“Well, that’s bullshit,” Iris mumbled with a smile, reaching up to clasp the side of Synek’s neck as he leaned over the back of the couch to kiss the top of her head.
“Bullshit or not, it’s enough to get people talking.”
His tone made her look back up at him. “Is this a bad thing?”
He stared at the screen, an uneasy expression on his face. “This wasn’t our doing.”
“Canina, do you think?”
Iris tried to think of who else could possibly want to see the governor fall, but considering she had no idea the scope of his reach and the things he’d done over his lengthy career, that list could be infinite.
“Possibly,” he hedged, coming around to sit beside her. “Let’s go ask her.”
*
He was too fucking happy about this.
From the moment he’d made her get dressed and come with him, Iris knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he had planned. Not because of Canina but because of him.
Iris didn’t bother to hide her grimace. “I have no doubt you can handle this one,” she said with a pat on his back.
“She could be dangerous,” Synek said with all the conviction in the world as if he actually believed what he was saying.
“You’re more dangerous.”
His grin spread wider. “It’ll be fun.”
“Right, because the highlight of my night is watching the governor’s mistress eye fuck you more than I do,” Iris responded dryly, climbing out of the car after him just in time to see the way he was fighting not to laugh. It was a good look on him.
“Are you jealous?”
No. Maybe. Yes, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of getting that answer out of her. “Doesn’t matter.”
“No?”
“Not when you’re coming home with me,” she answered, giving him a cheery smile while casually walking past him to the stairs to get to the second-floor walk-up.
Canina wasn’t home, that much Iris could guess before Synek made quick work of picking the lock and letting them inside. She was expecting some sort of lavish apartment only seen in movies or magazines, but to her surprise as she ventured through the space trying to find anything of value, everything was rather … understated.
And more curious, had she not already known that McDaniel lived here, she would have thought the apartment belonged to someone else. The woman she had met at the fundraiser had been flashy and dripping in jewels, wearing a designer dress worth thousands. Yet the only thing memorable about her apartment was the piece of artwork hanging on the wall.
Iris stopped in front of it, her gaze discerning.
It was a painting of a snake eating its tail, the scales done in surprisingly realistic fashion. It appeared black at first glance, but as she shifted, she could just see a hint of fluorescent green reflecting off the paint. Understated but bold, it didn’t fit her idea of who McDaniel was supposed to be.
Synek was already in the lone bedroom, hunting through whatever he could find that might be of some help, but once she walked into the room behind him, she could already tell there would be even less to find in here than there had been out in the living room.
“There’s nothing here,” she said to his back. “If anything, it’s a little too clean.”
Even her hotel room was more cluttered than this after she had been there for more than a week. This was where Canina lived?
“Maybe this is just where they—”
Synek always heard even the most minute of sounds, which was how in the middle of her sentence, she found his hand over her mouth, his eyes telling her to stay silent. Iris didn’t dare move, not wanting to risk them getting caught.
But easily, as if he were only moving himself, he shifted and walked them both into a shadowed corner behind the door just as someone entered the apartment in a flurry of motion. Heels clicking on the floor. An exasperated feminine sigh.
McDaniel was home.
It was hard to see what she was doing from Iris’s position, but through the crack where the door was still open, she could just see the other woman pluck a cell phone from her bag and dial a number, but before she could speak a word, Synek exploded out of the room, startling the woman and sending her phone clattering to the floor.
He was too quick for her to get away or even to fight, and whether it was because he looked as if he knew what he was doing, she went along with what he told her, going to sit in the chair, her hands resting on her knees.
“Tell me, yeah? Why would anyone suspect you’re having an affair with the good governor? D’you leak it to the paps?”
“I had no reason to,” Canina said with a shake of her head.
She looked nervous, even a little scared, but her gaze was steady.
“I loved him,” she continued.
“You used him,” Iris cut in with a grimace. “There’s a difference.”
Unlike with Synek, Canina didn’t try to amp up her innocence. There was something a little too calculated about it now.
“I don’t think it’s going to matter very much now,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she regarded Iris, and when she did, Iris could just see what looked like a tattoo of a snake on her collarbone. “This is just the beginning.”
The beginning of what?
Chapter 32
The sound of splintering ceramic was punctuated by the Kingmaker’s curse of frustration. His gaze finally focused on something other than the news reporter who was reporting the new story with too much excitement in her eyes.
No, the woman was entirely too eager, ready to spill everything she had possibly learned on the developing story.
Why wouldn’t she?
There was nothing anyone loved more than a scandal, especially one imbibed in politics where a current sitting governor was resigning from his seat.
