Celt. (Den of Mercenaries Book 2) (18 page)

Amber wasn’t so sure about that. “He tried to kill my boss. I’m not sure what your definition of ‘no harm’ means, but I think mine is different.”

For a moment, she thought Kyrnon looked wounded. “You have nothing to fear from me, lovie. You know that.” Scrubbing a hand down his face, his gaze never wavered from hers. “Give me a chance to explain.”

There was nothing more that she wanted than an explanation, reasoning behind everything that had happened between them, and everything that hadn’t.

But she wasn’t ready.

Not when he was armed for war and she could see the faintest trace of blood on his hands.

Shaking her head, she said ever so softly, “Kyrnon, I can’t. Not right now. I need time to … process all of this.”

The muscle at his temple ticked, and she was sure he was going to argue this point with her, but instead he said something to Niklaus, in Russian if she had to guess—of course he knew Russian.

Whatever he said had Mishca responding back in the same tongue before Niklaus jumped in. By the time they finished, Amber was more confused than ever.

“Then it’s settled,” Mishca said with a nod of his head.

Whatever he meant had Kyrnon nodding and Niklaus heading for the door, but before Kyrnon left, he crossed the floor in only a few quick strides, reaching her before she even had a thought to flee.

One second Luka was dropping his arm finally, the next, Kyrnon had his hand cupped around the nape of her neck, dragging her forward so he could leave a searing kiss to her lips that had her gasping in both delight and astonishment.

Her hands reached for him before she had a mind to, fisting in the bottom edge of his shirt.

“Six hours,” he said against her lips. “You get six hours to climb out of that head of yours, then I’ll be back.”

As quickly as he was there, Kyrnon was gone again.

S
ix hours
…

Kyrnon had promised her time, and could even understand why she needed it, though he didn’t like it. Seeing that fear of him in her eyes had both frustrated and hurt him because while he wanted to erase that fear, she wasn’t letting him.

So although it felt wrong in every part of his fucking being, he’d promised her six hours.

He had only made it two before he was back on his bike, driving through the city to the Volkov residence. While it may have looked like another upscale apartment building that littered Manhattan, one could tell with a glance that it wasn’t one in the same.

The doorman looked far too menacing, with a distinct bulge at his back, and an earpiece in his ear. He didn’t doubt that if he wasn’t welcome, by the time he parked his bike and headed for the doors, that point would have been made clear to him.

The front staff, only slightly more welcoming than the doorman, were better, though they, too, had a shifty look in their eyes, as though waiting for anything to happen at any moment.

Once through the main lobby and onto the lift, he hit the button for the penthouse and waited. Since he didn’t have a key to send it, he had to wait for someone on the other end to allow him up.

Of course, he could have called before just showing up so they would know to expect him, but he didn’t want to hear again that she needed time.

He was already over that.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the doors closed and the lift began to move. With each floor he passed, a little more of that pressure squeezing his chest eased.

He wanted to see her.

He needed
her
.

Fucking hell, it hadn’t even been two months yet and he was already obsessed.

As the lift came to a stop and the doors reopened, Kyrnon was expecting one of the Volkov brothers waiting for him, but instead he found a female nearly a foot shorter with a stern frown on her pretty face.

Lauren Volkov.

“I like you, Celt—you have to be decent if Niklaus considers you a friend,” she said, her arms folded across her chest. “But Amber is family to me, and if you hurt her in any way, I will set Luka onto you.”

And like the fucking wild animal Luka was, the crazy bastard would try and make his life a living hell just for the fun of it.

“Duly noted.”

Lauren appraised him a moment, making a decision before finally nodding. “She’s in the bedroom behind the kitchen. My sixteen-month old is sleeping, so, ya know …” she gave him a look, one that made it crystal clear if he woke the toddler up, she would make him pay.

Kyrnon didn’t hesitate in heading in the opposite direction, even running a hand down his face as he drew closer to the bedroom door.

Nervous. He was nervous. Why the hell was he nervous? He had stolen a multimillion dollar painting beneath the noses of men and women who had enough power to see him dead, and yet that was nothing compared to this.

Facing her, telling her the truth about who he was, that was the easy part.

It was getting her to stay that was going to be hard.

T
he minute Kyrnon
was no longer in sight, Amber felt a pang in her chest. How could she simultaneously want him to stay, even as she wanted him to leave? There was so much left unspoken between them that she almost regretted asking him for time, but knew she needed it.

