She’d turned a beguiling smile on her, beckoning her closer. Surprised by her sudden change in attitude, Iris had hesitated, and saw the moment that was a mistake.
Rosalie reached for her, snagging her wrist, before yanking her down beside her none too gently. The pain that had rippled up her arm nearly took her breath away, but she hadn’t dared complain.
“You wouldn’t ever betray me, would you?” Rosalie had asked, her tone thoughtful, though it had taken Iris a few months longer to see through the ruse.
Her answer then was the same as it was now—no.
At least not outright.
The Wraiths and Rosalie, in particular, had long memories. And once a name went on her shit list, it was hard getting off it.
“The target is Synek?” Iris asked, keeping any inflection out of her voice as she looked up from the file she had long stopped reading once she saw his picture in the corner.
While Rosalie might have whispered about him in a sort of envious, sympathetic tone, the others didn’t quite feel the same.
Some were in awe of who Synek was—apparently, one of the best cleaners who had ever come out of the Wraiths—but Iris wasn’t as easily moved.
To her, he was nothing more than a ghost story.
“He’ll be in New York a week from today,” Belladonna said with a slight nod of her head. “I’ve heard from various sources that your organization has been trying to find him.”
That was putting it mildly.
If there was anyone the Wraiths as a collective wanted to get their hands on, it was Synek.
Rosalie, especially, wanted to make an example out of him, and maybe—though she’d never admit it—she wanted closure as well.
“If you hope to get your hands on him,” Belladonna continued, “I’d wager this is your last chance.”
The way she phrased it sounded as if she knew something the rest of them didn’t, but it wasn’t Iris’s place to question anything.
“Well, I should leave you all to your meeting. I trust you have everything you need?” the woman asked, though it was clear she wasn’t expecting an answer.
She smoothed a hand along the front of her white pencil skirt as she stood, her assistant following, and only once the pair of them were moving toward the door did another shadowed form seem to peel off the wall to follow behind them.
Considering he was wearing a bulletproof vest with a gun strapped to his back and a mask over the lower half of his face, Iris was surprised she hadn’t noticed him before then, but he hardly made a sound, and if not for the slightly narrowed eyes as he gazed at the men in the room, she might have thought he wasn’t fully aware.
Who the hell was Belladonna?
As the mysterious woman exited, Rosalie eased to her feet. That serene expression she’d been wearing during the entirety of this meeting slipped away, replaced by a hunger the likes of which Iris had never seen before.
She was excited, that much was clear, and she could barely contain herself.
Iris didn’t have to ask why—she held the answer in her hands.
Rosalie hardly had the door shut before Bear was speaking. “Far be it for me to tell you how to commit suicide, but going after him isn’t going to go well for you.”
Now that Belladonna was gone, more of Rosalie’s true personality seeped out. Gone was the demure attitude, and in its place came blatant arrogance. “If I wanted your opinion, I still wouldn’t ask for it. Sit down and shut up, Bear.”
There were men in the Wraiths who would have quickly shut their mouths and did as they were told so as not to court her wrath, but Bear had never been the sort to listen to anyone—especially not Rosalie.
Whatever bad blood simmered between them, it hadn’t died out with time.
As his fingers flexed and he opened his mouth to respond, Iris quickly jumped in. “What exactly is your plan?” She might not have wanted anything else to do with the Wraiths, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t like a few of them.
Bear was one.
And the last thing she wanted to see was something happen to him because he couldn’t keep his temper in check.
“He’s going to be wherever Belladonna has listed in there,” Rosalie responded with a flippant wave of her hand. “Someone will go in, drug him, and lure him out, and then, he’ll be mine.”
Right … ’cause it would be that easy … “No offense, but I’m pretty sure if he’s managed to avoid you this long, he isn’t just going to let you within a mile of him. He’d shoot you on sight.”
Or any of the others.
Iris doubted there was anyone here who could … “Wait. Is that why you called me in?”
“You’re the only face he won’t recognize,” Raj said from his new position by the filing cabinets in the corner. “It’ll be easy.”
Iris might have needed to show Rosalie respect when others were around and mind her words, but she didn’t have to show Raj the same courtesy. “If it’s so easy, then why don’t you volunteer? You’re not scared of him, are you?”
There were two sorts of men who belonged to the Wraiths.
There were those like Bear and Rook who did bad things for a living but were good people. Then there were men like Raj who were just as disgusting on the inside as they were out.
Maybe if the target had been a girl who needed to be broken in for the Wraiths’ purposes, he’d be all over that—or anyone, really, who couldn’t fight back.
At her question, the color in Raj’s cheeks deepened, his rage becoming apparent. “You got something to say to me, Iris, you come right over here.”
It wasn’t as if every person in this room didn’t have a bit of fear in them when it came to Synek, but only his masculinity was so fragile that he needed to lash out at her for pointing it out. Yet she was the one expected to face a man who could easily hurt her in the blink of an eye.
