Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1) (10 page)

O
ne year
. Eight months. Twenty-one days.

Finally
, Niklaus thought with some grim satisfaction as he watched the Russian and one of his men drag Jetmir through the freezer towards a hook that hung from the ceiling. Even as he struggled against their hold, a blindfold keeping him oblivious to his surroundings, he was no match for them. Not when he was bound.

How many days had he sat and fantasized about this very moment? How many nights had he lain awake, feeling like he was being suffocated as the days passed him by, and he had been no closer to getting his hands on the Albanian that was finally within grasp?

This was what he had been waiting for…

Mishca, with the help of his associate, had Jetmir strung up, his arms hooked into restraints, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground.

Helpless.

Snatching the barrier from his eyes, Mishca waited a moment, giving Jetmir a chance to focus on him, to take in his surroundings before he spoke.

“Hey,” Mishca said, smacking the man a couple of times to get his attention. “You’re going to want to focus for this.”

Jetmir, whose head had been slightly lolling on his shoulders, straightened, turning a glare on Mishca, the scar down the right side of his face pulling. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it!” Jetmir snarled as Mishca stepped away and turned his back.

Pausing mid-stride, Mishca faced him once more, canting his head to the side as his gaze flickered to Niklaus for a moment—Jetmir had yet to realize they weren’t alone.

“I’m not the one you should fear,” Mishca said with an air of casualness. Shaking his head, as though he almost felt sorry for the man, Mishca looked past him to Niklaus. “Don’t make a mess.”

The request was unnecessary. It wasn’t as though Mishca didn’t know what Niklaus was capable of. The man had made it quite clear he’d been keeping tabs on him.

By the time he finished with him, there wouldn’t even
be
anything left of Jetmir to identify.

With Mishca gone, the echo of the freezer door slamming shut still in the air, Niklaus got to his feet, circling Jetmir so he could finally face the one man he’d been tracking down religiously.

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” Niklaus said as he started rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, rotating his head on his shoulders to stretch the muscles in his neck.

There wasn’t a day that had went by since Jetmir had turned his life upside down that Niklaus didn’t think of how he would make this particular Albanian pay.

The blood.

The sweat.

The tears.

No one could possibly understand just how much Niklaus had sacrificed to get them both in this room. And more was just how much of himself he had lost in the process.

Over time, Niklaus learned to shut off his emotions.

Tracking the Albanians before they had touched down on American soil, it was almost laughable that his contract had been up around the same time that Jetmir and his crew thought to take on the Volkov Bratva. And instead of signing another, Niklaus had taken his leave for a short time so he could get Jetmir alone finally.

And the funny thing was, the one other person that had made it possible for this moment to happen was one of the people Niklaus had vowed to kill, but that was how it worked sometimes in their world.

Enemies one day, allies the next.

Reaching up, Niklaus tugged at his mask, then tossed it to the side, pushing the sweaty strands of his hair back out of his face. When he took Jetmir’s life, he didn’t want any confusion as to why this was happening.

Laughing bitterly, Jetmir said, “The brother? I was sure the Russians would have finished you off.”

Niklaus swung without thinking, glad that he’d had the foresight to tape his fingers up beforehand. That first hit wasn’t enough, not nearly, and before he knew it, he found himself swinging again and again, the blows carefully placed, not doing too much damage to any one area, but just enough that Jetmir had to be in excruciating pain.

By the time he stopped, Niklaus’ arms felt like lead, but he felt better at the sight of Jetmir’s bloodied face. Though he wished otherwise, Niklaus didn’t have time to torture him for days the way he wanted.

He had always pictured what he would do, the tools he would use, and how long he would spend making sure that Jetmir understood exactly the kind of monster he’d created.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy what he was about to do. If anything, they were going to reach the climax that was long overdue just a bit faster.

Walking backward, Niklaus picked up the container he’d left out in clear view, making sure Jetmir could see what it was before he unscrewed the nozzle and pulled out the hose. Taking his time, Niklaus began pouring the gasoline over Jetmir’s head, making sure he was completely soaked before dropped the container some distance away.

