Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two]

by London Miller

  His dirty blond hair was cut short on the sides, a few inches longer in the middle in that way that said he was in the early stages of growing it out. Definitely the opposite of Synek’s unkempt state, but whereas Synek was anxious to know where he was being taken, the other man looked resigned.

  He knew the feeling well.

  “What the hell kind of name is Grimm anyway?” he asked. Wanting to fill the silence, he remembered the first words the man had spoken to him once he was picked up.

  Idle conversation was easier than letting his thoughts carry him away. He didn’t often like what he found in there.

  If the question annoyed the mercenary, he didn’t let on. Instead, Grimm shrugged as his gaze finally focused on Synek instead of the panel wall behind his head.

  “It’s what they call me.”

  “What’s your actual name?” Synek asked, not liking that Grimm had an advantage over him. He didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing more about him than he did them.

  “Most people in your position don’t talk so much,” Grimm remarked, but a hint of a smirk on the man’s face suggested he knew why Synek was asking. “Curiosity is usually the first thing to go once you come to the Den.”

  Synek didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t bother to ask. Instead, he kept silent as they rode on.

  By the time the van finally rolled to a stop, Synek doubted, if given the opportunity, he would ever be able to navigate his way away from this place.

  By design, he was sure.

  The doors swung open and other men dressed like Grimm stood outside them, but unlike Grimm,, they didn’t share his calm efficiency.

  They smiled … as if they smelled blood in the water.

  Synek paid more attention to the men walking along either side of him than to the building he was being led into. Yet rankling him the most was the unknown man walking at his back.

  His presence was like an unbearable itch Synek couldn’t scratch.

  It wouldn’t make sense for the man to attack him—not if the Kingmaker had gone through this much trouble to recruit him—but that didn’t stop his paranoia. If the Wraiths could turn on their own in a matter of seconds, he didn’t trust that these men he didn’t know wouldn’t do the same.

  No one spoke as they traveled down a lengthy hallway, though a certain excitement electrified the air.

  An excitement that didn’t bode well for Synek.

  But it wasn’t until they reached a partially cracked door at the end of the hall that he finally understood what came next.

  The “training” the Kingmaker had spoken of—how he would learn to fight as Grimm and the other mercenaries had—would happen in this room.

  He didn’t resist as he was shoved inside, ready for whatever they had planned.

  They took his shirt and shoes, leaving him standing in the middle of the floor in nothing but his frayed jeans.

  Torture was just another day in his life, and whatever these men thought to inflict on him would ultimately hurt them worse than it hurt him.

  He wouldn’t break easily.

  Grimm stood in the mouth of the door, light bathing in from behind him, and now, Synek understood how he had gotten the name. The shadows made his face appear more gaunt, the lines more severe.

  He looked every bit the grim bastard he was supposed to be.

  “Welcome to the Den,” he said with a nod of his head before he stepped out and closed the door, effectively drenching Synek in darkness.

  The panic didn’t set in immediately.

  For a few short minutes, Synek remembered who he was and where he’d come from, but the longer he sat in the pitch blackness of the padded room, the more the adrenaline started to course through him. Irrational fear started to pool inside him, and as a means to protect himself, anger rose above it.

  Synek didn’t realize he was screaming, not until his ears started to hurt and he lashed out around him—fighting off invisible hands that hadn’t touched him in years.

  He didn’t realize there was nothing left to fear but his own mind.

  Part III

  Chapter 24

  Present day …

  A roadmap of hell was easy to come by.

  It wasn’t a place filled with fire and brimstone, but one made of cement and barbwire, guarded by men with guns who were all too human.

  Sitting on the East River between Queens and the Bronx, Sing Sing prison was not a place Iris Adler ever thought she would venture into, but that changed with her father’s murder conviction over eight years ago. After that, she had no choice but to familiarize herself with the place and its procedures if she wanted to see him.

  Not to mention, her discomfort didn’t last for very long compared to what he suffered daily.

  It didn’t help matters that he had once been a police detective—an especially proficient one responsible for putting more than a dozen criminals away in this prison alone. She had worried he would be targeted because of that. That men he had locked away would want him to answer for what he had done though they had been the ones to break the law in the first place.

  But besides the occasional black eye—and he always mentioned that the other guy looked far worse—he wasn’t getting beat on.

  That didn’t mean Iris didn’t worry about him because she did. And she always would until the day he was free to walk out the front gates.

  Until then, her leg would bounce up and down with nerves as she sat in the cramped waiting room, doing her best not to stare at the large stainless steel clock hanging on the wall opposite her.

  She had been waiting for nearly an hour and thirty-seven minutes, the longest she had ever had to sit in this room in all the years since she had started coming here on visitation days. Usually, she was called very quickly.

  But the wait was worth it. No matter how long she had to sit in this uncomfortable folding chair, seeing her father was worth every discomfort.

