One year. Eight months. Twenty-one days.

Finally, Niklaus thought with some grim satisfaction as he watched the Russian and one of his men drag Jetmir through the freezer towards a hook that hung from the ceiling. Even as he struggled against their hold, a blindfold keeping him oblivious to his surroundings, he was no match for them. Not when he was bound.

How many days had he sat and fantasized about this very moment? How many nights had he lain awake, feeling like he was being suffocated as the days passed him by, and he had been no closer to getting his hands on the Albanian that was finally within grasp?

This was what he had been waiting for…

Mishca, with the help of his associate, had Jetmir strung up, his arms hooked into restraints, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground.

Helpless.

Snatching the barrier from his eyes, Mishca waited a moment, giving Jetmir a chance to focus on him, to take in his surroundings before he spoke.

“Hey,” Mishca said, smacking the man a couple of times to get his attention. “You’re going to want to focus for this.”

Jetmir, whose head had been slightly lolling on his shoulders, straightened, turning a glare on Mishca, the scar down the right side of his face pulling. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it!” Jetmir snarled as Mishca stepped away and turned his back.

Pausing mid-stride, Mishca faced him once more, canting his head to the side as his gaze flickered to Niklaus for a moment—Jetmir had yet to realize they weren’t alone.

“I’m not the one you should fear,” Mishca said with an air of casualness. Shaking his head, as though he almost felt sorry for the man, Mishca looked past him to Niklaus. “Don’t make a mess.”

The request was unnecessary. It wasn’t as though Mishca didn’t know what Niklaus was capable of. The man had made it quite clear he’d been keeping tabs on him.

By the time he finished with him, there wouldn’t even be anything left of Jetmir to identify.

With Mishca gone, the echo of the freezer door slamming shut still in the air, Niklaus got to his feet, circling Jetmir so he could finally face the one man he’d been tracking down religiously.

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” Niklaus said as he started rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, rotating his head on his shoulders to stretch the muscles in his neck.

There wasn’t a day that had went by since Jetmir had turned his life upside down that Niklaus didn’t think of how he would make this particular Albanian pay.

The blood.

The sweat.

The tears.

No one could possibly understand just how much Niklaus had sacrificed to get them both in this room. And more was just how much of himself he had lost in the process.

Over time, Niklaus learned to shut off his emotions.

Tracking the Albanians before they had touched down on American soil, it was almost laughable that his contract had been up around the same time that Jetmir and his crew thought to take on the Volkov Bratva. And instead of signing another, Niklaus had taken his leave for a short time so he could get Jetmir alone finally.

And the funny thing was, the one other person that had made it possible for this moment to happen was one of the people Niklaus had vowed to kill, but that was how it worked sometimes in their world.

Enemies one day, allies the next.

Reaching up, Niklaus tugged at his mask, then tossed it to the side, pushing the sweaty strands of his hair back out of his face. When he took Jetmir’s life, he didn’t want any confusion as to why this was happening.

Laughing bitterly, Jetmir said, “The brother? I was sure the Russians would have finished you off.”

Niklaus swung without thinking, glad that he’d had the foresight to tape his fingers up beforehand. That first hit wasn’t enough, not nearly, and before he knew it, he found himself swinging again and again, the blows carefully placed, not doing too much damage to any one area, but just enough that Jetmir had to be in excruciating pain.

By the time he stopped, Niklaus’ arms felt like lead, but he felt better at the sight of Jetmir’s bloodied face. Though he wished otherwise, Niklaus didn’t have time to torture him for days the way he wanted.

He had always pictured what he would do, the tools he would use, and how long he would spend making sure that Jetmir understood exactly the kind of monster he’d created.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to do. If anything, they were going to reach the climax that was long overdue just a bit faster.

Walking backward, Niklaus picked up the container he’d left out in clear view, making sure Jetmir could see what it was before he unscrewed the nozzle and pulled out the hose. Taking his time, Niklaus began pouring the gasoline over Jetmir’s head, making sure he was completely soaked before he dropped the container some distance away.

“For years,” Niklaus said casually, ignoring Jetmir’s earlier outburst, “I’ve studied you, learning everything I needed to know about you and your associates. Here’s one. You have a habit of setting your enemies on fire.”

“This is about the girl, no?” Jetmir asked, shaking his head to get dripping hair out of his eyes.

Niklaus didn’t respond because Jetmir was right, and because he didn’t trust what he would say next. There were very few things that sparked real emotion inside of him, and Sarah happened to be one of them.

