Synek wasn’t sure how long he had been lost in his work when Winter’s voice made him look up in surprise.

“I know I’ve asked this before, but is it really serious?” She stood leaning against the doorframe, a black tumbler in her hands and a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head.

“What’s that?” he asked, glancing one again at the target several feet away. The wooden structure already punched through with several knives.

The knife in his hand, the blade long and tapered to a point, had enough weight to it that, for the experienced user, it was better to be thrown than wielded up close. But as much as he wanted to see what this blade could do, he set it aside and gave Winter his undivided attention.

Things were noticeably different between them, not that he needed to be told that. The very dynamic of their relationship had changed.

Months ago, he couldn’t have imagined his life when Winter wasn’t there, keeping him level and sane, and making sure he didn’t tip too far over the edge and risk never coming back. But looking back, he also didn’t understand how he could have possibly thought they could carry on like that.

Even he had to admit it wasn’t healthy.

And maybe it needed to take a big Romanian bastard stealing his little miss away for him to see that.

“This thing you have with Iris,” she said, venturing closer. “How serious is it? Oh, don’t look at me like that. Everyone else is thinking the same thing. They’re just too afraid of you to ask.”

“When have I ever given a fuck what anyone else thought?” Synek asked, not unkindly.

He understood, in a detached sort of way, why they’d be curious, all things considered.

It wasn’t often that a man fell for the person who drugged and had them kidnapped. It just wasn’t done.

But Synek wasn’t an ordinary man.

“I just want to make sure you’re thinking clearly,” Winter said as she perched on the edge of the table, her gray eyes following him across the room as he retrieved his knives.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because months ago, you told me you wouldn’t be able to love anyone as you loved me.”

“And more than a month before that, you were in London with me, yeah?”

That was enough to clamp her mouth shut and send color racing to her cheeks. What happened in London was something they didn’t often discuss. It was a time in their lives they both chose to ignore.

“That’s my point, though. I’m just wondering if you think she’s the one, or whether you’re in one of your phases. That was what London was, wasn’t it? One of your down moments.”

He didn’t answer right away, not when what she said was the truth.

He did have a habit of doing reckless shite if only because he wanted to escape his own head for a little while. He drank to excess, smoked more than he should, and fucked a lot, which was everything he had been doing that night when he met Iris for the first time.

“I mean ... she didn’t kind of have you kidnapped, she did. Literally.” Winter shrugged. “How do you get past something like that?”

It wasn’t much of a surprise that Winter didn’t get it, or any of the other mercenaries, for that matter. Sometimes when it was personal, it was hard to separate the action from the individual, and for the longest time, he had been one of those people too.

He gave fuck all about reason when it came to his revenge, but whatever it was—whether that was because Iris walked into his life, or because he’d been sober that day—he’d changed his way of thinking.

The Wraiths, who he hated above all else, hadn’t suffered the way they should have. The old him would have ensured none of them walked away, but the slightly less manic version of him had let some live.

His nonexistent psychiatrist would have considered that progress.

There had even been a moment back in the Wraith compound when he had considered killing her or, at the very least, doing to her what she had done to him, but his anger had faded with time.

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but it had only taken her coming back for him—hearing that whispered apology in his ear before she turned and shot Rosalie for him—to get over what she had done.

In his mind, that had been the end of it.

And now that he had her ... he didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought.

“How’d you get past your uncle dying?” he asked, walking back in her direction.

“That’s different. You didn’t kill him.”

“I was supposed to. Who’d you think they sent in there to slit his throat? To make an example out of him? What did you think I was supposed to do to you?”

Words failed her as she met his gaze.

“That makes all the difference, that does. The only thing that matters is what happens at the end. She didn’t have to agree to give you my location or help set me free, but she did.”

It was as simple as that.

And maybe Winter knew then that no matter what she said, no matter how she posed the question, nothing would change his mind about what he thought.

“So you trust her?” she asked instead, tugging the band loose from her hair to tighten it back up. “Completely?”

With every breath in his body. “Of course.”

More than he trusted a lot of the people in this building.

They thought they knew about his demons and ran in the opposite direction. Iris knew more than anyone, and she was still standing next to him.

