Blood had spilled and his knuckles ached from repeated use, yet the desire to do violence still rode Syn hard. He couldn’t pinpoint the reason why, not right away. Not until he walked back into the compound and spotted Tăcut standing off to the side, oblivious to his presence.

Just that quickly, his fingers were twitching and the slight weight of the knife in his pocket felt even heavier.

He needed to get the fuck out of Los Angeles.

He needed to let her go. Let her live her life without being a little cunt because he no longer had her where he wanted her.

Decision made.

He didn’t bother with goodbyes or explanations—never had during the few visits he took to the States though he’d done better because she’d asked it of him. Not today. Instead, he packed away what little he’d brought along with him and left the compound without looking back.

What was worth staying for? She didn’t need him anymore.

Even if he still needed her.

Fucking pathetic.

He needed to quit her.

London was calling his name, tempting him back to its cool embrace where he could grab a proper pint and lose himself in work for a while longer until he couldn’t remember his own name. But, as he walked through the airport, ignoring the curious glances and frantic expressions as people jumped out of his way, he didn’t buy an international ticket.

He felt reckless and impulsive and wanted to act on it.

Five hours later, he found himself in the backseat of a cab heading toward his favorite haunt over in Brooklyn.

The Hall wasn’t a place known for its atmosphere. Once the cover fee was handed over and you stepped foot inside the old dilapidated building, it was the alcohol, easy women, and promise of something filthy that made you stay.

The bass of thumping music grew louder as Syn walked to the bar and slipped behind it, hunting the shelves for the particular brand of vodka which never failed to loosen him up. Not everyone was allowed the privilege of doing whatever the fuck they wanted in here, but he was one of them.

He and Dismas, the owner of the place, went back a ways—since the days when he ran with the Wraiths and the Hall had been less of a sanctuary—and despite his rule for no violence inside the Hall’s four walls, Syn broke that particular one repeatedly.

Even now, Dismas stood off to the side, a ledger opened in front of him even as he cut his eyes to Syn. “Haven’t come to destroy anything tonight, have you?”

Like the last time he was here and he’d tried to take Tăcut’s face off just because it would make him feel better …

Good times.

Syn held up the bottle in his right fist, giving it a little shake. “You already know the answer to that.”

His choice in liquor was always telling.

Scotch when he was ready to burn shit to the ground.

Vodka when he wanted to mellow himself out.

But, even as he started with this bottle, there was no telling where this night would end by the time he was finished.

Dismas’ gaze flickered back to the door. “No Winter?”

Syn twisted the cap off his bottle. “Not this time.”

Maybe not ever again.

Turning away, he tipped the bottle to his lips as he went in search of a table near the dart boards, drinking the liquor down until the burn became too much and he had to take a breath.

It burned like fire on the way down, coating his stomach, and warming him from the inside out until he could practically feel it swimming in his veins.

Soon, the unease he felt slipped away, all but forgotten.

He’d missed this.

Too much time had been spent sober, actually feeling shit when he’d have rather numbed it all away.

Escape called for him now, like a lulling prayer whispering in his ears. By the time he was on his third pull of vodka, he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Between one breath and the next, he set the bottle on the table, digging into his pocket for the switchblade he kept on him.

He turned it over in his hands, watching the metal glint in the dim lighting of the bar, contemplating the many things he’d done with this very knife.

He could almost see the blood still slick against it, red marring silver. Like every time he held a knife in his hands, the undeniable urge to hurt something swept through him.

“Five hundred pounds says you miss,” came a gruff voice from his right. “Center target.”

Syn blinked, coming back to himself as he glanced over at Davie who sat a couple of tables down, arms folded across a barrel of a chest as he regarded Syn with his one good eye.

He’d been a regular here since before Syn had known this place even existed, picking up wet work whenever it was available. It wasn’t often British hitters came ‘round to this side and made a name for themselves, but he’d been one of the great ones.

Until he’d developed a shit gambling habit.

“S’not a bet, mate,” Syn warned him. “I never miss unless I’m trying to.”

Which was the only reason that fucking Romanian was still breathing. He’d made a choice that day to not shoot him right between the eyes.

In the months since it happened, Syn still wondered if he’d made the right choice.

Davie rubbed a hand over his salt and pepper beard, looking from the target then back to Syn. “Give it fifteen meters.”

Syn gauged the distance from the board to the end of the bar, just about the distance he was betting on—he could do it in his sleep.

“Your money,” he grumbled before thumping his bottle down on the table and standing.

