Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two]

by London Miller

  Iris didn’t realize she was moving, that she was screaming, “No,” until she felt Synek in front of her. His face was all she could see, but she jerked free of his hold, tripping over herself as she fell to the floor, having to scramble and crawl the last few feet to reach the ex-governor.

  Spader’s eyes were big and terrified and filled with pain as he gazed upon her.

  She cupped her hands over the bleeding wound in the side of his neck, as tight as she dared, trying to ignore the panic flaring in his eyes as he fought to breathe.

  “You’re not going to d-die,” she said, her voice shaking as she tried to ignore the wet, warm feel of his blood on her hands. “You can’t die.”

  He would confess.

  Her father would finally be free.

  She would have vengeance.

  Spader choked on his next words, blood spilling from his lips, spattering across her face and chest when he coughed.

  “Just say it,” Iris demanded. “Marvin Spencer didn’t kill Harper Madison. Just say those words. Please! Just say them!”

  Recognition flared in his eyes before they clouded with pain again. His mouth opened, as if he would tell her—as if, for a moment, he thought to do the decent thing—but if he intended to tell her, he never got the chance.

  His arms fell limp. His eyes grew vacant. And even as Iris kept her hands pressed to his throat, trying unsuccessfully to staunch the flow of blood, his chest stopped moving as he took one final rattling breath.

  And the moment he did, her heart broke in two.

  The pain was immediate and absolute, nearly drowning her in an agony so profound that tears blurred her eyes, but she didn’t even care. She didn’t care that she was crying for a man who had hurt her the worst in her life.

  It was over.

  Everything she had ever hoped for was over.

  She failed.

  It was Synek, she was sure, who lifted her from the floor, his voice in her ear though she couldn’t hear what he said above the blood rushing in her ears. But for once, she didn’t want his comfort because on the heels of that helplessness came anger.

  Iris didn’t think. She just reacted.

  Yanking the gun from the holster at Synek’s belt, she directed her eyes to the back of the Kingmaker’s head. He wasn’t paying attention to her. He was only concerned with Belladonna. He didn’t care about what he had just done.

  Spader didn’t matter to him—was merely a pawn in it all.

  They all were.

  Iris aimed at the Kingmaker, her hands shaking. He wouldn’t even see it coming, but before she could even squeeze the trigger, Synek grabbed her hand tight enough that she couldn’t break out of his hold.

  “Iris.”

  Her gaze snapped up to his, seeing the apology there, for not just the ex-governor’s prone form on the floor. She hadn’t thought it was possible before, not after everything they had been through, but at that moment, she was sure she hated him.

  An alarm shrieked, red lights flashing in the room.

  Synek still kept hold of her, his grip never loosening even as his gaze moved from her, to the elevator, then finally to the Kingmaker who looked just as confused as he did.

  Belladonna didn’t.

  Instead, she took a step back. “I warned you. You only had to follow my rules, Uilleam. You had a choice.” She shook her head, looking disappointed, even as red flashed across her face. “Spader wasn’t important to me, but he was important to you.”

  “Why?”

  “He was the only one who knew where your mercenary Grimm is. Because you killed him, that location died along with him.”

  The Kingmaker looked stricken—surprised, even.

  But it wasn’t the Kingmaker who responded to Belladonna. It was another mercenary. “You fucking—”

  The wall exploded next to him.

  Part V

  Chapter 39

  Betrayal was the only thing he saw before the wall exploded around him, his ears ringing, but Synek reached for Iris and tackled her to the floor, pain lighting up his side as he hit the concrete hard, careful to keep her protected from the debris.

  He only allowed himself a moment before he let his training take over.

  But as he got to his feet, pulling out his own gun as he did, the only thing Synek saw was the wall of black moving into the room.

  The first one through the wreckage wore a tribal mask that covered his entire face, the wood intricately carved with slashes of red across the front. He barely spared the Kingmaker a glance before he was moving to Belladonna, and had he not been looking at them, Synek might have missed their exchange.

  The way her mouth set in a mulish line, but she willingly moved to the masked man’s side.

  Whoever he was, she knew him, but she hadn’t been expecting him.

  And worse, he wasn’t alone.

  “Go,” he told Iris. Reaching for her as he spoke, he practically shoved her in the opposite direction as he forced all attention on him and away from her, as well as the Kingmaker. He might have been blown to the other side of the room, but he wasn’t letting it faze him.

  He was still staring at the hole in the wall Belladonna and the man who’d come to retrieve her left out of.

  “Stay out of the building!” he called after Iris, making sure he got her nod before he had to put her to the back of his mind.

  She would be safe, he told himself, as he faced the men moving into the building.

  She could handle herself.

  But it wasn’t this lot Synek was concerned with. He wanted the one wearing the black half mask.

  He took off, using his knowledge of the facility to navigate the hallways, his gaze scanning this way and that. Waiting ... waiting ... there.

  But he had been wrong in thinking the Jackal was after the Kingmaker solely. Instead, he was in the main room where Winter would usually be tucked behind the screens, yanking out a thumb drive from a laptop there.