“For years,” Niklaus said casually, ignoring Jetmir’s earlier outburst, “I’ve studied you, learning everything I needed to know about you and your associates. Here’s one. You have a habit of setting your enemies on fire.”

“This is about the girl, no?” Jetmir asked, shaking his head to get dripping hair out of his eyes.

Niklaus didn’t respond because Jetmir was right, and because he didn’t trust what he would say next. There were very few things that sparked real emotion inside of him, and Sarah happened to be one of them.

Niklaus knew that if he would ask Jetmir what ‘the girl’s’ name was, he wouldn’t be able to give an answer.

“It wasn’t personal.” There was a slight grin on his face as he said this.

Despite the fact that he was drenched in gasoline and knew that he was facing death, he still taunted, almost begging Niklaus to overreact and make a mistake—that was usually how these things worked.

But Niklaus rarely made mistakes…and he wasn’t about to start now.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the black, metallic zippo lighter that was familiar to them both, one he had found on Jetmir as they drove him here. Niklaus could just see his reflection in it, including the dead look in his eyes.

He remembered that expression, it was the same kind that Valon had stared down at him with right before the torture.

Torture didn’t always break a man, it molded him.

Maybe tomorrow he would let that worry him.

“Two,” Niklaus went on as though Jetmir hadn’t spoken. “Your organization consists of dozens of ruthless, arrogant men who are only loyal to the highest bidder. Want to know how I know this?”

Reaching up, Niklaus moved his hair to the side, showing Jetmir the tattooed lines starting just behind his ear, descending down onto his neck in parallel lines.

“Each line represents a single person who had been there the night you had them snatch me off the street—the ones you ordered to torture me for days.”

Currently, there were nine lines inked into his skin, and Jetmir would make ten.

The last line…

“It was just business,” Jetmir said, though he didn’t bother to apologize for his actions. He was a proud man, this Niklaus knew, and despite having wronged so many people in his short life, he wouldn’t be apologizing for any of it.

Niklaus understood.

Smiling, Niklaus slowly flipped the top open, the flame crackling to life.

As though he’d been speaking it his entire life, Niklaus met Jetmir’s wary gaze as he said in perfect Russian, “
Oko za oko—An eye for an eye.
”

Tossing the lighter, now it was Niklaus’ turn to watch its rapid descent to the ground, never taking his eyes from both it and Jetmir as it finally clattered, the flame igniting instantly and racing toward Jetmir with a vengeance.

In seconds, the flames engulfed him, his screams echoed, but there would be no one around to hear him die.

No one except Niklaus.

There was something mesmerizing about watching his skin charring, the acrid scent that used to always make him nauseous coating the air, and the way his muscles seized in unimaginable agony.

And yet, despite the fact that Niklaus watched this with unwavering dedication, he had never considered that he might have lost a piece of himself long before he had ever made it out of that building years ago.

S
tanding high above the water
, Niklaus dropped the last of the bags over the bridge, wiping his gloved hands on the front of his jeans, watching as the black bags bobbed on the surface of the water before disappearing beneath. When he was younger, he had heard many stories about revenge, though in those cases, it dealt with something far less meaningful, like losing a fight or being embarrassed by someone, but the moral of those were that revenge was never the answer. Something along the lines of digging two graves when on the path of it…unlike those people whose joy was short lived, Niklaus couldn’t agree that revenge was a bad thing.

After spending the better part of the last five years seeking vengeance against the men that had forced him down this path to begin with, the journey was almost over. The head of those he felt were responsible was now sinking into the murky depths of the water below, he felt considerably lighter, like the weight of his responsibilities had finally lifted.

Nothing could compare to how he felt in that moment.

As a mercenary, it was very rare for anyone to carry something amongst them that could be used to identify them, but Niklaus was rather good at what he did and didn’t have such fears. Reaching for the delicate length of chain that hung around his neck, he pulled it free from its hiding place beneath his shirt, kissing the locket that hung from the end of it.

