It was the rest that had her stiffening.
“It is personal for you. Who’d you lose? Mum? Uncle? Dad … ah, dad, was it?”
Her gaze shot up to his, unable to hide her surprise. She hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even looked at him, yet he knew. “Don’t pretend you know anything about me.”
Synek was smiling now, bloody teeth and all, as he carefully got to his feet, mindful of his many injuries. “I’d wager I do. See, they obviously didn’t tell you everything, did they? ’R else you wouldn’t be standing there trying to make yourself feel better. If you were smart, you would’ve gotten the fuck out of here when you had the chance, yet there you stand.”
This was a mistake—one she should never have made in the first place.
“So who did it then?” Synek asked as she turned to leave.
Just keep walking, she told herself, knowing that nothing good would come of this conversation if she let it continue.
“What was he into, your dad? Something shady, I imagine, if they sent someone like me after him.”
“You don’t know shit about him!”
The words burst free from her before Iris could contain them as she turned and glared at him, hating that he was smiling even wider now.
“Touched a nerve? Maybe he was innocent. Wrong place. Wrong time. Or maybe somebody just wanted the bastard dead. And you’re trying to make it right,” he guessed with a shake of his head. “Couldn’t avenge him so you’re championing for who? The Wraiths? Beautiful face, but not much more to you, is there? You can’t even think for yourself.”
Synek shook his head, though he appeared delighted that he’d gotten under her skin. “Never let a man know your weakness, or else he’ll use it against you. Have you forgotten your training?”
Iris didn’t respond—not because she didn’t want to, but because she feared what he could discern from whatever she said.
Rosalie wouldn’t break him, that much she realized just from their short conversation, and once she did, she realized Bear had been right.
Synek would get free.
But she didn’t plan on being around when it happened.
*
“Nothing?”
In twenty-four hours, Iris had yet to find anything on the mysterious man from the cafe anywhere. She was used to it taking a few hours to find a hit, sometimes even twelve, but never in all the years she had been doing this had her search come up with zero results.
She had started to believe she was merely chasing down a nosy diner, but after the search finished, she wasn’t so sure now.
Her time could have been better spent working through what she had on the governor, but something niggled at the back of her mind, refusing to let her focus on anything else. Her reluctance to give him up also stemmed from the fact he’d seen her.
It wasn’t as if she had been standing in the middle of the street staring up at the balcony, snapping photos of everything going on around her. She’d carefully concealed herself among the shade of the entry just to ensure no one would notice her.
Except he had.
Almost as if he’d known where to look.
But that didn’t seem possible. Her plan to trail Spader had been a last-minute one, so the likelihood of someone watching her was low. But then again, he could have seen her because he knew where to look. If he was familiar with surveillance, he might have recognized her optimal position.
So was he working for the governor and protecting his interests … or was he someone else?
Which was why, when Iris had run his picture through the NYPD’s facial recognition software and it brought back nothing, she’d called an old friend for help. Considering he was far more proficient with this sort of thing than she was, she figured he’d have better luck.
But with one phone call, he’d dashed her hopes.
“How could you not find anything?” she asked him, holding the phone to her ear with one hand as she repeated the search, even knowing it wouldn’t help. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Shit, you’re telling me, but without a name, I won’t be able to get you anything else,” her hacker said apologetically. “I can tell you now, though, whoever he is, he’s got money.”
Iris looked back at the picture where it sat on top of her desk. “What makes you say that?”
“The suit he’s wearing? I know the designer—costs about twenty-five thousand itself. And his watch? There were only ever three made in the entire world.”
Then no, Iris suspected the man being there at the same cafe as the governor was no coincidence. But if he’d wanted to meet with him, why hadn’t he? There had been ample opportunity before Spader’s mistress had arrived.
“A guy like that always leaves a trail somewhere.”
When men had that sort of money to blow, they spent a lot of it, and never on just clothes. Hotel rooms, cars, houses, everything of the sort.
“Not this one,” he responded with some surprise in his voice. “Trust me when I say for all that I found on him, you’d be better off just going straight up to him and asking for his name. You won’t find anything on the dark web.”
Which wasn’t doing her any good. What was the likelihood she’d stumble across him again? For all she knew, this could have been a one-off thing, or worse, the mysterious man had met up with the governor while she had been more concerned with Synek.
Sighing, she accepted she wouldn’t ever find answers on him. “Thanks for trying.”
“Call me when you need me.”
Iris hung up.
Back to the governor then.
She grabbed the picture of the mystery man and carried it over to her wall. Picking up a thumbtack, she stuck it next to the surveillance shots she had on others.
As she stepped back, she was still pondering it and the rest of the photos when the doorbell rang, drawing her attention from the wall.
Rarely did she have neighbors come around, especially in this building, and never when she hadn’t explicitly invited them.
