It was startling, the eerie silence they worked in, how words didn’t have to be spoken between them to know what to do next. It was as if they were extensions of each other rather than four individuals.
Even if she had thought she could find a way out of this, these weren’t thugs looking for a quick payday—they had training. Skill. There was no escaping them.
Richard was still talking, pleading, trying to convince the leader that he, and the other mercenaries he’d come with, were wasting their time, but the man in the mask just cocked his head to one side as if he were studying him, then sent the butt of his rifle into the man’s face, blood spraying out of his nose.
Screams erupted, even Frankie whimpered though she couldn’t possibly have seen it with her eyes covered, but it was enough to draw the leader’s attention to Ada’s office, and when he stepped forward, Ada knew. She couldn’t hide anymore. For fear of what he might do to Frankie, she couldn’t just lie there. Instead, she scrambled to her feet.
“Please,” she said quickly, fighting to keep her voice calm even as she held up her shaking hands. “You don’t have to do this. There isn’t any money on this f-floor, but I-I can take you to the vault.”
Only a select few knew where the vault was located—two floors down in one of the vacant offices. No money changed hands on this floor and if a client brought in a temporary deposit—until the money could be moved off-site—it was kept there.
He gestured for her to come out of the office, his gun still pointed at the floor. She was careful not to make it look like she was in the room with someone else.
This was about her—no one else deserved to get hurt because of her.
Her life wasn’t worth theirs, no matter how desperately she wanted to live.
Her legs shook with every step she took, fear clogging her throat as she crossed the floor until she was standing directly in front of him, her gaze lifting to his mask.
Dark mesh covered the holes of the mask where his eyes were meant to be, adding a keen edge to the fear she already felt.
Despite her standing in front of him, he still didn’t speak as he gestured for her hands, waiting until she extended them to pull out a pair of thick cuffs made of hard plastic, looping them around her wrists and tightening them until she winced.
But despite her assumption that no one else would be harmed, she wasn’t the only one grabbed and restrained. Three more were forced to stand, bound in the same plastic and all led back to the elevators.
Even with the gun he held, and the fact that he hadn’t hesitated in sending it flying into Richard’s face for merely speaking, the one in the black mask didn’t manhandle her as she anticipated.
As if he knew she had every intention of cooperating.
Inside the elevator, sniffles turned to sobs as bags were draped over their heads, but as Ada waited for her own vision to go dark, a black bag never came.
They wanted her to see, to know.
She bit her lip, swallowing down her own tears, as that thought played on a loop in her mind. It wasn’t over yet. They hadn’t hurt her much, and it could only get worse from here. There was only one man she was truly meant to fear, and that man wasn’t in this room.
Ada didn’t speak, not as they descended floor by floor, even as the others pleaded for their lives, nor when the elevator stopped on a random floor and the mercenaries shoved the three others out, untouched.
A sickening feeling twisted in her stomach, fear and pride warring with each other. It was easy, imagining what she might have done before, how calm she thought she would be knowing this was coming.
But fear didn’t work that way.
It struck when least expected.
A sharp pinch in the side of her neck made her wince, and as she felt the cooling sensation of whatever they’d injected her with sweeping through her, her world quickly faded to black.
*
Two hours earlier …
Any call made after midnight was never one worth answering.
Knowing that, Keanu Hamari shouldn’t have answered the phone.
He knew better, and after years working for the man that thought it was completely acceptable to ring someone’s phone at three in the morning, he should have known whatever Uilleam had to say wouldn’t be worth the loss of sleep.
Technically, he was retired, had been for years now, and there was no reason for Uilleam to be calling. When his contract had expired he hadn’t signed another one unlike the others.
Not because the things he’d done for money hadn’t sat well with him—he’d made his peace with that a long time ago—but because the result of his last job under Uilleam had resulted in the one thing he’d never anticipated.
“But Daddy! You promised we’d go snorkeling.”
That very thing sat on the edge of his bed with the most adorable look of frustration and her mother’s eyes. Soleil, the only person in the world who could make him smile without effort.
Every year since the day he’d brought her home from France, they spent three weeks back at his other home in Hawaii, soaking in the sun and spending days in the water, but the problem with working with Uilleam—whether under contract or not—his favors never expired and he never forgot.
It didn’t matter if that contract had gone untouched for years and you’d moved onto something else—he could still find you.
Which was why, when his phone rang and he’d been passed out after a long day of packing things away and getting ice cream with his daughter, the last thing he’d wanted to do was answer the call.
A part of him hadn’t been surprised at the blank caller ID—a perk provided for him by his resident hacker, Winter. Six months had passed since anyone, currently and outside of the Den, had heard from the man.
He’d gone completely underground, and if his brother hadn’t been married to Calavera—arguably the person Keanu was closest to in the Den—Keanu would’ve thought someone had finally taken the man out. He was exceptionally good at erasing every trace of a person from the world—it wasn’t so surprising that he could do it to himself.
