Synek was a surprisingly good nurse, but then again, considering his affliction for knives, it made sense that he knew how to tend the wounds.

“I could have done this myself,” she said, though secretly not minding that he had carefully wrapped her wound.

From the moment they had left the compound—the Wild Bunch disappearing with Winter while Bear and Wren stuck around with the Wraiths who were still left standing—he’d treated her like glass.

Even once they arrived back here and it was a mere few feet from the car to the front door, he hadn’t let her walk that either, carrying her inside and into the kitchen where he dropped her on the island and told her to stay put.

He’d disappeared for a few minutes before returning with a fully stocked first-aid kit.

As soon as he got close, he batted her hands away and carefully cut the material away from her thigh before cleaning the wound.

“What are you afraid of?”

The question made her blink. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not alone anymore, you understand? I’m not going anywhere.”

“And I don’t want you to go anywhere,” she confessed softly.

She liked him exactly where he was.

Probably far more than she should have.

Things were complicated between them, from the very beginning, and though she hadn’t thought it possible, Synek had dug his way right past her defenses and refused to budge. But she liked him there.

“The governor isn’t going to be an easy mark, and I doubt even we’ll be enough. But there are people I can call on who’ll do this for me, and for you. You just have to let me.”

She wanted to.

She wanted to believe that he could fix it all, but the other side of her worried that if she let her secret out and told more people what she knew, something would go wrong.

It was the biggest risk she would ever have to take.

“I can help,” he said, resting his hands on either side of her, “if you let me.”

“Syn—”

“D’you trust me?”

More than she probably should, all things considered, but despite her reservations about him, she did trust him.

“Yes,” she finally answered. “I do trust you.”

“Then trust me with this. I won’t let you down.”

When she had started down this road nearly seven years ago now, she hadn’t thought of what lay ahead of her—only that it would end with her father being vindicated and the governor paying for what he had done.

She couldn’t admit it to him—and she could hardly admit it to herself—that she was terrified that all this would result in failure, and Spader would remain in his seat of power without paying for what he had done.

Most men would be terrified to go up against someone with Spader’s connections and money, but Synek wasn’t afraid. And while he might have been going after the man for a job he was on, she didn’t doubt now that it was less about the job for him and more about her.

Because he wanted her, and he would do anything in his power to keep her.

Even if that meant taking on one of the most powerful men in the country.

“You know what’s funny,” Iris said as she slipped off the counter, smiling when his arm came around her. “If Belladonna hadn’t handed over your file, I don’t think we’d be here right now.”

“What?”

His tone made her pause as she looked up at him, not only seeing the confusion in his gaze, but something else that made her instinctively want to take a step back. But with the island behind her and him in front, there was nowhere for her to go.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“The name. How d’you know that name?”

“I met her,” Iris said in confusion. “That was how the Wraiths even knew how to find you. Didn’t I tell you that?”

As he shook his head, she tried to remember their conversations about why she had been the one to come after him, and the instructions she had been given. His focus had always been on Rosalie, and she had been the one to give Iris the job, so she hadn’t given much more thought to it than that.

Now, she realized that was a mistake.

“Who is she?”

“The person the Kingmaker really wants. The governor is just a means to get to her.”

“So it was never about the Wraiths taking you?” Iris asked in confusion. “It was a means to get to your boss?”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “No one fucking knows what the two of them are doing, but it feels like being a fucking pawn in someone else’s game.”

“So what’s next?” Iris asked, taking hold of his hand, smiling when he curled his fingers around hers.

“I need to make a call.”

To the Kingmaker, she assumed. “And after?”

“We get your father out of prison.” He smiled then as he cupped the nape of her neck and tugged her closer. “Then we’re going on a trip.”

It was easy to feel light as air when she was with him, when he gave her that look that made her feel like the most special girl in the world. “Where are we going?”

He kissed her, hard and fast. “Wherever you want.”

* * *

When Synek told her he had to bring her in, a part of her had thought of denying the decision—she couldn’t think of any reason she needed to meet another man everyone seemed to be afraid of.

