Den of Mercenaries: Volume One (The Mercenaries Book 1)
Page 82
Kit no longer believed it was just Elias.
“You have to consider the Jackal—”
“The assassin who can’t be found,” Uilleam said frowning. “Shouldn’t you be on the up and up when it comes to them?”
Kit arched a brow. “I should know about your enemy’s leashed dog? He’s more myth than anything. Had you not bore evidence of his existence, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Elias—”
“Don’t be daft, brother. We both know that should he have control over the Jackal, he would have used him again.”
Uilleam laughed, but it sounded pained. “What are you saying? Karina—or your Belladonna—sent her attack dog after me.”
“I don’t know anything until I can look into it.”
He was silent a moment before he finally gave a reluctant nod. “I’ll get you the file, but I can assure you that nothing will come of it. She was … I guess it doesn’t really matter what she was, does it?” Uilleam dropped back into his seat. “Tell me, how was your counseling session with Luna? Informative, I hope.”
Of course, his brother knew about that—he wouldn’t have his title if he didn’t keep up with everyone else’s lives. “It was.”
“Getting back on the right track, then?”
“Why are you asking?”
Uilleam’s frown grew more pronounced. “You’re not the only one who cares about her, you know.”
Kit wouldn’t rise to that bait. “Why do you ask?”
“Because plans have changed, brother.”
“Have they?”
“Elias requested a meeting with me.”
That was news to Kit.
For all he knew, Elias had made it a point to avoid Uilleam, if only to keep his word that so long as Kit played along, he would leave his family unharmed.
“What for?”
“He wanted to call a truce,” Uilleam said, a hint of the infamous Kingmaker bleeding into his words. “It seems Carmen has acquired a bit of protection for the time being—one that circumvents both you and me. He’s asked that Luna remains clear of her so as not to ruin the scam they have going.”
Luna’s mother, Carmen Rivera, was a woman Kit would gladly kill in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. Not only for what she had done to Luna—using her as a pawn for Uilleam to manipulate—but for what she had done to scores of other girls like her.
Despite the human activist title and her constant donations to various charities around the world, Carmen was a renowned madam, gladly trading in flesh and offering “her girls” to whoever could afford to pay her prices.
She made the Kendall family look like saints.
Kit wouldn’t blink at putting a bullet in her head, not when the woman deserved it.
“Interesting,” Kit said as he regarded his brother. “I wasn’t aware you had a meeting with Elias.”
“Keep up, brother.”
Elias had specifically forbidden Kit from ever mentioning their initial meeting with Uilleam, but not with Luna—it was for that reason he had finally told her during the session. Not just because it was time for her to know the truth behind his actions, but so that he could control her reaction to it as well.
But now that Elias had done most of the work for him, he had no reason to keep it to himself any longer. “Then perhaps it’s time I told you my side.”
Kit didn’t give him a chance to respond before he was telling him about his first meeting with Elias, and the one that followed. He told him of the man’s threats, the security he had, and how, at the time, Kit had been out of options and hadn’t seen a way out.
He watched as Uilleam’s face changed with each truth he told until, finally, his expression settled into one that was very familiar to him.
Uilleam studied him a moment before saying, “You wouldn’t be telling me this if you didn’t have a reason.”
Kit nodded. “There’s a reason for everything I do.”
“I’ve already signed a contract with her—I’m nothing if not a man of my word,” Uilleam said with an absent shrug of his shoulder.
“And I don’t need you to breach it.”
“You obviously have something else in mind.”
“I do, but I’ll need your assistance.”
That key had been missing the entire time, one he had refused to acknowledge.
They were capable of great things individually, but if they worked together, they were unstoppable.
Uilleam sat forward with a smile—the first genuine one he had offered all night. “Are you offering me a job, brother? It’s been a while since I was tempted.”
“As I’ve done many others,” Kit said.
“What do I get in return?”
Money held no value to either of them, not when they had enough to last them multiple lifetimes. “Vengeance.”
“Go on then,” Uilleam said, sitting back in his chair as though he sat on a throne. “Tell us your plan.”
No longer was it brother to brother, Kit to Uilleam.
Sitting next to that fire, as he spoke of an idea that had been brewing inside him for the last eighteen months, it was Nix talking to The Kingmaker.
Chapter 2
Present day …
Las Vegas, Nevada
If the weather was a reflection of her mood, the city was going to drown.
Luna Santiago wasn’t quite sure why she was so sullen as she sat alone on her bed, staring out the tall windows of her bedroom as the rain fell in sheets, nearly obscuring the view outside. A sharp crack of thunder had her blinking, tearing her gaze away as she tried to remind herself that she didn’t need to be upset.
She needed to focus.
All around her, multiple folders were left open, revealing scores of documents inside, including surveillance images, along with enough banking information that if she were so inclined, she could have them cleaned out in hours. But it wasn’t their money she was after.
