Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two]

by London Miller

  “Good,” he said. “I’d prefer you not get in trouble in the interim. When there’s a new development, I’ll phone you.”

  Meaning, Synek needed to be ready at a moment’s notice.

  “Will do.”

  Synek turned and headed back the way he’d come, needing to see one last person.

  His job might involve getting men to talk when they didn’t want to, but Winter’s job was to find the information no one else could. Even though he didn’t want her doing it, she was good at what she did.

  There was too much risk, and he knew firsthand the dangers of men. He’d never wanted this life for her, but the more he’d tried to protect her from it, the more she seemed to crave it. He couldn’t keep her away from the danger even if he wanted to.

  Before he reached the office a few feet away, Winter’s laughter hit his ears, the lyrical sound making him smile but only for a moment. Until he remembered who was in there with her making her laugh.

  Tamping the familiar agitation down, he rapped against the door with his knuckles. He spotted Winter first sitting cross-legged on the floor, her Romanian standing not too far away.

  As he entered, Tăcut’s face went stoic, his arms now folded across his chest.

  On guard, it was as if he expected Synek to do something. The next time he did, the Romanian wouldn’t see him coming.

  “I need you to work your magic, little miss,” he said, still standing in the door rather than entering the room at all.

  “Give me a name.”

  “The same Spader from before.”

  “Will do.”

  Job done.

  Synek barely spared Tăcut another glance before he was turning on his heel and walking back the way he came.

  “Syn!”

  Winter was racing to catch up to him, her face a mask of unfiltered bliss. She was happy with the Romanian, even as he wasn’t. “I thought you’d stick around. You’re leaving?”

  He could have told her his job was finished for the moment and he was no longer needed, but that wasn’t the complete truth. And though he’d done many things in his life, he had never lied to her.

  “I don’t think this is the best place for me … you understand?”

  She shifted on her feet, her usual exuberance dampening. “Are you still upset that I didn’t tell you about Răz?”

  It wasn’t her, not entirely.

  He’d been feeling restless even before he’d left London to come here. He was in need of a distraction—something to clear his mind for a bit.

  “I’m taking off,” he said, not really thinking about where he was going next, though he knew he had no intention of sticking around. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  When she called his name again, this time he didn’t stop.

  He left the building entirely without looking back.

  Chapter 2

  Every time she thought she was out, the Wraiths reminded Iris there was no such thing as walking away.

  Once the skull was on your back, they owned you.

  Spinning her keys around her finger, she left her car parked on 51st Street and headed toward the warehouse a block down. A red and blue neon sign hung above the entrance, the glow of the “W” reflecting off the chrome and black motorcycles parked in a line along the front.

  Growing up, Iris had never liked Harleys—they were nothing more than two-wheeled death traps. A riding jacket and helmet could only protect from so much if the bike went down. But there had been no avoiding them once she joined the Wraiths almost five years ago now.

  It was then as it was now—a lifestyle.

  Rook was on guard duty, it seemed, judging from his slouched position in the chair resting on its back two legs. Unlike many of the men who walked in and out of this place, he wasn’t so bad.

  He was far more mellow than the others and didn’t partake in as many of the parties as he probably could have, but that was what she liked most about him.

  Even though he was a bit brooding and a little rough around the edges, he wasn’t a bad guy at all.

  “Thought you found a new wave,” he grumbled—the only way she could think to describe the low timbre of his voice that always managed convey his annoyance with the world.

  “Rosalie has a job for me,” Iris said, the only explanation she needed to give.

  There were only two people whose orders were followed without question—Johnny and his daughter, Rosalie. He’d founded the Wraiths long before Iris had ever stepped foot inside this place, and as the years passed, his empire had only grown.

  What started as just a club grew to something greater. Something darker.

  They didn’t just run guns. They dabbled in a little of everything.

  Drugs.

  Human trafficking.

  Other shady shit that Iris didn’t like to think about to keep her conscience clear.

  Johnny had been notorious—the person who evoked fear when his name was whispered—but after two subsequent heart attacks and a bullet that collapsed his left lung, he’d had to hand over the reins of his operation.

  Right into the waiting hands of his daughter.

  Rook nodded, pushing the toothpick tucked between his lips to the other side of his mouth. “Explains the company.”

  Iris frowned, looking from the door’s handle back to him. “Company?”

  His laugh was humorless as he gestured with a tilt of his head to the warehouse. “Trust me, you won’t miss her.”

  She thought of questioning him further, but figured she would get the answers for herself once she was inside.

  “Be seeing you, Rook.”

  As he tipped his chin in acknowledgment, she slipped past him and into the warehouse.

  The thumping bass bleeding out of the speakers assaulted her ears, the special lining within the walls preventing it from being heard outside. Lights flickered, breaking up the heavy darkness inside the room and illuminating the scores of people inside.

  At a table in the corner, a girl was bent over a pool table, happily snorting a line of coke. The man at her side encouraged her with a smile as his hand eased beneath her skirt. A full-on orgy was going on in another corner, and she was pretty sure the three off to the side were seconds from brawling.

