Page 4

I fucking love Irish whiskey. There’s something special about a cool glass of Jameson at the bar, watching two drunken idiots beating the shit out of each other over a basketball game. Whiskey and blood—makes me want to fucking come just thinking about it.

Too bad they don’t have Irish whiskey here.

I’d settle for scotch or bourbon. Hell, I’d even take some shitty tequila, but all they have here is beer and watered-down liquor that’s too weak for the thirty dollars it costs.

The tourists here seem to have no issue chugging it down. Budapest is known for its architecture first and nightlife second. Every American gawking at Gothic cathedrals has an oversized iPhone in one hand and a beer in the other. We might be connected by nationality, but I don’t drink for pleasure. Coming here was Castor’s idea, and I need something in my system to stop me from pulling my knife every time some drunkard grunts in my direction. Drink enough and it won’t matter how weak the alcohol is, I’ll gladly get my hands bloody.

It’s too bad Castor is such a fucking pussy about it. I really need a party.

I swirl the vodka in my glass before tossing it back. It burns as it goes down, but not nearly enough to make this situation tolerable. I need more. More alcohol, more pain. If I’m not allowed to maim somebody, the least they can do is give me a double.

Castor eyes the growing pile of shot glasses before glancing at his reflection behind the bar.

“You can’t kill anyone if you’re drunk,” he mutters.

My eyes turn to a burly man squeezed into a booth. His bloodshot eyes are locked on me and his hand is wrapped tightly around a pint glass. I snicker, tipping my glass in his direction and downing another shot.

“With this shit, I’d be lucky to get a buzz.” I glance at my phone for the third time. I’ve never been a patient man, but Fury’s punctuality damn near makes my eye twitch. As much as I love drowning my sorrows in liquor, I’d rather drown them in blood.

“Ask for some tequila,” Castor deadpans. “Might perk you up.”

I throw him a glare, managing to spot the small twitch in the corner of his mouth. I signal the bartender. My glass is filled a second later and it’s slowly starting to become tolerable.

“You know, usually when a guy is drinking alone at a bar, it means he’s having a shitty day,” Castor says.

I smirk. “You feel like cozying up next to me, buddy? It’ll make my day all better.” I draw out the last two words and he rolls his eyes.

“Looking like a depressed grad student is only going to draw attention.”

“How about I bend over the bartender?” I suggest. “Think that might take away from the drinking?”

“I wouldn’t mind dinner and a show.”

“I charge by the hour.” I slide the empty glass down the bar to join the others. “What did you find?”

Castor nods towards the sheer black glass behind the bar. It’s meant to tint the room, promote the illusion of night to keep people drinking. A clever thought, if everyone didn’t own a phone. I catch a glimpse of the same burly man in the reflective glass. His eyes burn a glare into the back of my skull as he wipes a dirty hand across his mouth, smearing the ring of beer around his face.

“Not in the corner.” Castor nudges me. “Three rows back.”

I follow his direction and finally notice what Castor found. Next to the aggressively drunk moron, was a smaller man. He sat neatly in his chair, one arm propped up on the back while he eagerly chatted with another man sitting across from him. To anyone else, they’re locals, stopping at their favorite dive bar for a drink after their white-collar job.

Castor and I know better.

They sit in the chairs differently, trying to appear nonchalant and collected, but it’s easy to spot the pointed glances in our direction, the unnatural neatness of their facial hair and loose shirts that barely conceal the thick bulletproof gear hidden underneath them.

Mercenaries.

“Two on the table,” Castor mutters. “One on the door. Car parked outside.”

“That’s it?” I laugh. It’s rare to send a single contractor out on a job. Groups are usually better, especially when the targets have managed to kill every single contractor that comes near them, but somehow, Acacia manages to shove their head so far up their ass it makes the drunk tourists and party girls look intelligent.

Perks of us killing off their senior contractors. No one is there long enough to grow a brain.

“Bane?” I ask.

Castor leans against the counter, blowing out a breath like he’s trying to stop himself from vomiting all over the granite. He takes a sip from his water, his nose curling and eyes blinking lazily. He shakes his head and puts a hand on my shoulder to steady himself.

“They’re moving,” he says.

“We can take the back, run the car off and deal with the rest.”

Castor giggles and my eyes narrow.

Does anyone really believe this shit?

“No,” he says with a stupid shit-eating grin. “Not until Fury is ready.”

I frown, my grip on my shot glass tightening enough to make the burly drunk in the corner piss himself. “They’re late,” I grit. “We’re losing our window.”

Castor takes another sip. “We’ve waited for less.”

Sure. Waiting with the intent of bleeding someone dry, not to meet up with a scout to tell us Bane is in the wind again .

God, I want to kill something.

