Syn.

by London Miller

  The judge in black robes, his ever-present frown in place, clutched a gavel tightly in his right hand. The first time she laid eyes on him, she’d feared the power he held as the voice of the court. In this room, his word was law.

  But it wasn’t her fear of him that had her twisting her hands in her lap. Rather, it was of the man reclined back in his chair, arms casually stretched out on either side of him. For all the care he seemed to give for where he was, he could have been anywhere.

  Not on trial for murder.

  This wasn’t her first time inside a courtroom, tucked away in the back where she remained quiet and observing. Only this time, she wasn’t crying silently and wishing that she could escape with the man who’d sat at the front of the room with his head hung in shame, unable to do anything but accept the fate they bestowed on him.

  A life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

  It had only taken the jury twenty minutes to come back with a verdict.

  Twenty minutes to send her father to prison and there had been nothing she could do about it.

  She still remembered the vortex she’d fallen into after. Not sure what to do, but since, she had returned to the very same courtroom with the very same judge.

  But this trial was far more interesting because the man seated at the front of her room was guilty of more than just the crime he was charged with.

  He knew the truth about her father because he was the one who had done the crime.

  She had no evidence to support her claim, only a picture of his face tucked away in one of her father’s files that she had memorized.

  But, she’d contented herself with the knowledge that he might have been able to get away with one crime, but he wouldn’t get away with another.

  For fourteen days, Iris had come to this very room, tucked in the back where she went unnoticed. The people around her were more concerned with the man on trial rather than a girl who could have been anyone.

  From the men and women who made up the jury, to the bailiffs and court attendants, and even the defense and prosecuting attorneys who argued their cases. Even the journalists snapping photos didn’t seem to realize she sat among them.

  Not that she minded.

  Iris noticed everyone and everything, but no one noticed her—the way she preferred it.

  If they had, they might have realized that while the judge presided over the case, there was a girl that sat among them who didn’t belong, and they wouldn’t have been so careless with their words.

  She heard everything they said—from the witnesses who took the stands, to the experts on murder weapons and police procedures, and to the men sitting to her left who could hardly go a few minutes without whispering to each other.

  They didn’t just mumble about the man currently on trial, but on all the cases they’d been covering over the last few months.

  Including her father’s.

  “Can you really trust a dirty cop?”

  “He got himself locked up.”

  “The victim deserved better, I’ll tell you that.”

  Ever since that first day, Iris had to dig her nails into her palms to force herself not to respond, to pretend as if their words didn’t seep into her bones and make her want to hurt them the way their careless musings hurt her.

  They didn’t know her father—not when he’d been a proud police detective, or even when he was forced out and became a bounty hunter. They only knew of the man who had to stand on trial for the murder of a drug dealer.

  She wanted to tell them her father was a good man, that he’d done everything in his power to give them both a good life despite the obstacles they’d faced, but the promise she’d made him kept her silent.

  To them, she didn’t exist—the one good thing that had come from her mother who’d taken off years ago. Allison had left his name off the birth certificate back during a time when she hadn’t been sure she wanted anything to do with Iris’s father, but it had worked out in their favor in the end.

  It doesn’t matter now, Iris told herself as she slid forward, resting her sweaty palms against the cold wood of the bench in front of her.

  Justice always prevailed.

  That was what her father had always taught her, anyway. In the end, justice ensured that the bad guys paid for their crimes, vindicating the good ones.

  She just needed to hear the words.

  “Has the jury reached a decision?” Judge Matthes asked, turning his eyes to the foreman who stood.

  “We have, your honor.”

  “If the defendant would rise …”

  The foreman was a tall man, his stomach just starting to overlap the waistband of his creased pants. His white shirt starched to near cardboard, the black tie hanging around his neck was skewed just slightly to the left. Iris didn’t know why those details stood out to her at that moment, but he had her undivided attention. Even as the man she’d grown to hate with every fiber of her being stood and straightened his suit jacket.

  The foreman unfolded a note he held, a bead of sweat trickling down his neck and dampening the collar of his shirt. “We, the jury, find the defendant, Ernest Rockly …”

  Her breath caught in her throat, her gaze flickering to the table as Ernest smiled.

  The foreman hesitated, his gaze drifting over to the man as well, his throat working as he swallowed. “We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty on the count of second degree …”

  Whatever he said next was lost in the sudden chaos of the room as scores of people demanded answers on the side where the prosecution sat while unrest and downright giddy excitement came from everyone else.

  It didn’t matter how many times the judge banged his gavel, silence was not to be had.

  Ernest was smiling now, blatant and unashamed, as he shook the hands of his counsel, waving to the onlookers on his side of the court who cheered nearly as loudly as the other side complained.

  Iris, watching it all unfold, didn’t utter a sound.

  Not when the pain in her chest continued to grow until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. Nor when her hands started to shake as emotion flooded through every inch of her body.