“Then you’ve told her about the plans for the governor?”

Synek scowled. “I’m handling it.” Of course, she couldn’t leave anything well enough alone.

“Pretending a problem doesn’t exist isn’t handling it. It’s hiding. Trust me, I’d know.”

“Yeah?”

Winter waved her hand even as she explained. “Răz and the guys ... They’re looking for the doctor who took Răz’s voice, or rather, I’m looking for him.”

Synek didn’t know the full story behind the Wild Bunch and where they came from, only that they had all lived in an orphanage in Romania. He hadn’t cared enough to find out the rest.

“I figured confronting the past will help them move on. Between the director of that fucking place, Sebastian, and—”

“Who the hell is Sebastian?” Synek asked, mildly curious, if only because he hadn’t heard the name before. Or even because the attention was off Iris for the moment.

“He was one of them—the Wild Bunch, I mean. The day they escaped the orphanage with Nix, he didn’t make it out.”

Synek didn’t know what it felt like to lose a brother, and if he had, he’d probably rejoice at the two fuckers he shared a bloodline with not breathing anymore.

“My point is,” Winter went on, “you don’t get over things like that easily. You have to confront it—get some closure or something. What closure will you be able to offer her when it’s time you have to follow through with the Kingmaker’s kill order?”

That was the conundrum.

The thing he didn’t or even want to think about.

Because there was a chance he would have to pick one job to finish, and considering the contract he had signed ... the choice wouldn’t be an easy one.

“I’ll figure it out,” he said in lieu of an answer.

He always did.

Winter nodded as she hopped down. “I hope you do.”

“Where’s Iris?”

“Probably lost in the halls somewhere,” she said with a ghost of a smile.

“Winter.”

“What? Hell, I wanted to have a conversation without you getting distracted.”

Even he couldn’t fight a smile at that.

Iris had always been a beautiful distraction.

* * *

When Iris arrived back at the Den compound, the security at the gate gave her a cursory once-over before letting her through to the main building.

Considering he had been the one to sidestep Synek the other day, she didn’t doubt he probably recognized her. Maybe if he hadn’t seemed so deathly afraid of him, she might have asked him questions about the Den itself.

It wasn’t that Synek didn’t tell her everything she wanted to know—from the mercenaries who worked specifically on his team to others who did whatever the Kingmaker asked, or even the overall structure of the Den and how it began—but what he never told her about was the work he did.

Sure, he said his job was a watered-down version of what he had done for Rosalie and the Wraiths, but she wanted to know more. Yet even with the hours they spent talking, he never actually told her anything. That was the thing about Synek. He might not tell lies, but he found a creative way to get around the truth when he wanted to.

He hadn’t, however, mentioned what he wanted her to do once she got here—only that he wanted her to come.

No one stopped her as she ventured inside the compound, though she had no idea where she was going. Trying not to look out of place as she ventured through the halls was difficult, especially when she was trying to take in everything around her.

The very essence of what the Den was fascinated her.

Corrupt politicians were one thing—that was more common than most realized—but organizations like this, hired killers, went so far beyond everything she had ever known that it almost didn’t feel like real life.

What would her father think if she told him about this?

What would he think of Synek?

He was a man who followed the law to the letter, and Synek was all about breaking it.

As she ventured down another identical hallway, the sudden sound of pounding fists made her jolt back from the door she was passing.

Something, or someone, was trying to get out.

“Don’t worry about him,” a voice called, connected to a person she had never seen before.

He definitely wasn’t part of Synek’s team; he looked younger and lacked some of their lethal edge. “It’s all a part of the training.”

“Training?” Iris asked.

Synek had explained some of the aspects of the Den to her, but one thing he refused to ever divulge was the “training” he said they all went through.

She could guess it had been hard work, most training was, but she wondered what he had suffered to not want to discuss it.

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, as though it was what it was. “First, they break your mind, then they break your body. Whatever’s left gets molded into a mercenary.”

That didn’t sound pleasant at all. “And everyone has to go through it?”

“It’s a rite of passage.”

The pounding started up again. “What’s happening in there now?”

“Light deprivation, then a sudden influx of sound in waves.”