  Now, Synek understood why the man was as feared as he was. It wasn’t often he met someone taller than he was, but the Jackal was. Broad all over and an arsenal strapped to him, he looked like the weapon he was meant to be.

  But that wasn’t going to stop him from putting a bullet in the man.

  “You took someone who I want back,” Synek said as he crossed the floor, letting one of his blades drop into his hands. “You tell me where he is, and I’ll only skin you a little.”

  If he didn’t ... well, they both knew how that would end.

  The Jackal pocketed the device in his vest, stepping out from behind the desk. He didn’t speak, and if Synek couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest, he might have wondered if the man even breathed.

  He was still.

  Calculating.

  Waiting.

  “Grimm,” Synek said as he entered the room farther. “Tell me where he is.”

  The Jackal still didn’t speak, but he did mirror his actions. His eyes stayed on him from the moment Synek had his attention.

  Analyzing, Synek thought. The man was analyzing his every move.

  Fine.

  If he didn’t want to speak, Synek would give him a reason to.

  He launched the blade across the room, hiding his surprise well when the Jackal caught it by the blade, the gloves he wore adequate enough protection against the sharpened metal. And as quickly as he caught it, the Jackal was throwing it back at him, and only quick reflexes prevented him from getting stabbed.

  The knife might not have bothered him, but it was now as if the man had been given permission to attack. He moved fast, and within seconds, it was obvious the man was expertly trained.

  Maybe even a little more so than Synek because before he saw it coming, the Jackal landed one punch to his side, the other to his jaw before Synek landed a kick to the man’s chest that sent him back a few steps.

  Another punch like that and Synek was sure the man would break his ribs. Even as it pained him as nothing else had, he shuffled back to h
is feet, but the Jackal’s attention was no longer on him but on something standing behind him.

  “So you’re the one the Den’s been looking for?” came the robotic voice from behind the mask, but the cadence of his speech told Synek it was Fang even before the man stepped around him.

  Synek, even as loathed as he was to admit it, was happy to see the other man.

  Fang, he realized, was the only one not carrying a gun in his hands. The rest of the Wild Bunch two steps behind him, moved as one, synchronized and precise.

  The Jackal, though he had yet to move from where he stood, didn’t offer a response to Fang’s question.

  “This won’t end well for you.”

  A second passed. Another.

  The Jackal made a gesture, just a crook of his finger, that sparked the Wild Bunch into reacting.

  They attacked as one, but even as the Wild Bunch was a force to be reckoned with, the Jackal didn’t falter under the onslaught. He met them punch for punch, blocking the majority of the damage they thought to inflict.

  He moved with such effortless precision that it almost appeared as if he knew what move they would make before they did it.

  Synek reached for his spare gun, and even as dirt and smoke made it hard to see, he still aimed. And he just had the man in his crosshairs until Fang broke pattern, taking a step back when he would have taken a step forward, and with the counterbalance, he landed a punch to the Jackal’s face that knocked off the man’s mask.

  Then, as he straightened, his blue eyes glacial, the Wild Bunch froze.

  All of them.

  There was one particular rule they all followed, those Romanians—one that distinguished them from any other mercenary group that Synek knew of.

  They never removed their masks.

  And before today, as far as Synek knew, they never even spoke.

  Yet the moment the Jackal was unmasked and that suspended moment of shock filtered away, Fang reached up and ripped his off, not even caring as it hit the floor at his feet.

  The others followed suit, one after the other, until he was staring at four familiar faces.

  The look on Fang’s face made him pause, though, and he questioned what he was seeing.

  There was shock in his gaze, utter confusion, and disbelief—it was as if he was seeing a ghost.

  “Sebastian?”

  As the name registered in his mind, Synek immediately thought of Winter and what little she had told him about the Wild Bunch and where they’d come from.

  Of a brother they had lost.

  Sebastian ... the orphan who’d died.

  But whether the man meant something to them, or nothing at all, he didn’t mean a fucking thing to Synek. He was responsible for the havoc wreaked on his brothers. He had nearly killed the Kingmaker, and if none of those things mattered to Synek, it was that the Jackal was responsible for Grimm being taken prisoner and kept locked away in a cell somewhere that they couldn’t reach.

  He would make that fucking Romanian pay for that.

  “Eu sunt frate,” It’s me, brother, Fang said, a profound grief in his eyes. “Christophe.”

  If the Jackal recognized him, his expression didn’t reflect it, and that was only made clearer a moment later when he asked, “Who the hell is Sebastian?”

  Synek had a clear shot.

  But whether it was because he shifted his aim or the Jackal noticed him in the background, nearly to the moment he pulled the trigger, the Jackal grabbed the man closest to him—Thanatos, Synek’s mind provided instantly—and used him as a human shield.

  “No!”

  It took only a split second for Synek to realize what was happening, his aim shifting only the slightest amount, but it was enough to ensure the bullet caught Thanatos in his vest rather than his head.

  The exclamation came from Fang or Invictus or both, because just as quickly as Synek lowered his weapon, the Jackal was shoving Thanatos at the spidered window across the room, and with the force of his weight, Thanatos shattered it ... and fell.

