Nix.
DEN OF MERCENARIES BOOK THREE
London Miller
Contents
Also by London Miller
Preface
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part 2
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
CODA
Coming Soon …
About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by London Miller
Cover image licensed through Adobe Stock
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by London Miller
Copyediting by Jenny Sims (Editing4Indies)
Also by London Miller
VOLKOV BRATVA
In the Beginning
Until the End
The Final Hour
Time Stood Still
Valon: What Once Was
Hidden Monsters
DEN OF MERCENARIES
Red.
Celt.
SEASONS OF BETRAYAL
Where the Sun Hides
Where the Snow Falls
Where the Wind Whispers
For H
Freedom is a burden, but you learn to bear it.
Kit Runehart
Preface
On a late Sunday night, while most of the city was sleeping, Luna Santiago hadn’t expected to be riding the elevator up to the nineteenth floor of a building in midtown where Dr. Donna Marie’s office was located. And despite the woman’s unassuming photograph next to her biography on her website—Luna didn’t think she was any ordinary therapist.
Not when it had taken a security guard that was far more skilled than he pretended to be to key her up—though not before taking a copy of her ID and calling her name up. Only once he had gotten the all clear from someone upstairs did he walk her to the bank of elevators on the other side of the building and let her through.
The doors pinged once she reached her floor, opening to a lobby, the receptionist’s desk the first thing Luna could see. Dr. Donna Marie, MD was inscribed in bold chrome letters along the front of the dark wood.
A woman seated behind the desk, red hair twisted into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, pearl earrings dangling from her ears, and a black dress that conformed to her shape, looked to Luna with a blink, smile already forming. Maggie, her name was, from the nameplate at the corner of her desk.
“Good evening, Mrs. Runehart,” she greeted as she moved to her feet—she couldn’t have known how much Luna had grown to despite that name. “If you would please have a seat, Dr. Marie will be with you shortly.”
There was a waiting area, directly opposite of where she was standing, but one glance in its direction told her it was the last place she wanted to be.
Especially since her husband—estranged, she should say—was already seated, a newspaper in hand as he read the classifieds. Since she could remember, he made it a point to do this on the second of every month.
The listings, he had told her once, and old habits.
At least it wasn’t the obituaries again.
He was early—earlier than even her as their appointment wasn’t for another half hour at least—but that wasn’t much of a surprise.
Kit Runehart was punctual to a fault.
And whether she liked it or not, unless she wanted to stand in the middle of the floor, she had no choice but to go over to him.
Crossing the floor, she sank into a chair opposite him, picking up one of the magazines that she wasn’t really going to read, just to give herself something to do.
His gaze had yet to lift from what he was reading, but she had noticed the slight stiffening of his body as she’d walked past.
She knew what he was thinking—undoubtedly wondering why she hadn’t taken the seat at his side. It used to be second nature to her when she was with him.
Next to him was where she loved to be.
But she couldn’t give in to him, not yet, and she knew that if she fell into temptation now, she would be back at square one.
It was a desire she had to fight with every last bit of her being. Worse, she was further annoyed with herself because she actually wanted to be sitting next to him. Feel the brush of his leg when he moved, or the way his fingers would curl around her thigh whenever she was next to him.
Patience, one of his infamous lessons, had never been her strong suit.
The tangible silence stretched on between them until Maggie announced that it was time, then ushered them into a back office, offering to fetch them tea as they waited.
Luna tried busying herself by looking around the spacious room, from the books lining the built-in shelves along the walls, to the awards and accolades hung up.
She had been determined not to be the first to break, but after seeing what a few of those awards were for, she forgot all about that.
“Marriage counseling?” she asked, her surprise bleeding through her voice. “Are you serious?”
Finally, finally, he looked at her, and when he did, she was reminded why she had avoided him at all costs.
Long before now, he had crawled beneath her skin and embedded himself there. Most days she felt comfort in that knowledge—other days she just wanted to take a knife and dig him out.
His eyes softened the way they only did when he looked at her—as though she was the only thing that mattered to him.
It was that look that had made her fall in love with him in the first place.
“My attempt at appeasing you,” he answered, draping his arm across the back of the love seat he sat on.
To anyone else, that might have sounded reasonable—and maybe if they were two other people, she might have gladly accepted this—but they had the type of problems that a counselor couldn’t fix.
Luna shook her head, disbelieving. “And you think this is the right answer?”
Kit nodded with the barest shrug of his shoulder. “It’s a start, no?”
