Twin bedside tables set on either side of the bed, one holding an antique looking vase, the other holding a bowl full of glass balls.
The ceiling fan spun lazily above the bed, providing a little relief from the sweltering heat and as she shut and locked the door to her new room, she heard the sound of the air conditioner kicking on.
Back at the bed she carefully unzipped her bags.
Six years of her life crammed into two suitcases.
The thought was terribly depressing.
Was this all her life had come to? Was this all she’d worked for?
Grabbing her toiletry bag and a change of clothes, she headed into the bathroom for a shower. Only once she was standing beneath the spray of water did she finally give herself a chance to think about the last twenty-four hours and all that had happened
Not only had she been kidnapped by a band of mercenaries, interrogated by a ruthless fixer that wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if the mood struck him, refused contact with the people she loved most. Now she was stuck with a bloody Tarzan that seemed to dislike her as much as she disliked him.
Not for the first time, she wondered if she had made the right choice years ago when she had first been approached for the position at the firm, or whether it would have been smarter to walk away before the first deposit ever hit her account.
It would be so easy to say yes, knowing what she knew now, but had she not taken the job, she wouldn’t have had the money when her father first had the accident.
And was it so wrong, stealing from people who stole from others?
These weren’t honest people—they didn’t work hard for the money they had her account for. Instead, they lied, cheated, killed, and stole to get what they wanted. No matter who stood in their way.
You worked for them just fine when it benefited you …
Great, even her subconscious was turning on her.
Finished rinsing her hair and scrubbing away the previous day, she wrapped herself in one of the fluffy towels hanging next to the shower around her body.
As she left the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror.
Dark bags under her eyes. Sallow complexion.
She didn’t look like herself at all. Tearing her gaze away, she dressed quickly, sweeping her hair off her shoulders.
Done , she sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap.
What was she supposed to do now?
Chapter 5
There was only so long Ada’s stomach would allow her to stay tucked away in her room before she was forced to go upstairs.
More so, this wasn’t something they had covered during their brief talk when they’d first arrived.
Was she free to do as she pleased so long as she remained in this house? Did she need his permission to eat? Was there some sort of protocol she was meant to follow? This was unfamiliar territory, but the thought of asking him for anything made her want to vomit. Or she would have if her stomach hadn’t chosen that moment to growl a little too loudly and forced her off the bed and heading upstairs.
She hesitated once she reached the landing, expecting to find him hovering, anticipating the moment she came out of hiding, but to her surprise, he was nowhere to be found.
Huh. Good for her.
As she entered the kitchen, she wondered what she would find. In her experience, most men didn’t keep a very diverse fridge, and considering they’d both flown down here together, he wouldn’t have had time to buy groceries, but she blinked in surprise when she found it full. With enough food to feed an army.
That had to mean—
“Same person that brought my truck watches over my place.”
Ada jumped nearly a foot in the air at the voice behind her, her hand slapping over her chest to try and quell the frantic racing of her heart. “It’s rude to sneak up on people.”
For a man as large as he was, Skorpion hardly made a sound, just like in the airport. She hadn’t even heard a door open though she was sure while coming up she hadn’t noticed one open either.
He tilted his head to one side. “If that’s your biggest complaint of the day—”
“You don’t have to finish whatever you’re about to say. I’m sure it’s not complimentary.”
His smirked. “Can’t say that it was.”
The smile that curled his lips only managed to annoy her further. He was bloody annoying. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware I’d done something to offend you. Care to enlighten me?”
He stepped so close to her, she could practically feel the heat emanating from his body. His face hovered inches from hers, so close that she could see the golden flecks in his eyes, but just as she was sure he was about to tell her off, or kiss her, he reached around her and pulled a bottle of coconut water from a shelf and stepped back again.
“Not really.”
Day one and she was already sure this wasn’t going to work.
Not only was he the most condescending man she had ever met, but he also seemed intent on making her life miserable.
Avoidance would be key, and once she fulfilled her half of the agreement with the Kingmaker, she would take her money and leave, and she would never have to see him or any of the others ever again.
“How exactly is this … arrangement meant to work? Is this my prison and you’re the warden? Are my meals to be regulated as much as my time is?”
“Help yourself to anything in here. I don’t have the time or patience to monitor that kinda shit.”
“Fine, and is there a computer?” she asked, looking around hoping to spot one.
“Not for you to use.”
“What d’you expect me to do the entire time I’m here?”
He twisted the cap off his drink and tipped it to his lips before answering her question. “You read?”
“I doubt you’d have anything I’d like,” she mumbled, thinking of the surfboards he was clearly building and … well, the rest of him.