  Invictus and Tăcut both flew across the room, Invictus grabbing Thanatos’s leg before he could fall three stories to the ground below. He would have gone through the window too had Tăcut not grabbed him, every muscle in his arms straining to hold both their weight.

  Fang forgot they were fighting on the same side—that their goal was the same.

  When he turned this time, that fury was for Synek alone.

  But before he could turn his weapon on him, the room started crumbling around them.

  Synek cursed, ducking the debris as he raced as fast as he could back out of the building.

  His world had turned to ashes and ruin within minutes.

  And as he made it out of the building, he knew everything was forever changed.

  * * *

  When silence reigned, and the dust cleared, Belladonna was gone—nowhere to be found in the rubble and barren building. She had disappeared once more, as easily as a thief in the night, leaving chaos in her wake.

  As the chaos wound down, Synek felt the weight of everything that had happened slowly bearing down on him. He didn’t think about the pain in his chest or his leg as he stumbled through the rubble, trying to remember the way he thought he’d seen Iris go before he had taken off after the Jackal.

  The job said he should look for other members of the Den, or more importantly, he should ensure that the Kingmaker hadn’t been harmed, and if he had, to get him medical help as soon as possible.

  But there was only one person on his mind as he searched the wreckage.

  She was the only one who mattered.

  He should have known, even before he came across her kneeling in the middle of the field, where she had gone. He imagined that if their roles were reversed, he would be exactly where she was.

  But knowing why she was kneeling there, her gaze never lifting from the body she leaned over, he felt a pang in his chest.

  He had failed her.

  “Syn!”

  Instinct had him turning, finding Winter looking frantic, the relief in her apparent as she hurried toward him. Her shadow wasn’t too far behind, though his mask was gone and abandoned somewhere, lost among the sea of destruction around them.

  But even as a part of him was glad she wasn’t hurt, and that the only injury he could see on her was a small cut to her cheek, he was more worried about Iris.

  Iris, who still hadn’t spoken.

  Explosions had gone off for what felt like ages, followed quickly by the sharp crack of bullets flying. Dozens of people had run screaming, believing their lives were about end because of the kill squad Belladonna had called on, yet now, there was nothing.

  Silence.

  Nothing good ever followed.

  “Ir—”

  “I trusted you.”

  Three little words shouldn’t have wounded him the way they did. “Iris, I’m—”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry.” Her voice caught at the end. Her hands balled into trembling fists on her thighs. “This was what he wanted all along, right? The governor dead.”

  Synek wanted to speak again, to explain, but he could see she wasn’t hearing him. She probably didn’t even see him, not with the way she still had yet to look away from the dead man.

  But he had to try. “I didn’t know he would kill him. That wasn’t—”

  “But you’re the killer,” she said, her gaze finally lifting to his, and at the pain there, he almost wished she hadn’t. “That’s your job, isn’t it? You’re his cleaner. If there’s someone to maim and murder and dispose of inside of a ditch somewhere, he calls on you. Because that’s what matters, isn’t it? It’s about what the Kingmaker wants, and everyone else be fucked.”

  There wasn’t anger in her voice when she spoke.

  Anger, he might have been able to take. More than anything, he wanted her anger because that he could deal with. That he could fix.

  But heartache ... he didn’t know how to fix a broken heart.

&nbs
p; It wasn’t just about the ex-governor being dead, and it wasn’t about the vengeance she hadn’t been able to mete out. It was about her father.

  The one true innocent in all of this.

  The only life who would truly be affected by the governor’s death.

  The Kingmaker could still carry on, doing as he always did. Even Belladonna, who had set all this into motion, wasn’t truly affected by all of this. Undoubtedly, she had accounted for this very moment.

  But Iris hadn’t.

  She had believed from the very beginning when she had absolutely no reason to trust him that he would be able to do what he had promised her. He would be able to get her father out of prison.

  Not just breaking him out where he would be forced to live like a fugitive for the rest of his life, but as a free man as he should have always been.

  Instead, he was the reason she had failed, and worse, she was right to be upset with him.

  He did know the Kingmaker. He knew the man cared about himself more than he cared about anything, and ensuring justice prevailed for a man he didn’t know or could prove to be beneficial to him was not a priority for him.

  “I can fix this,” Synek said, though he had no way of knowing just how to go about that. He only knew that no amount of money, or political offices, or affiliation would keep him from doing right by her.

  “No,” Iris answered, finally moving to her feet as if she realized that Spader wouldn’t be drawing another breath. “You can’t, but I don’t want you to anyway. You’ve done enough.”

  He reached for her without thinking, trying to grab her hand, but she jerked away from him before he could even gain an inch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, wishing he could show her just how much.

  “Do you love me, Synek?”

  He felt that question like a punch to the chest, but he had never expected to hear her say it like that—with sadness and regret in her voice. This wasn’t the way he was supposed to tell her.

  “Of course, I do,” he answered without hesitation. Without thought.

  If there was nothing else he was sure of, he was sure at that moment that he loved her more than anything in the world.