Though his fingers ached from the repeated punches he’d been throwing for the past hour, it was a welcome feeling.

Synek had always gotten off on pain.

He liked the sharp bite of it, the way it swept through him in a wave. It didn’t matter if he was hitting bone, inflicting or receiving, it sent a rush through him he couldn’t adequately describe, though he was sure it was close to euphoria.

This … it felt good, and after the past few shit weeks he’d had, it was a much-needed relief.

Before the man strapped to the chair in one of the many interrogation rooms inside the compound—the Den’s center of operations—could right himself, blood spilling from his lips as he groaned, Synek flexed his left hand before hitting him again.

Blissful agony lit up his entire arm, and despite himself, he laughed as he reared back, shaking his hand out.

The man had a hard head.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, turning for the first time since he’d entered this space as he fished his smokes out of the back pocket of his jeans.

As he did so, he caught sight of the other man in the room who was standing against the back wall. A man who had yet to master keeping his emotions from reflecting on his face.

Synek might not have blinked an eye at a little torture, but the other man looked disgusted … and a bit green.

He scoffed as he tucked a cigarette between his lips, bloodied filter and all. “Come on, I’ve barely touched him.”

Which was partly true.

During the first ten minutes they’d been in this room, Synek hadn’t uttered a word. Instead, he’d merely sat in the chair opposite his target and stared at him, waiting for the moment his mask would crumple and his fear would peek through.

Some lasted longer than others, but he found they all broke eventually, whether they wanted to or not. Especially once he had his knife in his hand.

This was something he had learned to be good at long before now, even before the Wraiths ever dug their claws into him.

Because it wasn’t always about fists or weapons.

At times, neither would do much good if he was going up against someone bigger or stronger.

He’d learned to make his silence spark fear. His very presence.

What came after—when he inflicted physical pain—that was only for his benefit.

The man across from him, Roger Fitzpatrick, had been wary from the very beginning of their time together. He was older than most who wound up in Synek’s chair, but not old enough that he was fearful just because he knew how easily his bones could break.

As a former founder of an accounting firm that serviced elite criminals, Fitzpatrick was probably used to all sorts—those who used words to intimidate and others who chose brute force.

He hadn’t realized until it was too late that Synek was both.

It had been far too long since he’d felt the harshness of flesh-covered bone and how it resonated against his own for days after. And thinking of that last time … he wished the man he’d been punching then was the one sitting in front of him now, but unlike the man he was currently hitting, that one wasn’t able to vocalize his pain at all.

For now, he’d settle for Fitzpatrick.

“Are you ready to answer my questions?” Synek asked, looking back to the accountant as he flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette before dragging in a lungful of nicotine.

When the man nodded eagerly, eyes pinched shut as he breathed through his pain, Synek smirked back at the mercenary who really needed to let his bullocks drop if he ever intended to get anywhere in this profession. Then he reclaimed his seat and gave Fitzpatrick his undivided attention.

“Right, then. Tell us about the governor,” he said, giving an imperial wave of his hand.

Though Synek reminded him anyway, Fitzpatrick didn’t need to be told why he was here. If he were smart, he already knew the answer.

Of all the clients he’d kept while operating his accounting firm, there was only one profile—despite the more than dozen he’d handled himself—that would matter to anyone who peeked through his books.

A client by the name of Michael Spader.

Sometimes, even though he’d been working for the man for years, Synek still found the Kingmaker’s ability to predict people’s moves baffling. Though he had been in London for the better part of the past few years, he still kept up with the happenings in New York City between his handler and the other mercenaries of the Den.

Including the real reason the Kingmaker had made him that offer all those years ago.

This—Synek, the mercenaries, the very Den itself—had been crafted to avenge someone the man had lost and to take down whatever enemy had dared to take her from him in the first place.

At least, that had been the plan until he discovered his dead lover and his enemy were one in the same.

Synek didn’t have the first idea what to do with that information. He was curious as hell and had a number of questions, but that wasn’t his job.

His job was wet work—doing all the dirty, murderous things others with weak stomachs couldn’t. He went where the Kingmaker bade him, and up until a few weeks ago, that had mostly been thousands of miles away in London.

But that was before he’d been needed for another job—a job that had led him right to the man sitting in front of him.

Roger Fitzpatrick was merely another pawn in the grand scheme of things, but he had information. And information made him vastly more important.

“There’s not much to tell,” Fitzpatrick said as he dragged in a rattling breath. “I don’t have anything I can give you.”

“We both know that bit ain’t true, don’t we? Come now, Fitzy, you don’t want me to start removing your fingers, do you? Grisly business, that is. And I like to be thorough and all, so I’d start at your pinkies and clip away at them, knuckle by knuckle.”

He visibly paled at the threat, but that could have very well been from blood loss as well. “But—”

Synek shook his head before the man could finish, flicking his cigarette butt across the room. “Have you ever had your jaw broken?”

Synek had, and he knew all too well the agony that came when he’d tried to talk with it.

Stark fear had Fitzpatrick answering honestly. “No.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Would you like to?”

He swallowed before finally answering. “It was a separate account. He didn’t allow anyone else to use it or even look at it except for me. He never gave me any details as to what it was for … only that it was important for his business. I don’t make it a habit to question my clients.”

