Dismas shook his head before wandering off.
When looked back at the Romanian, he was studying her, an unreadable expression on his face. —You’re leaving?—he asked.
Reluctantly—because at that moment, the only thing she wanted to do was hang with him—she nodded. She’d already had a shit couple of days, and if she was going to prepare herself for whatever the actual hunt would consist of when they went to the meeting tomorrow, she needed to unwind.
“I just need to call a cab.”
He set his bottle back on the bar. —Want a ride?—
“Ooh, did you bring your bike?” she asked, glancing at the door as if she’d be able to see if from where she sat.
They each had one—his brothers. They were all the same shade of matte black with chrome detailing. All designed to break speeding laws and look good while doing it.
She definitely hadn’t forgotten the sight he made when he rode it, and the idea of climbing on behind him was too good to ignore.
He looked at her as though that shouldn’t have been a question.
Maybe it shouldn’t have. “Lead the way.”
Chapter 2
With the amount of money she brought in from her work with mercenaries, Winter could easily afford an apartment in the heart of Manhattan, but after growing up so long without money, she had a hard time spending it.
On new gadgets and devices for her work? There was no price she wasn’t willing to pay.
An apartment where she would literally only sleep? She couldn’t justify spending well over a million dollars, especially one that was only eight-hundred square feet at best.
Instead, she’d found a quaint little spot just outside the heart of Brooklyn; a decent-sized one that didn’t make her feel guilty for what she had spent on it.
Uncle Steve, who’d been like a father to her after her parents had died in the house fire, hadn’t been a penny pincher by any means, but he had always taught her the value of a dollar.
“Who needs to keep up with the Jones’s, huh?” he’d asked when they walked down to the deli on the corner of 5th and Winston. “I’d rather have a small house with plenty of shit in it than a mansion with fuck all.”
She had agreed wholeheartedly, even though she hadn’t fully understood what he meant.
Their little apartment above the bar had been her favorite place in the world—so different from the row house where she’d lived with her parents.
But Uncle Steve had always been the coolest, even if he wasn’t the most practical.
She wondered what he would think about her little place if he was here now instead of in the cemetery only a few miles from where she lived.
It had the usual look of most apartments—off-white walls, a refrigerator and stove in need of upgrading, and hardwood floors. It might not have been much to someone else, but it was hers, and she’d paid for it.
Plus, Syn didn’t govern it, and if she had her way, he would never know about it.
She didn’t get to visit as often as she would have liked with how often she was working, but each time she could escape here, she brought one more thing with her to make the place more hers and less like a place to squat.
Uncle Steve’s place had more knickknacks than she ever could count, mostly sports memorabilia, but there had also been the pictures of her mom and dad that she still had tucked away in a box in the back of her closet.
The living room was mostly one big open, empty space—one of the rooms she hadn’t gotten to yet.
But the bedroom? The bedroom was what she was most proud of.
On the walls of her bedroom, she proudly displayed vinyls—some trusty favorites, and others she hadn’t gotten around to listening to yet. In front of the wall stood her white metal rack, her favorite rock tees and trusty black jeans hanging from it, along with several pairs of military boots lined up in front of it.
She was reflected in every aspect of the room, from the records to the black, white, and gray color scheme. Even the pallet bed tucked into one corner of the room near the lone window in the room.
Finally—and this was arguably her favorite spot in the entire apartment—there was her main setup.
Three screens sat side by side on an old oak desk, the router and modem tucked away beneath the wood. Behind one of them was a picture of her and Syn in a black frame just out of view.
This room was her, and Răzvan was standing in the very center of it.
Now that they were here and out of the pouring rain, she actually had a chance to think about him being in her space where no one else had been before.
She usually didn’t care about such trivial things, but now she was curious.
This was her oasis, the place where she could be herself without care of what anyone else thought.
Okay, maybe she wanted him to like it.
He was still a stranger even as she knew more intimate details about him that she hadn’t known some months ago.
Her time in California hadn’t just been spent working for The Kingmaker. She had also gotten the chance to meet Răzvan and his brothers.
It had all started with a text.
No one ever mentioned how death affected others who weren’t as close, but she’d always thought it was just as hard for them as it was for those who were intimate with the one they lost.
She hadn’t known Aidra, the unfortunate victim of a man intent on seeing her friend’s ruin, personally, but she knew what it was like to lose family.
She’d seen the sadness in Calavera, but she knew Nix would comfort her, but in the late hours of the night, she’d wondered whether Răzvan had someone other than his brothers.
Someone else he could talk to who wasn’t reeling as hard.
It was that thought that had her doing a quick little search and a bit of effortless coding to find his number.
It had briefly crossed her mind how it might have looked, considering she hadn’t actually gotten his number from him, but she hadn’t thought about the consequences before she sent off the first of what would ultimately become many texts between them.
