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

She didn’t need to make another bad decision.

But at the last minute, unable to help herself, she glanced back one final time, smiling when she found his eyes on her. Caught, he gave her a charmingly crooked smile, and didn’t even bother to look ashamed that she caught him checking out her ass.

Men.

Shaking her head, Amber headed out onto the bustling sidewalk, glad that the rain had lightened up in the short time she had been traveling. Cedar came into view rather quickly, and as she walked in, Elliot was in the parlor already, instructing movers on where to bring several crates they were wheeling in.

Elliot was in his mid-thirties with the misfortune of having a receding hairline, even at his young age. He fixed this by wearing a rather natural looking toupee. He worked out at least five times a week and made a point to buy at least one new suit every two weeks. He cared more about his appearance than the majority of his staff of females.

Today was no different.

He was wearing one of his suits, one that was a bit too snug, and shiny black loafers. Noticing her, he broke out in a grin.

“Amber! You look beautiful as always.” He air-kissed both of her cheeks. “And I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

For the longest time, she had bleached her hair, leaving her mane of curly hair blonde though she kept dark roots, but two nights ago, she had decided to dye it back dark.

“Come on back, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Briefly waving to Tabitha, one of the other floor girls she had grown close to during her time in the gallery, Amber followed Elliot toward a back room and waited while he unlocked the door with the key he carried around on a delicate chain around his neck.

This particular room was climate-controlled, and specifically used to store some of the gallery’s more prominent works while they weren’t on display.

There was someone already in the room, standing next to a tarp-covered painting, a phone in his hand. As they entered, he turned ever so slightly, just enough that his profile could be seen before he faced them completely.

“Ah, Gabriel,” Elliot announced once they got close. “This was the artist I was telling you about. Amber, meet Gabriel Monte.”

He had a wide, charming smile with dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing. His hair was mostly black with a few silver streaks throughout, and while Elliot acted superior, this man radiated it. It was almost uncomfortable being in his presence.

“Amber, very nice to meet you. I’ve heard great things.”

Smiling politely, she accepted the hand he offered, releasing it a second later. “It’s nice to meet you too, Mr. Monte.”

“Gabriel, please.”

Clearing his throat gently, Elliot spoke up. “Gabriel has a special request, one that he would like to ask you pers—”

Gabriel cut him off. “An associate of mine has asked that I hold an auction for a painting from his private collection. Due to the history of the painting … he is a bit concerned that should anyone know that it is being sold, there will be a strong chance of someone trying to steal it.”

Amber might not have known what painting hid beneath the covering, but if it required this kind of mystery and speech, then it was probably worth more than she could put a number to. Art thefts were common throughout the world, especially if the artist was well known. Some paintings were worth a cool few million just off face-value alone, and those same ones could go for much more on the black market.

“I thought it best to have someone come in,” Gabriel said, drawing Amber from her thoughts, “and create a replica of the painting for further security. Once the auction begins, no one will be able to tell which of the two paintings is authentic, and thus decrease its chances of being stolen.”

That was actually a pretty brilliant idea, though Amber didn’t voice that thought aloud.

“Elliot tells me you are one of the best he’s ever seen, and that you’re more than capable for the job.”

Amber glanced over at her boss in surprise. She was good—she had worked hard enough to describe herself as such—but Elliot was obviously putting a lot more trust in her than she would have thought he would.

“Of course, before we can discuss anything further, I would ask that you sign this non-disclosure agreement. It’s just a formality,” he was quick to explain when she frowned, “to ensure my client that only those that are directly involved with its sale know of its whereabouts.”

“Of course,” she replied, though she was still a little unsure that it was absolutely necessary, but it only made her more curious about what was hanging beneath the fabric.

Gabriel withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his breast-pocket, along with a pen, opening both for her to sign. After only a brief hesitation, she did so, carefully scribbling her signature along the dotted line at the bottom after she finished scanning over what it said.

“Very good. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

Wrapping thick, but manicured fingers around the edge of the sheet, Gabriel lifted the fabric, dropping it to the floor as he unveiled the painting.

Amber blinked once, then blinked again, trying to make sure she was seeing correctly, because if she wasn’t mistaken, this artwork was not one that had been seen in public for the last twenty years, at least.

She had learned about this very painting when she was still in school. While the painting’s origin had started in Germany, ultimately it had been purchased by a family that had chosen to stay anonymous, though they did lend it to museums to be shown, but after a few years, for whatever reason, the painting had been thought to be lost, or at the very least, sold in a private auction.

As she looked it over, taking in every detail she could, from the shades of black and gray used in the actual art, to the gilded frame it came in, Amber wondered whether this particular painting had, in fact, been stolen.

It would explain the non-disclosure agreement she had been made to sign.

