“What’s that?” Iris asked, more intrigued than she probably should have been.
For days, she had come into this room, not knowing what to expect—not knowing what they would discuss—and each day when she left, she wasn’t sure what to think. But what she did know was that she found her fascinating.
“Would you mind terribly taking three steps to your right?”
Confused by the request, but comfortable in the knowledge that there was no chance of Belladonna getting out from behind that glass, Iris didn’t mind doing as she asked. If anything, that put them farther away from each other.
“You were saying something just then. What’s the mistake?”
Her sigh was audible. Her gaze trained on the elevator. “They always underestimate the queen.”
Iris had a reply, the words resting on the tip of her tongue, but before she could get a word out, the elevator doors slid open. The Kingmaker marched forward with such haste that Iris reflexively took another step back just to ensure she wasn’t in his path.
While he still had that arrogant aura about him, something was decidedly different now. Fury etched every step he took, and if Iris could slip out of the room without being noticed, she would have.
At least until she noticed the Kingmaker hadn’t come alone.
Synek was right behind him, his expression grave, tension lining every inch of his body, and marching along beside him with cuffs shackling his wrists was Spader. His face was a mess of bruises and cuts, far worse than he had been the day he arrived. But that was fine. At the very least, they would have to wait until his face healed before taping the confession.
The Kingmaker never broke his stride as he crossed the floor, even as the glass door had to open for him to get inside Belladonna’s cell. But for all the anger bleeding out of him, she didn’t flinch or take a step back.
She didn’t falter, and she didn’t move.
Belladonna stood, facing him with the same level of unwavering arrogance as the Kingmaker had.
As if she had been expecting him.
“What’s happening?” Iris asked, just loud enough for Synek to hear, though he didn’t give her an answer.
She didn’t like something about his expression, making her want to intervene before the Kingmaker confronted Belladonna. It was the emotion there in his dark eyes. An emotion she had never seen before.
Unease.
“This was all a part of your game, wasn’t it?” the Kingmaker asked Belladonna, his voice tight, the threads of anger barely contained. “Keep me distracted with him while you ruin me.”
“I gave you clear and concise instructions, Uilleam. I can’t be blamed should you not follow them.”
They were so close now that Belladonna had to crane her neck back to stare up at the Kingmaker, but the position didn’t intimidate her. She proudly met his glare with one of her own.
“Where are my mercenaries?” he demanded, each word seeming to be ripped from him.
“How could I possibly have an answer to that, Uilleam, my love?” She gestured around them with her hands. “I’m in here with you.”
Iris had noticed the curious absence of two of the mercenaries, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. It wasn’t as if she was given any information. She figured they were off doing something for the Kingmaker, but the idea that Belladonna had gotten to them without anyone realizing …
A chill swept up her spine.
“I’m done,” he said, his voice infused with steel. “Do you hear me? I’m done playing your game now. You wanted my love for you to turn to hate? You’ve succeeded.”
Belladonna’s confidence hadn’t faltered since the very first day inside the facility, yet now she appeared hurt. The threat of bodily harm had done nothing to faze her, but the idea of the Kingmaker not loving her was enough to get a reaction out of her.
It was there for one second, gone the next.
So quick that she might have missed it had she not been paying such rapt attention.
Nothing about the two of them made sense.
“He’s your doing, no?” the Kingmaker asked, gesturing back at Spader who looked on impassively.
Or at least tried to.
But Iris saw the unease on his face—the way he was trying to covertly meet Belladonna’s gaze, though she only had eyes for the Kingmaker.
“Your actions have consequences, Uilleam. Haven’t you been paying attention? You’re so blinded by your own desires that you can’t even see what’s right in front of you.”
“You’re right,” the Kingmaker said with a calm clarity that made Iris tense. “Actions do have consequences. Now it’s time to pay for yours.”
Time felt as if it slowed down all around her as the Kingmaker lifted the gun in his hand. Iris could almost hear herself screaming, a plea maybe, but she couldn’t do anything but watch as the Kingmaker pulled the trigger, the slide of the gun jerking back, as a bullet expelled from the barrel.
She had no choice but to watch the bullet slice through Spader’s neck, his bound hands immediately going up to clutch at the wound. Seven years she had waited for the look that was on his face now—a look that said he would die and that he had finally lost.
Iris didn’t realize she was moving, that she was screaming, “No,” until she felt Synek in front of her. His face was all she could see, but she jerked free of his hold, tripping over herself as she fell to the floor, having to scramble and crawl the last few feet to reach the ex-governor.
Spader’s eyes were big and terrified and filled with pain as he gazed upon her.
She cupped her hands over the bleeding wound in the side of his neck, as tight as she dared, trying to ignore the panic flaring in his eyes as he fought to breathe.
“You’re not going to d-die,” she said, her voice shaking as she tried to ignore the wet, warm feel of his blood on her hands. “You can’t die.”
He would confess.
Her father would finally be free.
She would have vengeance.
Spader choked on his next words, blood spilling from his lips, spattering across her face and chest when he coughed.