By the time he’d connected the call and put the phone to his ear, he hadn’t even been able to get out a proper greeting before Uilleam was giving him instructions.
“There’s a parking garage near the accounting firm of Smith and 15th. Be there at one pm.”
Keanu had dragged a hand down his face before looking at his bedside clock. “Looks like you’re out of favors, Kingmaker. You used your last one dragging me to that meeting.”
Uilleam had called on him once before nearly seven months ago. Luckily for him, he’d caught him after a day spent catching waves. He hadn’t thought much of it then—standing at the man’s back and making sure no one killed him—it was done and over within an hour and hadn’t been hard work.
At the end of it, Uilleam was supposed to supply him everything he needed to ensure revenge for the death of Soleil’s mother, yet his vengeance was stolen when the man responsible was murdered. It was the only thing Uilleam could have offered for Keanu to entertain what he wanted.
“Not a request,” Uilleam had responded with an edge to his voice. “Consider this my last if you must, but don’t forget who aided you in getting that precious daughter of yours out of France after that horrific accident.”
Uilleam never let you forget a favor. It wasn’t in his nature.
Knowing he ultimately didn’t have a choice in the matter, Keanu asked, “What do you need done?”
“There will be a white BMW at that address, search it and bring me anything you find, then come to the compound.” After rattling off a license plate number, he disconnected the call.
It didn’t matter that he had plans for the next day, or that he even had his own life with his own set of fucking problems—in Uilleam’s mind, he came first. Always.
“We will,” he said now, focusing on his daughter who hadn’t lost her pout in the seconds he’d been zoned out. “Daddy just has to work first.”<
br />
She understood, even if she didn’t know the specifics of what that meant. He could see the disappointment in her eyes. She knew this would mean long hours away from home and the possibility of their plans being cancelled entirely.
“But you’ll come back, won’t you?”
Those words broke his heart.
No seven year old should have to fear whether their parent was coming back home or not.
She was too young to remember the specifics about that fateful day, only the terror had lingered and with it came her fear of Keanu leaving her alone whenever he left for any extended period of time where she wasn’t with him.
“Come here, little monster,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her up the bed until she was seated beside him. “It’s just for a week, and then I’ll come down and we’ll do all the things we usually do, I promise.”
She stared up at him for a long moment before lifting her hand, her little finger extended. “Promise?”
He hooked his own around hers. “Promise.”
Now, he just needed to take her to the airport, finish up the job, and get back to his life.
The last thing he needed was the Kingmaker upending his new normal.
*
Keanu checked the address he’d been given one last time, making sure he was in the right place before slamming the car door shut and taking a look around.
Despite the hour, the boardwalk was busy, tourists and locals alike venturing down to the beach, even more walking around the shops, making it nearly impossible to walk without bumping into someone.
Except, most gave him a wide berth as he moved down the block, gaze scanning for the parking structure he’d been told to check.
He hadn’t been given much information besides the make of the car and its license plate. BMWs were a dime a dozen in Los Angeles, so he hadn’t thought much of the order, until now.
He knew his cars, and the metallic white BMW parked a ways down on the first level of the parking deck started at over one hundred and twenty-thousand dollars.
Whoever it belonged to obviously had money to blow, which meant this was probably the car he was looking for.
Removing the key fob from his pocket—one that had been waiting for him in his mailbox when he woke back up—he turned the tiny thing over in his hand to hit the button that unlocked the driver’s door before sliding behind the wheel.
It was definitely a female’s car from the delicate, floral scent that clung to the white leather seats—plus the luggage in the backseat that was distinctly feminine.
But even if it did belong to a woman whose name he didn’t know, this wasn’t his first job by any means, and it wouldn’t deter him from doing it.
He checked the glove compartment first, beneath both seats next, then climbed back out and did the same in the back before checking the trunk. Everything was spotless, like the car had only recently been bought, but there was something a little too clean that poked at the part of his brain that told him something was off.
There was no registration that he could find—not even the clutter his own car had—but in the front pocket of the suitcase, he did find a stamped envelope, addressed to someone in the UK.
On the top left corner of the envelope was a local address belonging to a woman by the name of Ada Edgar.
Which meant this was probably her car, but the name didn’t ring any bells for him and he couldn’t for the life of him understand what was so interesting about her that made the Kingmaker break his silence.
He’d find out soon enough though.
Putting it to the back of his mind for the moment, he dropped back into the driver’s seat and started the car, easing out of the parking spot, then the garage entirely, heading for the one place he hadn’t stepped foot inside in months.
Before Calavera had needed help on a job, he hadn’t gone in more than a year. Once he’d unofficially retired from the Den, he kept away from the compound.
Too much temptation.
The place had a revolving door for him—he only needed to walk through it—but if he let himself indulge in it, the line that clearly divided his life at home with Soleil and the life he’d led before blurred.
