Avoidance was key.

It was the easiest way to mend a broken heart—or a balm for a wounded pride.

Winter Banes wasn’t sure which she was trying to escape, but she knew without a doubt that she had needed to get out of London after spending the past twenty-four hours there for reasons she really didn’t want to think about.

Any time her mind even ventured in that direction … if she even remembered a hint of the soft smiles or the drunken stumbling, she squeezed her eyes shut to force the image away.

No, she definitely needed a distraction after what had happened, and there was no better place to find one than here in New York where she could lose herself in mindless fun with her friends until The Kingmaker, her boss of sorts, called her back to do another job for him.

Or worse, if she had to confront him and what they had done.

Murmuring a thanks to the cab driver, she lifted the hood of her jacket over her braids, stepping out the back into the pouring rain.

Water splashed up around her ankles with each step she took, the rain sliding over her patent white Doc Martens. Earlier, she’d thought of wearing her burgundy velvet ones, but now she was glad she’d chosen practicality over fashion.

By the time she reached the front doors of Crystal Pool Hall, she was nearly soaked through.

Already, she missed the colder months when the only thing she had to worry about was pulling on a coat and gloves. The rain provided soothing background noise when she was tucked behind her laptop, but having to suffer through it physically? The shit was overrated.

From the outside, The Hall looked like it was one bad day away from being demolished—crumbling brick and concrete making up its exterior, overgrown hedges, and cracks in the sidewalk leading up to the entrance—but despite its outward appearance, the inside was vastly different.

Like night and day.

She knocked once on the heavy front door, waving her hand when a pair of eyes glared out at her once a latch in the center of the wood slid away. Seconds later, the door was swinging open, and she was ushered inside after slipping the man a fifty-dollar bill.

The smoky warmth enveloped her the moment she stepped inside, chasing away the chill. As she stood in the entryway, her gaze scanned over the room as if she hadn’t been there a dozen times before.

Across one back wall, five pool tables sat in uniform order, each beneath a dim light hanging from the ceiling that allowed just enough illumination to see which ball you were hitting but not much else.

A few occupied tables were in the center of the floor—men in leather and chains drinking pints of beer, deep in rambling conversations with each other.

The bar might have been stocked with various expensive liquors, and the shaggy-haired man behind it might have always made sure he had the best of the best—though he was careful never to overpour—no one really came to The Hall for the drinks.

It was the people who mattered.

The Hall, for short, was where one came when they needed a job done—or if you were the one looking for work. It was mostly freelancers—men, and some women, though none were affiliated with any particular organization.

It might not have looked like much, but more money changed hands in this place than any other in the world.

There were killers and thieves, drug dealers, and even a few working girls who lingered near the pool tables and happily tricked gullible men into games before taking them for everything they were worth.

One of them, Tracy, had been more than happy to teach Winter how to play when she first started coming around.

It was the people, Winter knew, who made her love this place so much.

The Hall also smelled of cloves and something else rich and earthy, a special mixture of tobacco found in the cigars the owner liked to peddle. Cigarettes weren’t allowed nor were any other brand of smoke.

House rule: if one needed to fill their lungs with nicotine, they had to buy the house’s blend.

Dismas, whose last name Winter didn’t know, was the owner, bartender, and wrangler of whoever came into this place and stood behind the bar, polishing a glass as he eyed her from across the room. The slight curl of his lips that almost resembled a smile made her smile in return.

Unlike the rest of the lot who ventured into this place, he wasn’t a mercenary or assassin. He didn’t have any special sort of skills that would make him deadly to anyone who crossed him.

He was just a regular guy with a lot of powerful friends.

Friends, he’d once told her, he wanted to keep alive for as long as he could.

It was no secret friends didn’t last very long in this place.

Several years ago, Dismas had opened The Hall as a sanctuary of sorts—a place where anyone, no matter their background, could come to sit and relax without fear that, at any moment, they would take a bullet to the face.

No business was conducted on the grounds unless it was a deal being struck.

You could talk all you liked about how a kill would happen, even if the man you were charged with taking out was sitting on the other side of the room, but violence of any sort wasn’t tolerated.

It worked for everyone, for the most part.

No one had an issue with following the rules, especially knowing the consequences Dismas had in store for anyone that broke them.

Well. Except one.

“It’s been a while, Winter,” Dismas said as she neared, setting down the glass he was finished cleaning before picking up another. “I wasn’t expecting you anytime soon.”

“They keep me busy,” she said with a shrug, hoping the answer would suffice.

The they being the mercenaries she occasionally did jobs for. As one of the best hackers in the world—and that was fact, not arrogance—her services were always in demand.

Even if they only consisted of about five people.