  It was chaos. Always was.

  Iris hadn’t been blind to the world when she first came to the Wraiths. She knew people did bad things—her father had been a police detective, after all—but seeing it up close, seeing the way people responded to the stimuli had changed everything she thought she knew about people.

  She hadn’t even been here two weeks before someone had offered her a bump.

  Despite being offered every vice a person could think of, she’d declined every time.

  She had a plan—one that needed her focus and commitment. Something drugs would only hinder. She couldn’t afford to take that risk.

  Walking down the familiar back hallway—the same path she’d traveled many times before, though this time with less wonder and curiosity—Iris didn’t blink.

  Once, the images hanging in the black frames had captivated her. On the surface, it looked as if the Wraiths were a family. The pictures all showed them wearing smiles with their arms around each other. Pictures of those they’d lost over the years.

  But Iris knew what those pictures didn’t show.

  If the Wraiths had ever been that happy, Iris had never witnessed it.

  Now, there was just animosity, backstabbing, and a whole lotta ugly that she wasn’t trying to decipher.

  The office door at the end of the hall was cracked, dim light spilling out onto the floor. Even at her distance, Iris could hear voices. Most she was well familiar with, but there was another, high and lilting, that she didn’t recognize at all.

  Raj, one of Rosalie’s guards—and sometimes fuck buddy—stood next to the door, his beefy arms folded across his chest. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to look intimidating, but he only managed to look like a peacock with his chest poked out, c
onsidering his blue Mohawk.

  He nodded as she stepped around him, pushing the door open as she walked past.

  As she entered the room, her gaze first sought out Rosalie, and it took everything in her not to do a double take. It might have been a few months, closer to a year probably, since she had last seen her pseudo-boss, but before she’d left, her hair definitely hadn’t been the platinum gray that it was now.

  It was almost startling against her olive skin in a way that made her wonder why she had bothered to do it at all.

  But, then again, Rosalie had always had a flair for the dramatics, and maybe her new hair was just a part of it.

  Yet, even with her second glance, Iris was sure she even dressed differently as well. Instead of dripping in diamonds, she wore a simple black choker, and she’d exchanged her skintight dresses for black jeans, a ripped shirt, and combat boots.

  Maybe there was more to Rosalie calling her back for a job than she’d anticipated.

  Whatever it was, though, she had no intention of getting involved.

  Working with the Wraiths was too much like quicksand—they pulled her under until nothing but darkness was left.

  “Good, you’re here,” Rosalie said, flicking a hand in Iris’s direction, though her gaze never strayed from the woman sitting across from her. “This is our bounty hunter.”

  Iris tried not to cringe at the title. Considering her father had spent nearly half a decade working as a bounty hunter after the royal shit show that they had only ever called the incident, she didn’t like to compare what she did for the Wraiths with what he had done.

  He’d brought criminals to justice.

  She brought criminals to … other criminals. One sinner to another.

  Back in the early days, when Rosalie had brought her in and agreed to provide her room and board in exchange for her services, she’d thought she would be stuck cleaning up after people or having to fend off the men who didn’t care how old you were as long as you were in a skirt. Instead, she’d wanted her for other things.

  Things Iris was surprisingly good at.

  But that was easy enough, considering her father had been a damn good detective, and even with her mother’s faults, even she had been a rather successful con artist.

  It made sense that Iris had fallen somewhere in the middle.

  Blinking, Iris looked from Rosalie to the woman she was speaking to—the voice she hadn’t recognized.

  Nor did she know who the woman was. If nothing else, she definitely didn’t look like she belonged in this room. They were all clad in some variance of leather and denim while she, on the other hand, wore a white dress that was rather conservative down the front but with a plunging back that hid very little.

  Understated diamond earrings adorned her ears, a white gold pendant hung at the hollow of her throat, and when she smiled, no malice appeared in her expression.

  She looked genuinely pleased to be making her acquaintance.

  Weird.

  “Iris, this is Belladonna.”

  She quirked a brow, wondering if that could possibly be the woman’s birth name, but she didn’t voice the question aloud before she extended a hand with a half-smile. She was less concerned with formalities and more interested in why Rosalie had been called her in at all.

  Unlike the three others in the room besides Rosalie, Belladonna, and the other woman with the the pink hair Belladonna had brought along with her, Iris wasn’t officially part of the Wraiths organization.

  Sure, she did the odd job for them—Rosalie, specifically—and even had their mark on her hip, but she wasn’t privy to the inner workings of the organization. She was little more than a glorified errand girl.

  Or pet.

  Told to fetch whenever it was necessarily and leashed when it wasn’t.

  Iris had always hated that feeling.

  “A pleasure, Iris,” Belladonna said as she shook her hand with a surprising grip before reclaiming her seat. “I’m happy you could join us.”

  Her voice was low and pleasant with that languid quality that seemed to add a layer of truth to her words. She might have believed Belladonna had come here for her, specifically, rather than a meeting with the Wraiths as it were.

