“Must we really do this when you quite obviously know it’s me?”
There was a camera just above the door, one that allowed the man on the other side of the door a clear picture of who was standing on the other side—there was also another outside the tavern.
Undoubtedly, Kit’s presence had been noticed before he had even walked through the doors.
“Then you shouldn’t have a problem giving the password.”
With a roll of his eyes, Kit finally, begrudgingly answered, “Beware the Jabberwock with jaws that bite and claws that catch.”
When the heavy bolt disengaged and the door finally swung open, revealing the man on the other side, Kit frowned.
“You do know that your password is not very clever,” he said once he was allowed entry.
The other man shrugged. “Gets the job done though, no?”
Semyon Kreshnik was not like most hackers. While he was a proud blackhat, he still had a moral compass, but no one was ever sure which way he would lean. If one came to him with the wrong offer, he wasn’t opposed to using his skills against them.
And worse, he didn’t give a shit about money.
“What can I do for you, Phoenix?” Semyon asked as he closed the door behind them, shifting the lock into place. “I thought you were retired.”
While the Lotus Society had a number of hackers on their payroll, Kit had always preferred using outside contractors, especially when it came to information he needed kept private.
“I am retired,” Kit said studying the display of six screens against the wall.
While he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing, it all made sense to Semyon as he returned to his seat, dropping the wireless keyboard in his lap. Tattooed fingers flew over the keys, the screens blacking out one by one.
“I guess we’re all retired until we’re not,” he said glancing back. “So what do you need? I owe you that favor from Moscow last year, so let’s clear it.”
Semyon was very much like Uilleam in that way—he didn’t like owing anyone—and though Kit had told him there was nothing to repay, he insisted.
“I need you to find someone—Luna Santiago.” Kit also gave her date of birth and where she was born, but he also added, “It may be hard to find her considering every trace of her was scrubbed by one of the Kingmaker’s associates.”
Semyon gave him a droll stare. “Associates? Right. If they were any good, he wouldn’t have offered me a job.”
This was the first he was hearing of this. “And you didn’t accept?”
“I’ve never played well with others. Might want to have a seat, Nix,” Semyon said with a nod of his head to the black leather couch against the wall. “This might take a minute.”
“How’s he doing?” Luna asked as she walked with Zachariah through the halls of the compound, just spotting the edge of a man’s bare feet dragging across the floor as he was dumped in what was affectionately known as the Silent Room.
It wasn’t because the room ever stayed that way. Sure, in the beginning there was nothing but the voices to keep you company when you were inside since it was pitch black and soundproof.
It was never the place one wanted to stay for long lest the demons trapped in their heads came rushing back to suffocate them.
After the silence came blaring, high-pitched noise that was loud enough to create an instant headache. Then came the lights that flashed so bright one’s pupils dilated painfully, and only after long, agony filled seconds did it all start over again, creating a vicious cycle of discomfort that broke even the strongest of people down.
Most that came to this place seeking the benefits were already broken to a point that nothing could have been worse than what they had already experienced—and ultimately, the Silent Room had helped to center them instead.
There had been one, Luna remembered vividly, that hadn’t responded well to the room. They hadn’t known at the time, because he had been rather calm when it was time for his release, but the second the door was opened, he attacked with a vengeance, wounding seven before he was finally tranquilized.
His demons didn’t just find him in the dark—they were constantly winding him up.
Syn, his name was.
“Recovering,” Zachariah answered as they rounded the corner toward his office. “I thought you would have known.”
She hadn’t seen much of Uilleam in the weeks since the shooting. Kit was being paranoid, explaining that whoever had come after Uilleam could have been targeting his family, and he wanted to keep her safe.
If it were up to him, he would have kept her locked away in his safe house instead of at the Den.
Thankfully, Zachariah had called with an assignment for her, and only after he explained that it was merely a request to find someone and nothing more, he agreed that she could do it—which both amused and frustrated her.