The rain was as familiar to Synek as his own reflection.

Every important decision he had ever made from the moment he left his childhood home in London’s East End, every path he had ever walked, had always been accompanied by heavy showers.

He had resigned himself to it.

Yet the sky was a clear expanse of blue today. The sun shone a little too brightly.

Funny, only moments ago, he had signed his life away to a man he didn’t know, and instead of gray, dreary weather, it was a beautiful day.

But as Synek sat in the back of a black panel van, running a hand through his messy blond hair—hair he planned to shave off the first chance he got—there wasn’t much fear left inside him as he rode toward the unknown.

He had already suffered enough for three lifetimes. Seen things that gave even him nightmares.  There wasn’t much else the Kingmaker could do to him that he hadn’t already suffered at someone else’s hand.

Across from him, the mercenary who had been there the day the Kingmaker introduced himself sat with his back against the side of the van, wearing a blank expression. Now that Synek’s mind wasn’t clouded with alcohol and he could think clearly, it was as if he was seeing the man for the first time.

The mercenary was in the same gear as before—cargo pants and a bulletproof vest with an assortment of weaponry strapped across his body—but unlike the other killers Synek knew, he didn’t look like one.

There was no question he resembled one, though.

His dirty blond hair was cut short on the sides, a few inches longer in the middle in that way that said he was in the early stages of growing it out. Definitely the opposite of Synek’s unkempt state, but whereas Synek was anxious to know where he was being taken, the other man looked resigned.

He knew the feeling well.

“What the hell kind of name is Grimm anyway?” he asked. Wanting to fill the silence, he remembered the first words the man had spoken to him once he was picked up.

Idle conversation was easier than letting his thoughts carry him away. He didn’t often like what he found in there.

If the question annoyed the mercenary, he didn’t let on. Instead, Grimm shrugged as his gaze finally focused on Synek instead of the panel wall behind his head.

“It’s what they call me.”

“What’s your actual name?” Synek asked, not liking that Grimm had an advantage over him. He didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing more about him than he did them.

“Most people in your position don’t talk so much,” Grimm remarked, but a hint of a smirk on the man’s face suggested he knew why Synek was asking. “Curiosity is usually the first thing to go once you come to the Den.”

Synek didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t bother to ask. Instead, he kept silent as they rode on.

By the time the van finally rolled to a stop, Synek doubted, if given the opportunity, he would ever be able to navigate his way away from this place.

By design, he was sure.

The doors swung open and other men dressed like Grimm stood outside them, but unlike Grimm,, they didn’t share his calm efficiency.

They smiled … as if they smelled blood in the water.

Synek paid more attention to the men walking along either side of him than to the building he was being led into. Yet rankling him the most was the unknown man walking at his back.

His presence was like an unbearable itch Synek couldn’t scratch.

It wouldn’t make sense for the man to attack him—not if the Kingmaker had gone through this much trouble to recruit him—but that didn’t stop his paranoia. If the Wraiths could turn on their own in a matter of seconds, he didn’t trust that these men he didn’t know wouldn’t do the same.

No one spoke as they traveled down a lengthy hallway, though a certain excitement electrified the air.

An excitement that didn’t bode well for Synek.

But it wasn’t until they reached a partially cracked door at the end of the hall that he finally understood what came next.

The “training” the Kingmaker had spoken of—how he would learn to fight as Grimm and the other mercenaries had—would happen in this room.

He didn’t resist as he was shoved inside, ready for whatever they had planned.

They took his shirt and shoes, leaving him standing in the middle of the floor in nothing but his frayed jeans.

Torture was just another day in his life, and whatever these men thought to inflict on him would ultimately hurt them worse than it hurt him.

He wouldn’t break easily.

Grimm stood in the mouth of the door, light bathing in from behind him, and now, Synek understood how he had gotten the name. The shadows made his face appear more gaunt, the lines more severe.

He looked every bit the grim bastard he was supposed to be.

“Welcome to the Den,” he said with a nod of his head before he stepped out and closed the door, effectively drenching Synek in darkness.

The panic didn’t set in immediately.

For a few short minutes, Synek remembered who he was and where he’d come from, but the longer he sat in the pitch blackness of the padded room, the more the adrenaline started to course through him. Irrational fear started to pool inside him, and as a means to protect himself, anger rose above it.

Synek didn’t realize he was screaming, not until his ears started to hurt and he lashed out around him—fighting off invisible hands that hadn’t touched him in years.

He didn’t realize there was nothing left to fear but his own mind.