Three days passed in relative silence, both of them sticking to their respective levels of the house, and had it not been for the plates and utensils washed and dried next to the sink, Keanu might have thought she’d slipped her tracking anklets and taken off. Jungle be damned.

“You could stand to be a little nicer, Skar,” Calavera said over the phone, using her own nickname for him.

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why he’d bothered to call her, knowing that no matter what she said, he probably wasn’t going to like it. “Who says I’m not being nice?”

“Considering I’ve known you for years, I’m pretty sure you’re doing that judgmental thing you always do when someone isn’t doing what you think is right. You’ve already decided who she is before you even get to know her.”

Not necessarily. It was only when he was directly involved did he ever pass judgment on others’ stupidity. “What? That’s not part of the job. Besides, I already know everything I need to know about her.”

“Right, because who else would make a deal with the Kingmaker when they don’t think they have any other choice?” she asked pointedly.

A reminder that they, and many others, had all made a deal with the man at one time or another.

Calavera had once been bought and bartered by Uilleam and had ultimately accepted a contract in exchange for her freedom. Both Red and Celt, other mercenaries in the Den, had wanted revenge. The list was endless.

Ada wasn’t doing anything others hadn’t done before her.

He wasn’t even sure why it bothered him so much.

“Besides,” she went on, interrupting his train of thought. “This isn’t Paris.”

No, this definitely wasn’t that, but now that the thought was there, he couldn’t shake the similarities between his time there and now.

He could still remember those days like they’d happened yesterday—the smell of dew in the mornings, the sun on his face as he’d walked toward the tiny flat outside of Paris that had become something of a second home whenever he was in the city.

But as quickly as those memories surfaced, darker ones chased them away. The dew was replaced with the acrid stench of soot and the glow of the sun shifted into bright flames.

“I can tell when you’re fishing,” he finally said, swiping his arm across his forehead. “Paris isn’t important right now.”

He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “You sure? Feels like something is unresolved.”

From the moment he’d agreed to stand at the Kingmaker’s side nearly a decade ago, his job was to intimidate—to spark the fear of God in them before he ever lifted his hands.

Niceties weren’t needed for that.

The only person he had ever been tasked with protecting was stuck up with a nice ass.

“It isn’t.”

“You really should work on this nice thing, ya know.”

“I am.”

“I would stake every dollar I have that you’re not. In case you’re forgetting, she’s not actually your prisoner.”

“Sure as shit feels that way.”

Tracking anklets. Checking in on her to make sure she was following his rules. Monitoring her accounts for any activity. Making sure she stayed away from any phone or ability to communicate with anyone.

What the hell else was she if not his prisoner?

Not to mention she seemed to hate every second she spent in his presence.

Grinding his teeth, he asked, “When the fuck did it become a rule to be nice to a client anyway? As far as I’m concerned, that’s not in the job description.”

“It’s for your own sanity. If you’re stuck together, what else do you have to do other than spend time and talk. Oh! Why don’t you ask her about Belladonna?”

“I’m already doing that.”

“No, beyond that. You know Uilleam isn’t going to ask her anything other than what money she moved and business accounts. You should see what she actually knows about her.”

He brushed his arm across his face to wipe the sweat away, considering her words. “Why would I want to do that? You forget, I knew Karina before she was … whoever the hell she is now.”

Years might have passed, but he couldn’t forget the woman who’d managed to capture the attention of a man known for shunning female attention.

Love has no place in ambition, he’d explained once.

Keanu had never understood it, but he also hadn’t ever met a man who seemed to actually enjoy being alone.

One little article had changed everything though, changing Uilleam from a man obsessed with obtaining power, to a man embarrassingly infatuated.

Funny at the time, Keanu hadn’t thought it would turn into this—a vendetta years in the making.

“Sometimes I forget you were the first of us—that you even knew them before the Den. What was she like?” she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.

Calavera would be curious, especially since she was the only person affiliated with Uilleam that had actually seen her in person. Not only had it been Belladonna who’d revealed the truth to Calavera—that it had been Uilleam who had bartered her life before Nix carelessly gave her away—but she’d had Elias Harrington murdered because he’d kidnapped Calavera and tried to drown her.

Why she had soft spot for Calavera, Keanu didn’t know, but if he had to guess, it was just a way for her to get to Uilleam. But he only thought that way because it was what any member of the Den would do.

That wasn’t Karina, however.

At least not the Karina he’d known.