So they were trapped in a pitch black room where a piercing alarm would go off in variants?

It didn’t matter to her that Synek was fine now—that he had just been smiling and laughing with her this morning—she hated the idea that he suffered.

And Jesus, had there ever been a time when he hadn’t suffered at someone else’s hands?

From his childhood with his mother, his teens with the Wraiths, and his adult life with the Den. She hated that for him.

“Yeah, but don’t worry,” the mercenary said with a wave of his hand. “This is nothing compared to that other guy.”

“Other guy?”

“Yeah, he was before my time. They said he went bat shit in there—couldn’t handle the training.”

She knew, though he hadn’t given a name, that he was talking about Synek.

“Used to scream at the top of his fucking lungs, they said, at least until the end. Then he got really fucking quiet.”

He was smiling too much, she thought, at the idea of someone else’s pain. Even if it was something they all had to get through before they became a mercenary for the Kingmaker, that didn’t make his enjoyment of it okay.

“And after?” she asked, wanting to know.

“Soon as the door opened, he killed one guy, and the others would have been dead at his feet too had someone else not stepped in. That guy was fucking—”

“Crazy,” an accented and clearly ticked-off voice said from behind her.

Iris didn’t flinch at the sound of Synek’s voice, but the man in front of her did. He paled and could barely mumble out an apology.

Synek was six and a half feet of angry male at her back, and if she was the other man, she might have been afraid too.

He reached up, plucking the cigarette from behind his ear and fitting it between his lips. What this symbolized, Iris didn’t know, but if it was possible, the other man paled even more before he quickly turned on his heel and scurried down the hallway.

“Fucking wanker.”

When he pulled out his lighter, Iris asked, “Are you allowed to smoke in here?”

“I wouldn’t give a shit if I wasn’t.”

“Oh, someone’s in a bad mood.” She turned to better face him, mindful of the glare that was now leveled on her. “Wanna talk about it?”

“You wanna know something about me, yeah? You ask me.”

“I asked about the training,” she said, glancing at the door where the man in training had gone silent. “It wasn’t specific to you, Syn.”

“Because you give a shit about the other mercs in here,” he said dryly.

He really was upset. She could see it in the harsh slant of his mouth and the furrow of his mouth, but she had a suspicion that it was less to do with her asking about him and more to do with what she’d been told.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said with a shake of her head. “My opinion of you isn’t going to change just because of something I hear.”

Or even something he’d done.

She’d long ago stopped thinking he was some sort of monster, but she doubted he had.

Synek stared at her a moment before his stance finally loosened. “Come on.”

He tucked his lighter away and replaced his cigarette behind his ear before he grabbed her hand and led her down the hallway.

The room they entered resembled a conference room with a table as long as it was wide and a projector hanging from the ceiling, but Iris paid attention to neither when she entered because on the back wall was her murder board.

Exactly as it had been in her apartment.

Every scrap of information she had on the governor had been in her apartment the night Synek showed up and the Wraiths followed. She’d recovered as much as she could from a thumb drive she had stashed away, but some things weren’t so easily replaced.

Yet Synek had managed to get them all.

“I know you wanted more space,” he said before he released her to allow her to walk over to better see.

She’d never mentioned to him that this was a part of her process. She’d wanted to start another at the safe house where they were staying but hadn’t felt comfortable disrupting a place that wasn’t hers.

Another reason he wasn’t the monster he thought he was.

“Thank you,” she said, going over to wrap her arms around him.

“Consider it your office,” he said, showing her a key before sliding it into her back pocket. “You can lock the door too, if you want.”

Maybe it was because he was sweet, or maybe because she’d missed being with him all day, but whatever the reason, she stretched up to the tips of her toes and drew him down so she could kiss him.

As his hands slid around her waist, he lifted her higher until she could better reach him.

Kissing him was effortless in a way that nothing else was.

Most days, Synek was the storm—an unfathomable force ready to destroy everything in his path—but when he was with her like this, he was the eye of the storm. Calm and centered.

“How was the brunch?” he asked once he released her mouth, but he didn’t let her go.

Immediately, her mind went back to the governor’s office and what little she found inside. Then the moment she’d almost been caught. “Nothing too eventful.”