Niklaus knew that if he would ask Jetmir what ‘the girl’s’ name was, he wouldn’t be able to give an answer.

“It wasn’t personal.” There was a slight grin on his face as he said this.

Despite the fact that he was drenched in gasoline and knew that he was facing death, he still taunted, almost begging Niklaus to overreact and make a mistake—that was usually how these things worked.

But Niklaus rarely made mistakes…and he wasn’t about to start now.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the black, metallic zippo lighter that was familiar to them both, one he had found on Jetmir as they drove him here. Niklaus could just see his reflection in it, including the dead look in his eyes.

He remembered that expression, it was the same one that Valon had stared down at him with right before the torture.

Torture didn’t always break a man, it molded him.

Maybe tomorrow he would let that worry him.

“Two,” Niklaus went on as though Jetmir hadn’t spoken. “Your organization consists of dozens of ruthless, arrogant men who are only loyal to the highest bidder. Want to know how I know this?”

Reaching up, Niklaus moved his hair to the side, showing Jetmir the tattooed lines starting just behind his ear, descending down onto his neck in parallel lines.

“Each line represents a single person who had been there the night you had them snatch me off the street—the ones you ordered to torture me for days.”

Currently, there were nine lines inked into his skin, and Jetmir would make ten.

The last line…

“It was just business,” Jetmir said, though he didn’t bother to apologize for his actions. He was a proud man, this Niklaus knew, and despite having wronged so many people in his short life, he wouldn’t be apologizing for any of it.

Niklaus understood.

Smiling, Niklaus slowly flipped the top open, the flame crackling to life.

As though he’d been speaking it his entire life, Niklaus met Jetmir’s wary gaze as he said in perfect Russian, “Oko za oko—An eye for an eye.”

Tossing the lighter, now it was Niklaus’ turn to watch its rapid descent to the ground, never taking his eyes from both it and Jetmir as it finally clattered, the flame igniting instantly and racing toward Jetmir with a vengeance.

In seconds, the flames engulfed him, his screams echoed, but there would be no one around to hear him die.

No one except Niklaus.

There was something mesmerizing about watching his skin charring, the acrid scent that used to always make him nauseous coating the air, and the way his muscles seized in unimaginable agony.

And yet, despite the fact that Niklaus watched this with unwavering dedication, he had never considered that he might have lost a piece of himself long before he had ever made it out of that building years ago.

---

Standing high above the water, Niklaus dropped the last of the bags over the bridge, wiping his gloved hands on the front of his jeans, watching as the black bags bobbed on the surface of the water before disappearing beneath. When he was younger, he had heard many stories about revenge, though in those cases, it dealt with something far less meaningful, like losing a fight or being embarrassed by someone, but the moral of those stories were that revenge was never the answer. Something along the lines of digging two graves when on the path of it…unlike those people whose joy was short lived, Niklaus couldn’t agree that revenge was a bad thing.

After spending the better part of the last five years seeking vengeance against the men that had forced him down this path to begin with, the journey was almost over. The head of those he felt were responsible was now sinking into the murky depths of the water below, he felt considerably lighter, like the weight of his responsibilities had finally lifted.

Nothing could compare to how he felt in that moment.

As a mercenary, it was very rare for anyone to carry something amongst them that could be used to identify them, but Niklaus was rather good at what he did and didn’t have such fears. Reaching for the delicate length of chain that hung around his neck, he pulled it free from its hiding place beneath his shirt, kissing the locket that hung from the end of it.

It was over, finally…for the both of them.

Turning away, he lifted his hood, concealing his face once more, but he was in no rush to leave. On this bridge, in the dead of night, he was alone…at least that was what he had thought until he faced the street.

Twin headlights flared to life in the distance suddenly, blinding him. Even though he had assumed he would be alone, Niklaus hadn’t come unprepared.

One gun at his back and knives strapped to his arms, he was as ready as he could ever be, and if whoever lurked in that car worked with the now dead Albanian mobster that was sinking to the bottom of that body of water, they wouldn’t be walking away either.

However, before he could reach for any weapon, he heard the unmistakable click of multiple assault rifles. In part, that rid him of his unease. The Albanians might have been ruthless, but they were not nearly as well trained as this lot were.

Only mercenaries, especially those that belonged to the Den, could arm themselves simultaneously when he had only thought to reach for his own weapon.

Of course, the notion of them being there at all did bother him, especially considering this last job with the Albanians had been on his own time. He knew for a fact that his handler, Z, was not the one in the Escalade, because this wasn’t the way he operated. Whenever Niklaus was needed for a job, he received an encrypted text message with coordinates to a safe house where they would be meeting, and only then was he given his actual assignment.