“She was ballsy,” he finally answered. “First time we met her, Uilleam threatened her because of an article she was writing on his client. She’d frowned, promised she wouldn’t do it again, even acted like she was scared. Next thing I know, there’s an article published speculating whether a, ‘kingmaker of the underworld’ existed.”

It was almost comical remembering Uilleam’s outrage when he’d seen that article—how quickly he’d used every contact he’d possessed at the time to get it pulled. Not that it mattered, it still lingered somewhere in the dark recesses of the internet.

“Nice,” he continued. “Kind, rather. To anyone. I probably would have thought her a saint if not for the way she was with Uilleam.”

She’d never bowed to his will. In fact, she did everything in her power to defy him.

Maybe she wasn’t so different now as she had been then.

“So what did he do? I mean, he would have to do something pretty fucking extreme for her to want revenge against him.”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

But they’d hardly argued in the beginning, and even at the end when things had been tense between them, it still didn’t warrant her trying to destroy him.

Then again, what the fuck did he know? Relationships were complicated and he’d be the first to admit he didn’t know everything about the man he’d been hired to protect.

“So find out what she knows. Hell, you’re not doing anything else.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll get on that. How’s it up there?”

Calavera sighed, still wanting to talk about Belladonna but willing to let it go for the moment. “Syn’s flying in.”

Keanu frowned, tossing his sander down. “Who the hell arranged that?”

It wasn’t much of a secret that Syn rarely came stateside from his native London since he’d officially signed a contract.

The reason why was just as much a mystery as the man himself.

If he had to guess, the reasons for both were one and the same.

There’d always been a shroud of mystery surrounding Syn, even more so considering he hadn’t come to the Den alone—Winter, who’d been no more than a child then, came along with him.

It was obvious to anyone that knew the pair that Syn would do anything to protect her, and that was noble even, but the rest of the time, when it was just Syn, the man could be a little … off.

“Uilleam did. Says he needs him.”

Which meant someone was either going to be brutally tortured then die bloody, or their body needed to be disposed of quickly without a trace of them left behind anywhere.

Either didn’t spell good things for someone.

Maybe a year ago he wouldn’t have thought much of it—he was used to Syn’s work, so nothing could shock him—but that was back when it was him and Winter together. When she’d been around to cull the anger inside him until he didn’t resemble so much of a beast. But now, she was with the Romanian and from the way she’d responded to his questions, he doubted her relationship with Syn had been the same since.

Now, he wasn’t even sure she’d be able to calm him down if a time called for it.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on him—both of them actually. If Uilleam has kept quiet the last six months and one of the first things he does is bring Syn in? That can’t be good.”

He could understand the Wild Bunch—bank robberies were familiar territory—and even the kidnapping and extortion, but whatever he was planning now would involve a lot more pain.

Focused on his conversation with Calavera, he only caught a glimpse of Ada coming upstairs out the corner of his eye, but once he had her in his sights, he couldn’t look away.

She dropped a towel and a bottle of what he thought was sunscreen onto a nearby chair before slipping the cover-up she had on and tossed that down too, unveiling the swimsuit she wore beneath.

And what a fucking bikini it was.

The bottoms, if they could even be called that, rode high on her shapely hips, accentuating the curve of her ass he was suddenly desperate to get his hands on, and the indentations at her waist.

And when she turned, not realizing she was now the focus of his attention, he caught sight of the dark line work of a tattoo on her hip and down across the front of her thigh.

Seemed she wasn’t as untouched as he’d originally thought.

“… don’t think you’re listening to me, Skar.” Calavera’s voice came back in, amusement clear. “Busy now?”

“What?”

“Yeah, definitely not listening. Anyway, if anything important happens, I’ll call you. Otherwise, try not to kill each other out there. I wouldn’t know how to explain that to Soleil.”

Valid point. “Will do.”

He hung up before she could respond, pocketing his phone as he started back inside the house, swiping his hands across the front of his jeans as he went.

He took his time though, watching as she dipped her toes in the water before diving in in one graceful, fluid move.

She hadn’t looked around for him—it would have been easy enough to find him in the workshop—but rather she moved around as if she’d been here before.

Or maybe, this had become a part of her everyday routine.

He hadn’t even noticed.

She easily swam beneath the surface of the water, her body just a glittery reflection. At the other end, she came up for a breath of air before descending back under again, swimming back his way.

He’d thought she’d noticed him standing there, but if she did, she didn’t acknowledge him in any way. No, he realized once she was directly in front of him, she did know he was there.

She just didn’t care.

He didn’t interrupt her, preferring to watch, wondering how long she would go without talking to him if he gave her the chance.

