“I believed once that love conquered all. He made me believe that. So much so that I gave up everything that was me for him. I didn’t care about any of that anyway. Not the family business, not my name, none of it. I love … loved him,” she hastily corrected, a quiver in her voice. “Uilleam … he forgot, I think, that power is finite. That it is something gained and lost, but love … love is more than that. Once upon a time, he taught me what love was, how beautiful it could be. And after I found out I was …” She cut herself off there, her breath catching.
Iris blinked, looking at her, and found tears in the woman’s eyes.
Genuine sorrow that couldn’t be faked.
“Uilleam forgot what love was in his quest to be who he is now. I only tend to remind him because I want him to feel what I felt all these years ago.” Belladonna blew out a breath, seeming to rein in her emotions. “But that’s ancient history. Let’s focus on tomorrow. I’ll be sending a man to retrieve you at the designated time. Be ready.”
The conversation was over.
Iris nodded before opening the door and stepping out. “One last question.”
“Yes?” Belladonna called, looking in her direction.
“Will it hurt?”
Another small smile. “I have it on very good authority that Siris is an excellent shot, but it won’t hurt for long.”
Iris nodded once and stepped away to close the door.
There was no turning back now.
There was just the end.
*
24 hours later …
Snow might have fallen in thick flakes, but nothing could make this day seem any colder than where he sat now.
Synek sat in silence, staring down at his hands. No matter how he tried to calm himself, how he needed to trust what little Iris had told him before she disappeared again, this time, he hadn’t been able to find her as easily. As far as Winter could find, Iris might as well have dropped off the face of the earth.
Today wasn’t like others inside the four walls of the Den safe house. They weren’t smiling and laughing—joking about what was to come.
There was a clear divide in the room—the side where Synek and the other mercenaries were sitting, silent, all lost in their own thoughts. Then there was the Wild Bunch across the room, arms folded across their chests.
They spoke in hushed tones, never loud enough for anyone to hear other than the lot of them, not that Synek gave a shit.
He was waiting.
But for what, he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if Iris had given him anything to go on last night, only assurances and promises that this divide between them would be over within twenty-four hours.
By his calculation, he only had another twenty minutes, but each second was ticking by with excruciating slowness, and he could feel his nerves worsening as time went on.
Tensions were already thick in the air, and it was a miracle Red hadn’t exploded yet, considering the way his leg had been bouncing up and down since the moment they were on Den property.
“Good of you to join us,” the Kingmaker called as he entered the room, his gaze going from Red to Celt, before lingering on the latter. “Both of you.”
It would be hard to miss the bruises on the man’s face that were still in various stages of healing.
“It’s the job,” Red said, his voice flat.
Synek didn’t say anything at all as he glanced at his watch again, then the window, and finally the television playing in the background. A news report that he didn’t care very much to see.
“We’re here to address the Belladonna problem.”
“About that,” Synek said, leaning forward. “Sounds more like a you problem, doesn’t it? The way I see it, she only wants you, yeah?”
“I’ll elect to ignore that.”
Celt mumbled something under his breath, but Synek was unable to hear him.
But as quickly as he wasn’t interested in what the news was reporting, he suddenly was as he saw an all-too-familiar brownstone in the background, then a small crowd of reporters. Except it was the people in the background he cared about.
People who shouldn’t have been there.
Silence fell over the room as each of them turned to face the television together, all eyes glued to the woman standing in the center of the frame, her black pantsuit both stylish and appropriate, considering the woman was in mourning.
Dorothy Spader might have played the grieving wife well, but Synek saw beneath the glamour of it all. He saw what she was trying to do.
The role she was about to step into.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” she said calmly, but only just so, her voice wavering slightly at the end as if this was hard for her.
And she did her very best to look the part, to look as if what she was doing pained her, but Synek saw the brief flash in her eyes, the pleasure of it—the way she couldn’t quite keep her expression straight.
“For twenty years, I believed my husband was a good man. That he loved this country as much as he loved me, but I have realized over the last couple of weeks that my husband was not the man I thought he was.” Dorothy drew in a rattling breath before continuing. “My husband was involved in various illegal activities, and I have turned all evidence of this over to the local police as of this morning. And with me, I have a witness to my husband’s crimes.”
Questions were shouted, hungry reporters trying to get her to tell them more, but Dorothy turned, gesturing for the woman standing to the right of her to step forward.
Iris.
Her face scrubbed clean of makeup, she was wearing a dress that made her look years younger. She looked like a victim.
She wasn’t tucked away in the background, just out of range of the camera. She was there, in the very center. It wasn’t about the widow standing next to her, or the other woman whose face was only shown in profile though the white dress she wore made it abundantly clear who she was.
Watching her, he saw it unfold in his mind’s eye. Everything that led up to this moment—how it was and how they all were connected. He didn’t know the why, though he suspected there were only two people in the entire world who knew the reason behind all that had transpired.