Whoever was waiting for him…Niklaus didn’t know.

Sighing with a roll of his eyes, Niklaus held his hands up in a non-threatening gesture, shuffling along as two came out of the darkness that shielded them, urging him towards the black Escalade that was now idling some distance away. Once Niklaus got a good look at them though, he dropped his hands. A few of them he recognized from his training days, others he’d seen in passing.

It was odd still, considering he’d never been around most of them without his mask. He could only imagine what they were thinking now that they were seeing his face for the first time. And some, the second.

But, the one that was now at his back, Niklaus didn’t recognize, and for this reason, he was on edge having someone he didn’t trust walking behind him.

Especially when he gave Niklaus a shove to move faster.

Before he could check the impulse, he spun, disarming the man with alarming speed, using the butt of the rifle to hit him in the stomach, doubling him over.

“Never touch me.”

“Oy, get in the damn truck!”

At that accented voice, Niklaus tossed the rifle down at the man, turning to face one of the few people he considered a friend.

Celt, whose real name was still unknown to Niklaus, was one of only six people that he kept in contact with, and the others were only on occasion.

Niklaus could still remember his own grueling process of learning how to speak without inflections coloring his words and carefully crafting his speech so that there was no particular dialect. So either they hadn’t broken Celt completely, or the stubborn bastard had refused to give in—Niklaus leaned towards the latter.

Born and raised in Ireland—a fact most knew—Celt had been a mercenary for a little longer than Niklaus, at least two years since Celt had been one of the six that helped train him for this new life. Since then, they had been on a few missions together, and caught up whenever they could.

It seemed Celt had been invited to this little party as well, which made Niklaus wonder if he had already known this awaited him, and considering they had seen a lot of each other over the last couple of weeks, why hadn’t he bothered to mention it was beyond him.

With a stupid grin on his face, Celt held up a black hood, the cloth hanging from fingers, the thing all too familiar to Niklaus.

“Just like old times then?” Celt asked, knowing exactly why Niklaus glared at him.

Snatching it from him, Niklaus muttered a curse, forcing the thing over his head though he hated the memories it brought with it. Memories of a time when he was helpless and unsure…

A hand—Celt’s he assumed—wrapped around his bicep, guiding him the rest of the way to the Escalade. A door was opened and he was practically shoved inside before it was closed again, two sharp raps on the window sending them on their way.

Niklaus’ senses were on high alert as the truck pulled off, waiting for the other person—who was quite obviously seated across from him since he could smell the man—to speak. His breathing was careful, and there was just enough space between them that a person with adequate training could keep themselves relatively unharmed.

He ticked off the minutes they drove in his head, cataloguing each turn as well. By the time they stopped, gravel crunching beneath the tires, they had traveled for a little less than fifteen minutes, made three right turns, and four left.

Niklaus sighed heavily, his patience wearing thin as he waited. Instead—and much to his surprise—the person across from him still didn’t speak, but opened the door and climbed out, the truck shifting with his weight, and not even a moment later, someone new replaced them.

Niklaus still wasn’t sure who the hell he was supposed to be meeting with.

Unlike the previous occupant of the seat across from him, it was a bit clearer that this one was the one in charge. “There’s no need to keep that on.”

Niklaus snatched the hood off, immediately looking to the man that had thought it necessary to keep him blind and essentially kidnap him for the duration of the ride. More importantly, he needed to figure out who the hell this person was. Since his first contract, Niklaus had only ever worked with Z, and he wasn’t looking to change that.

If whoever this man was, was new to their trade—Celt seemed to know him if he’d gone along with this—it meant one of two things. Either Niklaus was getting bid off—his current contract was sold to whoever this guy was—or they were all under new management.

Neither idea particularly appealed to him.

They were parked beneath a bypass, the interior lights along with the headlights both turned off, but Niklaus could still make out other figures looming outside the vehicle, as well as another car parked a few feet away. He didn’t immediately recognize the area they were in, but he would be able to find his way should this go bad.

“Niklaus.”

Only his twin brother called him by that name anymore. He hated the sound of it, and no matter who this guy thought he was, Niklaus refused to respond to it. “Klaus.”

The man across from him wore a blank expression, not even a little amusement, and even after Niklaus’ correction, it didn’t change. “I thought it was time we had a little chat.”