He’d be the first to admit he hadn’t made the best impression with her, and probably still had yet to since he avoided her as much as she avoided him, but this hadn’t helped his curiosity.

It didn't matter that he knew her type, and already knew all he needed to know about her, he still wanted more and that thought still made him wonder what the hell was wrong with him.

As she reached the other end of the pool, then swam back over to his side, she finally stopped.

A better man might have looked away, but he was who he was and she had his attention without trying.

“Has anyone ever told you it’s impolite to stare?” she asked glancing at him over her shoulder, managing to  shoot him a look that was both censoring and annoyed.

“Not when looking at you.”

A flicker of surprise, there and gone, flitted across her face. “Charming. Did you come to tell me I’m not allowed in your pool?” she asked, her accent making the words sound particularly cutting. “Because it’s a little late for that now, I think.”

Keanu tucked his hands into his pockets as he stepped closer, thoroughly captivated by the droplets of water sliding down her bikini. “If you stay in that, you can do whatever you like.”

“Is this … are you flirting with me?”

Was he? That hadn’t been his intention when he’d come out here, but now … he wasn’t so sure. “You’ve been out here a lot?” he asked, ignoring her own question, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. “I didn’t think you could swim.”

She laughed, the sound lacking its usual dryness. “I’ve lived in LA for five years, of course I can swim. It’s how I stayed in shape,” she added absently.

Palms flat on the edge of the pool, she levered herself out of the water, planting herself there before shoving the glossy strands of her hair back from her face.

Up close now, he could better make out the tattoo on her hip—a myriad of lotus flowers.

“They mean rebirth,” she explained, noticing where his attention had gone. “Some believe it symbolizes a change to come.”

“Mm, what change were you expecting?”

Her hands in her hair, she faced him more fully. “Pardon?”

He crooked two fingers at her, gesturing for her to come to him. He figured she would deny him, say something snarky and remain where she sat, but instead she eased to her feet and walked the short distance over to stand in front of him.

It was easy pretending not to notice her when she wasn’t around—out of sight, out of mind—but there was no ignoring what was right in front of him.

Soft stomach nipped in at the waist, small bikini bottoms accentuating the curve of her hips—God’s gift to him right fucking there. But beyond the body he was suddenly dying to get his hands on, her hair waved when it was wet, rather than bone straight and perfectly styled without a hair out of place. Her eyes seemed wider, her lips redder, her cheeks flushed.

Raw and vulnerable without killer heels with a figure-hugging dress and expertly applied makeup, she was raw. Vulnerable. Even if she did still possess a trait of defiance in her eyes when she looked at him.

Once she was within reaching distance, he didn’t ask her permission before reaching forward and stroking his fingers over the lotus flower on her hip, tracing one of the thicker lines until he felt a tremor race through her.

His gaze shot to her face, wondering if she felt it too.

She might have despised his very existence, but her body didn’t. She wasn’t as entirely unaffected as she pretended to be.

He liked that far more than he was ready to admit. “This,” he said with another stroke of his fingers. “What did you want to change?”

“Myself,” she answered after a moment, as if she had felt compelled to. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not the person you think I am.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then let’s get to know each other,” he said, finally dropping his hand.

“I don’t …” she flushed, brushing her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Why would you want to anyway?”

“Because maybe I was wrong, and since we don’t know how long we’re going to be here, our time together would be easier if we’re not miserable.”

She tilted her head up a fraction. “What did you have in mind?”

“Dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“You gonna keep doing that? Repeating everything I say?”

“Only when I don’t have a proper response.”

His smile grew an inch. “Just dinner.”

She chewed on her bottom lip a moment before giving a single nod and turning back for the pool.

Should be fun.

* * *

Just dinner, he’d said.

Nothing special.

Nothing she needed to wrack her brain about.

Yet, she was nervous all the same now that she could smell the spices in the air.

A part of it was fear, true. Especially not knowing what he would ask her or what assumptions he would make. Would he answer questions about himself if she asked?

There was so much she still didn’t know, though she’d been curious. About him. About the Den. Especially the man he worked for. She was also curious about why Belladonna was so important to the Kingmaker, but she wouldn’t dare question him about that.

She couldn’t afford to have him think she knew more than just a few account numbers of Belladonna’s.

It was funny now as she stripped out of her bikini and hunted through her luggage for something to wear. Just a short while ago—even this morning—she’d wished the Kingmaker had picked anyone other than him to take her to a safe house and hold her prisoner there.