L’amant Flétrie
was what it was called,
The Withered Lover,
christened after the woman featured in it—painted in cool shades of gray, black, and white. The subject sat in a lone chair, the room around her barren and lifeless, as she stared out the window though nothing was there. Only the profile of her face could be seen, displaying scarred skin that had excruciating detail.

It was both beautiful and haunting.

Even if the circumstances that had brought her in contact with it were sketchy at best, Amber was still grateful to have been close to something of this magnitude.

She didn’t have to voice her awe at the sight of it, not in a room with the two of them. They understood its value, maybe even a little more than she did.

“You would like me to make a replica of this?” Amber asked, still having not taken her eyes off of it.

“Yes. Only the one. After reviewing a little of your work with Elliot, I’m sure you’re more than capable of meeting our expectations.”

Nodding, Amber said, “I’ll need to find supplies—the right paint and canvas for …”

“Not to worry, we have already covered that for you. Just let Elliot know of anything you need, and I’ll make sure you have it.”

“I would love to.” Just the experience alone would benefit her in the long run … even if she could never tell anyone about the work.

“Just so you’re aware, we expect them to be identical in every way, so do not leave any personal signatures that declares it different from the original.”

Though she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea, she still nodded and said, “I understand.”

“Excellent. The auction is being held in three weeks, we’re—”

“I’m sorry, three weeks? I can’t guarantee they will be ready in that short of time.” Amber looked to her boss. Since he was the one that assigned her hours, he really had the final say in whether or not she would have time to both work at the gallery and get the painting done.

“Elliot and I have already spoken,” Gabriel said drawing her attention back to him. “He’s giving you time off to complete it. Of course, you will be compensated for your time. Twenty-thousand dollars. Half now, and the other half once the painting is finished and delivered.”

It took everything inside her not to react at the number she had been given. Though the painting was worth more than two-million dollars alone, she was sure, getting paid twenty grand was still amazing to her.

And though she wasn’t getting paid nearly that much for her own work, she was still getting more than she ever had for her skills alone.

“Do you think you can handle this?” he asked when she didn’t respond.

She would be an idiot to turn it down—or maybe she was an idiot for accepting. “Absolutely.”

“Excellent.” He reached into his pocket again, this time pulling out a small rectangular piece of paper, her check. “If you have any questions or concerns, please have Elliot get in contact with me. I’ll check in with you a few days from now to make sure all is going according to schedule.”

Amber nodded again, almost at a loss for words. “Thank you.”

Gabriel inclined his head, then looked to Elliot. “A moment.”

As they stepped away, Amber took another moment to look over the painting, a slow smile spreading across her face. In the art world, this wasn’t just as simple as doing someone a favor, this could open doors for her that she wouldn’t have been able to on her own.

This was the break she had needed.

And she had herself to thank for it.

T
he leader
of the pack of men raised his hand to silence the others, his wild gaze on the boy, never straying. Sweat stuck the man’s shirt to his chest, dried blood on his hands. If there was one thing that would remain branded in the boy’s memory, it was the cool detachment in the man’s eyes—as though the circumstances they found themselves in were an everyday occurrence for him.

But they were, the boy remembered, thinking back on his own time spent in the hell that was this place.

It wasn’t often that someone tried to escape, not when the consequences were so dire, but when they did, the man’s punishment was swift and severe, a reminder to anyone that thought to make the same mistake.

The glint of something metal grabbed the boy’s attention, forcing his eyes down to the man’s hand and what he held in it. A knife, one that was as much the man’s companion as his dogs carried—a knife he often kept on hand should he ever need to use it.

If the boy hadn’t felt fear before, he felt it then, staring at the blade. Shaking his head hard, his struggles renewed as he tried to twist his way free of his restraints, hoping to avoid the inevitable.

But there was nowhere for him to go … and now that he was trapped back in this place, he couldn't remember why he had ever thought he could have gotten away.

Gripping the boy’s hair in a fist, the man pulled, forcing his eyes up to his face. Very carefully—or deliberately—the man brought the knife to the boy’s mouth, dragging the blade across though he didn’t break skin.

“It’s not so bad here, right?” the man asked as he frowned. “I take care of everything, don’t I? You need only fight. Is that so hard?”

With the blade in his mouth, the boy was unable to speak, unable to do anything but stare in the face of insanity.

“How’s about you give me a smile and I’ll leave you be, eh? We’ll put this day behind us.”

That request seemed so simple. The boy had smiled even in the worst of pain, surely he could manage this, but fear had seized hold of him, freezing him in place.

“Come on then, give us a smile,” the man said, offering one of his own. “I just want to see you smile.”

But when he couldn’t, the man lost his, his humor replaced with an emotion dark enough to make the boy’s blood run cold.

But more than the way he just looked at him, it was the words he spoke next.

