Den of Mercenaries

by London Miller

  Luna’s surprise had rendered her mute, but as she shook it off, she couldn’t help but ask, “How old are you?”

  Winter shrugged with a laugh, stepping to the side as she waved her in. “I get that a lot. But don’t let the birthdate worry you—I programmed my first root kit when I was eleven.”

  Shit, how old was she now?

  “What can I do for you, Calavera—and does that ever get annoying, having to go by that name? Like everyone calls me Winter, but that’s my name, you know? I’m actually Winter. Which is one of the reasons why I love that show—the books are way better, obviously—but everyone gets all ominous when they say ‘Winter is coming,’ and of course I’m like fuck yeah, I’m coming.”

  A burst of laughter left Luna as she listened to the girl talk. Everyone was always so serious—for good reason considering what they did—but despite that, this girl still acted her age.

  “Call me Luna,” she offered, the first time she had ever given her name to anyone that didn’t know her from years ago.

  Even Skorpion didn’t know her name.

  “Awesome, let’s get to work.”

  Dropping down onto her bed, Winter stretched out across it, digging beneath the full-sized bed for a black laptop with stickers decorating it.

  “Serious question,” she said as she powered the device on. “Are there any health benefits with the Den? Or do you get paid enough that you don’t worry about that?” She laughed suddenly, grinning slyly. “I can just imagine walking in there riddled with bullet wounds and you have to hand over your insurance card.”

  “Where did The Kingmaker find you?”

  “I wouldn’t say find, rather I found you guys—Syn, actually. My dad’s brother, James, owned a pub in Philly, and he would let me hang out there when he had to work. I’m sitting under the bar, usual riff raff comes and goes, but there’s one guy that’s set up in a corner—all blond hair with that braid in the front.” Winter said this with a wide smile and dramatic hands.

  It was obvious she had a thing for the mercenary, and Luna could even understand it considering the man was pretty on the outside.

  But the inside …

  That was another story.

  “So anyway, to make a long story short, the bad guys looking for my dad came in, and when they tried to grab me, Syn literally kills them all.”

  With a pencil, if the stories were true.

  “But I’ll tell you the rest if you stick around,” she said glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. “You mercenaries just come and go as you please, but never call to say hi in between. It’s so boring when I’m not hacking some shit for you guys. Anyway, what are we looking for?”

  “A man—Andrei Kanekov. I need you to find me anything you can on him—or a warehouse that was at the address I sent you.”

  “Right, already looked that up—the warehouse burned down or something. Nothing worth mentioning there.”

  Winter’s fingers flew over the keyboard, the heavy silver rings glinting, but as she worked, her black painted lips turned down at the corners.

  “What’s wrong?” Luna asked, sitting beside her to see the screen, but her eyes nearly crossed as she tried to make out what she was reading.

  “Nothing, it’s just … weird. Who is this guy, anyway? Somebody important?”

  “Maybe.”

  But Luna wasn’t sure, though she figured he had to be since she’d been tasked with finding him.

  “Someone set up a mainframe directory that—meaning someone set up a system to track anytime that name is searched,” she further explained when Luna looked confused.

  Winter was no longer laughing as she worked, concentrating solely on her work.

  “Another mercenary?” Luna asked.

  “No, this level of sophistication, has to be one of my people. I’ll try to track,” she said to herself, too engrossed in what she was doing to remember Luna was sitting beside her.

  “I’m trying to find Andrei,” Luna said after a moment, thinking narrowing it down to a location might speed things up.

  “Right, right, right. I can do that—who the fuck is this guy?” Winter said with a little more animation, her fingers flying faster if that were possible. “He’s trying to track me. Who’s Andrei again?”

  “I don’t know, but you give me an address, I’ll find out who.”

  Winter whispered unintelligible words as she worked, part on the man worming his way into her system, and part on finding Andrei.

  “I can only buy you a little time,” Winter said as she scanned data. “His protocols ensure that whatever I find gets downloaded to his device. I can crash his system remotely, but he’ll be back up in no time. If you want to find this Andrei guy, I suggest you run or somebody else is going to get to him first.”

  “Give me whatever you have.”

  Winter waved her hand at the screen as though that could make it work faster. Luna was beginning to think whoever Andrei was, he had some rather powerful friends.

  Someone was going through a lot of trouble to keep the man hidden, and even if this weren’t her assignment, she would have still been curious.

  “Sometimes I even surprise myself!” Winter exclaimed with a little cheer, fishing out her phone from her pocket. “I’m sending you an address now—thank me later. I’ll try to keep the other guy away for as long as I can.”

  “I owe you one,” Luna said as she got to her feet.

  Winter shrugged, grinning brightly. “Of course you do.”

  Truthfully, Luna was expecting a Russian spy, or something equally as grand considering how much trouble she had gone through just to find the man—someone that was worth going through so much trouble to keep anyone from finding them.

  But she was starting to doubt her theory as she rode into a shady part of the city where crumbling buildings littered the streets, and she stuck out as people watched her ride by.