But whatever the Kingmaker’s reason for the Den’s beginning, Belladonna was the reason for its end.
Iris cleared her throat, the microphone still in front of her face, but instead of continuing, her gaze lifted to the cameras, or beyond them, Synek wasn’t sure. There was something in her expression that he didn’t like.
As if she was resigned to what was happening around her.
But as curious as Synek found her expression, he wasn’t the only one.
The Kingmaker was standing now, his narrowed gaze on the television, disbelief warring with outrage.
“For eight years, this young woman and her family has suffered!” Dorothy said passionately, and if Synek had been anyone else, he would have eaten it right up.
He might have believed that she didn’t know a thing about what her husband was doing—that she wasn’t in league with the woman in white behind her.
“But not just because of my husband,” she went on, suddenly holding up a thumb drive.
A drive that Synek distinctly remembered the Jackal having taken from the war room.
He dropped his feet to the floor.
He knew then what they were about to do. He knew.
“My husband’s partner is a man whose name he wouldn’t ever share with me. A man who I’m sure is responsible for his death! A man they call the Kingmaker. And should anything happen to me, then know that it is he—”
A sharp crack sounded before screams started and the camera shook.
But not before Synek saw Iris lurch, a pained expression on her beautiful face before she flew backward. That was all he could see.
All he could feel as the distant memory of a bullet lodging into his chest flared inside him. He understood now, what she had been hinting at before—the promise she had made.
&n
bsp; But he also saw what others might not have.
The way she had tensed. Where her gaze had gone.
As if she had been expecting the bullet.
The news cut out, a new camera panning toward one of the frazzled looking anchors. It was no longer about the explosive confession tape, or even the governor’s suspected widow.
It was about a man known only as the Kingmaker.
The man in question threw the remote he held against the screen so hard that it cracked, leaving a black spot spidering along the image, but it didn’t matter. One could still hear.
And the only thing that seemed to play on repeat over and over again was his name.
It was Red who broke the silence. “How long had you been following me once I arrived in New York?”
The Kingmaker didn’t freeze, nor did he even bother to look guilty. He merely turned in Red’s direction and stared, as if he knew this moment would come. As if he knew exactly what the man was asking. “I wasn’t,” he said, shocking the shit out of Synek. “I came upon you by chance.”
“How the fuck—”
“But once I found you,” the Kingmaker continued, and it was then that Synek saw the man wasn’t calm at all. He was pissed. “It took no time at all in finding out who you were. Then it was only a matter of formulating a plan.”
“You’re a sick motherfucker, you get that?” Red asked, the chair he’d been sitting in clattering to the floor as he lurched to his feet.
“Have you forgotten so quickly how many lives you’ve ruined? How many brothers, sons, wives, and girlfriends have you taken from someone? I despise hypocrisy.”
“Yet you’re expecting loyalty when you don’t even know the meaning of the word,” Celt added, his expression fierce. “You had him tortured. I was fucking beaten within an inch of my life every night. What’s your excuse for that?”
“I wanted soldiers,” the Kingmaker said simply. As if that answer meant anything at all now.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t end you right now,” Red said, but he didn’t whip out his gun before the Kingmaker could react.
He did it slowly. Deliberately. Making it clear that he wasn’t afraid of him or the Wild Bunch.
And to Synek’s surprise, the four Romanians didn’t move.
Winter’s doing, he imagined.
The Kingmaker, however, didn’t falter or lose his confidence. “Good help is so very hard to find.”
“Your brother isn’t here to save you this time,” Synek said, retrieving his own weapon, staring down the length of his gun until he reached the man’s face and the impassive expression there.
“You’ve clearly underestimated who I am if you thought for a second that I needed Nix here to deal with the lot of you.”
“From where I’m standing, it looks the other way around, mate.”
There was no scenario in which the Kingmaker would leave this room alive. Not after what he had done—not after the truth of what he had done to get them into this room had come out. Even if Synek lowered his weapon and walked away, Red wouldn’t let him leave.
And the only reason he hadn’t pulled the trigger yet was because Fang had his gun pointed at the man’s head, and neither Fang, nor any of his brothers, would miss at point blank range.
“Is that so?” the Kingmaker asked with an arch of his brow, a smile forming. “Tell me … who do you think polices you?”
The attention was on them now, and even though he had a gun pointed at him, the Kingmaker eased to his feet. Synek considered it a moment before he holstered his weapon.
It wasn’t as if the Kingmaker carried his own weapon on him. He could tell from the lines in the man’s suit. Besides, if there was a need, he was more than capable of snapping the man’s neck.
“Every person in the world has a price they’re willing to pay to get the thing they want most. Have you so quickly forgotten that this, in and of itself, is what I excel at? Your personal relationships notwithstanding, I didn’t need friends. I didn’t pay a king’s fortune for men to have thoughts and feelings. I only needed your skills and nothing more, so I owe you nothing.”