But that wasn’t because she wasn’t good at her job, or even that she occasionally worked with a man known only as The Kingmaker—the handler of said they she worked with, and technically, her boss’ boss. Her boss—at least, that was how she needed to start thinking of Syn and not about what happened in London—made sure no one who he didn’t approve of approached her.

He could be a bit overbearing that way.

“And Syn?” Dismas went on knowingly. “That angry Cockney bastard isn’t going to be upset you’re here, is he? You remember the last time, yeah?”

How could she forget?

It was the first and only time they had ever come to this place together before Dismas made it clear it couldn’t happen again.

She could still remember it like it was yesterday.

She’d been much younger then, only seventeen, and after months of prodding, she had finally convinced Syn to let her come with him to The Hall.

That was the thing about him. He’d always regaled her with stories about what went on in the place, but he had never wanted her to actually be a part of it.

“It’s not a place for someone like you though, is it?” Syn had asked softly, charming her with that accent he had refused to drop though The Kingmaker demanded it of all his mercenaries. “They’ve got all sorts there, yeah? And you, luv, you’re too good for a place like that.”

That was his reasoning for keeping her away from most of the seedy bits of his life. She was too good, too innocent. It didn’t seem to matter to him that she wanted to experience this part of his life too.

Most of her time was spent tucked behind a computer screen, out of the way of any real danger, while everyone else she knew was out actually putting their lives on the line.

She wanted to feel what they felt.

She wanted to feel alive.

“Like I told you last time and the time before that, I’m not going to be any trouble,” she had told him with an earnest shake of her head. “I won’t even talk to anyone if that makes you feel better.”

Yeah, she had meant it when she said it, figuring once they got to The Hall, she would just stick close to him and observe, but no one could really avoid anyone else in the pool room.

It had only taken one man with a gruff voice and a dark smile to make Syn snap.

One second, he was enjoying the beer he’d been nursing all night, and the next, he was shattering the bottle over the man’s head for simply touching her arm.

Worse, it had been nights like those that made her think London was a good idea. Yeah, that was how she would describe that epic fucking blunder.

“I’m only here for my crew in the back,” she told Dismas now, hoisting her backpack farther up her shoulder as she started in that direction. “Scout’s honor.”

“Right. And you told Syn you’d be here tonight?”

At that, Winter hesitated, clearing her throat. She might withhold things, but she never outright lied to anyone. “Not exactly.”

“Fucking hell, girl. You trying to get us killed?”

“Like I said,” she went on, hurrying back in case Dismas changed his mind about letting her stay. “I’m not going to be any trouble.”

“Yeah? Let’s keep it that way.”

She didn’t linger much longer, heading into a back room where her team was already set up. Unlike the deadly men and women who lingered out in the parlor, the trio here didn’t look threatening in the slightest.

But as innocent as they all looked, it had nothing on what they could do with a case of Redbull, a wireless keyboard, and a spark of inspiration.

On the internet, they were capable of far worse than anything those killers outside could do.

“I thought you’d never get here,” Tessa said from her station, her wild and curly hair swinging as she leaned back in her chair before swiveling around to face her. “Ollie didn’t think you’d show.”

Though Winter was the youngest at eighteen, no one would have thought that at first glance. Tessa had the sort of youthful features that made her look perpetually young, though she was creeping up on twenty-six.

Her twin brother, Oliver—Ollie, as he preferred—had the same look, but he didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

Even now, as he sat across the room with a pair of giant headphones covering his ears and his usual blue hoodie unzipped to show the Slasher T-shirt he wore beneath, he looked more like a kid playing a video game rather than the ruthless hacker he was.

His square-framed glasses were perched at the edge of his nose, and when he noticed her, he grinned and gave a little wave. “Shit, it’s about time. How was London?”

Winter and Tessa both cringed simultaneously—Tessa, because Winter had already spilled about what had gone down, and Winter, because she didn’t know Ollie knew about her going to London at all.

Shooting a glare in Tessa’s direction, Winter said, “It was fine.”

“Why are you acting wei—”

“Are you going to show her the thing?” Tessa jumped in, gesturing to the screen. Once he turned away, she said, “He only knows you went to London but not about what happened there.”

“I told you not to mention it.”

“Slip of the tongue when he asked where you were flying in from. Besides, it only matters that he doesn’t know about Syn.”

No one needed to know about that.

“Can I ask about Cali, or is that top secret too?”

Already, she missed California. Though she had been witness to horrible shit that went down, she’d gotten the chance to escape her boring life back in Arizona where her adoptive family lived.

More, she missed someone she had only met for a moment—someone whose text she had yet to respond to.

She might have been happily chatting with him for the little over four months it had been since Los Angeles, but the second she’d arrived in London, she’d been too busy.

At least that was what she told herself.

“It was what it was,” she finally answered.