Nearly fifteen hours after the first reports were featured on every station, something new came.
Something damning.
Something the Kingmaker obviously hadn’t seen coming.
Ratings would be astronomical, and if she was able to get even the smallest bit of information before her competitors, there would undoubtedly be a raise in her future.
The reporter didn’t realize that with every word out of her mouth, she was sending a man into a deeper rage that might end with her being murdered.
“Turn. It. Off.”
Synek didn’t look to see who rushed to obey. His gaze remained firmly fixed on his handler, his arms folded across his chest as he waited for the inevitable.
This should not have happened.
The plan was to slowly destroy Spader’s world piece by piece until he would have no choice but to give in to what the Kingmaker would inevitably demand of him, but it was too late for that now. There was only so much the Kingmaker could fix, and as far as this news had traveled over the span of twenty minutes, even someone as powerful as him could only do so much.
The power he had once held in his government wouldn’t matter now that he had resigned.
Which meant, before long, his clearance would be stripped away and his access to private information would be unreachable.
They were out of time.
“There was fuck all in that house of his.” Synek spoke up, mindful of the crazed look in his handler’s eyes as their gazes met. He knew that expression well—it was one he had seen one too many times in the mirror. “If there’s something in his office worth finding, it would probably be a good idea to go for it now.”
Otherwise, it would be lost to them once his office was packed away and his clearance was stripped. Though, that was only a guess. There was never any true guarantee of when things would move around. For all he knew, the governor’s office had already been cleared out, but he wasn’t quite ready to concede just yet.
He had too much on the line.
Red nodded, as if thinking the same. “What do you want us to do?”
Just as he had seemed to be on the razor’s ed
ge of his sanity, the Kingmaker calmed considerably, but for all the attention he paid them now, they might as well have no longer been in the room.
It was Nix who ultimately gave them their order, a curious frown on his face as he glanced at his brother. “Go to the governor’s office and secure what you can. Proceed carefully and stay below radar. At this point, we have no idea who’s watching and waiting—on either side.”
No one might have put a voice to the thought, but Synek knew they were all thinking the same thing.
Even though she had yet to show her face, Belladonna was behind all of this.
He should have been able to find comfort in the knowledge. When his enemy wasn’t a mystery, that made the job easier, but knowing she was out there, manipulating them with the same ease as the man in front of him …
This enemy was worse.
*
Chewing on her bottom lip, Iris tried to remember what her life was like back when it had been simple and the only thing she gave much thought to was what color Converse she would wear to school.
Those were the better days, when her only worries were fitting in at school and looking forward to the new pair of shoes she received if she got good grades on her report card.
Now, she was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, unable to look away from the train wreck happening right before her eyes. Every channel, no matter where she turned, reported the same thing.
Governor Michael Spader is resigning from office, effective immediately, after a number of scandalous photos depicting him and a mystery woman were delivered to various news stations across the city …
Iris didn’t know what made her even look up at the TV as she had come out of the bathroom, squeezing the wetness from her hair with a towel, but whatever had prompted her, she hadn’t been able to look away once she saw Spader’s picture.
Just seeing the signature smirking picture of him that was used for all the press releases felt like a gut punch, but the feeling had faded to confusion when the video of him started playing next.
Within seconds, she’d had the remote in her hand and the volume turned up, but he had already started speaking before she could hear anything.
The next words out of his mouth, however, clarified everything she was seeing.
“The pictures being shown of me with that young woman are not what they seem.”
She hadn’t been able to help the little smile on her face as he stumbled his way through an explanation, not nearly as quick on his feet as he should have been, considering the kind of man he was.
Someone, and she suspected that someone was not the Kingmaker or the Den, had caught him off guard.
Belladonna, she thought suddenly.
She didn’t know how or even when, but she knew that the woman in white was responsible for this.
Her phone chirped then, drowning out another recap of the governor’s confession. She reached for it, not bothering to even look at the screen before answering, already knowing who would be on the other end.
“Yeah,” she said as the call connected, “I’m watching it now.”
“But you don’t sound upset,” Synek returned, sounding as if he was walking.
“I don’t see what choice I have.”
The gut reaction at seeing the governor’s face all over the news had filled her with dread but seeing him lose everything over the course of a few minutes was worse. She didn’t want to give him the chance to go into hiding and practically disappear until the storm blew over.
Now was her time.
If she panicked, she would fail, and she couldn’t risk that.
“I trust you,” she said, finally managing to turn her gaze from the TV.
Unless he said something was wrong or there was a need to worry, she wouldn’t. She believed in him and everything he said he could do.
Synek seemed to hesitate once she said that, but ultimately, he said, “I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“I’m going to send you an address, and I want you to go and stay there until I come for you.”
