His body had turned into one gigantic nerve—a nerve only tuned to pain.

Synek hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him as he barely caught himself before his face slammed against the concrete floor.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been locked in this room, or even when Iris had slipped inside without anyone noticing. That visit had helped to bring him back from the dark recesses of his own mind.

He could focus when she was standing across from him—and as much as he wanted to make her pay for what she had done, he’d needed the distraction. But whether she felt remorse or had doubts for what had happened didn’t matter. She was still going to pay for what she did once he got free.

If he got free because with the way things were looking now … he wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Come now, puppy. Get up.”

Rosalie’s voice filtered in through the fog in his mind, dragging him back to the present far more quickly than he would have liked. When the torture first started, it had been far too easy to let his mind run away with itself, but he couldn’t escape when he was too focused on the pain.

But while she was still the same bloodsucking tick she’d been from the moment he was brought into this place, since he couldn’t fight back physically, he did the only other thing he knew would get a rise out of her—he ignored her.

The more she talked, the less he responded until he hadn’t said anything at all during this last bout.

He didn’t even scream as he was tortured, merely ground his teeth and bore it, refusing to even give her that much.

Dragging in a painful breath, Synek managed to get one hand flat on the floor and used what little energy he had left to push himself back up to his knees. His vision was blurry and tinted red, but at least he wasn’t on the ground anymore.

Down, but not beaten.

Rosalie stood across the room in a mesh miniskirt and over-the-knee boots. He wondered, not for the first time, what he had ever seen in her.

She’d always been sadistic with a penchant for violence that rivaled his own. She was insatiable, and though he’d been the steady dick she preferred, she hadn’t minded taking others in her bed. Even when he had.

When she thought he was upset by it, she’d do it more often just to get a rise out of him.

Fucking hell, he’d fed off that for years until the appeal no longer did anything for him, but while he’d been happy to get shot of her and the whole lot of them, she still wanted to dig her nails in and drag him right back to where he didn’t want to be.

“Say yes,” she told him. “Say yes and all this goes away.”

He merely blinked.

“You don’t want to have this attitude when he gets here, do you?”

He?

If she was this excited about someone coming in here to disrupt her torture session, that could only mean it was someone he didn’t want to see—someone who was capable of far worse than she could ever mete out, because while she could instruct others on how to hurt him, this someone else had taught him the varying ways to make someone scream.

Before his thoughts could carry him away, a sudden blast of water slammed him in the face, and no matter how he twisted or turned, there was no avoiding it. It kept on for ages until he was sure he would drown, but as his lungs started to burn, the water shut off again.

One of Rosalie’s lackeys stood in the corner with a dripping hose in his hand, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Fucking bastard would die first.

“Wouldn’t want you disappearing into your head before he gets here,” Rosalie explained with a shrug.

Synek didn’t get a chance to utter a response before the door swung open, bouncing off the wall. He expected a giant of a man, one who was as tall as he was wide, but instead, he found a stooped over old man in a wheelchair.

In the years of Synek’s absence, the man before him had to have lost over four stone, though his presence was still felt. His milky white eye still seemed to stare directly at you, and the grisled frown was right where it had always been.

“Jesus, Johnny,” Synek muttered, finding his voice again. “Why don’t you just die already?”

If he’d heard the remark, his old boss didn’t comment on it. “You can run, but you can’t hide,” he replied in the thick smoker’s voice he’d had for as long as Synek could remember.

Unlike the others who had painstakingly made sure they were never within reaching distance of him, Johnny rolled right up to him. Even if Synek hadn’t been shackled to a wall, Johnny wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone.

“I wasn’t hiding, though, was I? You’ve just got a shit team of men, mate. Always have. I could’ve circled the lot of ’em and waved ’ello and the little shits would’ve tucked arse and run in the opposite direction. What’s that say? They fear me more than they fear you?”

His accent always thickened when he was lightheaded and close to passing out, but Synek couldn’t think about that now. For all Johnny knew, he was just trying to piss him off.

Johnny shook his head. “I gave you the world, and you spat in my face.”

This shit again … “And I thanked you in bloodshed and carnage. Make no mistake, Johnny boy, you wanted more than I could ever bloody give. That’s the truth, innit? I’d have taken on an army if you’d asked it, but I gave you my limits. I told you the line I wouldn’t cross.”