The first half of her trip out there had been great, but things quickly took a turn for the worse when a death shook the group she’d been with. She hadn’t seen it happen or even knew the girl personally, but she had still felt the pain of loss just being there.

Dropping her bag on the floor, Winter changed the subject. “So what was the big rush?”

“Just the holy fucking grail,” Nicole said, speaking up for the first time, excitement alight in her eyes. “Look what’s live.”

Winter only had to see the flash of the symbol on the screen to know what she was looking at.

Over the past two months, rumors had started hitting the dark web about something big coming.

She didn’t know what it would be this time, but the man in charge of putting it together was notorious for throwing over-the-top events.

Hackers always wanted something to brag about—some impossible task one of them was able to pull off. Besides their own personal reasons, most got into the business for the notoriety.

“What’s he up to this time?” she asked. “Don’t hold me in suspense.”

It only took a few more seconds before a new screen was appearing and the encoded message began to unscramble itself.

Bounty: 4279 Forest Hills Industrial.

Reward: 1250 bitcoins

Objective: Treasure Hunt

“Wait, the treasure itself isn’t the reward?” Winter asked, trying to make sense of what she was reading.

“We’re not exactly sure,” Ollie piped in. “Piston is keeping his mouth shut until the big meet up.”

Piston was a legend in the hacking world, even if his name was idiotic.

“It sounds easy enough though, right?” Nicole asked.

“Maybe a little too easy,” Winter muttered.

Every year around this time, Piston funded a hacker game—an event that brought the best of the best out to prove what they were worth.

Winter had never played, too preoccupied with her work with the Den. Syn would pop a blood vessel if he knew she even intended on doing it now, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“Oh, don’t say that. Do you know what this could mean?” asked Ollie with raised brows. “We’d be fucking untouchable.”

“And the prize isn’t bad either,” Tessa added. “I think it’s going to be a piece of cake. Think about it. The guys we know are going at it individually. If we work together, we’d probably find it faster.”

Winter didn’t doubt that was true, and with as many people as she knew, they could probably find the treasure, whatever it was, long before anyone else did.

But it was the amount of the prize that gave her pause.

1250 bitcoins didn’t sound like a lot, at least until it was converted, which brought it up to a lofty one-point-five million dollars.

The pot had never been that big before.

“When is the meet?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. We already looked over the invitation.”

“Call me then, and let me know what time it is.”

“Wait, you’re leaving? You just got here!” Tessa said with a pouting frown.

“I came here straight from the airport. I need a shower, a nap, and something to eat that isn’t deep fried.” And deep fried was the only thing Dismas served.

“I’ll walk you out,” Ollie offered, already heading for the door before she could turn.

“Later then,” Tessa and Nicole both called with a wave of their hands.

Ollie was only a few inches taller than she was—five-foot-ten, if an inch. His hair was dark and curly, something he hated since it made him look younger. Yet, despite his complaints, he never cut it.

Unusually quiet as they stepped out of the room—Ollie had a habit of talking faster than anyone could keep up with—Winter glanced over at him. “What is it?”

“This could be huge for us, you know.”

“But—”

“But they’ll only go along with this if you do,” Ollie said, jerking his head back at the room.

“Ollie, I can’t just blindly agree.”

Especially when she didn’t know what they were after.

Enough time spent with the Den had taught her what it meant to properly prepare for something.

Passing the pool table as she headed for the door, she caught sight of a familiar figure at the edge of her vision. Ollie was still going on about his treasure hunt and how amazing it would be if they won, but she hardly paid attention. As she looked toward the bar, a man she hadn’t seen since she was in California made himself comfortable on one of the barstools, raising his hand to get Dismas’ attention.

She noticed him long before he noticed her, though it would be impossible not to, considering his size—the sight of him always made her achingly aware of her gender because he was just a whole lot of man.

She watched him from the moment Dismas set a frosted bottle on the bar and slid it over until his fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle, and he was tipping it to his lips.

He was three steps above lean, his broad shoulders filling out the leather jacket he wore.

And even now, as she could only see his profile—the sharp line of his jaw and the slight stubble that covered it—he had a look about him that was all his own.

Ollie was still talking, not realizing the man who wasn’t even looking in her direction had stolen her complete attention. She didn’t hesitate in changing direction and heading to the bar instead of the door.

Easily maneuvering around the tables, chairs, and other bodies, she was halfway across the room before the man at the bar looked up. It was as if he sensed her coming toward him.

There a moment of surprise in his gaze as his head canted to the side, but it quickly bled away as a hint of a smile curled his lips. Unlike every other man in this room, he didn’t look away after half a second. Then again, he didn’t know he probably needed to.

His gaze traveled over her in a way that made a spark of heat flare in her cheeks, and when his eyes lingered on the leather garter on her upper thigh, awareness crawled through her.

