Den of Mercenaries

by London Miller

  The throb was making her crazy that she didn’t care what he said. She needed to come.

  But it didn’t matter what she wanted if he wasn’t ready to give it to her.

  His sudden grip on her throat had her clenching around him, but her body stilled on instinct, her gaze finding his.

  Like second nature.

  There was a ghost of a smile on his lips, pleased at how she responded—how he had carefully trained her to react.

  Usually, her collar was in place, and he only needed to touch it for her to react to whatever command he gave.

  His lips were just a hairsbreadth from her own. “Slow,” he said again before kissing her before his hands were urging her on as he did.

  It was hard to ignore the way he gripped her hips, instantly taking control as he used her in the languid rhythm, but when she kissed him back, only to bite down on his bottom lip, his hips kicked forward, driving the air from her lungs.

  But he didn’t give in that quickly, he never did.

  He just fucked her until she gave herself over to what he wanted, then he shifted his angle just the slightest bit as he rubbed back over that spot inside her until she was mindless and repeatedly gasping his name.

  It was the filthy things he said in return that made her dig her nails into his back.

  Going slow went right out the window as he jerked her hips down, practically dragging the orgasm out of her.

  “Fuck, you go tight when you come.”

  No one said fuck the way he did, in a heated rush that sent shuddering waves of sensation through her until she was a quivering mess above him.

  And when she felt him swell inside her, that was all she could take.

  When she tried to speak, words failed her. She came apart in a breathless cry seconds before he did the same.

  She smiled as she came down.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  Luna blinked, turning over to better face him. She hadn’t been asleep, but she had been basking in the afterglow of what they'd just done. A part of her had wanted to pretend to be asleep, to stay in this moment for a little while longer.

  Kit had such a look on his face, one that was inquisitive yet cautious—the closest to nervousness he could muster.

  His fingers drifted down her arm beneath the blanket until he reached her hand. Her gaze lifted to his, wondering what he was thinking that would give him such a curious expression, but then she realized he was singling out her finger, that finger, where a sugar skull decorated her skin.

  Most mistook it as a nod to her moniker, but Kit … he knew what it meant and the real reason why she had placed it there.

  “You asked me once,” he said as he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the tattoo, “how I knew things hadn’t ended between us. It was because of this.”

  “When did you know I got it?” Luna asked, thinking of that day.

  She hadn’t known what to think when she went in to get her first tattoo, but the pain had been a welcome distraction from the other pain she was in.

  His lips quirked up. “You won’t like my answer.”

  “So you’ve always known …”

  “Since the day you walked into that shop.”

  “It wasn’t even around here,” Luna said, shaking her head. “I was out on a job and hadn’t even known I was going to get it until that moment.” She hadn’t even been in the country.

  “Tăcut happened to be around.”

  “We really need to work on this surveillance thing, Kit.”

  “Did you truly think I would just let you go and not look after you? I’ve known every step you’ve made from the second you got on your bike and didn’t stop until you reached Philadelphia to fill up on gas, then again when you reached Ohio, but I’m getting off track. I have something of yours.”

  Her rings.

  The same rings she knew he carried with him everywhere.

  Once, they had felt like they were a weight on her, but now, she wanted that weight back.

  She missed them—she missed him.

  “I cherish you,” he said, and already she could feel the emotion clogging her throat. “In this life and the next. I’ll give you the world if you take me as I am. I love you, Luna Runehart, until there’s nothing left of me, and maybe even then.”

  She couldn’t speak, not when she felt his fingers curl around hers then felt the cool metal he held a moment until they were slid onto her finger, their rightful place.

  “I love you too, Kit.”

  In the end, that was all that mattered anymore.

  Chapter 11

  “Something’s changed about you,” Skorpion said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as they rode toward the shipping yard. “Make up with your boyfriend?”

  The gloves she was wearing hid the wedding band that was now back resting on her finger—her engagement ring was far too big to wear when she was working.

  She wasn’t purposely hiding it nor did anyone know about her and Kit’s trip back to Vegas, but leave it to Skorpion to notice something different about her.

  “How do you manage to make that sound like an insult?” Luna asked, glancing in his direction.

  “I’m just curious is all,” Skorpion said with a laugh, rubbing a hand over his goatee as he drove one-handed.

  “I forgot how curious you could get.”

  “I told you it would work itself out, didn’t I?”

  “That’s because, despite your gruff attitude, you have a soft spot for the Runeharts.”

  Skorpion frowned, not liking that description. “Doubtful.”

  “Are you ever going to tell me what happened during your last assignment?”

  Of anyone, Luna could say she was closest to Skorpion, even though she only knew about him what he was willing to share.

  She knew about his childhood growing up in Hawaii, about learning how to surf with his mother, and even how he’d fallen off a cliff and nearly broke his neck when he hit the water all because he wanted to impress a girl, but she knew nothing about the reason why he’d left the Den.