Staying light on her feet, Iris placed the standing curtain back in front of the wall to block the view of her work before she carefully moved over to her desk and slid the top drawer open, quietly pulling her gun out.
She held it at her back as she walked toward the door, keeping her finger off the trigger even as she kicked the hammer back with a press of her thumb.
“Who is it?”
“Winter!” someone called back, their voice high and oddly … friendly.
Iris peeked through the peephole, but only saw the top of two silver-colored buns of someone’s hair, but whoever it was, they seemed to be alone. Probably looking for a different apartment.
Wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
“Who are you looking for?” Iris asked as she eased the door open.
But her question hung in the air unanswered as the door swung open harder and a man wearing a grisly sort of mask pointed an assault rifle at her face. She might have tried to take him on had the three others with him not simultaneously moved and quickly outnumbered her.
“Don’t worry,” the girl, Winter, said from behind them, her face serene. “We just want to talk.”
Iris stared down the men with guns, wondering if the fear skating through her was because of the guns they held or the masks they wore. “Yeah? Doesn’t look that way from where I’m standing.”
With the exception of Synek, she’d never started a conversation with someone using weapons.
“A bit unorthodox, granted, but it’s best not to take chances, ya know?” Winter said as she shut the door.
Iris found it odd that though the four in front of her were the ones with guns, Winter was doing all the talking.
The one in front gestured for her to sit. Seeing no other choice, Iris complied. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“Considering how hard it was to find you, I feel like I should be asking you that,” Winter said as she stepped farther into her apartment, partia
lly hidden behind the wall of testosterone.
Were they there to intimidate her or protect Winter?
“Anyway, the who isn’t really important. The why is a little more complicated.”
Iris could hear her searching through her things over by her desk, then the sound of her laptop being opened. After, she reached for the stack of memory cards Iris had yet to go through.
“You can’t take those!”
She was almost out of her chair, but a gloved hand landed hard on her shoulder, shoving her back down none too gently.
“I’m only interested in one thing in particular. Once I have it, you’re free to go back to whatever you were doing before we showed up.”
That clicked something on in her brain. “This is about that man, isn’t it? The one who was watching the governor.”
What were the odds that someone was seeking her out within a day of her search for him?
Winter laughed, actually laughed. “He gets a bit paranoid when his picture is being circulated.”
Jesus, did he have some sort of alert set up? “Who is he?”
“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer that.” She seemed to consider it a moment as she typed in a code on her laptop. “I guess I’d want to know too, though … They call him the Kingmaker.”
The what? “What kind of name is that?”
She sounded surprised by the question. “You haven’t heard of him?”
“Should I have?”
“He’s gonna love that,” she mumbled to herself though Iris heard her fine. “Maybe it’s better if you haven’t.”
Something about the girl seemed oddly … familiar, but there were plenty of girls with silver hair within a mile of her apartment.
“Do you only have digital copies?” Winter asked, standing behind the desk, even as Iris could hear her walking.
Figuring it was better to just get it over with, Iris shook her head, though the girl couldn’t see her. “On the wall.”
“See? Easy enough, right? And they thought you—”
Winter cut off abruptly, like the air had been stolen from her lungs. Whatever she’d been about to say was forgotten as she moved the curtain out of the way. On this, though, Iris wasn’t going to bend.
She refused to discuss the governor or why she had his picture on her wall.
But it wasn’t the governor’s picture she carried over as she shouldered past the masked men until she was standing in front of her.
It was the picture of Synek.
Iris looked at it a second before lifting her gaze to finally see who was in her apartment, then promptly did a double take. “You look just like her,” Iris muttered, unable to help herself.
Or was it the other way around?
Rosalie hadn’t always had silver hair, or dressed like she still had one foot firmly in the 90’s. Th change had come about rather recently.
Was it because of this girl that she had changed so much?
And as the puzzle pieces began to click in her brain, she remembered how disoriented Synek had looked as the drugs kicked in and he was stumbling over his feet. He’d looked up at Rosalie and had whispered something—something that hadn’t made sense at the time but now did.
“Winter,” he’d said.
He thought he’d been seeing this girl in front of him.
“Why do you have his picture?” Winter asked, and all traces of good humor were gone from her voice as she stared at Iris.
Whoever she was to Synek, it was clear she cared about him.
Regardless, Iris kept her mouth shut.
You never betray the Wraiths.
As tiny as she was, that didn’t seem to matter to Winter as she reached without looking for the handgun holstered at the biggest of the four’s waist and aimed it at Iris’s head.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’ll ask you again. It was you at the Hall, right? You were the one he was talking to, which means you were the last one to see him. Tell me what happened, or I will shoot you.”
She meant every word of that, Iris knew, but if it was a choice between her and Rosalie and the Wraiths, she knew who the bigger threat was.
