His was a promise he would keep, Iris thought as she touched her palm to the glass. She just hadn’t been able to keep hers.
*
It had been two weeks since Belladonna had left the Kingmaker’s organization in shambles. Two weeks since she had ruined any chance Iris had of getting the one thing she wanted in the world, and in that two weeks, Iris had yet to begin to process everything that had happened.
The last thing she expected to see when she walked out of the prison toward her car was the white Rolls Royce and the woman standing next to it.
She couldn’t be fucking serious …
But Iris was all out of anger. She hardly felt anything at all. Instead, she slid her hood over her head, turned down the opposite street, and started to walk back to her hotel.
“If I could have a word, Miss Adler.”
“You can’t.”
And had she not thought she saw a hint of someone sitting across from the woman, she might have been inclined to cause the woman bodily harm.
Still did.
“I can understand you might be cross—”
“Are you serious?” Iris asked, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk as the Rolls Royce slowed to a stop. “The two of you destroy lives for a living and think because you throw money at the problem, that’s it? It’s all forgiven? Whatever stupid fucking ideology you have that makes you think you’re better than he is, clue the fuck in, you’re not.”
They were just two different shades of the same fucked up nature.
Iris was done with both.
If anything Iris had said offended Belladonna, she didn’t show it. Instead, she climbed out of the car entirely and crossed the short distance until they were eye to eye.
“Before Spader died, I had a contingency plan set in place, and even with the infinite number of variable outcomes, I always intended to get your father out of prison.”
“Right, because you care so much?”
“Because it’s not about you,” Belladonna said on an exasperated breath. “I have stated very clearly that I had no intention of harming you or the mercenaries. It’s about him and always has been.”
Iris was inclined to believe that the other woman thought that was true. That she actually believed the only person harmed in her plots was the Kingmaker. But she was wrong.
In their quest to hurt each other, they didn’t see the casualties around them.
“What do you want?” Iris asked, too tired to drag this on any longer. She knew the way the woman worked, just as she knew how the Kingmaker made his deals.
They dangled what you wanted most in front of you to get what they wanted in return.
“I want to give you what you want,” Belladonna answered, her gaze unwavering. “Your father’s freedom.”
Right. “For what price?”
Belladonna glanced down at her watch, expression shifting to unease. “Perhaps we can discuss this at my office?”
Iris wasn’t aware she even had one, considering her penchant of just appearing places. “Why would I want to do that?”
Belladonna gestured to the door. “Because at this point, you don’t have any other options.”
And hope … hope was a dangerous thing.
Hope had her believing there was still a chance, despite everything that had happened. Hope had her sliding into the back of the Rolls Royce without so much as a second thought.
But she also knew only two results were possible at the other end of that hope, and if she didn’t get the one she wanted, Iris fully intended to put an end to that hope once and for all.
*
She was expecting some English villa tucked into the countryside. That they would spend at least twenty minutes driving through trees and brush to reach Belladonna’s secluded hideaway.
Here was a woman who had effectively evaded the Kingmaker for years and someone who had managed to destroy one of his facilities and jeopardize his entire organization, yet she wasn’t hiding.
Her office was right in the middle of Manhattan.
Either the woman was extremely good at covering her tracks, or the Kingmaker was bad at what he did—Iris leaned toward the former.
As the driver pulled the car around the building, a seamlessly built garage door lifted. Once they drove through, darkness engulfed them as it came back down again. A few moments later, a row of lights turned on one by one, revealing an underground garage.
Iris stepped out of the car after Belladonna, staying a couple of steps behind her as they approached an elevator where the woman had to press her hand against a scanner before the doors opened and they stepped inside.
Iris stood in the corner of the elevator, her arms folded across her chest as she watched the numbers flitting across the monitor with each floor they passed. She didn’t know what to expect once the doors opened, but once they did and the first thing she saw was a sea of white furniture and colorful dresses, she did her best not to look surprised.
Her office wasn’t dark and foreboding like the Kingmaker’s. It looked inviting and expertly decorated, and not at all like the office of a criminal mastermind.
“My office is through here,” Belladonna stated as they turned down a hallway, away from the women milling around the office.
“Do they all work for you?” Iris asked, glancing back before they disappeared out of view.
“Essentially, yes, though none of them work directly under me.”
“Because they’re expendable?” she asked.
Belladonna paused as they reached another biometric lock. “Because the moment someone is associated with me, their lives are in danger. Contrary to what you might think of me, Iris, I do have a conscience.”
“Just not when it comes to the Kingmaker.”
Her expression grew pinched even as she rested her hand on her stomach. “Well, he stole mine from me.”
Before she could question what that meant, Iris watched as she unlocked the door and stepped inside, gesturing for her to follow.
She had only just entered the room when the sound of furniture crashing made her jump.
“He’s unstable! Someone needs to sedate him!”
“Then fucking SEDATE him!”
