Celt. (Den of Mercenaries Book 2) (16 page)

S
omething was wrong
.

Amber didn’t know why that notion crossed her mind as she came downstairs from the roof where she had looked for Kyrnon. Waking up alone was something she was used to, but that either meant he was upstairs or on the floor in his living room repairing the other Harley.

But he never left without saying anything.

Vaguely remembering him sliding out of bed the night before, she hadn’t thought much of it as she readied for the day, though she had sent him a text just to let him know she was up. But that was two hours ago, and she had yet to hear anything from him.

A work emergency might have come up, and he had yet to get back to her.

No big deal.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling.

She was wrestling a rubber band over her hair when she heard her phone buzzing from its spot on the bed. Her elation fled when she saw that it was only her boss calling.

“Amber, I need you to come see me right away,” Elliot said in a rush, the wind whipping in the background as though he were running.

“Elliot? Where are—”

“I’m at the gallery. Get here.”

Frowning, Amber asked, “I thought you were closing for the day? You had a spa appointment or something.”

“That’s not important,” he said impatiently. There was the rattle of keys, then, “It’s an emergency. Get here as soon as you can.”

Then Elliot hung up.

A little freaked out, she dressed as quickly as she could. Thankfully, Kyrnon had given her the code so she was able to come and go as she liked.

Foregoing the train, she hailed a cab, relaxing back against the torn leather as she tried to figure out why Elliot sounded so frantic. Since the day of the auction, he had been acting strange—impatient, surly, and if she were being honest, paranoid, but she had chalked it up to his usual eccentricities.

Now, she wasn’t sure.

His odd behavior and Kyrnon’s sudden disappearance made that feeling of anxiety creeping through her chest squeeze a little tighter because she felt like she was missing something.

And for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what.

Traffic was a nightmare despite the early hour so she didn’t arrive at Cedar until nearly an hour-and-a-half after their phone call. The front doors were locked, odd considering Elliot’s car was parked at the curb and he had told her to meet him here.

But thinking he was just trying to be safe since he was the only one in the gallery, she used her key to let herself in.

The first thing she noted as she walked in was how quiet it was. Even if it were the click of keys, the sound of Elliot’s humming, or
something
, there was always noise present unless necessary for a showing.

And it took her a moment to understand why that troubled her, but when she did, she looked to the top of the door.

The bell hadn’t chimed.

She might not have paid attention to it on a regular day because she was so used to it, but now that it hadn’t, a sliver of fear worked through her.

It wasn’t just silent. It was also
dark
.

Tugging her phone from her pocket, she swiped her fingers across the screen, unlocking it before sending Elliot a text to let him know she was there.

But what she hadn’t expected was the ping of his phone, just loud enough for her to hear.

Frowning, but at least at ease knowing he was back there, Amber started toward his office, but the closer she got, the more she could hear the soft, but firm voices of whoever was on the other side.

Elliot hadn’t mentioned he would be having company … and when she was at the partially cracked door, and could hear Elliot’s panting voice, she knew then that something was seriously wrong.

“I don’t know what …”

“How long do you want to play this game?” the other occupant of the room asked, and as the sound of his voice washed over her, it felt like all the blood drained right out of her.

She knew that voice—that accent—heard it more times than she could count over the last month and a half.

She
loved
that voice.

Even as she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that it was
Kyrnon
in that room with her boss, she had her hand pressed against the door in the next second, needing to see.

It could have been innocent, the pair of them having a conversation that she wasn’t privy to, but another part of her—the part that had been able to see mafia guys up close and personal—knew that whatever was happening inside of that room, it wasn’t good.

How did Kyrnon know her boss anyway?

Even knowing that she wasn’t going to like whatever she saw on the other side of that door, she very carefully pushed it open, glad for once that Elliot had had the foresight to install doors that didn’t squeak as they opened.

The scene unfolded itself slowly, then all at once.

Elliot was sitting in his office chair, his hands zip-tied to the arms of it, his face badly bruised, and his lip split with blood still leaking from the wound.

But it was the man down on his haunches in front of him that stole Amber’s attention.

Same hair. Same build—though this could be argued considering all the gear he had on—but from what she could see, it was him.

It was Kyrnon.

The phone slipped out of her hand in the next second, the device clattering to the floor loudly, drawing all eyes to her.

In the span of a heartbeat, Kyrnon was on his feet, spinning around, the gun he held aimed at her head. There was no emotion in his eyes as he stared at her, and she was sure with the quick, terrified breath she drew into her lungs, she was about to die.

Then, he blinked, seeming to realize who was standing in front of him, his aim faltering as he lowered his weapon just slightly.

“Amber—”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish speaking before she bolted, running for the door, not stopping even as he shouted her name with a curse, his steps heavy behind her.

Amber didn’t stop or look back, not when she was outside the gallery, or even down the street. Only when she saw a yellow cab did she slow, glancing over her shoulder to see if he was still chasing her, but when she couldn’t spot him through the sea of faces, she threw her hand up, already rushing toward the cab before it could even stop.

Throwing herself in the backseat, she locked the door, telling the man to just drive—she just needed to get away.

Her hands were trembling, adrenaline racing through her as she tried to think of what to do.

She couldn’t go home—he knew where she lived—and there was no telling what all he already knew about her family besides what she had already offered up.

But there
was
one place.

Patting her pockets, Amber searched for her phone, but realized almost belatedly that she had left it on the floor of the gallery in her haste to get away.

“Can I use your phone?” Amber asked.

The cabbie, though he did glance at her through the rearview mirror like she was crazy, handed her his own, and with shaking hands, she typed in a number she didn’t think she would ever have to call—at least not for something like this.