“We never knew his name,” Lauren said quietly from her spot beside her in the back of the car Mishca had sent them to their home in. “I would have told you—you know that.”

She didn’t doubt that at all. Lauren was her closest friend, and after everything she had been privy to over the course of their relationship, they knew she wasn’t going to open her mouth to anyone.

“I heard someone call him Celt once,” Amber said, watching the city pass her by through the tinted windows of the car. “I just didn’t think anything of it at the time.” Glancing over at her friend, she asked, “How long have you known him?”

Lauren winced, looking apologetic. “Since a few weeks after the wedding.”

“
That
long? Why’ve I never met him, or have even seen him?”

No wonder no one had seemed concerned when he had shown up.

“It’s kind of funny actually,” Lauren said with a small smile. “I distinctly remember trying to set you up with Celt.”

Shortly before her honeymoon, Amber thought. The only reason she remembered was because Lauren had told her the man was a mercenary. And back then, after everything she had seen happening with Lauren and the boys, she didn’t think she was equipped to handle that kind of lifestyle.

And now here she was …

“I should have tried to bring him around more,” Amber said wistfully. If she had, she might not have felt so shocked at what she was finding out.

But then again, shock wasn’t really the right word.

She had known, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself that there was something
off
about Kyrnon. Yet, she had stayed with him despite her reservations.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that.”

“Is everyone forgetting that he hurt my boss?” Which she was still trying to wrap her mind around.

“There was probably a reason for that.”

Amber had thought the same, though she couldn’t fathom what Elliot could have been involved in that brought him into contact with mercenaries.

“You like him,” Amber said wryly, “otherwise you wouldn’t be encouraging this.”

Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know him all that well, but he was there when we needed him, and even a time when we didn’t. Plus, Niklaus likes him, and that has to count for something.”

“Maybe.”

“I know it sounds like a lot,” Lauren said softly. “Hearing what they do and actually
seeing
it, but they’re all good guys, no matter how they’re labeled. And whatever’s going on with Kyrnon, he’s only doing this to protect you. At least, that was what he was telling Mish.” When Amber gave her a look, she said, “Mish is a good teacher.”

She didn’t doubt it. “At least I have a few hours to think about it.” And maybe by then, she would be able to make sense of all the questions she wanted to ask.

As her apartment building came into view, Lauren sat up a little straighter. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

“What?”

“I would bet money that Celt shows up in the next two hours. If he’s anything like Mish, he won’t be patient when it comes to this.”

Amber hadn’t believe that.

Not even when she made it upstairs and was offered the guest room to get away for a while. Though she knew Kyrnon had a way of making her talk to him, even when she wouldn’t, on this she had thought he would be more amendable.

Not likely.

Especially not when Lauren popped her head in to let her know that Kyrnon was parking his bike—this she said with a smile since she hadn’t known he rode one—and would be up in no time.

It had only been two hours exactly.

But in that near two-hour span of time, Amber had thought of everything she wanted to know, or at least everything she thought she wanted to know. There was so much there, so many options that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to get answers to all of them.

Minutes after Lauren had come in, it was Kyrnon taking her place, seeming bigger than ever in that narrow doorway.

His bulletproof vest, the guns, and the rest of his tactical gear was gone—now back in jeans and a soft-knit shirt. His attempt at looking nonthreatening, she thought.

But remembering that cold look in his eyes as he turned that gun on her … even as she knew it was probably because she startled him, she couldn’t wipe the image from her head.

After he had the door closed at his back, he held his hands up, palms out, like he was trying to reassure her that he didn’t mean her harm. “Easy.”

While Amber was sitting with her legs crossed at the top of the bed, he still kept his distance.

For her sake, she knew, because the look in his eyes told her something different.

He would only stay away for so long.

“Six hours?” she asked, gesturing to the clock with a tilt of her head.

“I gave what I could.”

Yeah, she believed that. “Did you kill my boss?”

Above the rest, that was the question that had plagued her the most. Without her phone, she hadn’t been able to look anything up, but then again, considering who Kyrnon was, it might not have been reported on at all.

“No. Calavera is probably dropping him off at an extraction point in the middle of nowhere for him to get the hell out of town. If he’s smart, he’ll do what I said.”

He answered the question with no hesitancy.