“Where?” she asked, already getting to her feet.
“It’s a new facility. One the Kingmaker has been … saving.”
The way he stumbled over saying that, she was sure that wherever he was sending her had been built, or at least designed, with one person on the Kingmaker’s mind.
“I’ll get there within the hour, but what about you?”
“Soon,” he promised. “Someone has to grab the governor.” She could nearly hear the smile in his voice as he added, “Might as well be me.”
“Syn—”
“Don’t worry,” he said before she could finish. “I’ll make sure I bring him back.”
“Make sure you bring you back,” she told him with a shake of her head even though he couldn’t see her.
Because even as good as he thought he was, there was still too much they didn’t know. Too much room for human error.
Iris might have been willing to risk many things when it came to her vendetta, but he wasn’t among them.
*
Breach work had never been his specialty.
Not when Synek knew in the worst of ways how to make a person sing with a shallow cut to a very particular place on their body.
But that didn’t mean his heart wasn’t thumping a calming cadence in his chest as he rode in the back of the black panel van, his rifle pointed at the floor, his gaze unfocused. He had other things on his mind rather than the fact he was out of practice when it came to this.
He didn’t have a clue what he would find once he reached the governor’s estate, but whatever was there, he would have to be ready for it. Not because his life was on the line, but because he had to make sure the governor was brought in.
Whatever deal or meeting the Kingmaker needed to have with him would happen as instructed, but before Spader’s time was up with the Den, he would get that confession by any means necessary.
“Watch yourself out there, lads,” Celt said as he hopped off the back of the van before they did the same.
Like they had done more than a dozen times before, they infiltrated, Winter helping them with the security and schematics from her remote location.
Through the trees and up the path, they entered the back doors, taking out the minuscule security that guarded the ground floor.
It was quieter than Synek was expecting. Considering everything, he had suspected more than a slew of people to be around the governor’s estate, trying to get a statement from him, or a picture even.
But as far as he could see, the governor wasn’t there, and neither was his wife.
Red and Celt each broke off to venture down different hallways while Synek and Skorpion took the stairs to the highest floor.
Only one door at the very end was closed, guarded by a man who startled too easily and died unprepared.
Synek gestured to the door, meeting Skorpion’s gaze.
There was always that moment of suspended time when Synek wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him on the other side of the door, but with his ears ringing and adrenaline coursing through him, he didn’t care about any threat.
He only cared about ending this.
The door crashed open, the wood splintering where Skorpion had nearly put his foot through it. As Synek rushed inside, instinct making him look at the desk where he could only see the high back of the chair and not the person sitting in it, he wasn’t ready for what he found on the other side.
He had hardly taken a full step into the room before the chair spun and all he saw was bare legs before his gaze lifted to the face they belonged to.
“Oops.”
Her smile was too easy for him to think that she hadn’t known they were coming and this moment wasn’t by design. Any doubt she was behind Spader’s early retirement was now gone.
“Skorpion, always a pleasure. Syn, I’m afraid we haven’t been properly introduced.”
“A bit l
ate for that, innit? You had me tortured.”
“Things are rarely ever what they seem,” she said with a dainty shrug. “It looks to me as if I helped eliminate a problem for you.”
Was that how she saw it? Did she think she had done him some sort of favor?
“But I imagine that doesn’t matter now,” she said with a wave of her hand as she stood and held her wrists out. When they all just looked at her, she said, “I’d prefer not to be taken forcefully, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Synek was the first to move, taking out the zip ties he usually carried with him for other work. She didn’t fight him as he fastened them to her wrists, nor did she give him any trouble at all.
Fucking strange.
“And if you’re looking for the governor, I’m afraid he’s stepped out at the moment. If you want to catch him, I suggest you get to him before his plane takes off. I can’t imagine you’ll find him after where he’s going.”
Red was the one to make the call and gave the Wild Bunch the location Belladonna seemed all too eager to provide.
Even as he led her out of the governor’s mansion and placed her in the back of the van, he couldn’t help but think this, having her, was a mistake.
He just didn’t know why yet.
*
Iris had gotten used to the compound and its prison-like appearance, but this place, where Synek had sent her to, far exceeded that one in technology.
This one was made of reinforced glass and steel, and whereas the last had a handful of armed guards around, there was far more security here than she expected.
“Safe to say he’s been planning this for a while,” Iris remarked to herself as she walked around.
She understood why—the very idea of the Den was supposed to be a place that was untouchable. Somewhere his enemies shouldn’t be able to get their hands on him.
Den of Mercenaries: Volume Two Page 59