Seven years in the dark. Seven years of doing this shit after I spent almost a decade spilling blood and now all we do is hide, hopping from hotel to hotel and switching IDs every few months to stay ahead of these morons. If I knew we were going to hide this long, I would’ve chosen some place near the woods so I have something to maim. If I have to look at another laminated room service menu written in haughty cursive, I’m going to stab the waitress just so I can feel something.

When we were able to resurface in Syria, I thought I was going to cry. Neither of us had any clue where the mines came from but seeing Bane implode when his captive died was enough to make up for the lack of blood on my behalf.

The shot glass cracks in my hands and I drop it, earning a forced, cheeky laugh from Castor.

“Are you this impatient when you hunt?” Castor slurs.

“Not when there’s a knife in my hand.” I glance at the reflective glass, noting how the two contractors have quietly moved two seats closer while my back was turned. “We’re too exposed here. We need to make a move or lay low.”

“No, we need to blend in.” Castor puts his head in his hands, mimicking a headache. “They’re not going to kill us in front of witnesses.”

“You want to tell them that?”

They’ve inched another seat closer, sitting directly behind us at a table. A glance towards the corner and the burly drunk man catches my eye. He slams his glass down and stands up, chair and tables squeaking as he marches towards us.

My phone vibrates.

Finally .

“We’re ready,” I say.

Castor tosses his head back dramatically, blowing out another breath before downing his water. I do the same with my vodka before flagging the waiter for one last shot.

“Got a plan?” Castor asks.

I nod.

“I’ll think of something. Get up.”

The bartender slides me another shot and I raise it in Castor’s direction.

“Here’s to blending in.” I toss it back, making sure I stumble just enough to knock right into the drunk man. The man grunts, shouting angrily in Hungarian which only makes me laugh, and spit out the rest of my drink. All over his face.

He blinks in disbelief, then his face curls and his fist draws back to hit me, but just before he moves, I duck, and Castor takes the man’s fist straight into his jaw.

Castor doesn’t flinch. He stares for a second, then throws a punch that sends the man flying back several tables and straight into a group of American tourists.

Everything descends into chaos. The tourists jump him, scattering tables and inviting other people into the carnage until everything is a mess of blood and alcohol. The contractors are quickly swept up and then they’re out of sight.

I grit my teeth as my heart starts to race. I could barely contain myself before, and now, their bodies are an offering at my feet. My hand curls around my knife as I step in closer. A man locks onto me and he maneuvers the rings on his hand, brandishing them as a makeshift weapon. My pulse spikes.

God, yes. Please, fight me.

Before I have a chance to move, a fist grabs the collar of my overcoat and yanks me out onto the street. Castor lets go, wiping a spot of blood from his knuckles and cracking his jaw.

“I hate you,” Castor grumbles. “Is there anything you can do for fun besides that?”

I swallow my thought, grinning.

“I like parties.” I shrug. “It served its purpose didn’t it?”

Castor hums in response, glancing down the front of the street. “We don’t have long before they’ll track us. We should keep moving.”

Castor has bizarre habits when it comes to surveillance. Even before we started hunting Acacia, our living arrangements were never this expensive, blending in or not. It took way too much effort to convince him that hiding weapons and body armor in a five-star hotel was a bad idea. Thankfully, there’s a storage unit next door.

The dim light bulb flickers in the large space, barely enough to illuminate the rifles stacked against the wall. They reflect in the pale light, painting the walls a sickly green color.

I reach into the storage locker, pulling out a small vest and my knives. Stilettos are the best kind for throwing, although my favorite is less known and more feared among our own targets.

I slip out the curved blade I’m named after. People mistook it for a scythe in the beginning. I would’ve much rather been called death, but I can’t say I hate the name either. Baron. My name. My callsign—a warning to my targets that I earned my reputation.

I run my finger along the edge until a thin red line appears on the white blade.

“Plate,” Castor says, lacing up his boots.

I toss him the armor, and he catches it without looking up.

I slide on my overcoat and button it halfway, though I don’t miss Castor’s disapproving glance when he looks over my clothes.

“You planning on gearing up?”

“This won’t take long. A plate will slow me down.”

He grabs a smaller metal plate from the cabinet. “Better safe than sorry.”

I frown. “They’re rookies. It’ll take us five minutes.”

“If you’re wanting a red mist instead of a body, sure, but I prefer you in one piece. Don’t forget what happened last time you went plate-less.” He cocks a brow, daring me to challenge him after blatantly reminding me of the single time I was caught with my guard down. Hardly my fault, but the fucker won’t let it go.

I groan. If it was just me going out there, I wouldn’t give a fuck if I was wearing a goddamn plate, but Castor is there too, and if someone’s going to watch his ass, I’ll need to play fair this time.