It was over, finally…for the both of them.

Turning away, he lifted his hood, concealing his face once more, but he was in no rush to leave. On this bridge, in the dead of night, he was alone…at least that was what he had thought until he faced the street.

Twin headlights flared to life in the distance suddenly, blinding him. Even though he had assumed he had assumed he would be alone, Niklaus hadn’t come unprepared.

One gun at his back and knives strapped to his arms, he was as ready as he could ever be, and if whoever lurked in that car worked with the now dead Albanian mobster that was sinking to the bottom of that body of water, they wouldn’t be walking away either.

However, before he could reach for any weapon, he heard the unmistakable click of multiple assault rifles. In part, that rid him of his unease. The Albanians might have been ruthless, but they were not nearly as well trained as this lot were.

Only mercenaries, especially those that belonged to the Den, could arm themselves simultaneously when he had only
thought
to reach for his own weapon.

Of course, the notion of them being there at all did bother him, especially considering this last job with the Albanians had been on his own time. He knew for a fact that his handler, Z, was not the one in the Escalade, because this wasn’t the way he operated. Whenever Niklaus was needed for a job, he received an encrypted text message with coordinates to a safe house where they would be meeting, and only then was he given his actual assignment.

Whoever was waiting for him…Niklaus didn’t know.

Sighing with a roll of his eyes, Niklaus held his hands up in a non-threatening gesture, shuffling along as two came out of the darkness that shielded them, urging him towards the black Escalade that was now idling some distance away. Once Niklaus got a good look at them though, he dropped his hands. A few of them he recognized from his training days, others he’d seen in passing.

It was odd still, considering he’d never been around most of them without his mask. He could only imagine what they were thinking now that they were seeing his face for the first time. And some, the second.

But, the one that was now at his back, Niklaus didn’t recognize, and for this reason, he was on edge having someone he didn’t trust walking behind him.

Especially when he gave Niklaus a shove to move faster.

Before he could check the impulse, he spun, disarming the man with alarming speed, using the butt of the rifle to hit him in the stomach, doubling him over.

“Never touch me.”

“Oy, get in the damn truck!”

At that accented voice, Niklaus tossed the rifle down at the man, turning to face one of the few people he considered a friend.

Celt, whose real name was still unknown to Niklaus, was one of only six people that he kept in contact with, and the others were only on occasion.

Niklaus could still remember his own grueling process of learning how to speak without inflections coloring his words and carefully crafting his speech so that there was no particular dialect. So either they hadn’t broken Celt completely, or the stubborn bastard had refused to give in—Niklaus leaned towards the latter.

Born and raised in Ireland—a fact most knew—Celt had been a mercenary for a little longer than Niklaus, at least two years since Celt had been one of the six that helped train him for this new life. Since then, they had been on a few missions together, and caught up whenever they could.

It seemed Celt had been invited to this little party as well, which made Niklaus wonder if he had already known this awaited him, and considering they had seen a lot of each other over the last couple of weeks, why hadn’t he bothered to mention it was beyond him.

With a stupid grin on his face, Celt held up a black hood, the cloth hanging from fingers, the thing all too familiar to Niklaus.

“Just like old times then?” Celt asked, knowing exactly why Niklaus glared at him.

Snatching it from him, Niklaus muttered a curse, forcing the thing over his head though he hated the memories it brought with it. Memories of a time when he was helpless and unsure…

A hand—Celt’s he assumed—wrapped around his bicep, guiding him the rest of the way to the Escalade. A door was opened and he was practically shoved inside before it was closed again, two sharp raps on the window sending them on their way.

Niklaus’ senses were on high alert as the truck pulled off, waiting for the other person—who was quite obviously seated across from him since he could smell the man—to speak. His breathing was careful, and there was just enough space between them that a person with adequate training could keep themselves relatively unharmed.