That was the rub, though Johnny could never and probably would never see it that way. He expected loyalty and clear and obedient consent. He wanted his men to die for him.

Synek might have danced with death every chance he got, but the day he chose to cross the final line, the decision would be his. No one else’s.

But after his remark, confusion lit up Johnny’s one good eye—as if he had no idea what he was talking about.

Whatever doubt there was, however, was forgotten quickly enough. “A fucking waste. All that talent and you threw it away for a little cunt.”

A reaction was what he’d been looking for, and if he hadn’t been so bloody exhausted, Synek would have seen it for what it was, but with pain echoing through his body and smirking faces all around him, he gave Johnny was he wanted.

He reacted.

Before either of them realized what he was doing, Synek lurched forward, brought up short by the chain, his fingers mere inches from the man’s neck.

“Call her that again and I’ll be shoving my fist up your—”

“String him up!” Johnny ordered.

This time, Synek didn’t go quietly.

The moment one of them was in reach, he lashed out, using the man’s stunned surprise to his advantage. He used his forward momentum to slam the man’s face against the wall, dropping him with relative ease. Another ran at him, landing a few solid blows to his already sore ribs, but Synek grabbed him by the face and dragged him forward, latching onto the man’s ear and biting down.

His screams echoed in the tight space, growing louder as Synek ripped out a chunk before spitting it out along with a mouthful of blood. But then three came at him at the same time, and in his weakened state, there wasn’t much he could do to fend them off.

Before long, he was right back in his former position, his chains shorter now.

Johnny was still in the room, annoyance flaring in his good eye. Rosalie stood to his left, her mouth slightly parted, pupils dilated.

Crazy fucking bitch.

“You made the wrong decision that day, son,” Johnny said as Rosalie handed him the Taser meant for livestock. “But you’ll learn that soon enough. I don’t give a shit if I have to spend the last few moments of your life reminding you of that fact.”

Synek drew in a breath, the sound of the crackling static managing to make his heart skip a beat.

This would hurt.

“Go and fuck yourself, Johnny.”

Not a day went by that he didn’t think about the decision he’d made that day. Of sparing Winter and walking away from everything he knew for something else that wasn’t guaranteed.

And not a day went by that he knew he would make the same decision all over again.

* * *

The scent of blood lingered in the air.

Synek came awake slowly, his limbs too stiff, his skull pounding as he squeezed his eyes shut and willed the pain away as if that would actually help the mother of all hangovers he had.

Too much, he thought as he rolled to his feet.

Too much vodka. Too much fucking. Too much everything he’d done the night before because in the end, it had done fuck all to help the constant barrage of memories that plagued him day in and day out.

When he started with the Wraiths, it had been far too easy to slip into the role of executioner and swallowing down a shot or two of vodka to erase the images of what he’d done. As time passed—as more bodies piled up—he’d grown to need more to take the edge off.

But nothing he took was ever good enough to completely quell the demons living inside him, not unless he wanted to dig into something stronger that would almost certainly guarantee he’d start chasing other ghosts.

Instead, he pushed himself to the breaking point until the only thing left at the end of the night was exhaustion.

But memories weren’t the only thing he’d been trying to forget the night before.

The Kingmaker’s visit still lingered at the forefront of his mind, and the thought of what the man wanted him to do played like a loop inside his head. It was one thing to disobey an order given. It was something else entirely to betray the Wraiths.

That shit wasn’t taken lightly. And considering he knew what the Wraiths did to people who went against them, he didn’t even want to consider the possibility that he would even get away in time.

But the Kingmaker, whoever the fuck he was, had guaranteed it.

Synek hadn’t trusted that at first, but it had only taken one whisper of the man’s name to learn that he was just as powerful as he presented himself to be—maybe more so.

“Jesus, you look like shit.”

Synek groaned at the booming voice above him, squinting an eye open to peer at the man standing over him. In all the time they’d been in this place, he didn’t think he had even seen Bear smile, not once. Sure, his expression softened when he was trying to get one of the girls to climb in his lap, but even that was a poor excuse for a happy expression.

Gradually, as his fucked-up brain began to piece together everything around him, Synek realized what had woken him. The booming he’d thought was his own brain trying to escape his skull had actually been Bear at the door, knocking with one of those giant fists of his before letting himself into Synek’s room.

“I locked that door,” Synek grumbled, rolling over and scrubbing a hand down his face.

“And I picked it,” Bear said with a shrug, the only person who could get away with it.