As it rang in her ear she prayed he answered, and the moment the call connected, and she could hear his voice on the other line, Amber breathed her first sigh of relief.

“Mish? I think I’m in trouble.”

H
e fucked up
.

Kyrnon knew it the moment he had turned around and saw Amber’s terrified face staring back at him, that fear only made worse when he had his Sig in her face. His training had always taught him to be prepared for anything, to go into any mission and assume he was going to die, that way, he would do everything in his power to make it back out alive.

But that
look
on her face …

It had managed to break through the fog of his latest job because that was the last thing he had ever wanted to see on her because of him.

He hadn’t known what he expected, maybe that she would stand there and listen as he explained what the fuck was happening, but the minute she bolted, he hadn’t thought of anything else than to go after her.

But he couldn’t catch her—not because she was too fast, but because despite Elliot being tied to a chair, he was still a loose end that Kyrnon couldn’t afford to let out of his sight.

It was time for Plan B.

Turning the locks to the gallery, Kyrnon made quick work of covering his tracks, making sure that everything was in order before he headed back to the office where Elliot waited. On his way in, he noticed the phone—
her
phone—still in the mouth of the door.

Grabbing it, he tried to unlock the device, but a four-digit code was needed to get to the home screen.

“What are—”

“Shut up, before I have a mind to do murder.”

He was already annoyed that he even had to track the man down in the first place, but now that Amber was just here and practically
fled
from him in terror, he was ready to take his anger out on someone.

Plus, he needed to think.

People were predictable, and whether they realized it or not, any password or code needed to add a layer of security to something was created with something that was significant to them.

A birth date.

An anniversary.

Dog’s name.

Spouse’s name.

Or a combination of the four, but once you knew the intimate details of a person, it was rather easy figuring these out.

Since her phone only needed four numbers, Kyrnon automatically thought ‘year’. First, he tried her birth date, and when the phone vibrated, telling him to try again, he entered the four digit code he knew she used as her ATM pin. But again, same results.

He only had one more try before the phone would lock him out, and while under normal circumstances, those minutes would mean nothing to him, it was different when he was under the clock.

Then he thought of her, Amber, and everything he knew about her—the secrets she had spilled, the promises she had uttered. Then he thought of her in his greenhouse, painting away in the wee hours of the night.

The moon cycle …

Kyrnon cast his mind back, trying to remember the year in which that painting was done, and once he had the answer, he punched it in, blowing out a breath once it unlocked and went to the home screen.

Then he called Winter.

“Who’s number is this?” she asked once he had her on the line.

“Doesn’t matter. Dump everything and tell me anything interesting you find.”

“Uh, okay? When do you need it?”

“Now.”

“Seriously? I—”

“
Now
.”

“Dickhead.”

Winter hung up in his ear, and he didn’t doubt that she was going to make him pay for the attitude he had with her in some way, but that was the furthest thing from his mind as he stuffed the phone in his pocket, then crossed the room to Elliot.

“Listen up. I can stand here and continue to punch you in the face until you give me the answer I want—it’s easy going for me. But now I have other shite I need to deal with, so to can the ‘I don’t know what to tell you’ discussion, how about I give you a little incentive.”

Snatching the bowie knife from his belt, Kyrnon cut one of Elliot’s restraints free, grabbing hold of his wrist and planting the man’s hand flat against the desk.

Slamming the knife down in a wide arc, Kyrnon watched it sink into the desk with little resistance while Elliot screamed out in terror.

“Either give me an answer or lose a finger. The forgery, who did you sell it to?”

It was the same question he had been asking the man since he found him in his office, pacing the floor, his phone in hand. After the Kingmaker’s warning, he knew that he had to get to Elliot first before whoever the man had managed to piss off. If he didn’t, Amber would be as good as dead.

With Gabriel
very
dead, Elliot was his only other option.

“The Bronson Organization.”

Frowning, Kyrnon asked, “Who in the hell is that?”

“We never found out,” Elliot said, swallowing loudly. “A representative of the company came to the auction, that’s all we know.”

For fuck’s sake …

That was going to take him even longer to track down. People that used shell corporations were good at covering their tracks, and it would take him more time than he would have wanted to get a name, especially when they already had a couple days’ head start over him.

And now, Kyrnon realized something else.

Whether she was afraid of him now, or not, he was coming for her. There was plenty of blame to be cast around, but none of it was hers, and she didn’t deserve to get hurt over something she had no control over.

Now he just had to find her.

Retrieving his knife from the desk, Kyrnon looked to Elliot, quickly thinking through what he would do with the man.

“Are you letting me go?” Elliot said as Kyrnon cut the other tie that bound his wrist.

“Not quite.”

Swinging a fist, he knocked him out with one hit. He grabbed and lifted the man over his shoulder as he headed back out the back toward the truck he’d rented.

Stuffing the man in the back, he hopped into the driver’s seat and raced back to his loft, only to find Calavera there waiting for him. She couldn’t have been there long—she was still on her feet, gaze roaming the place, but when her eyes swung back to him, he could see the question in them.

“What did you do?” she asked, knowing without him having to say that something was wrong.

He didn’t have much time. “I’ve got a problem.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be because of the female that’s staying here?” Calavera guessed, her gaze skirting to the pair of heels on his living room floor.

“Not necessarily.”

The problem wasn’t because of Amber, but because of his own errors.

“Then how can I help?”

He waved for her to follow behind him as he headed down into his War Room. Stuck in the elevator with her, he gave her the condensed version of everything that had happened, leaving out details of his personal relationship with Amber as that had no bearing to the problem he was dealing with right now.