“Who’s Calavera? And why does he need to leave town?” But those questions were only at the surface of what she really wanted to know. “What’s going on?”

Kyrnon looked conflicted a moment, before he finally answered. “I was contracted to find and retrieve the
L’amant Flétrie
painting.”

“
Retrieve
?”

He shrugged. “Steal.”

“You told me you were in acquisitions,” she said. She thought of his place, the cars. “So you get paid to steal things?”

Despite his rather somber mood, Kyrnon couldn’t help a slight smile. “The best thief money can buy.”

Amber didn’t doubt that was also true. “Did they know where it was?”

“My employer didn’t have a location, only had a name for who he thought was involved.”

“And that was Elliot?”

“Gabriel Monte.”

“I don’t understand …”

Digging his hands into his pockets, he explained. “Monte owns a shipping company, one that’s used for imports and exports for men that hire people like me. He was exchanging calls with your boss who happened to own a gallery—it was easy enough putting two and two together.”

“But if you knew they were working together, what have you been doing all this time?”

“Besides the calls, there wasn’t any other link.”

“That was why you came by the gallery that first time,” Amber said on a hunch.

Kyrnon nodded. “It was.”

“Like, uh—what’s the word—recon?”

His eyes softened as he smiled slightly, like he found her question cute. “Aye, recon.”

“But you weren’t there long, were you? You left with me.”

His gaze shifted to the right as his fingers came up to rub over his beard—a habit of his, she’d noticed, when he was avoiding something. “True enough.”

“What aren’t you saying?”

“In the grand scheme of things, lovie, it’s not important.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Am—”

“Kyrnon, tell me.”

“The first plan was to break in, but I had you, so …”

“You could use me to get access to whatever you needed,” she supplied quietly, swallowing back the sudden lump in her throat. “So all this time, you were with me—”

One second he was across the room, the next he was grabbing hold of her leg before she could protest, dragging her down until he was standing between her legs and she could feel the tension throughout him.

“You were never a part of the job—get it out of your head. You were in my bed because I wanted you there, no other reason.”

She desperately wanted to believe him—she wanted to believe that it had all been real between them. “But, you just said—”

“I
want
you, Amber. Never doubt that.” He lifted a strand of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “But I will say, I needed you in the end. It was actually because of you that I even found it.”

“How?”

“The painting was only in the building whenever you were. Otherwise, they moved it.”

“And that was why you were asking me about it the other night … but it was sold, wasn’t it? Is that what you were trying to get out of Elliot?”

“I already took the painting—which is part of the problem.”

Her brows knitted together. “When did you—
is that where you snuck off to
?”

He’d been gone longer than she had expected after going to secure the painting he bought. At the time, she hadn’t thought much of it, but now, it made more sense.

“And no one was the wiser.”

“And now? Why did you hurt Elliot?”

“They sold your replica as the real thing.”

“Oh no.” Amber worried her lip between her teeth as she considered what that meant. “Now, whoever bought it is upset.”

“And fucking pissed off about it. Monte is already dead—found his body early this morning.” He caught her wrists before she could pull away from him. “I’m not letting anything happen to you.”

Horror filled her at what he was saying. “The buyer
killed
someone over this.”

Kyrnon nodded again. “Undoubtedly, they’re looking for your boss next. And if they are, they might be looking for you too. This was why I needed to have a meeting with him.”

“That’s what you consider a meeting?” Amber asked before she could help herself.

He squeezed her side, his lips twitching. “I needed the name of the buyer. If I find them before they find you, all’s grand.”

“But why would they come after me? I didn’t know anything about it.”

“I know that, but they don’t.”

“Did you get it? The name of the buyer?” Amber asked quietly, a little afraid of what his answer might be.

“Not a name, but at least a place to start.”

She didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Will that be enough?”

He sighed as he drew her to his feet, holding her close. “You have my word that I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Though she knew she still didn’t know everything about him and what he did, she did trust that he would do anything to protect her—he’d shown her that.

Already, she felt herself softening towards him. “Is your name really Kyrnon?”

His hand slipped beneath the fall of her hair, his fingers massaging the tense muscles in the nape of her neck. “I may have omitted a few things, but everything I told you was true. Had I known how close you were with this lot, I would have told you from the start.”

Burying her face in his chest, she let the heat of him soothe away her worries, finding comfort in his embrace. After some time, he finally relaxed fully.