Her remark managed to wipe the smile from his face. “That so, princess?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You act like you’re better than me, yet you’re here needing my help because you were stupid enough to think you could do what you wanted without consequences. Pretty, yeah, but there’s not too much else to you, is there?”
Blood rushed to her face, her hands balling into fists. “You don’t know anything about me or what I did. Don’t pretend like you do.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “What was it that you needed so badly? That BMW? Jewelry?” he asked with a nod of his head at her ears and the dangling earrings there. “Even if you didn’t give a shit about your own life, you should have thought about the lives of the people closest to you. They’re usually the ones that pay the price for your fuck ups. Who the hell did you think you were getting involved with?”
She was trembling so badly, even she was amazed she could still stand there staring at him, wishing for the first time in her life that she was capable of murder.
If she were, he would be dead.
How easy it would have been to tell him why she’d taken the money, to watch surprise or understanding cross his face, but she didn’t owe him an explanation for what she had done. She didn’t owe him anything and that was exactly what he was going to get from her. Nothing.
“As if you have any right to judge me from your ivory tower. Remind me who you work for again? I don’t even know you and I can wager that the things you’ve done in his name are a lot worse than anything I’ve done over the last year. So please, climb off your moral horse.”
“Yet here I am and there you stand,” he fired back, his eyes narrowed on her.
“Please. I was thinking about my family when I took that money. You kill people for a paycheck. Which one of us is really the morally wrong one?”
It felt good walking away from him, to assert some sort of control over a situation where she had very little, but before she made her way downstairs, she didn’t
grab one piece of fruit from the bowl on the counter—she took the entire thing.
She refused to go hungry on account of him.
Back in her room, she closed and locked the door once more and felt the momentary satisfaction of it all. Until she remembered she was still alone and missing her family.
She should have never taken the money, if only so she wouldn’t have to put up with a man like Skorpion.
* * *
Over the span of his life, Keanu could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever pissed off an attractive woman—two of which involved the one who’d disappeared a few minutes ago with a frown on her face and murder in her eyes.
He’d been a dick, more so than he should have been considering it wasn’t his place to be. He didn’t know the full story behind what she had done and why, but it was too late to rectify that now. The likelihood of her sharing the story now was slim.
She’d wanted to cry, tears brimming in those brown eyes, but she’d refused to let them fall—whether because she didn’t want to appear weak in front of him, or because she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing he got to her, he didn’t know.
Either way, he doubted she wanted to be around him any longer than she absolutely had to.
Dragging his hand down his face, Keanu left the kitchen, heading into his own bedroom, his mind drifting back to the last time he was here and how that time hadn’t been so different from now.
Years had passed since the last time he’d been here—back when Soleil was only a toddler and he hadn’t the slightest idea what the hell he was getting himself into when he’d taken her home from France. The only thing he’d been sure of was that here, he could regroup and figure it all out before attempting to return to Los Angeles and it all became real again.
He’d made a promise to Charlotte that he wouldn’t let anything happen to Soleil, long before the morning when he’d ventured to her flat and found her murdered, her daughter screaming in her crib.
It was Charlotte he’d been thinking about earlier while Ada stood in front of him, and for the life of him, he didn’t understand why one conjured thoughts of the other.
They looked nothing alike.
Charlotte had been French with tumbling blonde hair and a body as slender as she was petite. She’d had eyes the color of emeralds with a smile just as bright and a thirst for adventure and intrigue.
Ada had dark hair and dark eyes with a body he was having a hard time ignoring. From the moment he’d put the trackers on her legs, his fingers brushing over soft skin, he was having a hard time ignoring the attraction to her, but he was nothing if not a professional.
There was also that little fact that, like Charlotte, she was knee-deep in trouble of her own making that he was having to put his life on hold to fix. But unlike her, Ada didn’t seem to have the same thirst for danger as Charlotte had from what he could see.
He’d thought she did, considering the sheer amount of money she’d stolen, but at the end of that brief conversation, it was clear she regretted it.
He understood the allure it presented for women like them—the kind that grew up in small towns and wanted more.
Hell, even he had fallen for the glamor of it all at one point which was how he’d ended up working for Uilleam in the first place.
He’d chased the thrill until the road got too rocky for him to navigate.
Until the day she died though, Charlotte had never quite gotten everything she’d wanted. Nothing—no matter the drug or vice—had ever given her the fix she craved. And no matter what he did, he hadn’t been able to convince her none of it was worth pursuing.
She hadn’t cared about the risks or the marks the things he saw and did left on the soul—she wanted to feel her heart racing with fear and excitement. She’d wanted the high to last as long as it could.
He hadn’t known the extent of her obsession when he first met her, only thought that she had wanted to get out of her tiny flat outside of Paris with a baby she loved but had never expected to have, but even once he had, he was too caught up in her to see that he’d never be able to give her what she wanted.