“Right.” Synek sat up, brushing a hand over his newly shortened hair. “You look like you ’aven’t shaved in a fortnight, so who’s really the shit one, eh?”

Bear didn’t even blink. “I didn’t understand a word you just said.”

Lumbering to his feet, Synek stuck up his middle finger before brushing by the man and stumbling his way into the connected bathroom, before slamming the door shut behind him and twisting the lock.

Though he knew where Bear liked to stick his dick, and while he didn’t have to worry about him trying anything with him, he didn’t trust anyone in this place—not even the man he was arguably closest with.

Synek relieved himself before splashing water on his face and cleaning himself up, exchanging last night’s shirt for a clean one.

“What the hell do you want anyway?” he asked once he was back inside his bedroom, surveying the damage of the night before.

A number of beer bottles littered the floor, some empty while others were turned on their sides and spilling the sticky, sour liquid onto the floor. Empty food containers, handcuffs, and an assortment of knickers he was in no fucking mood to figure out who they belonged to.

Bear ignored his question to say, “You need to get your shit together, man. This place’ll eat you alive if you let it.”

This wasn’t news to him, but what Bear didn’t realize was that nothing was left of Synek that hadn’t been corrupted by this place.

Bear had been with the Wraiths a year or two before Synek had ever stepped foot in this place, and though he was only a few years older, Bear liked to treat him like he was a kid who needed to be watched out for. Unlike the rest of the Wraiths, he kept a definitive line between his personal life and the shit he did for the Wraiths.

Synek hadn’t been able to make the distinction.

He didn’t bother with a response as he walked over to his bedside table and rooted around for his pack of smokes. “You going to tell me why you’re here?”

“Boss is looking for you.”

Of everything Bear could have said, the last thing he wanted to hear was that he was being summoned to a fucking meeting with a man he never wanted to see. Though Johnny had accepted him among their ranks after he was brought in and proved his worth, the dynamic had changed a bit once he found out Synek was fucking his daughter.

Me and everyone else, Synek thought with some annoyance. Not that he gave a shit who she was spreading her legs for once he realized she was batshit—and considering his state of being most days, that was saying something. But those who were smart didn’t mention what Rosalie got up to behind her father’s back.

And as far as everyone was concerned, he was hers, and that was the only relationship they acknowledged.

“Yeah, all right.”

Synek slapped him on the back as he left the room, fitting a cigarette between his lips, cupping the flame of his lighter as he drew the nicotine into his lungs.

Bodies in various state of undress littered the floor—all alive and breathing as he far as he was aware.

Hopefully.

As he neared a room to his left, the door suddenly swung wide and a girl in nothing more than glorified pasties was thrown out of the room with her dress in hand, whimpering as her back hit the wall.

“Fucking hell, mate,” Synek grumbled as he spotted Rook standing on the other side, throwing the rest of the girl’s things out his room. “Calm down.”

Out in the main room, one of the girls, Wren—if he remembered her name right—had a pair of garbage bags in her hands, picking up beer bottles and other assorted trash from the multiple surfaces and tossing them away. She was a shy little thing and hadn’t been at the compound longer than six months, but even he didn’t understand her purpose there other than to clean up after nasty motherfuckers.

“Hey there, dove,” he greeted her, waiting for the inevitable flinch as she looked up from the floor to him.

He was used to the fear in people’s eyes when they looked at him—it was well earned even if he didn’t always enjoy it—but she looked at everyone with fear, worried that a hand or a fist or an unwanted touch would come after the greeting, so he didn’t take it personally. She also did her best to hide her reaction when it came from him.

The only person she didn’t get skittish around was Bear.

Funny, considering he was one of the meanest bastards in this place.

“Hi, Syn,” she returned, voice barely above a whisper.

“Stop talking to the help,” a voice called, causing Wren to jolt and quickly scurry away.

Rosalie’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard to his pounding head because she insisted on being an absolute cunt to any and everyone so long as she was in the mood.

She was a decent lay, no doubt about that, but that didn’t make up for the rest of her.

“Then why are you talking to me?” Synek asked, moving past her and completely unbothered by the pouty frown on her face.

She always got that look when he wouldn’t entertain her shit—like a child throwing a tantrum when someone took her favorite toy away. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d given in to that.

“Oh, don’t be like that, puppy. I thought we had a good time last night.”