“Even if I could,” Iris said, feeling everyone’s attention come to her, “it wouldn’t matter. He’ll die before they ever let him go again.”
It wasn’t anger that lit up Winter’s features—it was sadness. A sadness so profound Iris didn’t quite understand it. How could she feel sorry for a man like him with everything he’d done?
One of the four men shifted, his body angled toward Winter. Iris wasn’t sure whether it was because she had tears in her eyes, or because her hands were now shaking that he reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe.
They wanted to take her alive …
Iris scrambled backward, though there was nowhere to go, but heavy hands quickly grabbed hold of her, and no matter how she struggled, she couldn’t get free.
The sharp sting of the needle penetrating her arm made her grit her teeth against the pain, but as quickly as it came, it faded.
Just as the rest of the room did.
*
Cold.
It was the first thing that registered in Iris’s mind as she woke up, a headache pounding behind her right eye and her mouth as dry as a desert. Flashbacks of the night came rushing back, and despite the pain she was in, she still struggled to sit up.
Blinking to clear her blurry vision, the shape in front of her started to shift and sharpen until it formed a man.
He straddled a backward facing chair, dangling a mask from his left hand. He still wore the gear he’d been in earlier, but without his mask, he looked less like an assassin, but still looked as if he could kill her without blinking.
“Good,” he said, “you’re awake.”
When she looked from his mask back to his face, he did the same before shrugging. “Yeah, I rarely take it off, but special circumstances and all.”
He scratched at his beard, the slight angle of his jaw allowing her to see the X tattooed on the side of his neck.
“Like I told your friend, I can’t help you find him.”
“Can’t or won’t, because your answer will determine how I respond.”
“Either way, you leave disappointed. I doubt that means anything good for me.”
“Look, I really couldn’t care less about the unstable bastard, but you see, Winter does. And since she does, my brother does, so that means it’s my duty to get an answer for him. By any means necessary.”
“Good luck with that,” Iris replied, summoning as much bravado as she could.
She had never been tortured and doubted she could be as strong as Synek was in the face of it.
The man seemed to study her for a long minute without speaking. “First question I always ask. Are they worth dying for?”
She knew who he meant, though she didn’t offer a response.
“But before you answer, think about that for a second. Because I’m not just going to put a bullet in your head. You’re not gonna go peacefully. It’s going to be slow and more painful than you could even imagine. Are the people you’re protecting worth all that?”
“No, the question would be whether my life is worth his, because you have to understand something. Whoever the fuck you are, they’re still going to kill Synek. Whether that’s today or tomorrow, it’s going to happen. If anyone tries to stand in the way of that, they’ll kill him sooner, then kill whoever steps out of line. I can’t risk that.”
“For who?”
“The Wraiths,” she finally answered.
He smiled, flashing his silver-capped canine. “Easy enough, no?”
The door swung open in a flurry of motion that made them look back. Winter came in, visibly more composed than she had been earlier. Another man was with her—the biggest of the four who had been in Iris’s apartment.
The one who’d been interrogating her looked from the other man to Winter before shifting off the chair and offering it to her. The
n both he—and the brother he must have meant—flanked her on either side.
“We might have gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m Winter, these two are half of the Wild Bunch, and you’re Iris Adler.”
The man to the left had planned to physically harm her, or maybe it had been merely a diversion until Winter could finish digging into her life.
Winter knowing her name didn’t bother her as much as her knowing her last name. She made it a point never to mention it to anyone. Though the Adler name wasn’t as well-known as it had been years ago when it had been in nearly every paper in the state, it only took one person’s curiosity to ruin the anonymity she’d built for herself.
“You’re a hacker,” Iris guessed.
“I’m the hacker. A little bit of aging software to guess your age, then search through birth certificates from that year. It took a while, but I found you. Born at St. Mary’s, right?”
What did she know?
What did she know?
“I don’t believe in torture, and from what I’ve read up on you, I don’t think it’ll be necessary. Do you want to know why?”
“Knock yourself out.”
“I have something you want.”
A humorless laugh escaped her as Iris shifted in her chair, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “I doubt that.”
“Governor Michael Spader. Born June 22, 1961. Elected to office in 2012. Up for reelection this year.”
Her heart tripped over itself. “A search on Google could get you all that.”
“His first mistress was a woman named Melody Martin. She was seventeen when they first started dating—eighteen when he got her pregnant and forced her to abort the baby.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that,” Iris whispered, even as her mind seized on the details. No amount of research had gotten her anything remotely close to what Winter was sharing.
“I don’t know what your interest is in him, but I will give you everything I have”—she held up a memory stick—“if you give me a location.”
She might as well have been holding up her weight in gold.
Iris couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than that flash drive in her hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off it even as she said, “You don’t understand what they do to people who cross them. You don’t know what she will do.”
Den of Mercenaries: Volume Two Page 32