Even the first night they’d met, when he’d still been new to Uilleam’s team—and before he’d taken on the role of mercenary—she’d just been a pretty face in a sea of strangers. A face that made him curious enough to want to know more about her.
An hour after the meeting was done and after he’d accepted her invitation back to her place, they’d fucked until neither one of them could move. Their relationship, if he could even call it that, bloomed from there.
If he was in the city, he was hers, and sometimes, even when he wasn’t, he flew out to be with her and spent some time.
It had never been love—neither one of them were ready for that—but he had cared enough about Soleil to stick around longer than he ever intended to.
Soleil had been their beginning and end.
He hadn’t been able to save her, no matter how he might have wanted to, but he had been able to give Soleil the life Charlotte would have wanted for her.
And that was what he needed to remember. Everything he did, he did for his daughter. The last thing he needed to do was get too involved in shit that wasn’t his business. He would keep her safe, get Uilleam the information he wanted, and he would walk away at the end of this and not look back.
The rest didn’t matter.
Chapter 6
Three days passed in relative silence, both of them sticking to their respective levels of the house, and had it not been for the plates and utensils washed and dried next to the sink, Keanu might have thought she’d slipped her tracking anklets and taken off. Jungle be damned.
“You could stand to be a little nicer, Skar,” Calavera said over the phone, using her own nickname for him.
For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why he’d bothered to call her, knowing that no matter what she said, he probably wasn’t going to like it. “Who says I’m not being nice?”
“Considering I’ve known you for years, I’m pretty sure you’re doing that judgmental thing you always do when someone isn’t doing what you think is right. You’ve already decided who she is before you even get to know her.”
Not necessarily. It was only when he was directly involved did he ever pass judgment on others’ stupidity. “What? That’s not part of the job. Besides, I already know everything I need to know about her.”
“Right, because who else would make a deal with the Kingmaker when they don’t think they have any other choice?” she asked pointedly.
A reminder that they, and many others, had all made a deal with the man at one time or another.
Calavera had once been bought and bartered by Uilleam and had ultimately accepted a contract in exchange for her freedom. Both Red and Celt, other mercenaries in the Den, had wanted revenge. The list was endless.
Ada wasn’t doing anything others hadn’t done before her.
He wasn’t even sure why it bothered him so much.
“Besides,” she went on, interrupting his train of thought. “This isn’t Paris.”
No, this definitely wasn’t that, but now that the thought was there, he couldn’t shake the similarities between his time there and now.
He could still remember those days like they’d happened yesterday—the smell of dew in the mornings, the sun on his face as he’d walked toward the tiny flat outside of Paris that had become something of a second home whenever he was in the city.
But as quickly as those memories surfaced, darker ones chased them away. The dew was replaced with the acrid stench of soot and the glow of the sun shifted into bright flames.
“I can tell when you’re fishing,” he finally said, swiping his arm across his forehead. “Paris isn’t important right now.”
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “You sure? Feels like something is unresolved.”
From the moment he’d agreed to stand at the Kingmaker’s side nearly a decade a
go, his job was to intimidate—to spark the fear of God in them before he ever lifted his hands.
Niceties weren’t needed for that.
The only person he had ever been tasked with protecting was stuck up with a nice ass.
“It isn’t.”
“You really should work on this nice thing, ya know.”
“I am.”
“I would stake every dollar I have that you’re not. In case you’re forgetting, she’s not actually your prisoner.”
“Sure as shit feels that way.”
Tracking anklets. Checking in on her to make sure she was following his rules. Monitoring her accounts for any activity. Making sure she stayed away from any phone or ability to communicate with anyone.
What the hell else was she if not his prisoner?
Not to mention she seemed to hate every second she spent in his presence.
Grinding his teeth, he asked, “When the fuck did it become a rule to be nice to a client anyway? As far as I’m concerned, that’s not in the job description.”
“It’s for your own sanity. If you’re stuck together, what else do you have to do other than spend time and talk. Oh! Why don’t you ask her about Belladonna?”
“I’m already doing that.”
“No, beyond that. You know Uilleam isn’t going to ask her anything other than what money she moved and business accounts. You should see what she actually knows about her.”
He brushed his arm across his face to wipe the sweat away, considering her words. “Why would I want to do that? You forget, I knew Karina before she was … whoever the hell she is now.”
Years might have passed, but he couldn’t forget the woman who’d managed to capture the attention of a man known for shunning female attention.
Love has no place in ambition, he’d explained once.
Keanu had never understood it, but he also hadn’t ever met a man who seemed to actually enjoy being alone.
One little article had changed everything though, changing Uilleam from a man obsessed with obtaining power, to a man embarrassingly infatuated.
Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two] Page 7