“You taking the piss? Even with my dick in your mouth, I’m pretty sure you enjoyed it more than I did.”

She laughed as if he’d made a joke, though he was deadly serious. It didn’t matter what he said to her—how cruel or degrading—she ate that shit up and came back for more. But then again, she didn’t care what he said to her so long as he answered when she called for him.

As Synek passed through the double doors that led into the oversized meeting room where Johnny held his meetings, his gaze was drawn to the large ornate table in the very center, as it always was when he walked in here.

The Wraiths’ logo had been carefully carved into the ebony table, polished to a shine, then blue epoxy used to set the table, giving it an otherworldly appearance. It was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

Today, it was the only thing in the room.

“What the fuck?”

“I needed you here,” Rosalie explained as she sank into one of the chairs. “You move a little faster when Johnny’s the one calling.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Synek turned to the door with every intention to leave, but she held her hand up.

“Still his orders, but I thought you’d like a friendlier face for what he’s going to ask you to do.”

“What’s the job?”

Her smile told him he wasn’t going to like her answer.

* * *

He needed a drink as badly as he needed to get the fuck away from everything. Maybe it was the thought of what he had to do tonight that had him on edge as he rode in the passenger seat of the truck, his hands tucked in his pockets.

You can do it for me, Rosalie had said with a curling smile. Just imagine how I’ll reward you later.

The thought made his stomach turn.

“Remember the plan,” Digger, one of the Wraiths Synek hated the most, ordered before he stepped out of the truck and the rest of them followed.

Synek found a vacant seat at a table toward the back of the bar they’d driven to, one that wasn’t too crowded where he could think. What he needed was a drink, something to calm the roaring in his ears because the more he sat lost in his own thoughts, the more restless he became.

His options were limited, and disobeying an order that had come from Johnny was as good as death.

“I can’t kill a kid,” he muttered to himself, mindful of the glances shot in his direction, but he paid them no mind.

For some, the line didn’t exist, but for others, it was a blur.

For Synek? The line was straight and clear between what he was willing to darken his soul for and what he wasn’t.

Right at the top of the latter’s list was the innocent.

Not the ones who thought their hands were clean simply because they gave an order and didn’t lift a finger themselves—no, he meant the ones who hadn’t asked for their fate. The ones who’d been as much of a victim as anyone else.

Synek knew what that was like, and he didn’t want anyone else to feel the kind of pain by his hand if he could help it.

What the fuck could a child have done anyway?

“It’s a fucking kid,” he whispered again, finishing the thought aloud.

“Hey, mister? Are you crazy?”

The question came from beneath him to his left, and he didn’t have to guess the culprit when he caught sight of a tiny thing with brown hair beneath a table, a hand slapped over her mouth as if she could take the words back.

Curious, Synek tilted his head as he studied her, wondering why the hell someone her age was in a bar, then smiled as he realized just what she’d asked him.

“Jury’s still out on that one, love. What’s a little thing like you doing in here?” he asked.

She should have been afraid of him, or at the very least, cautious of talking to a stranger, but she seemed to take his question as an invitation as she crawled out from under the table. “I’m making sure my uncle stays out of trouble,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulder.

Synek rested his elbows on the table, realizing who she was and hating the fact that he did. “This ain’t a place for you, though, is it?”

She shrugged again, not seeming to understand the importance of what he was asking. “If you want to order something, you’ll have to go to the bar, you know.”

He didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know that the two he’d come with were already occupying enough seats without him needing to be up there. Besides, he doubted any of them were paying attention to what was happening with him now.

“Are you waiting for your friends?” the girl asked, drawing his attention back to her.

“Can’t say I have any of those, little miss.”

She looked pleased by the nickname. “Not even the ones you came with?”

He shrugged.

He couldn’t even consider them associates.

“Everyone needs a friend,” she continued, pausing a beat before adding, “I could totally be your friend.”

Synek couldn’t think of a single instance in his life where anyone, his family included, had ever wanted to be his friend. He’d found a mutual ground with Bear, and it had grown from there, but they hadn’t started off even liking each other.

She’d been in his presence for less than ten minutes, and already, she’d talked to him as if he were somebody worth knowing.

“I’m Winter, just so you know,” she said, sticking her hand out.

His smile tipped up at one corner of his mouth as he inclined his head. “Syn.”

“Wicked.”

He felt lighter at that moment, seeing her genuine happiness, even as he was a bit surprised that he could make someone feel something other than fear, hatred, or lust.