She wanted to ruin them.
Them—her mother, her sister. The family she had grown up with.
It wasn’t often that one targeted their own family, especially in the singular way in which she wanted to ensure they went down, but not everyone had a family like hers, especially one that had been willing to offer her up as collateral if that meant achieving power and status.
Carmen Rivera was the same woman who had bandaged her scraped knees, made her soup when she was sick, and provided for her as only a mother could.
Ariana had acted as most older sisters did, but she was still there when Luna needed her, and hung out when she could find the time.
But after knowing what they had done, it was harder to think of those good times when she could now only remember the way her mother would lose her temper if things didn’t go exactly as she wanted, or how her sister had boldly proclaimed that she didn’t want a sister because she hated Luna.
It is far easier to remember the bad, she thought.
Ever since she had returned from New York—first to learn about the new assignment that Uilleam had assigned her to, then sticking around to help Celt, another mercenary in the Den, with a small problem, and finally to attend a marriage counseling session with her husband—she had been knee-deep in studying the files, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before Uilleam was sending her off to California to do his bidding.
It was the price she had to pay when she agreed to become a mercenary under his control.
Back then, the decision had been an easy one—one that she hadn’t needed to consider because she had only thought about the revenge she would get against Lawrence Kendall, her former captor and tormentor. It was easy to sign her name on the document that promised she would be giving up five years of her life for a man she really didn’t know, but one that had helped her all the same.
Eighteen months ago, that decision had come back to bite her on the ass.
Learning the truth about what had happened to her, and how she had ended up with the Kendall family in the first place had
turned her world on its axis, and she hadn’t handled it well—not that anyone would have been able to had it happened to them.
Now, she wasn’t quite sure what to do.
It had all seemed rather simple when she had her anger to hold onto and she could push Kit away and pretend that he didn’t matter. But now, she wasn’t quite so angry.
Turning her attention back to the files in front of her, she tried to pay attention to what she was reading, but she had gone over these files dozens of times, and there was nothing within them she didn’t already know.
But a door closing had Luna jerking her head up, eyes going to her closed bedroom door a moment before she was pulling the Glock she kept from under her pillow, her thumb on the hammer.
Careful not to rustle the papers, she slid off her bed, staying on her toes as she started across the room and laid a hand on the door handle, easing it down before gradually opening the door.
Whoever had thought to break into her condo would have a rude awakening once she—Luna came to a stop in the open doorway as she got a good look at who had entered her place and made themselves at home on her sofa.
“Is this going to be a thing now?” she asked as she lowered her weapon. “When one of you leaves, the other takes his place?”
Uilleam Runehart was her handler and the man who signed her checks, but beyond his role as The Kingmaker, he was also her brother-in-law. Not many knew of the connection between them—it wasn’t as though she was going around broadcasting this fact to anyone—but then again, not many knew she was married either since she had stopped wearing her ring.
When Uilleam didn’t respond, Luna sighed, walking further into the room and circled the chair he sat in to finally face him.
What she saw in his face brought her up short.
He looked … haunted.
“Uilleam? What’s wrong?”
He was studying the chessboard in front of him, one he had to have brought himself since she was pretty sure she didn’t own one.
“Have you ever played chess, Luna?” he asked, his voice low, and his gaze still on the board in front of him.
“Once or twice with Kit,” she said, sinking into the seat opposite him.
“Would you like to play a game? It’s been ages since I’ve played.”
Not quite sure where this was going or why his mood seemed so somber, Luna sat forward a little. “Sure, Uilleam.”
It was rare that he asked for what he wanted, opposed to demanded, but his change in demeanor wasn’t something she was happy about—she was concerned.
They sat in silence as he maneuvered the glass pieces around the board—his movements methodical as his gaze was focused on what he was doing, giving her the opportunity to study him.
His tie was loosened, his jacket missing, and the front of his vest left undone.
Even haggard, Uilleam still looked more put together than most, but this was Uilleam, and anything out of the ordinary was concerning.
As he sat back with a sigh, he gestured to the board with a broad sweep of his hand. “Ladies first.”
Luna wasn’t thinking about trying to win or even what she was doing, so she just picked up a pawn and moved it forward two places.
“Has my brother ever told you about Karina Ashworth?” he asked a moment before he moved his own piece.
Luna froze. She knew the name, though she didn’t know much about the woman it was attached to. She knew Karina had been close to Uilleam, even knew that she was the only woman he had ever loved, but outside of that, nothing.
“A little—not very much,” she said, hoping her knowing anything wouldn’t be a problem. Kit had always said that Uilleam was sensitive when it came to talking about her.
“Outside of a select few, she was one of the only people—maybe even the only person—that I told about you,” Uilleam said.
“About me?”
