Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1)(12)

A piece of him, no matter how small that piece was, refused to let himself give up.

When he dropped his arms to his sides out of pure exhaustion, everything shut off once more and he was left to the darkness.

His old friend…



* * *



The door swung open, making Niklaus jolt as he rolled to see who stood there. He felt wired, his movements jerky as he forced himself to a sitting position, trying to get a better look at the man coming towards him.

He couldn’t be much older than Niklaus, maybe a few years, but he had the eyes of a man that had seen many things. Unlike before, he was not wearing a mask. At least Niklaus thought he was one of the men that had dragged him into this room based on the tattoos that circled his forearm.

Or was that somebody else?

Niklaus was losing it…

In one hand he held a plate, in the other a glass of water.

How long had it been since Niklaus last ate?

He couldn’t care less about the food, his attention focused solely on the water. They both were set down a few feet from him, but Niklaus waited until the man took a step back before reaching for the water, drinking it down as fast as possible, not noticing that because of his trembling hands, water was sliding down his chin and wetting his shirt.

As the man backed away, Niklaus’ grip on the glass grew tighter. He didn’t know how much more he could withstand. The man from the alley had been right. Physical torture was one thing, this was worse…and they hadn’t even touched him. His will was slowly deteriorating.

Hesitating in the doorway, his arms now folded across his chest, he took a moment to study Niklaus, seeming to reach a conclusion.

His next words both fortified Niklaus’ resolve and terrified him more.

“Do not fear death,” he said in a gravelly, lilting accent. “Embrace it. Pain is inevitable, learn to love it.”





Chapter Eight





His hand out beside him, Niklaus tapped out a cadence on the concrete with his thumb and middle finger, forming a rhythm that only he could understand. After his last visitor, no one else came back to the room, but the lights and sounds had started right back up. He had eaten the food brought to him, and ended the stomach pains he hadn’t realized were plaguing him.

This time, even as the madness crept ever near, he didn’t try to block it out—didn’t try not to feel anything. Instead, he gave himself over to it, letting the sounds penetrate his ears and the lights bleed into his eyes and warming his skin. He held onto the man’s words like a lifeline, finally giving himself over to the very thing that was threatening to take him over.

Madness. He was beginning to welcome him like an old friend…

It was like a sickness, slowly poisoning him the longer he remained in that room, but gradually, that madness turned into something else, something he couldn’t identify.

He thought of the faces of the Albanians, committing them to memory, burning them there to the point that if he was asked years from now what they looked like, he’d be able to paint a clear picture. He vowed to himself that he would make them feel exactly how he felt at his lowest moment.

And although Mishca, his twin brother and savior, should have been the lone person in that entire f*cked-up situation that he was grateful for, his fury burned brightest for him.

He didn’t know when, and he didn’t know how, but one day he was going to make that Russian pay.

It was only a matter of time…

Very soon, Niklaus no longer reacted to the lights and sounds. Whenever one, or both, came on, he blinked like it was all second nature.

Finally, after what had felt like days locked in that hole, the door opened once more, the man from the alley walking in, along with the one that had brought him food, and a few others. Since they were all there sans masks, he figured that he had passed the first test.

He was brought from that room to another one that had windows. He gave them the briefest of glances, taking in as much of the outside as he could, before he devoted his attention to the other occupants. For all he could discern about his location, he could have been down the street from the first place he'd been held, or across the ocean in an entirely different country.

The new room Niklaus entered was brightly lit with LED lights across the ceiling, a steel slab of a table and chairs cutting the room in half. He sat in one, no one speaking to him, or he to them. The man from the alley took the opposite one.

“Niklaus, I don’t believe I’ve given you my name. Call me Z.”

That was an odd name to go by—or letter—but he didn’t question it, merely nodded.

“How has your week in the hole been?”

A week? One week?

It had felt like ages had passed in that darkened room. How exactly was he expected to answer that question? “Fine.”

“And your injuries?”

Truthfully, they had been the last thing on Niklaus mind considered what else he had been preoccupied with inside that room. He wasn’t at one-hundred percent, but better than where he had started.

“They were worse.”

The corner of Z’s mouth tipped up, but he didn’t offer a response to that. “Considering you’ve come to the Den broken, your training will be considerably harder than most.”

There was something worse?

He gestured to the only one that Niklaus recognized—the one that had brought him the food and water. Now that he was out of that room, it was easier to make out what Celt—a nam he had heard someone else use—looked like.