The ‘he’ in question was the man Synek had called the Jackal. He was tall—taller than Synek even—with dark hair, wild blue eyes, and a body that made it clear he was the weapon.
Back at the Den, Iris had only seen a killing machine. Someone as well trained as the mercenaries, as ruthless as the Wraiths, and as fearless as the Wild Bunch. Now, the man was coated in sweat, his chest heaving with every breath he took, and if the man nearest him wasn’t careful, he wouldn’t live long enough to jab him with the needle he held.
“Don’t touch him.”
With the way the men jumped away from the Jackal, Belladonna might as well have screamed the remark. It was clear, however, that she didn’t think of him as just a soldier or a man who worked to do her bidding.
There was genuine concern in her voice.
More surprisingly, as soon as he heard her voice, he calmed considerably, his gaze seeking her out, but the pain there made Iris hurt for him even as she hated him. She didn’t care very much that he had nearly killed the Kingmaker, but she did care that he was responsible for taking Grimm and nearly killing half the mercenaries at the Den.
She wasn’t inclined to forget that, even with her anger toward them.
“He … he said my name,” the Jackal said slowly, in thickly accented English, his voice gritty and rough as if he didn’t speak very often.
“Who?” Belladonna asked, her voice soft. Caring. As if she were speaking to a scared child instead of a man who had been hunted by the Den for years. “Who said your name?”
The Jackal shook his head hard, a pained expression crossing his face as he glanced down at his shoulder where an ugly wound was still bleeding. But he seemed less concerned with the wound as opposed to trying to answer her question.
“He … they all did
,” he said, looking down at his hands as if they might be able to provide him with some answer.
Belladonna said something to him then, the translation lost on Iris as she spoke in what Iris thought had to be Romanian. Which made sense, considering who he was.
But Iris was sure, whatever she did say, she probably wouldn’t have liked it.
“They need to repair your arm,” Belladonna said, switching back to English. “Will you let them? For me?”
It was clear the Jackal didn’t want the men anywhere near him, but reluctantly, he nodded once.
“Paulina, could you have Eros come in to oversee them?”
At the mention of whoever’s name that was, she could see the tension easing in practically everyone in the room. Perhaps, whoever it was, had a way of keeping the Jackal under control.
Once she had the answer she wanted, she continued through the room, and though Iris hardly had any idea what was coming next, she dutifully followed.
Finally, as they reached a set of ornate doors with a symbol in gold in the very center of them—a snake eating itself—Belladonna walked her inside her actual office.
Her desk looked like white marble with steel legs and no laptop or computer that she could see. Blue roses sat in a white pitcher near the window, and etched into the wall, just above where Belladonna’s head would be if she was sitting, was one word.
Legend.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” Belladonna asked, though it was pretty clear she knew exactly what. It was written all over her face.
“He doesn’t know his own name?”
His voice held genuine confusion as if his name had been just as much a mystery as the men who had used it.
“I doubt he is truly any concern of yours.”
“He’s not really.”
“Then why are you—”
“I’m trying to understand. You say your beef is with the Kingmaker, but you had my father put in prison, Syn’s friends are missing, and you trained a man to forget himself and fight his own brothers. I’m trying to figure out what makes you so different from the man you hate so much.”
Iris didn’t know why she was trying to goad her—to see her finally react. Maybe it was because that was who the Kingmaker was. A man who reacted to even the slightest provocation. She wanted to see for herself that they were the same. She needed an excuse.
Her weapons had been left back in the hotel room since today was visitation day, and she had a feeling Belladonna was aware of that fact, but she didn’t need weapons. She only needed opportunity.
Belladonna stared at her a long while, dark hair falling over her shoulder as she leaned forward. “It’s easy to make monsters out of men when you only see what’s right in front of you.”
“I—”
“But it’s not my concern whether you like what I have done or not,” Belladonna said, and it was clear from the way she had shut down that she wasn’t as unfeeling as Iris had first believed.
Seeing the Jackal hurt had affected her.
“You either want what I can give you, or you don’t. The choice, as always, is yours.”
“How do I know?” Iris asked, folding her arms across her chest. “How do I know that you can really free him? Someone else made the same promise to me.”
Someone she had trusted far more than she trusted Belladonna … even as a small part of her knew that some things were out of his control. That the blame couldn’t be squarely placed at his feet.
Belladonna reached into her desk, pulling out a slim, silver remote before pointing it at the screen behind Iris’s head. She turned, ever so slightly, to glance at it, but spun completely around when she saw the man depicted on the screen.
Michael Spader.
His eyes were clear, his chin tilted up just a fraction, managing to look as condescending in the recorded video as he did in real life. Seeing this tape, she could almost feel that same disgust she’d always felt when she was forced to look at him before she remembered that this was a recording.
Spader wouldn’t wear this expression anymore now that he was dead.
“My name is Michael Spader, and of a sound mind and healthy body, I confess to my crimes.”