  Considering she still had no idea why she was even here, she figured there wasn’t a better time to ask. “I’m assuming you want me to find someone?”

  A grunt sounded across the room, briefly grabbing Iris’s attention.

  Bear.

  He stood in the corner of the room, more sentinel than bodyguard. Unlike Raj, the threat Bear presented was quite effortless. Even slouched against the wall, there was no mistaking the power the man wielded, and Iris knew firsthand what he was capable of if someone pissed him off.

  Which Rosalie liked to do regularly, but even as he was volatile—how he’d earned his name in the first place—he also knew better than to physically harm Rosalie.

  There were some lines no one was willing to cross, and that was at the very top of the list.

  Though he hadn’t actually spoken, it was clear whatever had been discussed prior to Iris’s arrival wasn’t sitting well with him. And as outspoken as he tended to be, she was surprised he’d managed to stay quiet this long.

  “I’ve already taken care of the finding bit, I imagine,” Belladonna said as she plucked a folder from the chair next to her and handed it over to Iris.

  She only briefly considered how odd it was that Belladonna seemed to be leading this meeting though this was Rosalie’s place of business. If anyone else tried this, even her own people, she would have lashed out viciously.

  Yet she quietly sat, and though her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, that was the only displeasure she showed.

  Iris helped herself to one of the stuffed leather armchairs, sinking down into it as she accepted the folder and opened it on her lap, gazing over the contents.

  It only took one glance at the picture clipped to the pages inside to understand why everyone was acting so strangely.

  Why Bear seemed uptight.

  Why Rook had warned her about being careful on her way in.

  And even why Rosalie hadn’t spoken more than a casual greeting.

  In the file was a picture of the one man the Wraiths had been trying to get their hands on for years. Staring back at her with murder in his eyes was Synek Jønsson.

  Public enemy number one.

  * * *

  Boogeymen weren’t supposed to exist.

  They were meant to be a figment of a child’s imagination—the thing that went bump in the night and made your blood race and heart skip a beat. Boogeymen belonged in ghost stories and pictures.

  He definitely wasn’t supposed to be real.

  Synek had been long gone by the time Iris came around, but that didn’t mean his legend had gone away with him. She’d heard stories about him—about the things he could do with a knife and a smile.

  To most, he’d been a machine. Willing to do whatever was asked of him, no matter how bloody or deranged.

  To others, he was something else.

  From what she understood, he and Bear had been close—which explained his attitude—and if she wasn’t mistaken, Rook had been a part of their little group as well.

  Synek hadn’t bothered to get close to anyone else. If anything, he did his damnedest to make everyone around him fear his very presence.

  Iris hated the very idea of him.

  He sounded not just sadistic but psychotic. She’d wondered why they’d ever bothered keeping someone like him around until Rosalie had confessed to her in a ten-minute conversation more than she’d ever learned in the six months she’d been there at the time.

  She could still remember the day she had first heard his name.

  Iris couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and though she had come around to the Wraiths nearly a year prior, she’d still been reeling from the spiral downward trek her life had fallen into after the trial.

  It was before she became the Wrai
ths’ honey pot, and before she ever became known as the bounty hunter of the rich and depraved.

  Back then, Rosalie had been something of a big sister to look up to—long before Iris realized she was barking up the wrong tree—and when Iris had found her upset, staring at a picture, she hadn’t been able to just leave her there.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she’d asked, figuring her response would be something along the lines of what she always said: No, go the hell away.

  Instead, Rosalie had tossed the picture down, giving her the chance to actually see the two figures depicted in its black and white depths. Rosalie wasn’t hard to recognize, her midnight black hair distinguishable even in the dark image, but it was the boy with her that made Iris curious.

  If she had to guess, Rosalie couldn’t have been more than a pre-teen in the picture and the boy she was with might have been a couple of years older. He was thin in the way that said he wasn’t eating enough, but his eyes … his eyes had seen far more than he should have at his age.

  And though his fair hair was slightly curly and hung about to his shoulders, that didn’t soften him at all. It only brought out the cut of his jaw.

  Rosalie was beaming in the picture, her happiness infectious, but the boy, he was neither smiling or frowning. He was just … existing.

  “Who is he?” Iris had asked, not daring to pick up the picture itself. Instead, she inched a little closer to get a better look.

  “I loved him,” was her answer, though it didn’t provide her with any clue as to his identity, “and do you know what he did with it?”

  “What did he do?”

  “He betrayed me.”

  For weeks, months even, that was all Rosalie had ever said about the boy in the picture—the boy whose name she still didn’t know. Soon, she had started to think that he hadn’t just betrayed Rosalie—though she still hadn’t a clue what he had done to betray her—but rather that he had betrayed the Wraiths as a whole.

  “How?” Iris finally dared to ask, actively bringing up the man so many refused to mention in more than passing.

  For a moment, Rosalie looked as if she would answer her inquiry, and she would finally have an answer to the question she always wondered, but instead, Rosalie merely shook her head. “It’s not important now.”