  She couldn’t bring herself to stay and hear the rest—she ran.

  As she cleared the heavy double doors, she ran until her feet ached and tears threatened to overwhelm her.

  She ran until she reached the storage facility where her father had rented a locker in her name.

  “Only go there if something happens to me, yeah? No sooner.”

  That was a year ago, back when she hadn’t worried about such things, and back before their world had turned upside down.

  Now, she didn’t have a choice.

  Entering the building, Iris drew the hood of her jacket up to cover her face, then dug into her pocket until she felt the metal of the key she always kept tucked away with 714 etched into the brass in the very center.

  She didn’t look at anything or anyone until she was standing in front of the locker where a heavy padlock gleamed.

  It took mere seconds to insert the key and remove it entirely, her heart rate quickening as she anticipated what might be inside. She expected a box of some sort, maybe even a gun for her own protection, but instead, she found a ratty old backpack with more than a dozen files bound together with a rubber band, along with a series of cassette tapes and a player tucked in the bottom. And as her confusion mounted, she didn’t know what to feel when she found at least seven bundles of cash.

  Questions popped into her head one after another, but she couldn’t stand here and figure out what this all meant while she stood out in the open.

  Shoving her arms into the straps of the bag, Iris closed the locker and replaced the lock before leaving the building entirely, this time out the back door.

  She walked to the end of the block just as the city bus pulled to a stop. A swipe of her card later, she found a seat in the back and watched the city blur as the bus took off.

  The man opposite her had his
phone in his hand, watching the latest news report. Though she couldn’t hear what the news anchor was saying, she could still see her—and the man she was interviewing.

  Ernest Rockly stood on the courthouse steps, smiling with genuine joy on his face.

  Why wouldn’t he? He’d gotten away with murder.

  Funny how quickly things had changed in the span of seven months.

  Before, he’d only been a street rat, but someone, as her father would have said, had taken an interest in him. According to her father’s notes, he’d only been a dealer, not nearly high enough on the food chain to afford the suit he was wearing let alone the cost of the legal team he had that had managed to get him off a murder charge.

  Iris hadn’t always believed in conspiracies … now, she wasn’t so sure.

  As the interview came to an end, the camera panned away, and the feed switched to two anchors sitting behind a desk. A picture popped up in the left-hand corner of a man in a dark suit and red tie, his hand raised with a smile only a politician could manage.

  According to the banner beneath, he was running for office.

  Forty-five minutes later, Iris finally arrived at her motel in Queens. Her father had always complained about it, but for all his grievances, this was the best place for her now. Here, no one asked questions, and looking the other way was a custom.

  Even the attendant standing behind the plexiglass didn’t blink an eye when Iris asked to get a room and slid over a hundred-dollar bill when he gave her the price.

  That was what was wrong with the city—people stopped asking questions. No one was concerned about anything or anyone but themselves.

  Her father had thought to change that. Organized crime was a battle he’d longed to win, even if it was one that would never see an end.

  Inside her room, Iris set aside her bag. Frowning at the bed, she was a little apprehensive to sit on it, but this was all she could get for now, so there was no use in complaining.

  Spreading out the files, she made sure they were all within easy reach before going back for the tapes.

  Her hands shook as she lifted the headphones and placed them over her ears. She didn’t know what she would find once she held the gleaming silver player in her hands, or how she would feel as she pressed play on the first tape labeled “1,” but she couldn’t back out now.

  First came crackling white noise, then her father’s familiar sigh that brought tears to her eyes.

  “Iris, darling, if you’re listening to this, something went wrong. I don’t know how to explain what happened over these past six months … but I’m gonna try. I don’t think I have the right words to express how sorry I am for leaving you like this, but I … I can only hope that these tapes ease some of that for you. I hope that no matter what they say about me, you know the truth. That’s the only thing I care about.” He took a breath, a sound she wouldn’t be able to hear for a long time. “I stumbled across something … something they didn’t want me to find.”

  For one hour and twenty-seven minutes, Iris didn’t move from the center of the bed where she sat and listened, absorbing every word her father spoke. It was only when the tape clicked off that she blinked and came back to the present, finally aware of everything around her.

  Then she took a breath and played the second one.

  She listened until the tapes ran out and the waxing moon hung heavy in the night sky. Vaguely, she felt the pinch in her stomach from going so long without eating, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

  Food took a back seat in her mind as she understood what she had to do.

  For every name her father gave in his tapes, she would make them pay.

  She didn’t know how, and she didn’t know when, but she would.

  And none of them, not even one, would be safe from her.

  Chapter 1

  Eight years later …

  Though his fingers ached from the repeated punches he’d been throwing for the past hour, it was a welcome feeling.

  Synek had always gotten off on pain.