You were either in or out—never both ways.
Of course, the Kingmaker would love to have him back in the Den along with a contract with his signature scrawled on the bottom of it, but despite the money he’d made—it had always paid well being a mercenary—there was a reason he’d left it all behind.
Like how he’d needed to break a promise to his daughter because of a debt owed. If he was contracted, there would be far too many days like this one.
He just needed to remind himself of that occasionally when the urge to get back in settled over him.
Waiting for the gate to roll open, Keanu tapped his fingers against the steering wheel before driving forward and around the main building toward the detention center specifically built for the people unfortunate enough to get interrogated by the Kingmaker.
It was a nondescript building of gray concrete and looked every bit as intimidating as what went on inside its walls.
‘Training’ as they called it, though Keanu had never thought the word fit.
Conditioning was more accurate. Five grueling days of torture meant to first break the mind, then the body until there was nothing left standing but a pliable thing rather than a person.
Most were willing to become anything if it meant the torture ended.
Training didn’t always break a person—he’d finished without any lasting damage—but there were others that couldn’t quite handle its effects.
Like Syn—the one mercenary in the Den that still suffered.
That was the theory anyway—that the man had lost his mind somewhere in the midst of the pain and misery he found in the training room, but Keanu had never been so sure of that.
There had always been something a little … off about him.
Of all the mercenaries, Syn had been the only one who hadn’t responded well to it. Some say it had even broken him.
Keanu didn’t—you couldn’t break what was already broken.
As he headed for the Kingmaker’s office, nearly passing one of the open doors, he thought he caught sight of a flash of silver hair before he stopped in his tracks and turned back.
Sure enough, Winter stood in the room, surrounded by the four Romanians whose presence had become more pronounced as the months went on.
Very rarely did the Kingmaker call on his brother for any assistance, but six months ago, when Carmen Rivera became a bigger problem, they came together—two teams working as one.
It hadn’t been a problem for Keanu—he knew the Romanians long before now—but things had become a bit more complicated recently. And that complication began and ended with Winter Banes.
“I hear you’ve been getting into trouble,” he said as he greeted her before pulling her into a quick hug.
“Me?” She frowned playfully with a quick smile. “Not any more than you guys, except my brand of trouble comes in a pretty awesome Romanian package.”
“I’m not even going to entertain that with an answer. He in his office?” Keanu asked, not needing to mention who he meant.
“Should be. He’s a little … intense right now.”
He didn’t suspect otherwise. “Good seeing you.”
He nodded toward the Wild Bunch, not bothering to try and hold a conversation with them. They were religious in not speaking when they had their masks on.
Uilleam wasn’t in his office, however, rather standing in the hallway talking to a man Keanu didn’t know and didn’t care to know.
Mercenaries were a dime a dozen around here and there were very few that he actually bothered to keep up with, most of which were in New York at the moment.
Uilleam barely spared him a glance before dismissing the other man with a flippant wave of his hand. “Useless, all of them. Glad you’ve deigned to join me.”
“You asked.” O
r demanded.
“I need your opinion.”
“Really? You trust one other than your own?”
He leveled a flat look on him. “Unfortunately, my brother is off doing God knows what, and you’re the only other person I trust to sound moderately intelligent.”
He had a way of both complimenting and insulting someone with ridiculous ease. “On what, exactly?”
“A woman. Her name is Ada Edgar, currently in debt to a number of men who would pay a pretty penny to see her begging for her life.”
Keanu frowned, though he didn’t respond. It wasn’t often Uilleam made a request like this, but considering the last six months, he’d come in doubting the man would be making rational decisions.
But if it meant he could get out of here quicker, he would entertain it.
“Are you interrogating her?”
“Nothing too bloody,” he said. “Just a few minor questions before I determine what I want to do to her.”
Sounded easy enough. “Where is she?”
“She’s being brought to that room,” he said, gesturing to the door behind him. “But first I need to make a call.”
Uilleam turned rather abruptly and disappeared down the hall, hardly looking up from his phone, even when a scream rang out from one of the training rooms.
If there was one thing he’d never be able to understand was how casual the man could be despite being surrounded by pain and death constantly.
But there was a great many things he didn’t understand about the man and today wasn’t the day to figure him out.
The room was empty when he walked inside save for two chairs facing each other. He only had a moment to look around before the door was opening again and one of the Wild Bunch—Tăcut, judging from the size of him—carried a woman over his shoulder before dropping her in one of the chairs.
She wasn’t unconscious, judging from the way her hands were trembling so badly. He could see it from where he stood.
Every manner of person had made all sorts of deals with the Kingmaker over the years—politicians trying to up their campaigns, desperate parents wanting to adopt a baby without any paperwork, and even families fighting an internal war that they hoped he could mitigate—but as Tăcut dragged the bag off the woman’s head, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman like her inside these four walls.
Den of Mercenaries: Volume Two Page 3