  Finding a relatively decent spot to park—where she was still within a block of where she was going, and far enough away that her bike was almost hidden—Luna dismounted, tucking her helmet under her arm as she glanced down the street as she crossed.

  With Winter’s warning in mind, she cased her surroundings, checking for anyone that seemed like they didn’t belong. But as far as she could tell, no one stuck out.

  Hurrying up two flights of stairs, then down a darkened hallway, she found the apartment. She knocked once, twice, then a third time, waiting and listening for any movement on the other side of the door.

  When no one came, she checked to make sure the hallway was clear before dropping to a knee and fishing the lock picks out of her pocket—she had Fang to thank for this particular skill.

  She was almost to the last tumbler when the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked sounded right behind her, freezing her to the spot.

  “Move, and you’re dead.”

  The Russian accent made sense considering the man’s name, but there was something about his voice that seemed … familiar.

  “Who do you work for?”

  Luna almost smiled—if he wanted to talk, he wasn’t going to kill her. Not yet, anyway. “Depends on the day. Currently? Belladonna.”

  “Belladonna? I don’t know a Belladonna. Why are you here?”

  “There’s a chance you’re not even the guy I’m here for,” Luna said stalling. “I don’t even know who you are.”

  As he was about to answer, that first syllable leaving his lips, she moved to her feet and turned in one fluid movement.

  Andrei stumbled back a step, brown eyes forked with red narrowing on her before widening in surprise. But it wasn’t just surprise that flittered over his face, there was something else.

  Remorse, maybe?

  But, there was no reason for him to be feeling remorse …

  “You’re one of his mercenaries, aren’t you?” he asked, voice wavering as he lowered his weapon slightly. “He sent you here to kill me.”

  Though she knew the “he” A
ndrei referred to was Uilleam, the rest she wasn’t so sure of. “I’m not here to kill you.”

  He laughed without humor, his skepticism showing. “He sent you for the truth then, and someone else to finish the job? Is that what he promised you? My life for a place in his Den?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  It might have been the genuine surprise in her own voice that had him lowering the gun, his guard momentarily dropped as he stared at her.

  “The warehouse,” he said as though this was something she should have known. “The fire, all of it—when you were taken.”

  And that was when it clicked—how she knew his voice.

  He had been one of the men there that day. In fact, he had been the one to take her from the room when she started smelling the smoke.

  “That’s why he’s been picking us off one by one, because we betrayed his trust.” Andrei seemed to grow unhinged as he shoved agitated fingers through thinning hair.

  “Who, The Kingmaker?” Luna asked, trying to understand his rambling, but Andrei was beyond hearing her.

  “We should never have agreed to do it, but he offered us money—said no one would ever know.”

  “Who?” Luna shouted, finally grabbing his attention.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We just gave you to the closest buyer. We never knew—”

  Andrei never got to finish, not when the glass from the window shattered as a bullet punched through. Luna barely had a chance to duck before Andrei was riddled with them, slamming down onto the floor, glass surrounding him as blood oozed from his body.

  Luna only allowed herself a moment before she shuffled to the window, peering out at the building across the street. Automatically, her gaze sought out the rooftop, expecting to see a gleam of a rifle, or the retreating back of someone hurrying off.

  But nothing.

  No one.

  There was no movement whatsoever.

  Abandoning her first option, Luna walked over to Andrei, checking for a pulse though she didn’t have high hopes—nothing.

  For a moment, Luna could only kneel there, trying to piece together what she knew, but now, even less about this assignment was making sense.

  But she was starting to get the feeling that it might have something to do with her.

  “Fucking hell.”

  Kit glanced down at his phone, making sure it was Semyon he was supposed to be talking to. The hacker had called him not more than ten seconds ago, but he seemed too distracted by whatever he was doing to actually say anything to him.

  “Is there a reason you called?”

  There was shuffling on the other end before Semyon came back on with a curse. “You told me to call you if anyone started looking into the lists of names you sent.”

  “And?”

  That was exactly what Kit had been trying to avoid. It wouldn’t do him any good if Uilleam found him before he could.

  He was theatrical that way, and if he had always intended for Luna to find out about Uilleam’s involvement, he wouldn’t stop at just telling her—he would make sure there was no doubt remaining.

  Kit couldn’t let that happen.

  “I’ve been trying to track down the guy, but he hasn’t left much of a digital footprint over the last year. Nearly off-grid—but apparently I wasn’t looking in the right places.”

  “Who’s the other party?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. Their encryption software is pretty solid—I’m only able to get enough through a back channel to catch whatever she finds.”

  “That’s not good enough, Kreshnik.”

  He mumbled something unintelligible, before Semyon blew out a heavy breath. “They found him—Andrei, I mean—and whoever the fuck this is blocked me from accessing whatever they found, but my malware—”

  “I don’t need to know the process,” Kit said, “I only need results.”