  “Are you in a sharing mood?” he asked, his tone flat. “Are we swapping stories now?”

  “Now would be a choice time, right? It’s just us, and since we have about an hour before the ship docks, we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “It wasn’t an assignment,” Skorpion started gruffly. “It didn’t start out that way, I mean. Uilleam had business in the south of France, and I was visiting Charlotte and …” He gave an almost helpless shrug of his shoulder, as though the memory he was trying not to think about was still bleeding through. “I was careful with her—especially with Soleil there. I never brought work to her place.”

  Skorpion killed the lights to his car as they rolled to a stop a few yards away from the shipping yard.

  Luna understood, though he didn’t have to say, why it was hazardous to be in a relationship with someone outside the business. She was lucky, in many regards, that Kit was who he was, and there was no fear of him getting hurt because of what she did.

  Whispering, Luna asked, “Did your work find her?”

  He got this look on his face, one that spoke of sadness, regret, and anger. “She found it.”

  Skorpion took a breath as those words lingered between them, but finally grabbed the handle of the door and gave it a pull. “You ready to do this?”

  That was as much as she would get out of him.

  “Yeah,” she said, giving him his out. “Let’s go.”

  Touching a hand to her wrists one last time, Luna followed Skorpion out of the car, following him down the pathway they’d mapped out hours before.

  From the top of the hill, they could see down to the docks clearly, allowing an unobstructed view of the port they were going to breach.

  “You know,” Skorpion said as he checked the slide of his gun one last time before shoving it into place and holstering his Glock. “You should stop by the house while you’re here. Soleil would love to see you.”<
br />
  With scheduling conflicts over the years, Luna hadn’t gotten to see Skorpion’s daughter as much as she would have liked. Sure, they talked on FaceTime when they had the chance, but it wasn’t the same.

  “Oh, you’re finally inviting me to your place?” Luna asked with a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “You’re always welcome,” he returned as he passed her a pair of binoculars. “You know that.”

  They could have been lounging on one of the many beaches he liked to frequent for all the attention he was paying the job they were on, but that was Skorpion—he didn’t react to danger the way the others might.

  “Just want to be sure. We know how anal you can be about people showing up uninvited.”

  Of the lot of them, Skorpion was the most private when it came to his life outside the Den. He liked to keep the two as separate as possible, and he was more than willing to teach anyone the hard way if they showed up at his place unannounced.

  She didn’t fault him for his hesitance—none of them were particularly the sharing type, and they all had a number of enemies waiting for the opportunity to strike.

  Then again, until recently, the majority of the Den hadn’t even known she was married.

  But that was the difference between the two of them. She had never outright mentioned her marriage because … well, she had never seen any reason to. Skorpion, on the other hand, didn’t like people prying into his life because of Soleil.

  In a world where loyalties could be bought, it was much better to be safe than sorry.

  “You’re the one who’s always hated Cali,” he returned, picking up his own pair of binoculars to his eyes. “Now, you don’t have an excuse.”

  “How is she?” Luna asked. “Last you told me, she was learning how to surf.”

  Since he spent nearly as much time in the water as he spent doing freelance work, it made sense that he would be teaching her his favorite pastime, but the few times that Luna had tried to get up on a board herself, she hadn’t the balance for it.

  “Getting better every day,” he said with all the affection a father could possess.

  “Is Kit allowed to come along with me?” Luna asked, glancing at him before looking back through the scopes to wait for Celt’s signal.

  He was nearby, though Luna wasn’t sure where—knowing only that he was positioned near the south entrance, using his skills to get inside the main building that held all the contracts for this particular shipping yard. Red was on a rooftop, closer to the docks, where he would have a clean shot of anyone they couldn’t get to.

  Skorpion grunted, making a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. “We’ll discuss that later.”

  Luna wasn’t sure why, but Skorpion didn’t particularly like Kit, though he had never given a reason.

  She was readying to tell him that Kit was great with kids—though she really had no evidence of that—but before she could, the ship they’d been waiting for arrived.

  Fitting her comm in her ear, she just caught Red as he said, “The civilians are moving.”

  The workers at the docks seemed to go on alert as they watched the black hub draw closer. One signaled for another to get into the crane parked nearby.

  Very carefully, he maneuvered the mechanic arm over the ship, picking up one of the shipping containers and moving it onto level ground.

  “Seems the pickup is a wee bit early,” Celt came on next.

  Headlights flashed near the front gates, and as they rolled open, three black vans came rolling through followed by two cars.

  “Three in the vans, seven between the other cars,” Celt went on. “Easy enough, eh?”

  Luna nodded, even knowing that he couldn’t see her. “We have to wait for the civilians to clear out before we make a move.”

  “And call in more civilians,” Skorpion said wryly.

  It was rare—very rare—that The Kingmaker had them utilize the LAPD, or any police for that matter, for anything. He wasn’t a very big fan of law enforcement, but for this particular instance, he needed to make this as public as possible.