“There’s no need to argue,” Rosalie butted in, though she looked pleased with the banter. “Synek would probably stab any man he didn’t know who tried to get close to him. He’s less suspicious of women.”
That might have been true, but that still didn’t explain why Iris needed to do it. She had too much she needed to focus on to divest time in something else … especially since she was sure she’d made it clear months ago that she was done.
“You’re gonna have to pick someone else for your suicide mission, Rosalie.”
Whatever patience she might have possessed from the good news of her finally being able to make Synek pay disappeared as she lost her smile. A beat of silence passed before she said, “Leave the room.”
It was clear she spoke to the others in the room and expected Iris to remain where she was, and while she had plenty of reason to fear her, if Iris had to choose between her and Synek as an enemy to have, she would pick Rosalie any day.
Synek was an entirely different breed of monster.
As soon as the door closed, Rosalie spoke. “Sorry if I gave you the impression that you get an opinion on this. In case you forgot, you do what I say, not the other way around.”
Iris bit her tongue, holding back what she wanted to say next. Once was forgiven, twice was asking for retaliation.
“Syn likes pretty, broken things,” Rosalie said as she pulled a metal nail file from the top drawer of her desk. “He’d love you.”
It was clear she thought that was a compliment, but Iris didn’t take it as one. “No, you told me he liked to break pretty things.”
“Then that’ll make your job easier. He’ll be distracted because he’s attracted to you, and you’ll be able to lace his drink without him noticing.” As she began moving the edge of the file across her nails, her smile grew a bit more sardonic. “I’m sure you can be what he needs.”
Another backhanded compliment leaning heavily toward an insult. “I told you I was out,” Iris said, keeping her voice low to ensure the anger she felt wasn’t as easily detectable. “You agreed.”
“I agreed to let you work on you
r little side project under the condition that you be available when I need you. That time is now.”
There’d been no mention of any of that, no matter what Rosalie wanted her to believe.
Iris wanted to argue further but then thought better of it. There was no way she would get out of this, no matter what she said. “What do you want me to do?”
The sooner she finished with Synek—the sooner she finished with this mission—the sooner she could move on.
Because as soon as she was able to, she was getting in her car and leaving New York.
Without ever looking back.
Chapter 3
For the first time in three years, Iris didn’t dress to blend in with the others around her—she dressed to stand out.
Wearing jeans tight enough to be considered a second skin and a top that just reached her navel, she prayed it would be enough to turn his head because if it didn’t … she wasn’t dressed for a fight.
With a small vial of the special cocktail the Wraiths dabbled in tucked away in her pocket, Iris left her apartment and drove out to Brooklyn, parking a few blocks down from the Hall.
The first time she’d ventured around to this place during the week leading up to today, she wouldn’t have thought anyone would be willing to go out of their way to come here—compared to the vast number of bars in the city—and pay to do it. But after she ventured inside, she’d understood the allure of the place.
The bar top was polished to a shine, though there were enough nicks and grooves in the wood to know that glasses and fists had worn it down. Of the sixteen barstools surrounding the lengthy bar across the east wall, only a few were empty, and even less of the tables out on the floor were open.
And as Iris passed the cash over to the one with a gruff frown and narrowed eyes, only one man commanded her focus from the very second she laid her gaze on him.
The pictures, where he’d been blond with a Viking’s braid at his temple, definitely didn’t do justice to the man she was seeing now.
Not only wasn’t he blond—which now she wasn’t sure what his natural hair color was—but his hair was a deep shade of brown, and cut short along the sides of his head and in the back.
It emphasized the cut of his jaw and the few days’ worth of growth covering it, and it brought out his high cheekbones.
Briefly, she wondered what had inspired the change, though looking at him now, she could see why he used the shortened form of his name.
He looked like sin.
And even as he still had that sort of dead look in his dark eyes, that didn’t take away from his physical appeal. If anything, it only enhanced it.
Which was something she shouldn’t have noticed.
It didn’t matter how attractive he was. She had a job to do.
He sat at a table just off center of the room, his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at his booted ankles. Conveniently, the only other tables available in the bar all happened to be the ones surrounding him.
But it went beyond those tables.
Even as she had only been in the room for a mere minute, there seemed to be a considerable distance between Synek and everyone else inside. He didn’t speak to anyone, and no one spoke to him. It was as if he sat in a bubble, there but not.
But if any one of them suspected half of what she’d read about him, she understood why.
Prone to violence.
Deadly with his fists and worse with a knife, Synek was not a man anyone wanted to cross.
She’d almost consider it … sad, if he wasn’t who he was.
Finding a seat at the bar, Iris was careful not to stare at him too long, making it a point to look around to make sure he, or anyone else, wasn’t suspicious of her presence.
Many before her had hunted him relentlessly, and she doubted he was sitting where he was without being careful.
Patience was key.