As he made his way to the bar, he pocketed the switchblade and carefully removed one of his throwing knives, containing his smile when he heard the sound of chairs skirting across the floor as people wisely moved the hell out of the way.

It was always better to steer clear when Syn had his knives in his hand.

“Right then,” Davie called, slapping his hand down hard on the table. “Get on with it.”

Syn spun the knife, eyeing the board, calculating exactly how hard he needed to throw the knife and at what angle.

He hadn’t learned about wielding knives in the traditional sense, and by the time he arrived at the Den, he was already more than proficient. He was deadly.

But being used as target practice could do that.

When he threw a knife, he didn’t imagine a five inch thick board set across the room, or even a target he was meant to take out, he saw a person—one that had managed to fuck him up so badly, this was the life he’d sought once he’d escaped. Nothing ordinary or something that could be seen as remotely respectable—he was a hired killer, and one that enjoyed what he did a little too much.

A moment of careful consideration passed before the knife slipped past his fingers and launched across the room, spinning end over end until finally embedding itself into the board. Directly in the center.

Davie groaned, others clapped, and Syn shrugged. “I prefer small bills, mate.”

“Fucking hell,” Davie muttered to himself before slapping the money down onto the table, grumbling about needing another drink once he did.

Syn wouldn’t have made him pay—he had enough duffel bags filled with cash buried in his flat back in London to go years without taking on another job—but Davie was a man that always paid his debts.

He was seconds from grabbing a celebratory drink when something whistled next to his ear, and in the next blink of an eye, he watched as another knife hammered into the board next to his.

Except, this one hadn’t come from his hand.

Liquor dulled his senses, relaxed his muscles, but not enough that he wasn’t aware of his surroundings, or so he’d thought. As he turned to see just who’d managed to sink in a knife less than an inch from his, he realized he hadn’t been paying attention at all.

Because he hadn’t noticed her.

She stood a few feet away, her hip now resting against the bar’s edge, a curious little smile on her face as she looked from the knife she’d thrown to him. One sweep of him from head to toe with her eyes and her smile grew by an inch, but there was a dark edge behind it that made him wonder what she was thinking.

Something about her tugged at a memory in the back of his mind, but the more he tried to coax it forward, the further it slipped away.

“Not bad,” he said, smoothing a hand over his face, wondering what he must have looked like to her at the moment.

Eyes bloodshot, no doubt. Scruff on his face. His newly darkened hair cut much shorter. And after three days in Los Angeles reacquainting himself with his favorite trade, he probably looked like shit.

Whereas she was his walking wet dream. Black jeans that clung to curvy thighs and hips, cuffed over heeled black boots. Her top was practically made of strappy bands, each strategically placed to reveal nothing while showing everything. Hair as dark as an oil slick trailed down her back, just brushing the top of her jeans.

Brown eyes were trained on him, assessing—judging from the amused light that entered her eyes as she gestured to the board behind him.

“We’re all good at something, aren’t we?” Her voice held the barest trace of an accent, enough to further pique his interest.

Enough that he still wondered whether he knew her and from where.

“Knives are what you’re good at?” he asked, drawing closer, throwing caution to the fucking wind. He was curious and he’d be damned if he denied himself.

She shrugged. “Sometimes. There’s something rather poetic about them, no?”

He knew all too well.

The deceptive beauty of them, how easily they could be manipulated. They could glint in the early morning sunlight, reflecting rainbows and sparkling light, or they shifted into something dark and beautiful when pressed against a man’s neck.

“You must be new around here,” he said once he stood at her side, enjoying the way she had to look up at him, even with the impressive heels she wore. “I’d remember a throw like that.”

Her smile became a little more pronounced as she gave him her undivided attention. “Something like that.”

Her gaze flickered over his shoulder, briefly smiling at someone behind him before returning her gaze to him. It definitely had to be the fucking liquor that had him annoyed enough that someone else noticed her too.

Not that he didn’t understand why—she had his attention without even trying.

And that knowing little smile on her face told him she knew exactly what she was doing.

He stood there, anticipating the moment when she’d tell him to buy her a drink—to try and play a game with him that she had no possibility of winning.

But she surprised him when she turned back for the bar, dismissing him entirely.

It would have been really fucking easy to dismiss her before, but that knife flickered in the back of his thoughts, and then that little smile she’d offered him before her appraisal of him was snuffed out.

Syn wasn’t used to being ignored.

He shouldn’t have cared, not after the last few days he’d had, or that his favorite bottle was within reaching distance, but he found himself crossing over to her all the same. Like an invisible cord dragged him closer.

Hazel eyes lifted the moment he got close, as if she’d known all along that he would come after her.