  “Adler!” called a beefy guard carrying a clipboard in his right hand, his gaze swiveling around the room and landing on her once she stood.

  Iris swiped her sweaty palms along the front of her jeans, her heart thumping harder as she closed the distance between them. Even though she had done this more than a dozen times now, it hadn’t gotten any easier.

  Anxiety still churned inside her as she followed the corrections officer out of the waiting room and down a dimly lit hallway. She always feared that one day, someone would realize the fake ID she used was counterfeit, and her secret would be out.

  It wasn’t that she necessarily needed it, but it provided an extra level of security should anyone look at her father’s visitors a little too closely.

  So far, she had been lucky.

  She didn’t take it for granted.

  They entered an oversized room next, divided in half by a cement and glass partition. Each individual booth afforded just enough privacy not to feel watched and monitored, though that was exactly what was happening.

  All manner of people sat in the room, young and old, clean-cut in tailored suits, or casual in jeans and a plain T-shirt.

  Iris walked toward the booth at the very end, her earlier worry and anxiety dissipating as she stared through the inches-thick glass at the man sitting on the other side, wearing an aged navy blue uniform that was becoming far too familiar for her comfort.

  The dark hair she always remembered fondly had streaks of gray throughout, and now it even peppered the slight beard he had grown.

  But no matter how much time had passed, or how his features shifted and changed with age, her father still looked the same to her.

  His tired eyes briefly lit up as she took her seat, quickly grabbing the phone off the wall and putting it to his ear.

  Even as it hurt seeing him on the other side of the glass, wishing she could hug him, Iris was glad she was able to see him at all. “Have you been working out?” she asked.

  His laugh was immediate and infectious—the kind of contagious laughter you heard fro
m the other side of the room that made you want to join in. The sound never failed to bring a pang to her chest.

  He rested his elbows on the table, leaning in. “I’m happy to see you too. Your hair looks different.”

  Her hair was a shade lighter thanks to a stylist in Hell’s Kitchen, but even if her hair hadn’t been a different color, Marvin still would have noticed something different about her.

  Whether her nails were painted a different color or she had a new tattoo—though he hadn’t been fond of the last one she’d shown him—whatever it was, he always picked up on it.

  She had asked him how he always knew. How he could possibly remember such tiny details.

  He’d smiled then and said, “Because the small details are what keep me going.”

  “It’s for a party,” she said, thinking of the event she was attending soon.

  Seven years she had been waiting for this opportunity—for a chance to get back at the men who’d put her father in here. They had robbed him of his life and everything that meant anything to him.

  She would make Spader and whoever worked with him regret it all.

  A crooked grin spread across Marvin’s face. “Finally getting out there and living?”

  He might have been the one wearing the uniform, but sometimes, it felt as if they were both locked inside a cell, barely existing. He didn’t understand that all she cared about was getting him his freedom.

  And when she wasn’t actively working, she was thinking about her next move.

  There was never any time for anything else.

  Not that she minded.

  This was all she wanted. This was all that drove her.

  At least, it had been all she was until two months ago.

  Before she accepted her final job with the Wraiths.

  Before she had walked into a sketchy bar that changed her life in a matter of seconds.

  Before she ever laid eyes on Synek.

  “Not quite,” she answered, trying to push him to the back of her mind, though that was nearly an impossible task. “It’s a work thing.”

  “An actual work thing,” he asked, his brow furrowed, “or something else?”

  Iris had never told him about her involvement in her old organization, or what she had done for them. He wouldn’t have approved.

  Especially since he had spent over twenty years locking people like the Wraiths away for the rest of their lives because of the crimes they committed. Because of crimes she helped them commit. Instead, she’d told him she was a freelancer.

  A bounty hunter, of sorts.

  “Something else,” Iris said, taking a breath before spilling why she was really there. “Something for us.”

  Marvin’s expression shifted as he sat back in the metal chair, his displeasure clear. “What do you mean?”

  Her father appeared resigned to his fate after having been forced to live the past eight years as an innocent man lost to a broken system. He didn’t ponder what-ifs or even think a day would come when he could walk out the front doors a free and vindicated man. He fully expected to die in this place even as Iris did everything in her power to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

  “He’s not going to be free much longer,” she said, not needing to remind him who she was referring to.

  They both knew who she meant.

  There was never any guarantee her father wasn’t being watched or recorded, so Iris was always careful never to mention any names when she was here.

  But Marvin didn’t look nearly as excited about her proclamation as she did.

  In fact, he looked the opposite.

  The father she used to know would have asked what she was planning to search for any weaknesses in her plans. The man she’d listened to on cassette tapes for years before she was ever able to visit him in person would have fought until the bitter end to find a way out of this.

  At the very least, he should have been proud of her accomplishments thus far. She was close, after all—closer than she had ever dreamed of getting to a man who might as well have been untouchable.