Her legs, at that moment, felt like jelly, and she had no choice but to sink down into the chair behind her and watch.
The former governor didn’t confess to what she just knew about; he confessed to things she didn’t.
Murder.
Money laundering.
Drugs.
Weapons.
Everything. He confessed to everything.
But it wasn’t until he said her father’s name that Iris’s hands fisted in her lap. Her heart was thundering in her ears, nearly drowning out everything the man was saying, but she’d heard enough.
Enough to know that this tape was everything she needed to finish what she started.
And enough to know that Belladonna was a lot smarter than she had given her credit for.
“You knew he would kill him,” Iris said flatly once the tape clicked off and she turned back to face Belladonna. “You had already accounted for it.”
Belladonna didn’t respond immediately, but once she did, she shrugged as if what she had done was nothing earth shattering at all. “Spend enough time with a man and he’ll tell you all his secrets without ever opening his mouth.”
“Then that means this was all by design, right?” Iris asked. “You helping the Wraiths, getting me here … you planned all this.”
“My mother always told me there’s only six degrees of separation between one person and the next. If you find all six, you’ll have everything you need.”
Iris thought of the Kingmaker and his mercenaries. Of how they operated and how close they all were.
“So what is it?” Iris asked. “What do you want from me?”
“Tell me, what would you do to save your father?”
Anything sat at the tip of her tongue, just needing to be voiced, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “I won’t betray Synek. That’s … it’s just not going to happen.”
She couldn’t.
Belladonna leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk in front of her as she pinned Iris with a stare. “Are you willing to die for him?”
*
Synek parked and killed the engine, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he walked the short distance around the side of the building until he reached the maintenance lift. Of all the mercenaries in the Den, no one was as paranoid about their security as Celt was. The Irishman took extreme measures to make sure no one could breach his home, and even if they did, they would learn to regret it. He had hardwired each of the elevators inside his loft with a kill switch and should someone unauthorized get on one, he could drop the lift and kill anyone inside.
He was extreme that way.
Synek stood in front of the security camera built into the keypad of the door and rang the bell, making sure his face was clearly seen. Not even a minute later, a buzzer went off and the gate lifted, allowing him entry. No matter how many times he rode this very elevator up to the main floor, a part of him was always on edge until the car stopped and he could walk off.
It wasn’t often he put his life in another man’s hands.
Moments later, the lift stopped, and he could see the vague outline of someone standing on the other side before the gate was lifted and he got his first look at Celt’s bruised face. But while he might have looked like the one who had gotten the shite kicked out of him, Celt still had the audacity to look him over as if he was roadkill.
“You look like shite,” he mumbled in that ever-familiar Irish lilt, stepping aside to let Synek pass.
Even with a crutch under one arm and a boot on his right leg, he still held a Glock in his left hand.
They were who they were.
Synek scratched at his facial hair before mumbling an annoyed, “Fuck off,” before slipping into the loft.
It wasn’t often, e
specially in recent years, that he came to visit Celt’s place on the outskirts of Brooklyn. While he used to open the doors of his loft and let any one of them stay a while until they were on their way, that had changed when he’d found his current wife who was circling around the living room with the same look of worry Iris wore when she was nervous.
From what he could see, Red was stretched out on an aged brown leather sofa, though he wasn’t as bruised as Celt, and the woman Synek thought was his wife was seated beside him, both of her hands clasped around his. And on the other side of them was a blond man Synek had only ever met once in his life—back when they extracted him from a remote location in Albania.
“Where the fuck have you lot been?” Synek asked, glad that, at least for the time being, he could focus on something other than the complete shit show that was his life.
Celt blew out a breath as he limped past, looking as disgruntled as Synek felt. “Fucking Jackal. Romanian bastard can throw a punch.”
Yeah, Synek knew the sentiment well. “Is that why you look like you’ve been ’round the bend, mate? ’Cause I have to say, you look like shite warmed over.”
The blond on the couch snorted out a laugh, drawing Synek’s attention to him. It was instinct to scan over the vibrant tattoos covering nearly every inch of his skin for any affiliations, but from what he could see, the man just liked his ink. Just above the V-neck of his shirt, a tiger’s head poked out.
“What’s he here for?” Synek asked with a jerk of his thumb in the man’s direction.
“He’s here for guard duty,” the man answered, still smiling, though there was an edge to it now—as though waiting for a challenge and ready to respond to it.
Huh. “Couldn’t’ve called one of your own?” Synek asked, posing the question to Celt, though he didn’t take his eyes off the man.
“Better question is who the fuck are you?” the man asked before cracking his knuckles.
“Luka, reel yourself in.” Red sighed from the couch, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’d tell you both to go play with knives, but you’d probably enjoy it too much.”
The Albanian looked back at Synek, seeming to size him up in a glance. And before he even realized what the other man was doing, he pulled a knife from somewhere on his body and launched it across the room.
Den of Mercenaries: Volume Two Page 68