She looked from him to the bottle he’d left behind—she’d obviously had noticed him long before he’d even known she was in the place.

“I would ask what you’re drinking, but …” They both knew the answer to that.

“What are you having, luv?”

“Are you bartending too?” she asked, her voice throaty and captivating.

Something else lingered behind her words—something he might have been able to decipher if he were sober—but for once, his mind was blissfully blank of the shit that plagued it and that was all that mattered.

“I can be whatever you need me to be.”

Whatever had been in her voice before was now gone as she rested her elbow on the bar and her chin in her hand. “Charming.”

“Only when I’m trying.”

She tucked wisps of that dark ebony hair behind her ear, eyeing him like he was a puzzle she was trying to figure out and enjoying the challenge. “I’m not sure you’d even be able to make a drink in your state, even with the whole—” she made a vague gesture behind her toward the board. “—knife thing.”

“I could make that with my eyes closed—I’m not nearly sloshed enough.”

“Then surprise me.”

He didn’t have to be told twice.

Slipping behind the bar, Syn offered Dismas a quick nod of his head when he got a frown of confusion, but the man didn’t question what he was doing—he was used to his antics by now. Instead, he moved further down the bar to give him space.

But before he went, Dismas eyed the woman sitting across the bar, a peculiar frown tugging at his lips. He didn’t know her, that much was obvious, but it might have been because he didn’t know her that the expression marred his face.

It was no secret that Dismas knew everyone on both sides of the law—if he didn’t know you, that could either be a good thing, or something bloody fucking awful.

In his current state, Syn didn’t mind the mystery. The damaged, fucked up part of himself he kept on lockdown appreciated the fact that she wasn’t treating him like some wild animal she was hoping to tame as other women that frequented the Hall tended to do when he was in town.

For once, he wasn’t the walking, talking weapon he was made to be.

Though he knew fuck all about making drinks—he liked his liquor straight with no chaser—he’d watched Dismas enough times to get a general idea.

First came the vodka—more than a shot’s worth going into the shaker—then ice, a variety of different fruity drinks that he found in the mini fridge below the bar, and finally, a splash of rum for good luck.

Giving it all a good shake, he poured it into a pair of glasses, setting them both down in front of her and feeling like a right fucking idiot as he gave a nod of his head. “Go on then, have a taste.”

“I didn’t realize you were using Iordanov vodka,” she said with a gesture of her hand to the bottle he’d set back on its shelf.

He glanced behind him, barely registering that it was one of Dismas,’ “Don’t fucking touch,” bottles before offering a shrug and turning back.

“I can afford it.” Even if it was over four-thousand dollars a bottle.

She was holding the drinks in her hand when he faced her again before she offered him one. “To our health.”

He’d expected her to just let it sit, but smiled as he took the glass she offered and tipped it to his lips. He swallowed his quickly, and by the time he was setting his glass back down, hers was already resting in front of her, her fingers brushing over her lips to wipe away the moisture.

In that moment, he was in love.

“What brings a girl like you to the Hall?” he asked, figuring it was a safe enough question.

“A girl like me?”

“No offense intended,” he said, his words lacking any real conviction. “Doesn’t seem like your scene, I reckon.”

“It seemed … interesting,” she answered, her gaze dropping for a moment. “Would you believe me if I said I was looking for you?”

“I’m trouble for a girl like you,” he said with a casual smile, already thinking of a million ways he could and would corrupt her.

“Maybe,” she said, surprising him again, “but there’s nothing wrong with a little trouble. Especially when it looks like you.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he didn’t have to look at the screen to know who was calling him.

Winter.

Without taking his eyes off the woman in front of him, he reached into his pocket and shut the ringer off.

He’d call her back later.

Syn’s smile grew a touch. “Are you going to tell me your name?”

“There’s no fun in that, is there? Ruins the mystery.”

A better man might have asked her if she was sure—if this, if he, was what she really wanted—but he was a bastard and didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.

Instead, he walked back around the bar, practically feeling the electricity thrumming between them as he offered her his hand.

She slipped her much smaller palm into his, happily climbing off that bar stool and following him through the back of the bar where he grabbed the money Davie left for him, then through the back door and out into the night air.

The door had barely clicked shut before he was spinning her around to face him, claiming her mouth before she could even draw in a breath. This was what he needed—a beautiful distraction. Something to take the edge off that vodka couldn’t quite manage.

She was frozen in his arms for a moment before she responded, rising up on the tips of her toes to better allow him access.