Just remembering the smug look on his face when they’d first got here could have her glaring at nothing and wishing she was anywhere else.

She hadn’t even been able to appreciate this place as much as she’d wanted to, but now …

Now she was starting to see it as something more than a prison.

And God, how pathetic was that? He was nice to her for one day—not even a full day really—and her entire viewpoint of him was changing. Which didn’t make any sense at all, but … she was lonely, and if being nice ultimately got her just one phone call home, she could manage that.

Once she was dressed, she headed upstairs, dragging in a calming breath as she did.

He was just a man.

A little intimidating. A lot annoying.

But just a man.

He was standing in front of the island, a knife in one hand and a sharpener in the other. Metal glinting against metal as he expertly shifted one against the other, reminding her of the chefs on television.

Here it was—an opportunity to talk about something other than the mistakes she’d made. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Who taught you how to cook?”

He didn’t startle at her appearance though he hadn’t looked up until she’d started speaking.

“Kuku wahine,” he said before gesturing for her to come closer. “My grandmother.”

She smiled wistfully, thinking of her own. “My mum’s mum said I was hopeless in a kitchen. ‘Can’t boil an egg if you tried,’ she’d say. She finally gave up trying to teach me when I actually burned a pot of water.”

A ghost of a smile appeared. “Oh yeah?”

“Unfortunately. Anything I have tried to make was either burned unrecognizable or undercooked. Nothing in between.”

He gestured for her to come closer with a wave of the knife. “I’ll teach you something.”

She thought of telling him she was a lost cause—that she’d even taken a teaching course by a professional chef and still hadn’t been able to manage—but even still, she crossed the floor over to him. Now closer, she was better able to see the king salmon resting on the cutting board.

“Unless you want to lose a finger,”—or she lose one herself—“Probably best if you did this bit.”

With a soft chuckle, and far more precision that she would ever be able to manage in her lifetime, he carved into the fish in broad strokes, setting each piece aside before starting on another.

“So … English, huh?” he asked without looking up, carefully removing the pin bones.

She didn’t doubt he already knew the answer to that question—he probably knew everything about her that she didn’t want him to—but she could pretend like he didn’t for now.

This was a fresh start after all.

“Gravesend. Not sure you’ve heard of it. It’s a tiny little town.” One that she hadn’t appreciated enough. “I lived there most of my life before my family moved to London.”

“Bigger place?” he asked.

“Bigger for us, yes, but compared to the others in our neighborhood, it might as well have been a hut.”

Keanu shrugged one massive shoulder, setting the salmon aside. “Home is wherever you want it to be—even a hut in the butt fuck of nowhere.”

How desperately she wished she’d thought of that back then, maybe she wouldn’t be here now. She tried not to lose herself in that thought too much. “Eventually I went off to Cambridge.”

“Because you’re good with numbers,” he said, this time not a question, and accepting her change of subject.

She gave a demure shrug, never one to brag. “Better than most.”

“Yeah? What’s four-hundred and seventy-two times three-thousand-six-hundred and seven?”

“How is it that whenever you tell someone you actually enjoy math, they give a ridiculous math equation like that?” she asked with a roll of her eyes, though it only took a bit of mental calculation to get the answer.

“You saying you don’t know?”

“One-million-seven-hundred-and-two-thousand-five-hundred-and-four … I believe.”

“No shit? Grab my phone.”

He gestured to his front left pocket, beckoning her closer with a wave of the knife.

“I’m not putting my hand anywhere in the vicinity of your jeans, Skorpion.”

The last thing she expected was that half smile that curled his lips and the hint of challenge reflecting back at her. “Do I make you nervous?”

Yes. “Hardly.”

Only because she wanted to wipe that expression off his face and not because she wanted to touch him, Ada walked toward him and flattened her hand against his jeans before pushing her hand into the warm denim, trying not to think of how firm his thigh was before she finally got her fingers wrapped around his phone.

She didn’t realize he was staring at her until she looked up, her face blooming with heat as she quickly tugged his phone free, but held onto it.

“Why can’t I have a phone?” she asked, figuring if he could ask her questions, she could ask a few of her own in return.

“Better to keep you off the grid and away from whoever wants to see you dead.”

“I only want to call my family,” she whispered, knowing that no matter how hard she tried, he would hear the desperation in her voice. “I need to know they’re okay.”

“That’s the first thing they’re expecting you to do. You went through a lot of trouble to cover your tracks, right? Don’t fuck that up. The Kingmaker will keep his end of the bargain.”

She wanted to believe that—she’d staked her life on it.

“Okay. Password?”