  And if the LAPD found the scores of girls they knew were in the shipping containers down below, it would be all over the news within hours.

  Carmen would be done.

  Wiping her palms along the front of her vest, Luna went back to her binoculars, watching as Carmen’s men exited the cars and walked over to the dock workers, one carrying two hefty envelopes.

  With a quick change of hands, the money was given to the workers, sending them on their way without a backward glance.

  They were laughing, Luna saw, as they stood around, waiting for the last man to finish moving the last of the containers.

  One was even smoking a cigarette as he casually held a conversation with the man standing next to him—as though they weren’t trafficking children and there to pick up their next shipment.

  Luna’s fingers tightened around the hardened plastic she held at the thought of their amusement.

  When she had been taken, none of Uilleam’s men had laughed or found amusement in her kidnapping, but once she was at the Kendall estate … they had laughed enough for everyone.

  “Easy,” Skorpion whispered next to her, his voice low but steady.

  He knew without her ever having to open her mouth where her thoughts had gone.

  Drawing in a breath, Luna held it for several seconds before exhaling. She wasn’t a victim anymore, and if she could help it, none of the women and children in those containers would be victims any longer either.

  It took several minutes before one of the men came around with a pair of bolt cutters and began breaking the locks and snapping them off, the rest pulling their guns.

  They were already scared, Luna thought, what reason would they need to pull weapons on children?

  The one with the tattoos shouted something Luna couldn’t make out as he grabbed hold of the door and shoved it up.

  “Fucking Christ.” This came from Celt, and it was obvious he had changed vantage points if he could see inside the container.

  Luna knew there would be children inside—of course, she knew. They had all been briefed on exactly what they would find here, but nothing could have prepared her for actually seeing them.

  The fear in their gazes.

  The tears falling from their eyes.

  Maybe she had expected teenagers like she had been. Maybe she wouldn’t have seen as many tears then. She remembered the brave face she had tried to put on when she was taken, but they were practically babies.

  They were all going to go down though—she just needed to keep telling herself that.

  She needed to do her job and be done with it. By the end of the night, those children, all of them, would be safe and spared from the horrors these men had in store for them.

  She just needed …

  Her breath caught as she saw her, the little girl with the stuffed rabbit clutched in one tiny hand. She was smaller than the others, younger too, wearing a white nightgown with dirt stains around the hem. She couldn’t be more than seven years old, and even that felt like a stretch.

  For a moment, the girl was all she could see. It almost felt like … like she was staring at a reflection of herself.

  The same brown eyes.

  The same dark hair.

  And though she wasn’t crying like the others, fear was still evident in her eyes. But determination was evident too, because standing tucked behind her was another little girl, one a few years younger who looked like she was seconds from bursting into tears.

  They hadn’t spoken a word nor had they moved from their little corner of the container, but somehow, they had grabbed the attention of the man who had opened it up.

  “Something’s off,” Luna said, dropping her binoculars, getting to her feet as she studied the shipyard below.

  She didn’t know what was wrong exactly.

  For all appearances, it looked like everything was going according to schedule—the sh
ip had docked, the cargo unloaded, and the dock workers were paid to take an extended break away from where the cartel was doing business—and the only thing they had left to do was to load their cargo up and be on their way.

  Agustín had done his part, ensuring that his men were clear of this place and had gotten them a way inside.

  But they seemed to be lingering …

  “Whatever it is,” Skorpion said, glancing in her direction. “It’s not our problem.”

  “Red—”

  “Yeah,” he said before she could get out her request. “I got you.”

  Luna started down the hill, heading toward the fence. Nearly there, she could practically hear Kit’s voice in her head.

  Complete the assignment, nothing more.

  She could almost see that stern disapproval in his gaze, but this wasn’t something she couldn’t not do.

  She couldn’t just let it be though, not when so many of them were so frightened and young. She could see herself in them.

  And the last thing she was going to do was stand there and do nothing just because they weren’t the job.

  Besides, she had never really done well with following Kit’s orders.

  “Luna,” Skorpion called, her name enough of a warning that she knew exactly what he would say next.

  But she didn’t give him the chance. “And if it were Soleil?”

  He leveled a stare at her, one that told her his answer.

  Yes, he would have gone after Soleil in a heartbeat, but these girls weren’t her, and for that reason, they weren’t his problem. He didn’t owe them anything.

  “You’re with me, or you can stay here. Either way, I’m going in.”

  Silence stretched between them before he offered a reluctant nod.

  No longer than thirty seconds and they were inside, carefully sticking to the shadows until they were close enough that they could hear the voices of the jovial men and the frightened children.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man said to the girl with the rabbit, trying to lead her away from the others. “You’ll be safe with me.”

  Luna twirled a dagger in her hand. She crept around the side of a crate, waiting for the perfect opportunity …