“Not according to the contract,” Winter said, her voice soft, and unlike everyone else in the room, hers held a tremor. She was nervous. “Z stipulated that should you ever warrant exposure that puts the Den in jeopardy, the mercenaries are free to sever their ties with you.”
That was the thing about mercenaries.
They were mistrusting by nature.
Which was why they more often than not worked alone. It gave them a chance to get the hell out of dodge if anything went wrong.
It was something Synek hadn’t thought about in years since he’d signed the thing. Or maybe, he never had.
Not once had he ever thought the Kingmaker would get exposed, that his name would be out on public news rather than whispered about in secret.
“There’s nothing saving you now,” Synek said, wrapping his finger around the trigger.
The change that came over him was gradual. He hadn’t been fazed by the gun in his face, or even that the infamous name attributed to him was out there now and known to the world.
That, in a matter of minutes, Belladonna had managed to make the man whose privacy he revered above all else the number one talked about thing in the country.
He was exposed.
To everyone.
“Winter,” the Kingmaker said, and if his expression changed for anyone, it changed for her. He looked betrayed. “Finish telling him about the clause, if you would.”
Synek tensed as he turned to look at her. She was half-hidden behind Tăcut, his body a shield for hers, and even as she tried to move around him, he stopped her with a look, but she appeared grateful all the same that everyone had stopped before she spoke.
“Even if the contract is broken,” she said, her voice soft and unbearably sad, “no harm can come to the Kingmaker by anyone under his command. Should it, he’s installed a contingency plan.”
It was Red who scoffed, Fang forgotten for the time being. “You could send an army, but that still won’t save you from taking a bullet to the head.”
“And what of the life of your wife and children, Niklaus Volkov?” the Kingmaker asked, looking in his direction. “Would you provide them a life without a father simply because you didn’t know how to walk away? Without a mother? I’m sorry, did you think it would end with you?” he asked with a shake of his head when Red shifted on his feet. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Very carefully, he undid the buttons of his shirt, revealing a scar on his chest. “After the first attempt on my life, I had a pacemaker installed, and should it, for any reason, report that my heartbeat has stopped by any hand that is not my fucking own, two-point-seven million dollars will be transferred from my account into a man’s trust whose name you do not know and whose identity you will never be able to find. If a single one of you raises a hand against me, you all die. And your wives. And your children. And whoever the fuck else I believe you’re close to.”
His gaze turned to Synek, narrowed dangerously. “There is a reason they call me the Kingmaker, so make no mistake, the only person you need fear is me.”
“Right.”
Synek didn’t put his gun away because he needed to, or even because he doubted, though he didn’t, the truth of the man’s words. He put it away because it didn’t matter.
Not anymore.
Not when his name was out in the world and questions would be asked.
The contract was void by his own doing.
Celt was the first one to speak. “Better watch yourself out there, Uilleam. The snakes are very well hidden.”
The game … the Den … it was over.
This time, when Synek turned for the door, it was for the very last time.
Chapter 46
Nix
For once in his life, Kit Runehart was the calmest he had ever been.
He had always prided himself o
n keeping a level head, of being aware of anything and everything happening around him. He was a master of secrets and had been for years—ever since he had stepped into the role of assassin with the Lotus Society.
Even before that job had come along, Kit had needed to learn very quickly the secrets of others if he wanted to avoid the tyrant whose roof he had lived under.
Except when it came to his wife and brother, he often reacted without thinking. Shoot first. Question later.
That was his first mistake.
His second was underestimating the woman his brother had fallen in love with.
In the beginning, he hadn’t wanted to learn Karina’s secrets. Not because he wasn’t curious about her, but because he knew some were his brother’s secrets as well, and he didn’t want to know more about the ones his brother kept.
Sure, he was more than willing to aid in finding her once it became clear that she was the one targeting Uilleam and provide assistance where needed, but now, after learning of yet another of his brother’s betrayal, he was ready to leave them both behind.
If they wanted to spend their lives destroying each other, he wouldn’t stand in their way.
He had far more to consider now than he ever had before.
Before now, he had already considered taking Luna away for a much-needed vacation after the past few years in their lives, but now that she was carrying his baby, he wasn’t willing to risk her.
She was too willing to run into the face of danger for them, his Luna. Her loyalty came without question, even as frustrating as that could be at times. And he knew, without question, that she loved Uilleam, sometimes more than he did.
She loved him despite himself, and it was for that reason that Kit could no longer stand idly by and let her continue to risk herself in his name.
They could no longer save his brother from his decisions. Uilleam would have to save himself.
But before he walked away from it all, Kit wanted answers. Answers that Uilleam, despite his best efforts, wouldn’t be able to answer. That was the problem when hearing a story from the outside looking in; only his perception of events was clear.
If he wanted the truth—or Karina’s truth, as it were—he would have to get it from the source.
Den of Mercenaries: Volume Two Page 72