“Right after it happened, when I sent a team down to take you, I told her of my plans—or at least about the contract I had agreed to. She never let me finish explaining the rest of it considering how furious she was with me.”
Luna didn’t respond but did take his pawn with her knight. Briefly glancing up to check his reaction, she noticed he didn’t seem particularly bothered by the move she made—almost as though he’d predicted it.
“It wasn’t our first fight, but it was memorable.”
“What was she like?” Luna asked, genuinely curious.
Not many, outside of Kit, were willing to challenge Uilleam on the decisions he made and the lives he disrupted, but Karina seemed to have been one of them.
She’d wondered, once upon a blue moon, what kind of woman would grab Uilleam’s attention long enough to keep it.
His smile was wistful as his gaze swept over the board. “Smart and resourceful. Kind but cunning. We easily matched wits and I don’t believe there has, or ever will be, a better companion for me.”
Luna was less interested in the game and more interested in what Uilleam was saying. “What happened to her?”
A myriad of expressions crossed his face until he settled on one that was a mix of anguish and fury. “She was taken from me.”
“By whom?”
He leveled a look on her that told her she already knew the answer to this.
“Elias.”
Uilleam nodded once. “It took me ages to even learn the man’s name. I’d been chasing a ghost for years, but when he’d had me shot, he made his first mistake. It was much easier to track him then. It was only a matter of time before he made another mistake that I could exploit.”
That mistake had been working with an Irish mobster who just so happened to be on Red’s bad side.
Sometimes, Luna wondered whether Uilleam’s skill as The Kingmaker was through sheer luck or whether he was just that good at predicting another’s moves.
“And the painting you sent Celt after?”
“That was only because I was bored and wanted to elicit a reaction out of him. The mistress’ involvement was a welcome distraction.”
Luna had a sudden thought. “What makes you think Elias took her from you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well … if you hadn’t known his name, or even how to find the man, how do you know it was even because of him that Karina died?”
Uilleam flinched.
It took her a moment to realize that over the course of the conversation, he had never said that Karina died or even that she was killed. Rather, he said she was taken from him.
For some reason, that made her sad for him.
“No, he didn’t immediately come out and claim responsibility, if that’s what you’re asking. For months, I knew … nothing. I couldn’t find anything, no matter who I sent. But Elias was eager to share his success once I was spiraling down into a black hole—the man who felled The Kingmaker. Even if temporary, it was enough for him to start an empire.”
Luna had a hard time imagining that Uilleam was anything less than the resilient man he was. The thought of him wasting away because of heartache … it just didn’t seem feasible.
“But you obviously got better,” Luna said quietly, plucking a knight of his from the board with a little more relish than necessary. He was making this too easy.
But again, whereas she thought he would have looked displeased at her move, he didn’t look bothered at all.
“I didn’t get better,” he said as his gaze scanned the board. “I got angry.”
In her eagerness to capture one of his pieces, she hadn’t paid attention to the greater picture—the strategy he was setting up. Once, she had never understood how someone could be good at chess.
One couldn’t possibly know each and every move to make, especially when playing against another person. There was too much room for chance, for error.
Uilleam made it look effortless as he moved his rook down the board. “Checkmate.”
She was baffled. “I obviously forgot how good you are at this.”
And the arrogance was back …
Uilleam picked up a frosted bottle of vodka, pouring a healthy amount into one of the crystal tumblers. Once he was seated again, it looked like whatever momentary satisfaction he got out of winning the game had faded.
For a moment, as he held that glass aloft in his hand, Uilleam looked … lost. “She was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Luna didn’t think she had ever heard any relationship described quite like that. “Why do you say that?”
He downed the last of his vodka. “Karina showed me what it meant to truly love someone without question … but she also showed me that love makes you weak.”
With those parting words, Uilleam climbed to his feet and crossed to her side. “I’m helping myself to your spare bedroom.” And once he placed an affectionate kiss on her forehead, he added, “Thank you for listening.”
He didn’t wait for a response as he disappeared behind the bedroom door, leaving her sitting there watching after him.
Luna didn’t have the slightest idea what to think.
The next morning, everything was back to normal.
When Luna ventured outside of her bedroom, Uilleam was already awake and dressed—unlike the night before, his navy suit was pressed, and the thin red tie he wore was held in place by a silver clip.
The vulnerability in his gaze was gone, as well as the fatigue that had seemed to weigh on his shoulders. He was The Kingmaker once more.
“I have another gift for you,” he said, with a gesture of his hand to the vacant seat across from him at the table where a domed tray waited.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked as she ventured closer hesitantly, not quite sure what had caused the change in his mood. Knowing him, it probably wasn’t anything good.
“A few hours.”
It was only nine in the morning … “Another surprise?” she asked as she took the seat opposite him. “I’m starting to feel special.”