But a part of her sort of felt indebted to him. Had she not caught him through the lens of her camera, he would have never sent Winter and the Wild Bunch to retrieve the images, and they wouldn’t here.

The Den compound wasn’t anything like the Wraiths’—this one reminded her more of a military base, men with guns standing at attention, even more so when she and Synek passed.

“Is there anyone who’s not terrified of you?”

“You,” he said without a moment’s thought.

She couldn’t help a smile as she followed him down the winding hallway, but as they neared the door near the end, another man was coming down the opposite hallway, agitation clear in the straight line of his mouth and the way he was on a single-minded mission to get to that room.

“Celt,” Synek called, looking far too amused. “Vacation’s been good to you, mate. I think I see a glow to that pale Irish skin.”

Ah, so this was Celt.

Beyond the fury in his face, he was just as attractive as the rest of them. He looked to be right on level with Synek and a shade heavier, and with the reddish beard and brown hair, he was just about what she imagined for an Irishman.

But his anger wasn’t directed at Synek, Iris realized once they walked into the room behind him, but rather at the man who stood at the front of the room, his hands clasped behind him as he stared at six screens mounted to the wall.

Each one depicted a photo of Belladonna, all in black and white, and unlike most surveillance photos where the subject was unaware—she stared at the camera in each one.

“What in the hell d’you want with me, Kingmaker?” Celt said in the thickest Irish accent she had ever heard. “My lady’s waiting in the middle of the airport for me. What the bloody hell was so important?”

The blond of the Wild Bunch with the skeletal tattoos, snorted, whispering something to the man standing next to him that sparked a half smile.

“And he brought the Brady Bunch in too,” Red added from his seat, smirking at the four men now glaring at him.

Winter giggled, looking as entertained as Iris felt. When Tăcut glanced down at her, she merely shrugged.

Synek moved to the side with the other mercenaries, his arm coming around her middle to draw her back against him, making her place clear in the room.

The Wild Bunch were to one side, the Den to the other, but Winter and Calavera both sat in the middle of the table.

Iris didn’t have to ask which one was the Kingmaker, and not just because she’d taken his picture more than a month ago. He commanded the room without speaking, and everyone, even the quiet man standing just behind Calavera’s chair, looked in his direction.

“You all were brought here for a reason. There’s a woman in New York City I need to find. Over the past year, you would have known her by the name Belladonna. This moment, ladies and gentlemen, was what you were trained for. Understand me when I say she is not to be harmed. If a hair on her head is hurt, in any way, I will personally see that you suffer tenfold.”

Iris might have known who they were talking about, but she didn’t understand the dynamics of what was going on. While the Kingmaker did seem to hold some sort of animosity toward the woman he had up on the wall, there was a fierceness to his expression that made her wonder just what kind of relationship they’d had.

“Easier said than done, I’d imagine,” Celt said as he finally took a seat, folding his arms across his chest, a black band tattoo peeking out from beneath his shirtsleeve. “Unless something’s changed, doesn’t she have that Jackal fella? He nearly made you into Swiss cheese, and Grimm could very well be the same for all we know.”

“That’s what they’re for,” the Kingmaker said with a nod of his head toward the Wild Bunch. “While they deal with him, you all will bring me Belladonna.”

“And how, exactly, do you expect us to get close to her?” This from Calavera. “I imagine she’s waiting for you to make a move.”

“That’s why we have her.”

All eyes turned to Iris, and the weight of everyone’s stare made her want to fidget. “I can’t help much.”

“If you do as you’re told, you will. I just need everyone’s agreeance.”

Fang spoke up for the Wild Bunch. “We’re only here for the check.”

“I signed a bloody contract,” Celt muttered, still not appeased.

“We’ll see it done,” Red answered for the rest of them.

Iris would have agreed had Synek not spoken up first. “The governor first, then Belladonna.”

He really couldn’t get any better.

The Kingmaker nodded once, looking back and forth between them. “As we agreed.”

Synek brushed his lips along the side of her neck, his voice whispering in her ear, “Mayhem it is.”