Reaching into his pocket, the man shook his head at him. “I thought you had learned by now. You do not fear death, you
embrace
it.” His voice was strong and clear, carrying through the room, silencing the hushed conversations. “And know that should you make it out of this room alive, pain is inevitable. Learn to love it.”

Striking without warning, the man ripped through the boy’s face with the knife, slicing open the other side as well before the boy had even felt the pain of the first wound.

But as that slow agony came, drowning him in it, the boy tried his hardest not to scream, wanting to keep his lips pressed together, thinking that would help staunch the blood dripping from his face.

It didn’t.

And before long, the pain became too much for him to bear, and the vocalization of it couldn’t be contained.

As he screamed, the agony grew worse as his face felt like it was being split open.

As he screamed, he pleaded for his da, his brothers, his mam to help him.

As he screamed, he learned to embrace the pain …

Jolting awake with a start, Kyrnon Murphy’s chest heaved with the force of his breaths, trying to calm his racing heart. Running a hand over his bearded face, briefly feeling the scars of pain long gone, he laid back with a groan, pushing the sweaty strands of his hair back out of his face.

Night terrors plagued him, forcing him to relive his past in his dreams when he was at his weakest, and each time he sat in that chair, he could still feel the slice of metal like he was there all over again.

He had wanted to stop sleeping because of them—used to force himself to stay up for days at a time until he passed out from exhaustion. Going days without sleep wasn’t good for him, especially when his occupation required him to be sharp at all times, but if it meant avoiding his memories for forty-eight hours at least, he would continue to do it until he couldn’t anymore.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Kyrnon got to his feet, stretching his limbs with a crack as he headed for the bathroom to take a long, and much needed shower.

He had been restless the night before, not ready to come home to his empty loft, but not in the mood to deal with the politics of seeking out a job—even though that plan had been shot to shite when he got the phone call in the middle of the night informing him of the meeting he would need to attend the next morning.

So in the meantime, he had lost himself in O’halla, the fighting ring he ran every couple of weeks when he was in the mood for a little bloodshed. No one—with the exception of Red—knew about his hobby, and he preferred it that way.

Especially with just how close O’halla was to who Kyrnon was as a person.

Though he was usually a loner by trade, Kyrnon much preferred to be surrounded by other people, hearing the chatter of incessant voices, or the screams of men in pain.

But after his ‘death’ nearly seven years ago, he didn’t have much of a choice.

Scrubbing himself clean, ridding his body of the grime and dirt of O’halla that made up a secret floor of a warehouse he owned across the city, Kyrnon was back out again and getting dressed before heading into the kitchen, bypassing everything until he reached the pantry.

Inside, he reached behind a shelf, pressing against a hidden panel in the wall, pulling a small square of drywall off. Feeling around the space since it was impossible for him to see in it, he pulled free his favorite gun—a Sig—and a box of ammunition. Loading his gun, he placed the box back inside.

Though it was rare he had anyone over, at least not while he was present—and he wasn’t trusting by nature—he still made it a point to keep his things hidden away just in case.

Kyrnon was nothing if not practical.

Pulling the slide back, he made sure there was a bullet in the chamber before holstering the weapon. Lacing his boots up, then strapping on his vest, Kyrnon was out the door.

S
tepping out onto the platform
, the doors to the train at his back sliding closed, then taking off with a whir, Kyrnon ascended the stairs onto the street above, hands in his pockets as he walked towards the designated place.

Unlike Z—the man that had recruited, trained, and handled Kyrnon—the Kingmaker didn’t follow that same tradition.

When he called, and the man didn’t do this often, one was expected to just show without question. Though he had been the new handler for a little over a year now, the Kingmaker hadn’t called on Celt except for one other occasion, and that was only to wrangle in Red should he not readily agree to the Kingmaker’s meeting.

Since then, Kyrnon hadn’t seen much of the Den besides Red last year when he needed assistance with a man known only as Elias, and the family in Hell’s Kitchen.

And unlike some others, Kyrnon was moderately happy about being called in. At least now he would have something to do with himself.

There was a pizza parlor at the corner of 15th and Lexington, one of the best in the city even though Kyrnon had no interest in actually visiting the place. Even as the heavenly aroma of mozzarella cheese and warm tomato sauce filtered out through the open door, his attention had been snared by the shiny black Escalade parked at the curb.

He was in the right place.

But, if there was one thing about his handler he disliked, it was how dramatic the man seemed.

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand precaution. Hell, he was constantly checking over his shoulder, paranoid that one of the many people he had crossed during his work with the Den had finally caught up with him. He understood the need for it.

It was the fact that he had not bothered to give Kyrnon a location until an hour before the meet.

But it wasn’t Kyrnon’s place to question those above him. When he had signed that contract, essentially handing his life away until the end date on the last page, he had given up his right to question anything.

Now that Z—and still, no one knew the truth as to what had happened to the man—was no longer in charge, Kyrnon was looking forward to this latest encounter with the Kingmaker.