He could taste the liquor on her tongue, the sweet bite of cranberry, and a taste that was uniquely her own—he wondered if the rest of her was just as good.

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her, studying the flush in her cheeks, the slightly uneven breaths she took. “One night,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” she said as she stepped out further into the alley with him. “I know exactly the kind of man you are.”

Even better.

There would be no need for long explanations in the morning. No expectation of something more than this moment. Right here. Right now.

In the next breath, he tugged her back to him, but this time, he hooked an arm around her waist and lifted her clear off the ground. Already, his cock was pressed incessantly against the hard denim of his jeans, practically begging to get free.

Her legs wrapped around his waist, she clung to him like a lover, her fingers buried in his hair and for a moment, he felt her give in to him. Her bones turned to liquid, a sigh left her lips a moment before he had his on hers and swallowed the sounds she made.

He walked them forward, pressing her back against the brick wall, forcing her legs wider to get better in between them. Even through the jeans she wore, he could feel the heat of her and knew if he got his hand in her panties, he would find her soaked.

Anticipation of that very moment thrummed inside him, riding him so hard he was surprised he hadn’t given into the impulse yet.

“Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it,” she whispered in his ear, her words like a dark lullaby.

He was drunk on this—drunk on her—until those words penetrated, only slightly clearing his foggy brain.

“What’d you say?”

She kissed him one last time before pulling away. “You’re never supposed to accept drinks from a stranger, Synek, or have you forgotten your training?”

He shoved away from her a moment before his fingers came up to close around her throat, an unconscious reaction he couldn’t stop.

Because of that name.

His name—something she wasn’t supposed to know.

Most thought his moniker was a clever play on sin, rather than the shortened form of his actual name—Synek.

His mother was rotting in the ground, so there was no possibility she had shared it with another—not that she would have ever acknowledged Syn in any way.

Which could only mean one thing …

She must have realized what he was thinking because her smile grew, even as his fingers squeezed tighter.

“Did the Wraiths send you?” he asked, needing to know for sure before he snapped her neck.

“The price they offered did,” she strained to say from the pressure he was exerting.

But she wasn’t afraid.

She didn’t fight him or struggle to get free.

She was … waiting.

“They said you were impossible to find—their own white whale.” Her smile grew. “Maybe they weren’t trying hard enough.”

He wanted to strangle the fucking life out of her—he wanted to see her face mottle with red before she passed out from the lack of oxygen—but more than anything, he wanted to see her react. To see that anger and fury and fear that she was about to die at his hands for trying to betray him.

But what baffled him most was that she wasn’t.

Not afraid. Not angry. Nothing.

Not with his hand around her throat, and obviously not from what she’d been told about him.

He’d been a different man with the Wraiths.

Hungrier.

Bloodier.

Nothing they had to say would be good to hear.

Yet, she’d tracked him down as if it was nothing—as if he was no threat at all.

He should have shoved her away, left her in the alley and taken off—if she were here, the Wraiths weren’t far behind—but he hated that smug grin on her face, as if she had won.

He needed to wipe that look off her fucking face.

“You—”

The words were there, resting on the tip of his tongue, but a wave of vertigo hit him so hard he could barely keep his head up, let alone get his mouth to speak.

You’re never supposed to accept drinks from a stranger, Synek …

He’d heard her words clearly enough, even as his world began tilting and his vision grew blurry at the edges, but they hadn’t fully penetrated until now.

Until he realized she’d drugged him.

Even as he loosened his hold on her, stumbling back a step as he tried to right himself, the incessant buzzing in his head grew louder.

Squeezing his eyes shut and giving his head a sharp shake didn’t help the vortex currently swallowing him down. Nothing did.

“You fucking drugged me?” he asked, dazed. Surprised.

Or at least, that was what he’d tried to say, but the words sounded slurred even to his own ears.

Disbelief warred with the nausea churning inside him.

No one—no one had been able to get this close to him in years. He’d never let his guard down for anyone at any time.

He knew better.

Remember your training …

Syn didn’t make mistakes, not like this. Not when he knew the cost was his life.

Distantly, he heard tires screeching to a halt, doors swinging open, but he refused to look back at who he knew was coming for him.

His past had finally caught up with him, and no matter how far he had run, no matter how careful he had been, he couldn’t fight fate.

This moment had been inevitable since the night he’d taken that pencil and killed the men he considered brothers all so he could save the life of a little girl he hadn’t known.

The Wraiths had always promised vengeance and now they were here to collect.

He should have gone home.

Sleep now, sweet boy, he heard distantly, a voice from the past that was sickeningly haunting. It won’t hurt for long.