“Not a chance.”

He plucked the phone from her hands, turning just slightly to enter the four-digit code without her seeing. It only took a few seconds to pull up the calculator, then insert the equation he’d given her.

“Consider me impressed.”

She tried not to let those words affect her too much. Clearing her throat, she stepped around the island. “How can I be of help?”

He passed her a bowl of vegetables. “Rinse those.”

“Seriously?”

“If you can burn water, let’s take it easy the first time around.”

Fair enough.

For the first time since they’d met, they fell into a comfortable silence, and once she’d finished her task, she stepped to the side and watched him work.

Inside the kitchen, he looked less formidable—less like a man that was capable of taking her life at a moment’s notice. She hadn’t known what to expect from his invitation, but now she was glad she’d accepted it.

He was … nice.

Nicer than she had ever expected he was capable of.

Was this what he was always like, or was he simply trying to get information out of her?

“You’re staring,” he said without looking away from the skillet where he placed a cut of salmon into the pan, skin side down.

“Observing,” she reiterated, refusing to give him the satisfaction of admitting that she was, but his expression said he didn’t believe her.

“Come a little closer and you can look your fill.”

Again, she wouldn’t dignify that with a response.

When she didn’t, he asked another question. “How’d you wind up at the firm?”

She knew the question would come up eventually, and while a part of her didn’t want to answer, the other part of her was glad he was actually asking rather than making assumptions again.

It was stupid of her to even care what he thought of what she had done when they didn’t know each other, yet that had always been one of her flaws—she cared what others thought of her.

“D’you have wine?” she asked, figuring a little liquid encouragement would help.

He pointed at a cabinet across the kitchen, reaching across to one of the drawers on the island to pull out a corkscrew.

She found a decent vintage—now completely convinced that a woman had to have been here considering the steady supply of beer in the refrigerator—and cracked it open, pouring a healthy glass.

Swallowing down two mouthfuls, she blew out a breath. “It was after I graduated from Cambridge. I got an email about a job offer working for a prestigious firm. They said they’d been following my progress.”

“A brilliant mind,” they’d said, words that had immediately made her feel pride and validation.

The ink had hardly dried on her diploma and all of her hard work was immediately being recognized. She hadn’t thought anything of it, and as her mother always liked to say, you never look a gift horse in the mouth.

“The money I would make was absolutely amazing and the idea of walking away from that … I know what you’re thinking,” she said before he could open his mouth. “Money can’t buy happiness, but when you’ve never had it, it certainly feels like it.”

Financial stability was happiness, amongst other things.

“It was easy at first—keeping the books, I mean. I didn’t think anything of it, and if I’m being honest, I probably still wouldn’t be bothered by it had my father …” she gulped those words back.

This time, when he looked at her, there was no trace of mocking in his expression—he looked almost sympathetic.

“I’d do anything for them, despite what you might think of me.”

“We all do things we never expect when it comes to the people we love,” he said softly. “It’s never black and white.”

She nodded, but didn’t respond aloud, not knowing what to say next. At least now, he knew why. Her decision might not have been the best option, but at least her motives had come from a good place.

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at the table, plates in front of them, the warm smell of honey and garlic wafting from the plate in front of her. She didn’t realize how much she was starving until now.

“Why do they call you Skorpion?” she asked, looking from her plate to him. “I imagine there’s a story behind it.”

“Have you ever heard the story of the scorpion and the frog?” he asked, gesturing for her to continue eating when she’d paused to look at him.

“The fable where the scorpion stings the frog and they both die in the lake?” she asked. “That doesn’t sound like a very good way to earn a moniker, I don’t think.”

“Except, I’m not the one dying in the end.”

She swallowed. “When you put it like that …”

“But you won’t need to worry about that, you’re safe with me.”

Ada didn’t doubt that at all.

His phone’s sudden ringing disrupted their quiet conversation, a stark reminder that this wasn’t a dinner between two people getting to know each other.

He was a mercenary working for the man extorting her. How quickly she’d forgotten that.

His gaze barely swept over the screen before his face cleared of any emotion and he turned away from her. “I need to take this.”

“Of course.”

He didn’t say anything more before leaving the table and disappearing into his bedroom before closing the door soundly.

Ada sat at the table a little while longer before finally standing and clearing it off, rinsing the dishes in the sink. She thought of lingering, wondering if he’d want to continue their talk, but ultimately thought better of it and went back downstairs.

They weren’t friends, and whether it was in a few days or a few weeks, he would be walking out of her life as quickly as he’d walked into it.