  More silence, and then, “Sending you an address now. They have a head start, so if you’re trying to find this guy, get moving.”

  Kit ended the call without saying anything more, his phone chiming as a text came in. He didn’t bother reading, instead sending it off to the one person he knew could see this done without leaving witnesses.

  That was Fang’s specialty, after all.

  “What happened?”

  Not once in the years since she had been an official part of the Den had Luna ever failed on an assignment. And though she knew she should have been focusing on what Z was saying beside her as they observed the police going in and out of the building, her mind was seized on thoughts of what Andrei had been telling her before someone silenced him.

  “He knew who I was,” Luna said, dragging her gaze away from the scene before her and to the man at her side. “Not because of the Den though.”

  But because of the warehouse.

  There was only two that she had ever confided in about that place—Kit and Uilleam, and only the latter because he asked. She didn’t like to talk about it, or remember, and she preferred only allowing people to know about the her she had become once Calavera was her name.

  And because of that, she never thought she would have to tell the story again.

  Taking a breath, Luna gave him a rather condensed version of the truth before adding, “And he thought The Kingmaker sent me because of what he did at the warehouse, but I don’t know why he would think that.” Truthfully, she didn’t understand anything.

  Zachariah frowned, narrowed eyes turning to Luna. “This warehouse, do you remember where it was, or anything familiar about it?”

  “Not really. I think it was by water—I could always hear the waves crashing. I never saw much of it, not until someone set it on fire.”

  And even then, all she could remember was the smoke and flames, and not much else.

  Zachariah was silent, lost in his thoughts, but he looked troubled. “Something isn’t right here.”

  No, it really wasn’t. “What do you want me to do?” Luna asked.

  “Report to the client,” he said, straightened his hat and turned for the car. “Inform them of what’s happened. Your work is done.”

  With no other choice but to nod, Luna walked in the opposite direction, maneuvering around the crowd to her bike. Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to park well away, so there was no trouble driving out of there without drawing attention to herself.

  The penthouse was empty by the time she made it inside, but was secretly glad—the last thing she felt like doing was telling Kit about what happened. Of course, she couldn’t get into specifics, but she still felt the urge to talk to him about it, if only because he could offer some clarity.

  Luna was doubtful there was much he hadn’t seen over his long career as both assassin and facilitator, so it was possible that he had experienced a similar situation.

  Tossing her keys on a nearby table, Luna headed straight for the bathroom to hop in the shower.

  She wasted no time washing the blood away, scrubbing her skin clean until it was sensitive to the touch.

  Her mind was on Andrei and the mystery behind the man when she heard the shower door open a moment before she felt Kit at her back, his hands sliding along her hips.

  And almost instantaneously, she relaxed. There was always something comforting about having him near—the one person that could make her thoughts go silent, if only for a short while.

  “You’re going to make me regret this decision, aren’t you?” he asked next to her ear, turning them so his back was to the raining water.

  Smiling as she spun in his arms, she followed a few droplets of water with her fingers, dragging them across the flexing muscles of his abdomen. “What decision?”

  “To allow you to take on these more dangerous jobs.”

  Luna’s hands froze in their descent as she looked up at him, frowning. “What do you mean by allow?”

  But she knew before he even opened his mouth, and worse, he didn’t express any guilt over what he had done.

&
nbsp; “Did you get some kind of say of the assignments Z gave me?”

  “Don’t be upset,” he said back rationally.

  Rationally, as though he had any right.

  “You told me you wouldn’t interfere, promised me.”

  “And I haven’t. I merely made a suggestion.”

  She put a hand to the center of his chest as he attempted to draw her closer. “Do you really want to argue semantics? And how did you even know about what happened today?”

  “After the unfortunate incident with my brother, I took precautions.”

  Precautions? “Meaning, you’re having me followed?” Of course he was, it would be just like him to do something like that. “By who?”

  “Does it truly matter?” he asked, allowing her to retreat, turning to duck his head beneath the water. “You’re already angry with me.”

  “Should I not be?” Luna asked, eyes gone wide. “I’m not a child, you know.”

  “And I’ve never alluded to otherwise. This is for your protection, after all.”

  “Then why not tell me about it?”

  “Because I knew this was how you would react.”

  Ignoring that, she asked, “Who’d you send?”

  “Luna, you’re being irrational.”

  “It’s a simple question—one you’re avoiding.”

  “Because the answer won’t change your mood, so I see no point in divulging.”

  Growing more agitated with him by the second, Luna didn’t bother responding, merely stepped out of the shower and snatched a towel off the bar, drying off in a hurry as she heard him mutter a curse behind her.

  With a quickness she had grown rather good at, she dried off, dressing in a pair of spandex shorts and a tank top. She had the towel clutched in her hands as she ran it over the length of her hair when Kit plucked it from her, tossing it aside.

  But when she felt those fingers of his drifting beneath the fall of her hair, she quickly pulled away. He had always been rather good at easing her anger toward him, but for once she didn't want that.

  She wanted to hold onto it.