  He liked the sharp bite of it, the way it swept through him in a wave. It didn’t matter if he was hitting bone, inflicting or receiving, it sent a rush through him he couldn’t adequately describe, though he was sure it was close to euphoria.

  This … it felt good, and after the past few shit weeks he’d had, it was a much-needed relief.

  Before the man strapped to the chair in one of the many interrogation rooms inside the compound—the Den’s center of operations—could right himself, blood spilling from his lips as he groaned, Synek flexed his left hand before hitting him again.

  Blissful agony lit up his entire arm, and despite himself, he laughed as he reared back, shaking his hand out.

  The man had a hard head.

  “Fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, turning for the first time since he’d entered this space as he fished his smokes out of the back pocket of his jeans.

  As he did so, he caught sight of the other man in the room who was standing against the back wall. A man who had yet to master keeping his emotions from reflecting on his face.

  Synek might not have blinked an eye at a little torture, but the other man looked disgusted … and a bit green.

  He scoffed as he tucked a cigarette between his lips, bloodied filter and all. “Come on, I’ve barely touched him.”

  Which was partly true.

  During the first ten minutes they’d been in this room, Synek hadn’t uttered a word. Instead, he’d merely sat in the chair opposite his target and stared at him, waiting for the moment his mask would crumple and his fear would peek through.

  Some lasted longer than others, but he found they all broke eventually, whether they wanted to or not. Especially once he had his knife in his hand.

  This was something he had learned to be good at long before now, even before the Wraiths ever dug their claws into him.

  Because it wasn’t always about fists or weapons.

  At times, neither would do much good if he was going up against someone bigger or stronger.

  He’d learned to make his silence spark fear. His very presence.

  What came after—when he inflicted physical pain—that was only for his benefit.

  The man across from him, Roger Fitzpatrick, had been wary from the very beginning of their time together. He was older than most who wound up in Synek’s chair, but not old enough that he was fearful just because he knew how easily his bones could break.

  As a former founder of an accounting firm that serviced elite criminals, Fitzpatrick was probably used to all sorts—those who used words to intimidate and others who chose brute force.

  He hadn’t realized until it was too late that Synek was both.

  It had been far too long since he’d felt the harshness of flesh-covered bone and how it resonated against his own for days after. And thinking of that last time … he wished the man he’d been punching then was the one sitting in front of him now, but unlike the man he was currently hitting, that one wasn’t able to vocalize his pain at all.

  For now, he’d settle for Fitzpatrick.

  “Are you ready to answer my questions?” Synek asked, looking back to the accountant as he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette before dragging in a lungful of nicotine.

  When the man nodded eagerly, eyes pinched shut as he breathed through his pain, Synek smirked back at the mercenary who really needed to let his bullocks drop if he ever intended to get anywhere in this profession. Then he reclaimed his seat and gave Fitzpatrick his undivided attention.

  “Right, then. Tell us about the governor,” he said, giving an imperial wave of his hand.

  Though Synek reminded him anyway, Fitzpatrick didn’t need to be told why he was here. If he were smart, he already knew the answer.

  Of all the clients he’d kept while operating his accounting firm, there was only one profile—despite the more than dozen he’d handled himself—that would matter to anyone who peeked through his books.r />
  A client by the name of Michael Spader.

  Sometimes, even though he’d been working for the man for years, Synek still found the Kingmaker’s ability to predict people’s moves baffling. Though he had been in London for the better part of the past few years, he still kept up with the happenings in New York City between his handler and the other mercenaries of the Den.

  Including the real reason the Kingmaker had made him that offer all those years ago.

  This—Synek, the mercenaries, the very Den itself—had been crafted to avenge someone the man had lost and to take down whatever enemy had dared to take her from him in the first place.

  At least, that had been the plan until he discovered his dead lover and his enemy were one in the same.

  Synek didn’t have the first idea what to do with that information. He was curious as hell and had a number of questions, but that wasn’t his job.

  His job was wet work—doing all the dirty, murderous things others with weak stomachs couldn’t. He went where the Kingmaker bade him, and up until a few weeks ago, that had mostly been thousands of miles away in London.

  But that was before he’d been needed for another job—a job that had led him right to the man sitting in front of him.

  Roger Fitzpatrick was merely another pawn in the grand scheme of things, but he had information. And information made him vastly more important.

  “There’s not much to tell,” Fitzpatrick said as he dragged in a rattling breath. “I don’t have anything I can give you.”

  “We both know that bit ain’t true, don’t we? Come now, Fitzy, you don’t want me to start removing your fingers, do you? Grisly business, that is. And I like to be thorough and all, so I’d start at your pinkies and clip away at them, knuckle by knuckle.”

  He visibly paled at the threat, but that could have very well been from blood loss as well. “But—”

  Synek shook his head before the man could finish, flicking his cigarette butt across the room. “Have you ever had your jaw broken?”