No, in their business, questions could get you killed.

And questions asked of a sitting governor? There would be no trace of your existence left once it was all over.

Though Synek had yet to find anything that said the governor had his hands in anything he shouldn’t, the Kingmaker wasn’t so easily convinced. Which was why he’d ordered Synek to interrogate Fitzpatrick until he spilled what he knew about the anonymous account the governor had.

On the surface, Michael Spader appeared to be just like any other boring politician, smiling for photo ops and assuring his constituents that everything he was doing in office was in their best interests, but for whatever reason, he’d wound up on the Kingmaker’s radar, and since then, more of his secrets had come to light.

Like his mysterious account that donated to a nonexistent charity.

That much they could find. Now what that money paid for was still beyond them.

“You have to know more than that,” Synek told the man, stretching one leg out in front of him, mindful of the blood spatter on the concrete. “We both know the good guv’na isn’t just protecting the people’s interests.”

Fitzpatrick fumbled for an answer but quickly found his words when Synek shifted. “Whatever he’s funneling the money for, it’s expensive. Millions move through that account, both in and out of it.”

Except Synek already knew all that.

They could trace the money back to the governor, but beyond that, there wasn’t anything new for them to go on.

And it seemed the accountant was a dead end.

“Get him cleaned up,” Synek told the rookie without looking back at him. “We might need him later. Good chat there, mate. I’ll be seeing you.”

While neither the accountant nor the rookie looked thrilled at the prospect, Synek took off out of the room, plucking a new cigarette from the box in his pocket and tucking it behind his ear. It didn’t matter that he was still riding the momentary buzz of the one he’d had before. The high wouldn’t last forever.

It wasn’t until he had left the building entirely that Synek finally found the man he was looking for—the only one wearing an expensive suit.

The Kingmaker was no mercenary—that much he’d learned over the years since he’d started working for the man—so he rarely got his hands dirty in that sense. Instead, he was the bank behind those who were willing to die in his name.

At least, that was what most thought of the Den.

Most assumed the mercenaries—Synek included—were willing to kill anyone or be killed so long as the Kingmaker was wiring money into their accounts for every job they accepted. They didn’t know half the mercenaries could hardly stand the sight of the man, but personal feelings aside, money was a powerful motivator.

The mercenaries might not have been willing to die, but they were willing to do a hell of a lot more.

“Anything useful?” the Kingmaker asked, barely lifting his gaze long enough to acknowledge his presence.

Over the weeks, he had gone from a man in careful control of everything around him to one teetering on the edge of ruin. To say he was trying to put an end to the threat against his business was an understatement.

“Nothing worth noting.”

The Kingmaker was quiet a moment before saying, “Leaving town?”

It wasn’t a question he really needed to answer. He rarely came stateside as it was, and never for as long as he had been here. Though the majority of his problems began and ended in New York, the Wraiths’ reach was vast.

“Good,” he said. “I’d prefer you not get in trouble in the interim. When there’s a new development, I’ll phone you.”

Meaning, Synek needed to be ready at a moment’s notice.

“Will do.”

Synek turned and headed back the way he’d come, needing to see one last person.

His job might involve getting men to talk when they didn’t want to, but Winter’s job was to find the information no one else could. Even though he didn’t want her doing it, she was good at what she did.

There was too much risk, and he knew firsthand the dangers of men. He’d never wanted this life for her, but the more he’d tried to protect her from it, the more she seemed to crave it. He couldn’t keep her away from the danger even if he wanted to.

Before he reached the office a few feet away, Winter’s laughter hit his ears, the lyrical sound making him smile but only for a moment. Until he remembered who was in there with her making her laugh.

Tamping the familiar agitation down, he rapped against the door with his knuckles. He spotted Winter first sitting cross-legged on the floor, her Romanian standing not too far away.

As he entered, Tăcut’s face went stoic, his arms now folded across his chest.

On guard, it was as if he expected Synek to do something. The next time he did, the Romanian wouldn’t see him coming.

“I need you to work your magic, little miss,” he said, still standing in the door rather than entering the room at all.

“Give me a name.”

“The same Spader from before.”

“Will do.”

Job done.

Synek barely spared Tăcut another glance before he was turning on his heel and walking back the way he came.

“Syn!”

Winter was racing to catch up to him, her face a mask of unfiltered bliss. She was happy with the Romanian, even as he wasn’t. “I thought you’d stick around. You’re leaving?”

He could have told her his job was finished for the moment and he was no longer needed, but that wasn’t the complete truth. And though he’d done many things in his life, he had never lied to her.

“I don’t think this is the best place for me … you understand?”

She shifted on her feet, her usual exuberance dampening. “Are you still upset that I didn’t tell you about Răz?”

It wasn’t her, not entirely.

He’d been feeling restless even before he’d left London to come here. He was in need of a distraction—something to clear his mind for a bit.

“I’m taking off,” he said, not really thinking about where he was going next, though he knew he had no intention of sticking around. “I’ll be seeing you.”

When she called his name again, this time he didn’t stop.

He left the building entirely without looking back.