Before she could respond, Dr. Marie appeared, Maggie at her heels carrying a heavy silver tray. “Good evening to you both.”
Kit was the first to ease to his feet, all predatory grace and ease, first assisting Maggie with the tray, then greeting Dona with a charming smile.
Manners maketh man.
Luna could almost hear his voice in her head, repeating words he lived and breathed.
Manners—like saying please and thank you.
Remembering just how he liked for her to use those words made her skin flush, but she quickly shoved those memories away.
Donna Marie was older, in her late fifties if Luna had to guess, with white-blonde hair and pale, porcelain colored skin. She wore a sharp two-piece suit, and a pair of cat-eye frame glasses adorned with small pearls at the corners.
“Kit, always a pleasure,” Donna said with a warm, familiar smile.
She spoke his name with a familiarity that had Luna glancing in his direction. How could she have known the man for seven years, married to him for more than half
that time, and not know this about him?
But, Kit had always been rather good at keeping his secrets—his secrets were the reason they were there in the first place.
“And Mrs. Rune—”
“Santiago,” Luna said quickly. “Luna Santiago.”
This was enough inspire a reaction from Kit. “You haven’t been a Santiago for years, Luna.”
“I’ll always be a Santiago,” Luna returned, “but I won’t always be a Runehart.”
His expression was cold, though it melted as he shook his head. “Don’t count on that.”
Donna, who had probably seen far worse in her office, didn’t seem fazed by their exchange. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just call you Luna. You’re welcome to call me Donna, Kit already does.”
“I didn’t know you were seeing a shrink,” Luna said, her statement pointed.
From the look on his face, she didn’t think he wanted her to know now. “It wasn’t relevant—and isn’t relevant to why we’re here now.”
“Isn’t it? You hiding something like this from me is part of the problem.” His secrets were the biggest hurdle they couldn’t jump. “But I shouldn’t be surprised—I’m the only woman in your life you don’t confide in. Where is Aidra, anyway? She’s usually close by.”
Aidra—the woman who took her role as Kit’s ‘assistant’ seriously. She’d been there the day Luna had been deposited on Kit’s doorstep, and there the day she left him. Some days it felt like she was just as much a part of their relationship as they were.
“I thought it best this stay between us, and I do confide in you, more than I have any other person in my life.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. “It wouldn’t be the first time she’s heard us argue,” Luna noted.
Nor the second, or even the fifteenth.
“Can you not accept anything I say without being combative?” he asked, adopting that tone she had always hated.
Glaring at him, she folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not.”
“How about,” Donna interjected, “we start at what brought the two of you here today. Kit, since you were the one to arrange this, would you like to start?”
“Luna believes I have betrayed her in some way.”
“Right, because taking on a contract with the woman that attempted to have me murdered is just a ‘misunderstanding?’” Luna mumbled, trying to decide whether or not she was ready to leave.
She didn’t think there was any other way to explain why what he had done was wrong, and if he couldn’t see it when she explained it to him, then he wasn’t going to understand at all.
“What I said was not meant to negate your feelings—I merely attempted to answer the question before you interrupted.”
“Then by all means,” Luna said with a wave of her hand. “Continue.”
“What she fails to realize is that there is, and has always been, a reason for the things that I do. When she left me, I wasn’t prepared to explain it then.”
Luna couldn’t help herself. “And you think that whatever you say will justify what you’ve done?”
“I like to think so.”
“Fine. Then tell me, I’m all ears.”
Donna made a note in the leather notebook she held. “Before we speak on that, Luna, would you mind sharing why you’re here?”
Because she desperately hoped that this crazy relationship between them could be fixed. “He asked. When he gives a command, I follow it.” She glanced in Kit’s direction with a sardonic smile. “It’s who you trained me to be.”
Physically, mentally, and sexually.
“Have you no interest in trying to understand your marital problems?” Donna asked with another scribble. “I can only help if you let me.”
“Oh, I understand what the problem is—he’s a liar.”
Kit sighed. “Once was unintentional.”
“But it became intentional the second you learned the truth and didn’t share it with me.”
“I was protecting you, Luna.”
“Lying to me is never protecting me—you were protecting yourself.”
Kit ran a hand through his hair, his frustration showing, but she refused to feel bad about that. “It’s not that simple.”
“It never is with you.”
Their relationship could never be seen as simple, not with the way it started, or even the way it ended.
Even she didn’t understand it sometimes.