I take the plate and tuck it into my vest.

“Let’s go.”

It doesn’t take long for the four men to find us. Our tracers lead them right back to the storage unit—right where I need them.

Feedback screams in my earpiece and I nearly fall from my vantage point.

“Castor,” I groan.

“We have a situation,” he responds. “There’s scouts headed south, near the woods. They haven’t spotted me, but several people are dead.”

“What?!”

A contractor steps into view and I freeze. Three more scan the area, guns trained at the dead air until another signals him to conceal it.

“They’re fucking idiots.” I hiss. “Why are they firing on civilians?”

Castor doesn’t answer before the crack of a suppressed gunshot. I duck, just barely missing the bullet that whizzes past my head before I lose my balance. I grip the branch, only managing to steady myself before two more shots are fired.

“Castor!” I shout into my earpiece. “Get back to the courtyard!”

A crowd starts to gather as I reach for my gun, converging behind the contractors scrambling for cover.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

I swing myself back against the trunk to draw their fire. Thankfully, the contractors accept my invitation and lay waste to the tree I’m flattened against. Shots rapid-fire at my feet, splintering the branch I’m standing on. I reach for a stronger one and then my feet are kicked out as a bullet cracks the branch and sends it and my gun tumbling to the forest floor.

“Castor!” I shout into the dead air.

The grunts of the contractors are barely audible above the gunfire but I spot one of them sneaking around a tree and fire just as I swing my legs up.

“Fuck!” I shout in pain as the bullet lodges into my steel-toe.

I glance at the ground twenty feet below. It’ll fucking sting. It won’t kill me, but five seconds of pain is more than I can afford if those morons reload in time, and I don’t want to take the chance of them learning how to aim before I can get to my rifle.

Where the fuck is Castor?

I slip my hand down to my belt the second they move off to reload, palming the two stiletto knives tucked neatly inside its holster. One head comes into view and I hurl it at his head before he even has a chance to raise the gun.

He falls dead, and the other three contractors scramble.

I jump down, grunting from the pain that spiders from my legs. Another hail of bullets comes but they’re disorganized, scrambling for control and a desperate attempt to kill anything that moves before another one of them dies.

Too late.

I throw another, stifling the contractor’s screams as it lodges into his windpipe.

The other two contractors spot me the second I sprint for my gun, training their fire on me and forcing me behind one of the units. The bullets pellet the titanium, but they don’t come close to hitting me. They wouldn’t—that’s the whole point of these storage units. Nothing can penetrate them.

But it doesn’t stop those idiots from trying to drill a hole into the metal and simultaneously fucking up their friend’s bodies, thinking it’s me.

Another misaligned round of bullets goes off, and the contractors are a pile of red, only barely covering the rifle underneath.

I smile.

I jump out and snatch the gun, but not before one of them sees me. His next round of bullets lodges into the back of my plated vest. Heat and pain peppers my back, too many to be able to pull out before he fires again. I fall to my knees as he reloads, rolling behind the unit. Dirt kicks up, soaked in the blood of dead contractor’s that sticks to my sleeves. A single movement of my arm brings on another searing ache from my spine along with the restriction of the heavy armor slowing me down.

Thanks a lot, Castor.

The contractor creeps around the unit, uneven footsteps scraping along dirt and metal like he’s forcing himself to stand. Each clunky step, I ease myself back, keeping just barely out of sight, until I spot the gun in my peripheral, draped on top of that mass of blood and bone. Pain and resistance fights me when I reach for it, the tight vest restricting my arms.

I growl in frustration.

“I fucking hate these things.” I tug at the strap and my vest falls to the ground. Much better.

My movements are much easier, not that the contractor would’ve noticed while his body thuds against the metal unit with each limp. I tuck the gun under my arm, quickly loading it as I hear the second contractor join his partner, breaths rapid and fearful, like an animal trapped under a wolf’s stare.

That’s right. You should be scared. You should cower.

I am the last thing any of them sees—me and Castor standing above them like harbingers that will steal whatever is left of their worthless lives.

I wedge the rifle between the wall of the storage unit and the dead contractor with the thick strap from my armor wrapped loosely around the trigger.

Come out and play, dumbass…

Two shadows appear around the corner and I yank it tight. The gun erupts in fire, shooting bullets haphazardly and instantly drawing the attention of the two men. I move around the opposite side, watching them both steadily—stupidly—creeping in on the hidden gun.

The moment one rounds the corner, I attack, striking the man’s back with my baron and throwing the other in front of the line of fire. He screams each time a bullet strikes him until the magazine runs out and he finally joins his partners.

I kick the bodies, watching the last one gasp and labor his breaths, but I just step over him, avoiding the growing pool of blood so I don’t get my boots dirty.