It only reaffirmed that he wouldn’t be able to do what they’d called him here to do.

“Friends forgive friends, no?” he asked, wanting her forgiveness for the events he wouldn’t be able to stop.

She frowned as she looked at him, her child-like face scrunched up in faux understanding. “Of course.”

But she didn’t know what he was really asking. Not really.

Synek fell silent as he glanced over at the clock, watching the minutes tick by with excruciating slowness. Winter didn’t seem to mind it, though, as she prattled on beside him with a pencil in her hand, doodling in her book.

But as the pub started emptying all around them, he couldn’t feign nonchalance anymore. He sat up a little straighter.

As the clock struck 11:14 on the dot, he glanced over at her and plucked the extra pencil she had tucked behind her ear. “Could I borrow this, luv?” he asked, if only to be polite. His attention was on the other side of the bar.

Digger stood on the other side of the bar, his attention coming to him for a moment as he waited. It was Synek’s job, after all. He was supposed to be the one delivering the message and seeing this done, but Digger had always been an overeager little shit and would gladly dish out pain if he was able.

The sound of Winter’s chair moving had him reaching for her without looking back, his hand resting on top of her hair to keep her in place. She didn’t resist.

“Erilio wants his money,” Digger announced once he had the bartender attention, who was Winter’s uncle.

The man’s gaze darted in their direction, his face paling when he realized Synek was already standing near her. What he didn’t know was that he didn’t mean her any harm.

They were friends, after all.

“I’ve got most of it,” the man said. “Just give me a little time, and I’ll get you the rest.”

Digger frowned. “Yeah, see, that’s not how this works.”

When Digger pulled out his gun, Synek frowned, even as he stood, angling his body just so to keep Winter out of view for a little while longer.

“That’s not the job,” he said, his voice tight. “Take the bag and let’s get moving, Digger.”

The man didn’t heed the threat in Synek’s voice. He merely shook his head as if he was disappointed. “You’ve gotten soft.”

If his idea was to bait him into a fight, it wasn’t working. “Finish the job.”

Digger laughed, turning to better face him. “And if I don’t?”

The man they’d come for looked back and forth between the pair of them, seeming to notice the rising tension. “Three days, that’s all I need. I’ll have his money, I swear it.”

“Good,” Digger said, moving to pick up the bag the man had set on the bar. “But that won’t help you now.”

Synek didn’t even have the chance to cover the girl’s eyes before Digger was firing, sending a bullet ripping through the chamber of his gun and plugging  the man’s forehead before shattering the glass behind him.

The sound of Winter’s screams made Synek flinch. Like his chest was on fire and his lungs didn’t know how to properly work.

He recognized those screams of anguish—of a pain so profound that the only way to feel any relief at all was to purge it.

He’d screamed like that for years.

“Take care of the girl,” Digger said, reminding him what the original job had been.

This had been the man’s second strike, and since the first obviously hadn’t taught him, Johnny had thought the best way for him to learn was through his kid.

For money.

He was expected to take a child’s life because of money.

Synek didn’t budge from where he stood. “Not going to happen.”

“She’s seen our faces. You know the rules,” Mario said dispassionately as he glanced over the bar at the dead man slumped on the ground.

“Fine,” Digger said before Synek could formulate a response. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

It.

As if she wasn’t a human being.

As if she was nothing.

Synek didn’t think—he reacted.

The second Digger was within reaching distance, he yanked the man forward by the back of his neck and thrust the pencil into his neck. Fire roared to life inside his skin as he yanked it free and watched the man drop.

He’d bleed out in seconds.

Swiping his hand over his face where blood had sprayed from the wound in Digger’s neck, Synek didn’t hesitate to move forward for the other two.

He lost himself somewhere in the middle—his thoughts growing blissfully blank—and only once there was no one left standing in the bar did Synek finally come back to himself, blinking back the bloodlust.

Winter was sniffling on the other side of the room, and the sight of those tears wounded him. “Hey there, don’t cry,” he whispered, brushing her tears away, oblivious to the bloody streaks he was leaving on her face. “I’m not good with tears.”

It came to him then, that he might have been a killer and probably deserved the torment he suffered day in and day out, but he didn’t have to be that for the Wraiths.

And after tonight, there was no going back to what he knew.

Not anymore.

It was time to take the Kingmaker up on his offer.