He had a marked accent, a combination of Irish and Welsh if Niklaus wasn’t mistaken. He’d spent time in both regions—and around Celt—to pick up on the various dialects.

“Who are you?”

“Your new handler,” he said evenly, his head canting to the side as though he were the one studying Niklaus instead of the other way around.

This guy, whoever he was, was fucking off, and if there was one thing that Niklaus didn’t need, it was someone he couldn’t read delving into his business.

Scratching his jaw, doing his best to hide his wariness, Niklaus asked, “And my last one?”

“Dead, but that isn’t of any importance. I need you for a job.”

What the actual fuck?

Z was dead?

How the hell hadn’t he heard, considering word got around quick enough when someone bit the bullet. He was tempted to ask the man how it had all went down, but with one look at him, he thought better of it, figuring the man wouldn’t be revealing details.

“Listen. I don’t know where you’re from, but I just finished a contract and I have some down time before I need to report in. Catch me later.” By that time, Niklaus would be gone and almost impossible to track down. While he didn’t mind his job on the best of days, one meeting with this guy told him that they were not going to get along.

The man laughed, though it didn’t sound amused in the slightest. “I would have thought that after you killed Rayne, you might be a little more inclined to listen to reason.”

Shit.

That’s what he got for helping the Russian with a problem. Having come back to New York City to settle the score, he hadn’t thought it would get him here. He remembered that day well.

Trailing the Russian, waiting for the perfect moment to put a bullet in his head. There had never been much love between them—it was only a touch better now—and though the thought of killing him hadn’t fazed Niklaus in the slightest. It was only after he was staring through the scope of his rifle at Brahim Besnik—the brother of the man that was at the bottom of the river by now—and the girl he held at gun point did Niklaus feel a shift.

He had hesitated, and to this day, he didn’t know why, but ultimately, he had ended up putting a bullet meant for the Russian into Brahim instead, effectively saving the girl and putting an end to a problem he hadn’t known about.

It was for that same girl, Lauren, who was now married to the Russian, that he had killed a fellow mercenary, one that hadn’t been in his organization, but one nonetheless. While there were no alliances in their trade, it was frowned upon to take out the competition. But Niklaus hadn’t been thinking of that when he saved Lauren’s life.

Even after all these years, the Russian was still fucking up his life.

But more curious was the fact that the man knew that it was Niklaus that had taken her out. It wasn’t like he was sharing that information, and he doubted Celt would have told anyone.

So how did he know?

Niklaus was too seasoned to display any physical reaction to the man’s words, but inside, he was squirming. With a casual shrug, he explained, “I was on the job. Not much I could do about that.”

“Interesting. I don’t believe I asked for an excuse,” the man said with a lift of his brow.

Niklaus really fucking hated arrogant people like him, especially when they had some power over him. Despite the risks and dangers of the life he lived, he wasn’t ready to die, so turning down this assignment was obviously not an option.

“Who’s the target?”

Niklaus was handed a single photo, and once he looked it over, focusing on the lone face circled in red ink, he cursed under his breath.

Maybe death was a better option.

Not because the particular individual featured there terrified him in any way, quite the opposite in fact, but because of how heavily guarded he was at all times, especially when he was back in his home country.

Russia was notorious for protecting their own, even if the one they were protecting was a Bratva boss…or maybe it was because he was a Bratva boss that they felt the need to protect him.

The last thing on his mind, however, was the fact that the man was connected to him.

“How much, and how do you want it?”

“You misunderstand. I don’t need him dead—though what you choose to do with him after is entirely up to you.” The man rested one hand on his leg, tapping his thumb again his thigh as he seemed to contemplate what he would say next. “Six months ago, he brokered a deal that garnered him around seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars. I need the name of the man behind the deal.”

“Right.” Sounded simple enough, but what Niklaus didn’t understand was why all the extra drama?

“And I’ll need this handled quietly. If you require assistance, only look to those within the Den. If anyone stands in your way, kill them.”

Niklaus didn’t offer a response to that, but did raise his gaze so he could look at the man. Though mostly concealed by shadows, Niklaus could see that he was young, much younger than Z had been, but definitely older than Niklaus. Late twenties to early thirties? Light hair—strawberry-blond maybe?—cold gray eyes. He looked like any other rich bastard with a taste for violence. But Niklaus could tell there was something more to him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“What do I call you?”

The door to the Escalade was opened suddenly, letting in the cold night air, signaling that it was time for Niklaus to leave, but as he readied to do just that, believing that he wouldn’t get an answer to his question, the man spoke.

“You can call me the Kingmaker.”