planet. Cavazos wanted the mark on my arm, but I told him I wouldn’t wear it where anyone else could see it. His compromise was that he got to pick the unseen location—and ink the tattoo himself. I consider myself lucky it’s not on my ass.”

Cam blinked, and the momentary confusion cleared. “He’s a Binder?”

I nodded slowly and lowered my leg. “He’s not very good with a verbal or written seal—though his staff is top-notch—but he’s a damn strong flesh Binder. Didn’t you ever wonder what his Skill is?”

Cam shrugged. “I just assumed that was privileged information. Tower would kill anyone who leaked details about what he can and can’t do. Not that any of us could actually blab, thanks to the binding.”

Hmm. Maybe that was in Cavazos’s boilerplate, too. Good thing my contract was custom…

“Flesh binding is how he got his start,” I said. “In his twenties, a couple of years before the revelation, he conned a few of his friends and cousins into signing unfavorable bonds of loyalty to him, and he inked the marks into their flesh himself. And the syndicate grew from there. He takes a cut of everything, and he still does some of the marks himself. His organization is older than Tower’s, you know.” According to Cavazos, his was one of the oldest Skilled syndicates in the country, and I’d found no reason not to believe that.

I sank onto the edge of the coffee table and Cam sat on the couch in front of me. “So what do you do for him?” But he still looked as if he didn’t really want the answer.

“I don’t do anything for him on a regular basis. This is a one-shot deal. He needs someone found and once I fulfill my part of the deal, the mark goes dead, and I’m done with him. No extensions. No noncompete clauses. Nothing complicated.”

“If it’s so simple, why the binding? Why didn’t he just hire you, like everyone else?”

“The contract is simple, but he’s not. Ruben likes to own things. Specifically, people. Especially women. I needed to win this particular job, and he knew it, which gave him the upper hand. He wouldn’t hire me without a binding.”

“But you negotiated, right? You must have, to get out of the standard clauses.”

“Yeah. Under the terms we bot agreed to, he can’t tell anyone I’m bound to him, or what I’m doing for him.” That one turned out to be a mistake on my part, because it meant he couldn’t tell Meika what his business with me really was, leaving her free to draw the obvious conclusions.