  Instead, the man sitting in front of her now didn’t look pleased at all by what she was saying. He just looked … sad.

  “I—” He caught himself before he said her name, his look of frustration confusing her. “We’ve talked about this.”

  “I know.”

  Or she thought she did. They had repeatedly talked about this day, and even when he’d had his doubts, she persevered. She had dedicated her entire life to this. She couldn’t see it fail now.

  And even if she had to believe for both of them, she would.

  Iris didn’t have a choice.

  “Things are different now,” she said, lowering her voice as she leaned closer to the glass. “I have help now.” The likes of which she would never be able to describe fully until he was out from behind bars and she could sit him down and break it to him gently.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and involved one of those law clinics,” Marvin said with a growing frown. “They ask too many questions and are more trouble than they’re worth.”

  Law clinics meant well. Iris knew that. She had even gone to one years ago, but as underfunded and understaffed as they were, it hadn’t gone anywhere, and after a few weeks, that had been the end of that. She’d never gone back since.

  “I didn’t. I found someone.” Which was not entirely a lie. “I mentioned him in the letter, remember?”

  The letter she had mailed him two weeks ago had been a quickly written ramble of her thoughts and everything that had happened in her life since the last time she saw him—though never enough for anyone who might have stumbled upon it to understand what was being said. They had their own code.

  At the time, she hadn’t known what to say about Synek when she’d mulled over her letter. She only knew that she had to mention him though. In a matter of weeks, he had become the single most important thing in her life.

  And he had also become the key to getting her father out of prison.

  “You shouldn’t be wasting your time on this,” Marvin said gently, his gaze dropping to his calloused hand on the glass separating them. “You need to enjoy your life. If you want to do something for me, give me that. I want you to be happy. I need you to be happy. That’s the only thing that’ll make this easier for me.”

  “I will be,” she said softly, “but right now, the only thing that’ll make me happy is seeing you out of that uniform.” Because he had never deserved to be in it in the first place.

  Marvin used to smile when she said that. It was what he had wanted too, but now, he didn’t look hopeful at the prospect.

  He looked like he had given up, but it wasn’t until he spoke that she realized just how much.

  “It would probably be better for you if you stopped coming here,” he said quietly, his gaze apologetic. “Easier this way.”

  “Da—Marvin,” she said, feeling the swell of emotion rising in her throat.

  She hated having to call him by his name. It felt wrong. Marvin wasn’t who he was to her. He was Dad, and she wished she could say as much.

  Taking a breath, Iris tried not to lose faith. “I know it’s taken me a while, but it won’t be much longer now. I promise.”

  “That’s not what this is about,” he responded with a sigh. “Whether it’s five years or a dozen, it all feels the same when you’re locked in here. But you’re not. Don’t make yourself a prisoner to this. You deserve more than that, you hear me?”

  She heard him. She just wasn’t listening. “Did something happen?” she asked, refusing to believe that he was ready to give up on everything they had worked for.

  He wasn’t just giving up because of his circumstances; he was giving up on her.

  Marvin shook his head, no longer meeting her gaze, though his hand stayed pressed against the glass. She touched hers where his should have been, trying to remember what his palm felt like and the comfort she used to find there.

  “I want you to be ha
ppy, Iris. That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. I was … wrong to leave you those tapes, and I see that now. I thought they might help you understand and bring you some closure, but they only made it worse, haven’t they?”

  “What does that—”

  “After today, I’m going to take your name off my visitor’s list.”

  “You’re what?”

  Iris clamped her mouth shut, realizing just how loud she had spoken when the guard nearby glanced at her in warning. Not once in the past seven years had she ever drawn attention to herself and made anyone take a second glance at her.

  Then again, her father had never said he didn’t want to see her again either.

  “Why would you do that?” she whispered fiercely, refusing to believe he would do something like that even as she saw the conviction in his face.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he answered in return, glancing up at the clock affixed to the wall over his shoulder. “I’m saving you from going down the same road I did. Seven years is enough. It was selfish of me to ask you to do it in the first place.”

  After his trial, she had wandered for a long time, not sure what to do with herself as she ran from place to place. Only after Ernest’s trial had she gone to the locker he’d had set up for her in case of an emergency.

  Inside, she had found the tapes, recordings, and copies of documents her father had put together in the months prior to the incident. There had also been a few thousand dollars rolled up in bundles in the bottom of the bag.

  Through his tapes, she was able to connect the pieces of the puzzle leading back to the governor. The names combined with her later involvement with the Wraiths had ultimately led her to this moment.

  Now, it was just a matter of time until she finished it.

  “I’m close,” she told Marvin now. “I’ll tell you everything after we get you out, just … you have to give me a chance.”

  But he wasn’t listening. He’d already made his mind up. “I want you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “Go. Be happy. Live your life without worrying about me. I shouldn’t be your burden, sweetheart.”