“Just say it,” Iris demanded. “Marvin Spencer didn’t kill Harper Madison. Just say those words. Please! Just say them!”
Recognition flared in his eyes before they clouded with pain again. His mouth opened, as if he would tell her—as if, for a moment, he thought to do the decent thing—but if he intended to tell her, he never got the chance.
His arms fell limp. His eyes grew vacant. And even as Iris kept her hands pressed to his throat, trying unsuccessfully to staunch the flow of blood, his chest stopped moving as he took one final rattling breath.
And the moment he did, her heart broke in two.
The pain was immediate and absolute, nearly drowning her in an agony so profound that tears blurred her eyes, but she didn’t even care. She didn’t care that she was crying for a man who had hurt her the worst in her life.
It was over.
Everything she had ever hoped for was over.
She failed.
It was Synek, she was sure, who lifted her from the floor, his voice in her ear though she couldn’t hear what he said above the blood rushing in her ears. But for once, she didn’t want his comfort because on the heels of that helplessness came anger.
Iris didn’t think. She just reacted.
Yanking the gun from the holster at Synek’s belt, she directed her eyes to the back of the Kingmaker’s head. He wasn’t paying attention to her. He was only concerned with Belladonna. He didn’t care about what he had just done.
Spader didn’t matter to him—was merely a pawn in it all.
They all were.
Iris aimed at the Kingmaker, her hands shaking. He wouldn’t even see it coming, but before she could even squeeze the trigger, Synek grabbed her hand tight enough that she couldn’t break out of his hold.
“Iris.”
Her gaze snapped up to his, seeing the apology there, for no
t just the ex-governor’s prone form on the floor. She hadn’t thought it was possible before, not after everything they had been through, but at that moment, she was sure she hated him.
An alarm shrieked, red lights flashing in the room.
Synek still kept hold of her, his grip never loosening even as his gaze moved from her, to the elevator, then finally to the Kingmaker who looked just as confused as he did.
Belladonna didn’t.
Instead, she took a step back. “I warned you. You only had to follow my rules, Uilleam. You had a choice.” She shook her head, looking disappointed, even as red flashed across her face. “Spader wasn’t important to me, but he was important to you.”
“Why?”
“He was the only one who knew where your mercenary Grimm is. Because you killed him, that location died along with him.”
The Kingmaker looked stricken—surprised, even.
But it wasn’t the Kingmaker who responded to Belladonna. It was another mercenary. “You fucking—”
The wall exploded next to him.
Part III
Chapter 16
Betrayal was the only thing he saw before the wall exploded around him, his ears ringing, but Synek reached for Iris and tackled her to the floor, pain lighting up his side as he hit the concrete hard, careful to keep her protected from the debris.
He only allowed himself a moment before he let his training take over.
But as he got to his feet, pulling out his own gun as he did, the only thing Synek saw was the wall of black moving into the room.
The first one through the wreckage wore a tribal mask that covered his entire face, the wood intricately carved with slashes of red across the front. He barely spared the Kingmaker a glance before he was moving to Belladonna, and had he not been looking at them, Synek might have missed their exchange.
The way her mouth set in a mulish line, but she willingly moved to the masked man’s side.
Whoever he was, she knew him, but she hadn’t been expecting him.
And worse, he wasn’t alone.
“Go,” he told Iris. Reaching for her as he spoke, he practically shoved her in the opposite direction as he forced all attention on him and away from her, as well as the Kingmaker. He might have been blown to the other side of the room, but he wasn’t letting it faze him.
He was still staring at the hole in the wall Belladonna and the man who’d come to retrieve her left out of.
“Stay out of the building!” he called after Iris, making sure he got her nod before he had to put her to the back of his mind.
She would be safe, he told himself, as he faced the men moving into the building.
She could handle herself.
But it wasn’t this lot Synek was concerned with. He wanted the one wearing the black half mask.
He took off, using his knowledge of the facility to navigate the hallways, his gaze scanning this way and that. Waiting ... waiting ... there.
But he had been wrong in thinking the Jackal was after the Kingmaker solely. Instead, he was in the main room where Winter would usually be tucked behind the screens, yanking out a thumb drive from a laptop there.
Now, Synek understood why the man was as feared as he was. It wasn’t often he met someone taller than he was, but the Jackal was. Broad all over and an arsenal strapped to him, he looked like the weapon he was meant to be.
But that wasn’t going to stop him from putting a bullet in the man.
“You took someone who I want back,” Synek said as he crossed the floor, letting one of his blades drop into his hands. “You tell me where he is, and I’ll only skin you a little.”
If he didn’t ... well, they both knew how that would end.
The Jackal pocketed the device in his vest, stepping out from behind the desk. He didn’t speak, and if Synek couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest, he might have wondered if the man even breathed.
He was still.
Calculating.
Waiting.
“Grimm,” Synek said as he entered the room farther. “Tell me where he is.”
The Jackal still didn’t speak, but he did mirror his actions. His eyes stayed on him from the moment Synek had his attention.