I’m so sorry you lost Aidra, she’d said, not wanting to say anything more than that … Until she realized she had never bothered to mention who had sent the message.
But once she did, not even thirty-seconds later, she got a response.
At first, she had meant to be an ear, someone he could use if he needed to talk, but it quickly bloomed from there.
Syn had always said her curiosity would be what got her into trouble, but she hadn’t given that any thought when it came to Răzvan.
Their conversation might have started about Aidra, but soon she’d found herself talking to him about everything and nothing.
WINTER: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
RĂZ: WHY?
WINTER: IT’S A VALID QUESTION.
RĂZ: IS IT?
WINTER: WHY’S YOUR MASK BLANK?
RĂZ: IT’S NOT.
It had taken a while to get him out of that gruff shell and to say more than a few words at a time, but once she did, she’d found that he was far more interesting than she’d ever thought.
Smiling even as she pushed those thoughts away, Winter glanced back at Răzvan.
He looked around in a purely analytical way—checking each window—and once they’d entered her apartment, he’d glanced back to make sure the door was locked as well.
“Pass inspection?”
—You could use better locks.—
“I can probably YouTube it.”
He gave her a look. —I can take care of it for you.—
She blew him a kiss. “My hero.”
—What brings you to New York?—
She dragged her fingers through her hair, massaging away the tension in her scalp from the braids. “I’m not sure yet.”
Which was mostly true.
Until she went to the meet tomorrow, she wouldn’t know what exactly she was doing in New York, but that was better than mentionin
g the truth.
“Plus,” she went on, “I needed the change of scenery.”
Răzvan didn’t respond, merely studied her in that uncanny, unblinking way of his—like he was trying to decipher whether she was lying to him.
But she never outright lied.
Evading was her specialty, and if she absolutely had to, she offered half-truths.
But she had wanted the change, not just after her time in London, but after Phoenix as well. She might have grown up in a rather nice home the latter part of her life, but she didn’t miss that place at all.
Her adoptive parents had done the best they could by her, but the weight of expectation had been a little too much for her.
“How is he?” she asked, changing the subject off her. “Fang, I mean.”
It was obvious from his expression that he knew it was a bid to change the subject, but he allowed it all the same. —Taking some time off.—
That made sense. “I’m surprised he hadn’t already.”
She didn’t know the extent of the relationship Fang had with Aidra, but she did know that Fang had had the worst of it.
If she ever lost Syn … she’d be a basket case.
“And you? How are you coping?”
He shrugged.
Shrugged as though that were answer enough.
But she wouldn’t push him if he wasn’t ready to discuss it. During the past four months, she’d learned he opened up when he was ready and not a moment before.
“You should come by The Hall tomorrow night,” she said as he stood.
—Oh?—
She needed a distraction. Something to take her mind off Syn and the epic fucking mistake she’d made back in London when she’d been too drunk to know better.
And there was no better distraction than the Romanian standing across from her now.
Winter smiled, even as she opened the door for him. “We’re getting acquainted.”
Chapter 3
Trust no one.
That was one of the first lessons Syn had taught her when she’d told him about her desire to work alongside him.
She hadn’t expected him to agree so easily, especially when he kept her under lock and key more often than she would have liked, but she wasn’t going to question it in case he changed his mind.
But that didn’t mean she could work with him just because she wanted to—not without a test.
And whereas she’d thought that test, whatever it might have been, would come from him, it hadn’t.
It came from his boss.
If she remembered nothing else, Winter was sure she would never forget the first time she’d met Syn’s handler.
No one knew his name, nor where he was actually from despite the cultured accent he possessed—they knew only of his power to give a person anything they wanted for a price.
They called him The Kingmaker.
For a while, she had thought Syn was the toughest man in the world, but that was before she was introduced to other mercenaries, and before she was introduced to The Kingmaker.
He didn’t have the same amount of muscle, but he exuded the same level of danger without ever speaking a word.
While Syn was still in charge of her, The Kingmaker ultimately made the final decision whether she would work for his organization at all.
She didn’t pretend to understand the relationship between Syn and The Kingmaker, especially when the latter didn’t seem to have much patience for anyone. But he did bend to some of Syn’s requests—like him refusing to allow her to sign a contract with the Den.
That contract was both a blessing and a curse.
It allowed the signer an opportunity to join something bigger than themselves and to align with a team who were the best in the world, but when you answered to The Kingmaker, it didn’t matter how powerful you were—you were never as strong as the man pulling the strings.
No, she wasn’t officially part of the Den, but she still had to answer to The Kingmaker whether Syn liked it or not.
And she was glad for that.
If Syn had his way, she would probably be tucked away in some nunnery away from civilization and away from anyone or anything that wanted to harm her.