“How about we start at the beginning?” Donna said, setting her pen down. “Sometimes, it only take a little clarity to better understand someone else’s perspective. So, if you both are willing, then we can start there.”
“It’s a long story,” Luna said.
Years worth of a story.
Donna nodded once. “Take as much time as you need.”
Luna looked to her husband, the man she had vowed to love, honor, and obey. She tried to think of the right words, where to start when it came to their relationship. There was so much.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Kit said, noting her unease, “I’ll start.”
She nodded.
Kit sat back, resting his arm along the top of the settee. “It all started when my brother called to tell me he’d bought a whore.”
Part One
Chapter One
Driving around the snow-capped embankment, Kit Runehart tuned out the click of the windshield wipers as they swept back and forth, clearing the flurries that collected there.
The woman sitting next to him—Aidra, her name was—held a tablet in her lap, scanning over the ten requests that had been sent over the last twenty-four hours.
“Here’s one you might want to consider,” she said, using two fingers to enlarge the text and picture. “Do you remember Martin Fitzgerald? He’s asked that you find his missing shipment of weapons.”
Kit glanced in her direction. “That doesn’t sound terribly interesting.”
“His fourth shipment in as many months, but he can’t find where the problem is. He fired the movers, even killed a few of the dock workers, but no one has any new information for him.”
That was because he was looking in the wrong place if the guns were where Kit thought they could be—this wouldn’t be the first time someone double-crossed their partner. “Send him our fee—tell him I’ll take it.”
“Of course.”
Another fifteen minutes in the car and they were finally arriving at the picturesque cabin, nestled deep within the mountainside—if one weren’t looking for it, it could have easily been missed.
Pulling around, parking directly in front of the cabin, the SUV trailing him followed suit. Kit climbed out, foregoing the heavy gray coat in the backseat of his car despite the chill in the air.
The cold assaulted him the moment he was outside the car, his riding gloves only helping slightly, but Kit didn’t let the frigid temperature bother him as he headed around to the boot of the car. With one press of the button on his key ring, it popped open, revealing the man inside whose wrists and ankles were tied together and a strip of duck-tape covered his mouth.
Reginald Branson was a wanted man, not just by US authorities, but by the very couple Kit had brought him to. There were questions that needed to be answered, and he’d taken the job so they could be provided.
“Get him out,” Kit directed one of the four enforcers he kept with him.
The Wild Bunch, they liked to be called—though once, in a different life, they had been known as Winter’s Children. But Kit understood the need to bury one’s past.
Especially when it was as dark as theirs had been.
Though he didn’t need the extra level of protection—he had spent more than a decade training with the Lotus Society—it made his life easier when he didn’t have to get his hands dirty anymore.
Up the stairs they went, the door already swinging open before Kit cleared the landing. The security who opened it barely made eye contact—probably remembering the last time th
ey had met like this.
The man had thought to disarm him, so Kit made it a point to show him why that wasn’t such a good idea.
A fire raged inside the hearth across the room, flames licking at the iron that encaged it. Two other guards in dark suits, wired comms in their ears, stood on either side of it, but it wasn’t to the pair of them that Kit directed his attention, rather the man he had come to see, and his wife.
The two were as clean cut as they came, and didn’t look anything like the people Kit ordinarily dealt with, but their case had been special—and for once he lowered his fee and accepted their offer.
“Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson, so sorry we had to meet under these conditions,” Kit said with a wave of his hand to the door.
He didn’t think they truly cared that it was snowing outside and below freezing temperature, their attention was on the man currently on his knees, wide eyes darting around the room.
He might not have known why he had been targeted, at first—or he might have, considering his crimes—but the he was probably wondering why he hadn’t been handed over to the legal authorities.
But he didn’t know that Kit had never cared much for doing things the legal way—or he’d be out of a job.
Mrs. Clarkson was the first to speak. “How did you … No one has been able to find him.”
“A friend of an enemy, I should say,” Kit answered, while not giving an answer. “Old habits die hard—isn’t that right, Reginald?”
Kit didn’t usually involve himself too deeply in the contracts he decided to take, rather enjoying the hands-off approach that had proven lucrative to him over the last couple of years.
But there were some men that just needed to die, and he was willing to offer a helping hand.
Reginald Branson was a case he had taken on two months prior, nearly to the second that it had taken the man to flee the country. The Clarksons were upstanding citizens—at least they had been—that had fully expected for justice to be served against the shaking man on the floor.
Nix. (Den of Mercenaries Book 3) Page 1