She watched as he tipped the bottle he held to his lips, his throat working as he swallowed down the alcohol without so much as a wince. The look on his face … she knew it well. Whatever he was running from haunted him.
Most nights, she ran from her own nightmares—her father’s pleading eyes as he stood on trial for murder.. Usually, she was able to channel that energy and restlessness until the tension drained away.
But her ghosts weren’t like his, she imagined.
He’d done too many deplorable things. He deserved his demons.
One thing Iris particularly liked about the Hall was the way everyone was making a pointed effort to mind their own business. This place was supposed to be a sanctuary of sorts—a place killers could go without fear of what someone might do once they turned their backs.
Violence of any kind was not permitted on Hall grounds, and if you broke that rule, you had to answer to the owner. And that, they said, was something no one wanted.
Just as she was sure she would have to finesse a meeting with her target, Synek’s attention was drawn to a table a couple down from his own, a man with a grisly face and an eyepatch saying something too low for her to hear, but she got the gist when he gestured from Synek to a dart board across the room.
Seeming to agree with whatever the man asked of him, Synek got to his feet and deftly removed a throwing knife from his pocket as if it was something as mundane as a phone.
Almost to the second that blade was in his hand, the patrons between his table and the dart board quickly scurried out of the way, chairs scraping across the hardwood floors in a bid to get the hell out of his way.
Again, if he were anyone else, she might have found the people’s reaction to him comical, but because she knew him, she merely frowned.
Palming his knife, he twisted it around, the metal glinting between his fingers as he expertly moved it without ever taking his eyes off the target in front of him. She’d known he was good, but it was something else when she got to witness it firsthand.
But even as she seized on the expert way he wielded the knife, she found her opening.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the blade flying end over end across the room until it embedded itself in the very center of the dart board. Cheering erupted from those who watched—all except the man who’d talked him into doing it in the first place. He looked disappointed as he fished out a few bills from his wallet and slapped them down on the table.
“I prefer small bills, mate,” Synek called out, a grin stretching across one side of his face.
His accent surprised her, not to mention the low, rough quality of his voice.
Was there anything about him that wasn’t attractive?
The Wraiths, at least all those she knew, were American, but it was quite obvious he’d been raised on the other side of the ocean.
Just how had he come to be with the Wraiths if he was British?
A question that would go unanswered.
It was now or never …
Plucking a knife from a passing waitress’s tray, Iris toyed with it a moment before she slid off the barstool. Before she could talk herself out of it, she threw it as hard as she could, watching it fly before satisfaction filled her when it landed within an inch of his.
She hadn’t appreciated those days of playing bar games with her father as much as she should have, but they came in handy, even as the memories filled her with a bittersweet happiness.
As she smiled, leaning against the edge of the bar, Synek turned and sought her out with his eyes, not drifting even an inch once he had her in his sights.
No suspicion clouded his gaze as he stared at her, and as a moment of suspended silence stretched between them, she knew she had far more than his curiosity.
She had his interest.
* * *
Liquor dulled his senses, relaxing his muscles, but not enough that Synek wasn’t aware of his surroundings.
Or so he’d thought.
He hadn’t minded sitting alone at his table, tossing back a bottle of vodka—he was giving himself a day to unwind, aft
er all—but Davie, a British hitter who’d only recently come over to this side of the pond, couldn’t go a minute without making a wager.
He’d gamble on the weather if he could.
There should have been no doubt in the man’s mind that Synek could hit a target with his eyes closed and one arm tied behind his back, but his compulsion had driven him to issue the challenge.
So Synek obliged him.
What he hadn’t expected at the end of it was her.
As he turned to see just who’d managed to sink a knife in less than an inch from his own, he realized he hadn’t been paying attention at all.
Because he hadn’t noticed her.
She stood a few feet away, her back now resting against the bar’s edge, a curious little smile on her face as she looked from the knife she’d thrown to him. One sweep of him from head to toe with her eyes caused her smile to grow by an inch, but a dark edge behind it called to the black heart inside his chest.
Something about her tugged at a memory in the back of his mind, but the more he tried to coax it forward, the further it slipped away.
Without a word, or even any coaxing on her part, he walked toward her.
“Not bad,” he said with a nod of his head back toward the dart board, smoothing a hand over his face as he wondered what he must have looked like to her at that moment.
Eyes bloodshot, no doubt. Scruff on his face. His dark hair messy and in need of a fresh cut. And after three days in Los Angeles reacquainting himself with his favorite trade, he probably looked like shit too.
Whereas, on the other hand, she looked like his walking wet dream.
Black jeans that clung to curvy thighs and hips. Heeled black boots that did amazing things for her legs. And the strappy bands of the top she was wearing were placed strategically to reveal nothing while hinting at everything.
Hair as dark as an oil slick trailed down her back, just brushing the top of her jeans. Despite himself, he was already imagining the feel of those silky strands wrapped around his fist.
Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two] Page 27