Analyzing, Synek thought. The man was analyzing his every move.
Fine.
If he didn’t want to speak, Synek would give him a reason to.
He launched the blade across the room, hiding his surprise well when the Jackal caught it by the blade, the gloves he wore adequate enough protection against the sharpened metal. And as quickly as he caught it, the Jackal was throwing it back at him, and only quick reflexes prevented him from getting stabbed.
The knife might not have bothered him, but it was now as if the man had been given permission to attack. He moved fast, and within seconds, it was obvious the man was expertly trained.
Maybe even a little more so than Synek because before he saw it coming, the Jackal landed one punch to his side, the other to his jaw before Synek landed a kick to the man’s chest that sent him back a few steps.
Another punch like that and Synek was sure the man would break his ribs. Even as it pained him as nothing else had, he shuffled back to his feet, but the Jackal’s attention was no longer on him but on something standing behind him.
“So you’re the one the Den’s been looking for?” came the robotic voice from behind the mask, but the cadence of his speech told Synek it was Fang even before the man stepped around him.
Synek, even as loathed as he was to admit it, was happy to see the other man.
Fang, he realized, was the only one not carrying a gun in his hands. The rest of the Wild Bunch two steps behind him, moved as one, synchronized and precise.
The Jackal, though he had yet to move from where he stood, didn’t offer a response to Fang’s question.
“This won’t end well for you.”
A second passed. Another.
The Jackal made a gesture, just a crook of his finger, that sparked the Wild Bunch into reacting.
They attacked as one, but even as the Wild Bunch was a force to be reckoned with, the Jackal didn’t falter under the onslaught. He met them punch for punch, blocking the majority of the damage they thought to inflict.
He moved with such effortless precision that it almost appeared as if he knew what move they would make before they did it.
Synek reached for his spare gun, and even as dirt and smoke made it hard to see, he still aimed. And he just had the man in his crosshairs until Fang broke pattern, taking a step back when he would have taken a step forward, and with the counterbalance, he landed a punch to the Jackal’s face that knocked off the man’s mask.
Then, as he straightened, his blue eyes glacial, the Wild Bunch froze.
All of them.
There was one particular rule they all followed, those Romanians—one that distinguished them from any other mercenary group that Synek knew of.
They never removed their masks.
And before today, as far as Synek knew, they never even spoke.
Yet the moment the Jackal was unmasked and that suspended moment of shock filtered away, Fang reached up and ripped his off, not even caring as it hit the floor at his feet.
The others followed suit, one after the other, until he was staring at four familiar faces.
The look on Fang’s face made him pause, though, and he questioned what he was seeing.
There was shock in his gaze, utter confusion, and disbelief—it was as if he was seeing a ghost.
“Sebastian?”
As the name registered in his mind, Synek immediately thought of Winter and what little she had told him about the Wild Bunch and where they’d come from.
Of a brother they had lost.
Sebastian ... the orphan who’d died.
But whether the man meant something to them, or nothing at all, he didn’t mean a fucking thing to Synek. He was responsible for the havoc wreaked on his brothers. He had nearly killed the Kingmaker,
and if none of those things mattered to Synek, it was that the Jackal was responsible for Grimm being taken prisoner and kept locked away in a cell somewhere that they couldn’t reach.
He would make that fucking Romanian pay for that.
“Eu sunt frate,” It’s me, brother, Fang said, a profound grief in his eyes. “Christophe.”
If the Jackal recognized him, his expression didn’t reflect it, and that was only made clearer a moment later when he asked, “Who the hell is Sebastian?”
Synek had a clear shot.
But whether it was because he shifted his aim or the Jackal noticed him in the background, nearly to the moment he pulled the trigger, the Jackal grabbed the man closest to him—Thanatos, Synek’s mind provided instantly—and used him as a human shield.
“No!”
It took only a split second for Synek to realize what was happening, his aim shifting only the slightest amount, but it was enough to ensure the bullet caught Thanatos in his vest rather than his head.
The exclamation came from Fang or Invictus or both, because just as quickly as Synek lowered his weapon, the Jackal was shoving Thanatos at the spidered window across the room, and with the force of his weight, Thanatos shattered it ... and fell.
Invictus and Tăcut both flew across the room, Invictus grabbing Thanatos’s leg before he could fall three stories to the ground below. He would have gone through the window too had Tăcut not grabbed him, every muscle in his arms straining to hold both their weight.
Fang forgot they were fighting on the same side—that their goal was the same.
When he turned this time, that fury was for Synek alone.
But before he could turn his weapon on him, the room started crumbling around them.
Synek cursed, ducking the debris as he raced as fast as he could back out of the building.
His world had turned to ashes and ruin within minutes.
And as he made it out of the building, he knew everything was forever changed.
When silence reigned, and the dust cleared, Belladonna was gone—nowhere to be found in the rubble and barren building. She had disappeared once more, as easily as a thief in the night, leaving chaos in her wake.
Iris. (Den of Mercenaries Book 7) Page 18