But because she worked with The Kingmaker on various things, she spent much of her time learning everything there was to know about the shady world she was a part of as well as what to look out for.
If there was one thing she had learned, it was that mercenaries were distrusting. They tended to work alone, knowing that even friends were willing to sell them out if the price was right.
But hackers? Hackers were worse—they were paranoid by nature.
The Kingmaker or the mercenaries who worked for him might have set up a meeting time and did a little surveillance beforehand, but the hacker whose event she was going to didn’t just have one level of security to make sure no one uninvited came to his event.
He had eight.
So even if someone stumbled upon the invite and managed to get it decoded, there was still more to do before someone could even make it to the warehouse where it was all going down.
Thankfully, between the four of them, it hadn’t taken them long before they had all the clue and directions deciphered.
In the back of Ollie’s truck, Winter watched the city pass her by as they drove toward the address on the invite.
Located in an industrial neighborhood that brimmed with life during the early hours of the day but was now a ghost town, the warehouse was the perfect location.
Every year, Piston changed the venue of his events, trying to stay one step ahead of anyone who thought to track him.
Apparently, tonight’s location was an homage to some crappy TV show he liked to watch.
Once they’d parked about a block away from the building, Winter dug out her phone and turned it off.
By the time she was stepping out of the truck, Ollie was already waiting on the sidewalk, eagerness making him bounce on his heels.
She wished she still felt that same sort of excitement. His came from the high of it, for breaking the rules and getting away with it, and hers came from the desire to prove herself.
She didn’t have to know what the task was to know it wasn’t going to be anything she hadn’t done before. More than three years working with mercenaries doing a bit of everything made it hard to find a job that was new.
She remembered the wonder she’d felt attending an event with others like her—people who wouldn’t think anything was strange about spending hours upon hours on the internet practicing coding.
Her adoptive family, the Michalaks, just didn’t understand it.
Agree to a mercenary’s request that they allow her to live with them and raise her as one of their own? They could do that—after all, they had fully intended on buying a child on the black market—but she had never been their ideal daughter.
They had wanted a little girl they could mold in their image—one who was prim and proper and had a mind for business and wanted to marry well.
Sometimes, she thought that was what Syn had wanted for her as well—or at least the part where she didn’t work side by side with his co-workers.
Instead, Winter wore all black like it was going out of style, had more piercings than she could count, and tended to do what she wanted at any given time.
She liked her freedom.
Her desire for freedom had ultimately made her leave their home and get a place of her own.
Her desire for recklessness also had her walking toward the entrance of the warehouse when she knew she shouldn’t.
“So who was the hot guy you were talking to back at The Hall?”
Winter blinked out of her thoughts, glancing over at Tessa. “Who?”
“Ollie said you met up with a guy at the bar, and he had that look on his face he gets when we talk to any guy other than him.”
“Tăcut?” she questioned with a laugh. “He’s a friend.”
And a pretty hot friend too if she
were being honest.
She might have been hung up on Syn, but even she could admit that Răzvan was nice to look at.
More than even.
The cheekbones, she thought with an absent smile.
“Ooh. Another mercenary?”
“Something like that.” It was far easier to agree than try to explain just what Răzvan was.
‘The Romanian Robin Hood’ just didn’t seem good enough.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Nicole asked, thinly veiled excitement in her eyes as she glanced back, butting into their conversation.
She had a thing for danger.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d tried to hop on one of the mercenary’s dicks for the fun of it. Even Syn, who Nicole had known she’d had a thing for, hadn’t escaped her notice.
“You mean, am I going to introduce him to you?” Winter asked dryly.
Nicole wasn’t picky—she liked what she liked, and Winter didn’t judge her for it—but the thought of putting the two of them together didn’t sit well with her.
Thankfully, she was spared from answering once they reached the main doors where they entered the passcode and slipped through the doors.
This warehouse hadn’t been selected by chance—none of the places Piston chose for his events were picked at random. They needed to be large, open spaces, with enough electrical capacity to run several hard drives at once while still maintaining the privacy he sought.
Even as they passed the main doors, it took another five minutes before they reached the basement level and a few minutes more before they heard the muffled sound of voices. As they neared the final checkpoint, Winter’s excitement kicked up a notch.
One flash of their invitation later and they were inside the main room where three long tables were set up in the middle of the floor. Each held at least five computers with a sea of cords falling behind them and zip ties holding them all in place.
There was even a kill button connected to each of them should any uninvited guest interrupt them.
Right in the thick of things, Piston looked around the room with a wide grin on his boyish face.
Outside this place, he was just an average teenager who’d only recently graduated high school, but here and behind the anonymity of the dark web, Piston was a legend.
Shadows & Silence: A Wild Bunch Novel Page 3