It’s only then that I see Castor leaning against a tree, watching me.

He shrugs, completely unbothered by the fact that I’d asked him for his fucking help.

“What took you so long?” I bark.

“Ran into some scouts,” he says.

“And why didn’t you help me?”

He cocks his head to the side, eyes scanning the bloodied mess in the hotel courtyard. “I didn’t want to ruin your party.”

I throw him a glare. Jackass.

He doesn’t smile, but I can see the amusement in his eyes. It’s fine. Castor never smiles anyway. Not for years, at least.

The air stinks of iron and piss. I nearly laugh at the thought of their last moments as pissing themselves when they see the shadow of death coming for them. Almost makes me sad they aren’t still alive so I can kill them again.

I yank my knife from the kid’s back and Castor’s voice booms as he cries out my name.

I only catch a glimpse of the gun in the kid’s hands and before I can move, static blares in my ear and a mechanical voice answers.

“Duck!”

A red grenade rolls out between Castor and the kid and he whips back just as it detonates and floods the area with smoke.

The blast sends the concentrated smoke straight up my nose. It’s foul and impossible to breathe in. I stagger back, coughing and gagging, swiping the air for something to grip onto but Castor finds me first, securing a respirator over my face before doing the same to himself and pulling me out of the thick cloud.

“Five minutes, huh?” he says.

“Shut the fuck up,” I spit. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“It never is.” A figure steps through the smoke, cloaked in metal and the glowing red eyes of their mask permeating through the smoke like a creature luring its prey.

Fury.

Their head cocks to the side as they watch the contractor convulse from the poison. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, frozen in terror and unable to move. Fury places a hand on his throat and the slightest twitch in the kid’s eye is the only form of begging he can give them.

Fury presses a finger to their lips and closes their hand around the kids throat. His eyes dart in a panic, muscles tensing from the failed will to move his body. Then, the kid’s eyes blacken and his chest stops moving. Fury watches for a moment, thumb running tenderly over his throat before standing.

Their red eyes come into view as they turn. Thick black armor covers every inch of their body, leaving only just enough cloaked in kevlar to move silently. They flip a switch on the side of their helmet and the glowing eyes on their mask dim as they step over the bodies without another word.

They look us up and down before extending a hand.

Castor takes it, offering a curt nod. “We weren’t expecting to see you today.”

“Because you never see me at all.” They look at me before nodding towards the empty space where my armor had been. “Arrogance is a bad trait to have. You should thank Castor for having common sense.”

“What are you doing here?” I frown.

“Thought I’d lend a hand. I wasn’t counting on Bane hiring scouts.” They turn their head towards the bloodied courtyard. “From the looks of it, neither were you. You usually don’t make this much of a mess.”

My eyes narrow. “I like it messy.”

“Then be grateful it was their blood and not yours.”

Castor places a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back. “If Acacia is sending scouts now, he’s getting smarter,” he says. “Bane may not be here.”

“Were any of them tagged?”

Castor shakes his head and I groan. This is a waste of time. We don’t need to be deliberating how important these morons were to Acacia. The smoke is starting to thin out and the contractors are dead. We need to move on.

“We need to keep moving,” I say. “If Bane wants to send more contractors, he’ll do it regardless of how important they were.”

Fury looks at me for a moment and nods. “Let’s go.”

I lead back towards the iron gate, moving the dead bodies out of sight of the gathering tourists. They barely made it to puberty. One of them looks barely eighteen. His face was too young to sprout any facial hair, probably his first time out in the field at all, fresh out of high school.

And this is what he chose to do with his life.

Moron .

I thumb the handle of my baron when I hear panicked whispers on the other side of the unit. Castor and I share a single look before we charge into our storage unit. Hidden behind the cabinets was the first contractor—the one I thought I’d killed—whispering frantically into his radio.

I laugh in annoyance.

“What the fuck are they feeding these kids?” I unsheath my knife and step on the kid’s leg. He whimpers in fear, too scared to even beg for his life.

I lean down, pressing my knife against his throat.

“One question.” I press down harder when he opens his mouth. “Shh, don’t speak. One question and that’s it, okay? Nod.”

He nods and when a tear slides down his cheek, I have to fight the urge to laugh in his face.

“Your handler. Is he nearby?”

Another nod.

“Good,” I tap his cheek with my knife, laughing when he flinches.

Fury is already on their phone, searching for any signal that could match the ones the contractors gave off.

I turn back to the kid and smile before stepping over him. “Good job, kid. I just have one more thing I need from you.”

“They’re on the move,” Fury interjects. “We don’t have time for an interrogation.”

“Actually,” I drag the tip of my knife towards the kid’s eye. “I wasn’t planning on interrogating today.”