“Belladonna? I don’t know a Belladonna. Why are you here?”
“There’s a chance you’re not even the guy I’m here for,” Luna said stalling. “I don’t even know who you are.”
As he was about to answer, that first syllable leaving his lips, she moved to her feet and turned in one fluid movement.
Andrei stumbled back a step, brown eyes forked with red narrowing on her before widening in surprise. But it wasn’t just surprise that flittered over his face, there was something else.
Remorse, maybe?
But, there was no reason for him to be feeling remorse …
“You’re one of his mercenaries, aren’t you?” he asked, voice wavering as he lowered his weapon slightly. “He sent you here to kill me.”
Though she knew the ‘he’ Andrei referred to was Uilleam, the rest she wasn’t so sure of. “I’m not here to kill you.”
He laughed without humor, his skepticism showing. “He sent you for the truth then, and someone else to finish the job? Is that what he promised you? My life for a place in his Den?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
It might have been the genuine surprise in her own voice that had him lowering the gun, his guard momentarily dropped as he stared at her.
“The warehouse,” he said as though this was something she should have known. “The fire, all of it—when you were taken.”
And that was when it clicked—how she knew his voice.
He had been one of the men there that day. In fact, he had been the one to take her from the room when she started smelling the smoke.
“That’s why he’s been picking us off one by one, because we betrayed his trust.” Andrei seemed to grow unhinged as he shoved agitated fingers through thinning hair.
“Who, the Kingmaker?” Luna asked, trying to understand his rambling, but Andrei was beyond hearing her.
“We should never have agreed to do it, but he offered us money—said no one would ever know.”
“Who?” Luna shouted, finally grabbing his attention.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We just gave you to the closest buyer. We never knew—”
Andrei never got to finish, not when the glass from the window shattered as a bullet punched through. Luna barely had a chance to duck before Andrei was riddled with them, slamming down onto the floor, glass surrounding him as blood oozed from his body.
Luna only allowed herself a moment before she shuffled to the window, peering out at the building across the street. Automatically, her gaze sought out the rooftop, expecting to see a gleam of a rifle, or the retreating back of someone hurrying off.
But nothing.
No one.
There was no movement whatsoever.
Abandoning her first option, Luna walked over to Andrei, checking for a pulse though she didn’t have high hopes—nothing.
For a moment, Luna could only kneel there, trying to piece together what she knew, but now, even less about this assignment was making sense.
But she was starting to get the feeling that it might have something to do with her.
“Fucking hell.”
Kit glanced down at his phone, making sure it was Semyon he was supposed to be talking to. The hacker had called him not more than ten seconds ago, but he seemed too distracted by whatever he was doing to actually say anything to him.
“Is there a reason you called?”
There was shuffling on the other end before Semyon came back on with a curse. “You told me to call you if anyone started looking into the lists of names you sent.”
“And?”
That was exactly what Kit had been trying to avoid. It wouldn’t do him any good if Uilleam found him before he could.
He was theatrical that way, and if he had always intended for Luna to find out about Uilleam’s involvement, he wouldn’t stop at just telling her—he would make sure there was no doubt remaining.
Kit couldn’t let that happen.
“I’ve been trying to track down the guy, but he hasn’t left much of a digital footprint over the last year. Nearly off-grid—but apparently I wasn’t looking in the right places.”
“Who’s the other party?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Their encryption software is pretty solid—I’m only able to get enough through a back channel to catch whatever she finds.”
“That’s not good enough, Kreshnik.”
He mumbled something unintelligible, before Semyon blew out a heavy breath. “They found him—Andrei, I mean—and whoever the fuck this is blocked me from accessing whatever they found, but my malware—”
“I don’t need to know the process,” Kit said, “I only need results.”
More silence, and then, “Sending you an address now. They have a head start, so if you’re trying to find this guy, get moving.”
Kit ended the call without saying anything more, his phone chiming as a text came in. He didn’t bother reading, instead sending it off to the one person he knew could see this done without leaving witnesses.
That was Fang’s specialty, after all.