Inside, a teenage girl sat behind a podium, her phone in hand as she paid more attention to it than she did to Kyrnon’s sudden appearance, even as the door chimed at his entrance. A couple feet away, an elderly woman with kind eyes sat alone, smiling at nothing in particular, but when she noticed him, she stood and waved for him to follow her as she shuffled her way to the back of the restaurant.

Industrial-sized fans nearly drowned out the sound of machines working in the sweltering kitchen where two men stood with guns at the ready, a woman who was seated and looked rather calm despite her surroundings, and the Kingmaker stood close by as money was counted and bundled.

Though he took in the scene, Kyrnon didn’t look away from the Kingmaker as he grabbed the man’s attention.

“Kyrnon—or do you prefer Celt? It’s awfully difficult trying to keep up with these things,” the Kingmaker said, just loud enough to be heard over the noise in the room.

Tempering his reaction—he never reacted well when people used his name—Kyrnon merely said, “Celt.”

“Right then, Kyrnon. Let’s have a wee talk, shall we?”

Now, he was starting to understand why Red hated the man so much.

But unlike his friend, he was better at concealing his emotions, so even if the Kingmaker managed to say something that would offend him, he wouldn’t show it anyway.

Dutifully stepping off to the side, Kyrnon folded his arms across his chest and waited for the Kingmaker to walk past him, then followed him into an office, closed the door once he was inside. Surprisingly, the sound of the fans was completely muted inside the room.

“Now, as you could probably imagine, I have a job for you,” the Kingmaker said as he circled the desk on the other side of the room and took a seat. Judging from the photos on the wall, the office clearly wasn't his, but he seemed quite comfortable in the space. “There was a painting that once belonged to my family for generations. It was a rather grotesque and somber looking thing, but I was rather partial to it all the same.”

Kyrnon hid his surprise well. From the stories he had heard about his new handler, the man issued orders without comment, and if he did, it was never with embellishments, but threats and promises of punishment if his orders weren’t acted out as he had demanded.

The Kingmaker drummed his fingers on the desk, drawing Kyrnon’s attention to the small ‘K’ that was tattooed on his hand in the space between his thumb and index finger. He briefly wondered whether the initial was for his moniker or something else.

But as though he could feel Kyrnon’s gaze on it, the Kingmaker moved his hands out of sight.

“About three years ago, the painting was loaned to the Cinquantenaire Museum in Brussels. Not even a week later, the museum was robbed, but the only thing stolen was my painting.” The Kingmaker flattened his hands on the desk, seeming lost in the past as he rambled on. “For the better part of six months, I tried to find the men responsible—or any information at all about the theft, but nothing. No one knew anything. And believe me when I say people do not want to
not
have an answer for me.”

Before he could say anything more, Kyrnon asked a question of his own. “What was the name of it, your painting?”

“
L’amant Flétrie—
The Withered Lover.”

Casting his mind back to his own whereabouts around that time, Kyrnon tensed. He remembered that painting—it had been showcasing in a gallery that he was frequenting when he had been in Brussels around the same time. Though he hadn’t been in the country for more than a few hours, the Kingmaker could easily think that.

“Oh, don’t worry, Kyrnon,” the Kingmaker said with a laugh. “I know you weren’t responsible—you were busy handling that job with the banker, no? The men responsible, I’ve already handled them, personally. You’re here now because you are, quite frankly, one of the best at what you do.”

“Right.” Kyrnon cleared his throat, scratching at the hair on his jaw. “What exactly are you asking me to steal? What’s the job?”

“
L’amant Flétrie
,” the Kingmaker repeated. “You see, three years ago when I was prying the fingernails off one of the thieves’ body, he wouldn’t tell me who hired him for the job. By the end of it all—and this went on for hours, mind you—he, nor his partner, were willing to give up who contracted them. However, their silence told me something their lack of words had not—they feared their boss more than they feared me.”

The Kingmaker’s tone had changed, darkened, a barely concealed rage coloring his words. “Even as I offered them death in exchange for an end to their suffering, they remained silent. Nevertheless, though it took some years, I finally found the man responsible.”

Elias.

It finally clicked. Now it made sense, why the Kingmaker had only asked Red to find a name, and not do anything more. Obviously the man was capable—he had been able to elude the Kingmaker for three years. Kyrnon had witnessed that day in the park when the man in question had brutally murdered his associate because of a slight the man made. More impressive was how Elias had been able to have the scene cleaned in less than ten minutes.

At the moment, Kyrnon couldn’t decide who would be the worst enemy to have between the pair.

“Whether his arrogance precedes him is still in question, but
my
painting is up for auction in a few weeks here in New York though I know not where. The location is a carefully guarded secret apparently.”

And it had to be a good one if the Kingmaker still didn’t know.