It wasn’t until she was beside him that she was reminded just how much bigger he was than she was. “Tăcut,” she said with a smile, sliding onto the stool next to him.

With one booted foot resting against the rail along the bottom of the bar and his beer in hand, he was the picture of ease.

He wore all black, just as she was, but while she looked every bit grunge, he just looked dark and mysterious. He might have looked casual now, but she remembered all too well what he looked like when he had on a mask and a bulletproof vest.

His head tilted up a fraction—his version of hello.

The first time she met him in Cali, she’d been surprised he couldn’t speak, and she still didn’t know the full story behind it. Not because she hadn’t had the chance to ask over the months they’d been texting back and forth, but because she hadn’t been sure she really wanted to know.

Whatever the story, she knew it wouldn’t be a pleasant one.

But it didn’t matter to her that he couldn’t speak. She found him intriguing all the same.

Whereas Syn was brash, this Romanian was quiet and unassuming—or maybe unassuming was the wrong word to describe him considering what he was capable of.

Scarred fingers lifted from his side, making a familiar gesture she easily understood.

—Winter,—he signed.

It was stupid to feel a small thrill at that, but she felt it all the same. “I didn’t know you were back in New York.”

She’d flown out of Cali long before he and the rest of The Wild Bunch—what he and his brothers called themselves—had gone, and last she’d talked to him, he was still there.

Then again, it had been four months. They couldn’t stay there forever.

He shook his head, his gaze shifting past her. She realized belatedly that Ollie was still there, though he’d fallen silent.

Looking from Ollie to her, he signed, —Is he bothering you?—

Ollie wouldn’t know what he’d said—he didn’t know sign, as far as she knew—but as he looked from her to the big Romanian sitting next to her, he actually took a step back.

Winter realized a little late how it must have looked, her practically skipping away from Ollie to sit with him. “Oh no, this is Ollie. I told you about him, remember? Ollie, this is Tăcut.”

Ollie rubbed the back of his neck. “One of your mercenaries?” he asked uneasily.

It always amused her that they assigned her ownership of the mercenaries in the Den. “Not a mercenary, no.”

Tăcut’s expression didn’t change, nor did he offer a greeting of any kind to Ollie.

“Okay.” Ollie only spared one last glance at Winter. “Later.”

Tăcut watched him walk away until he disappeared around the corner before facing Winter again. —Speaking of mercenaries, which one are you here with?—

“None of the above. I’m a big girl, Tăcut. I can take care of myself.”

His expression was a mixture of amusement and disbelief. —I don’t doubt it.— He signed something else, but it wasn’t a word she understood. She knew ASL pretty well, but slight differences existed between the American version and the Romanian.

“I missed that,” she said, reaching out to touch his hand. “What did you say?”

He only hesitated a second before plucking the top off a pen he pulled from his pocket with even, white teeth.

It only took a few seconds for him to scrawl out the words, passing the napkin over to her once he was done.

Îngeraș.

Right below it was the translation.

Little angel.

“Tăcut.”

Dismas interrupted them as he walked over, his gaze shifting from her to him and back again. Winter tucked the napkin into the palm of her hand and held it there.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” he said, folding muscular arms across his chest, judgment written all over his face.

Winter cleared her throat, speaking for both of them. “Same circles.”

“Uh-huh. Weren’t you just leaving?”

For someone who never wanted to stick his nose in any business that wasn’t his own, Dismas was being pretty damn nosy. “Don’t worry. He’s a friend of the Den.”

Loosely.

But that truth didn’t matter so much.

Besides, he was only concerned whether Tăcut was Syn approved, and that answer, if Syn even knew she was sitting here even talking to him, would be a resounding no.

But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

In the span of half an hour, she was racking up on secrets, but London might have changed things for her and Syn, and she didn’t want to face the implications of that.

Dismas shook his head before wandering off.

When looked back at the Romanian, he was studying her, an unreadable expression on his face. —You’re leaving?—he asked.

Reluctantly—because at that moment, the only thing she wanted to do was hang with him—she nodded. She’d already had a shit couple of days, and if she was going to prepare herself for whatever the actual hunt would consist of when they went to the meeting tomorrow, she needed to unwind.

“I just need to call a cab.”

He set his bottle back on the bar. —Want a ride?—

“Ooh, did you bring your bike?” she asked, glancing at the door as if she’d be able to see if from where she sat.

They each had one—his brothers. They were all the same shade of matte black with chrome detailing. All designed to break speeding laws and look good while doing it.

She definitely hadn’t forgotten the sight he made when he rode it, and the idea of climbing on behind him was too good to ignore.

He looked at her as though that shouldn’t have been a question.

Maybe it shouldn’t have. “Lead the way.”