How to Shield an Assassin (Unholy Trifecta Book 1)

by AJ Sherwood

  Shit.

  The man was already reaching for the inside of his jacket. Ari didn’t have anything on him except his trusty knife, a Glock, and the sniper rifle in the case. Swearing, he immediately ducked back around the side of the building. He had more of an arsenal in the SUV, but he was suddenly aware how much open ground was between here and there. Not that he’d had much choice on that, but still. This suddenly looked like a very bad predicament.

  “Ari, I’ve got two on the other side of the street closing in, someone else on your side approaching from the north side.”

  “In other words, I’m about to be pinched.” Ari made a snap decision and hoofed it for the SUV. He had no cover here, and a shootout near the target was a bad idea anyway. That meant the target’s bodyguards would get involved as well, and it would all go to hell rather spectacularly.

  He threw open the door, tossing the case into the passenger side, and as he did so he heard the bark of a gun. His window shattered in a spray of glass and a burning pain creased the side of his neck. Swearing, he dove into the driver’s side, heedless of the glass. He had maybe three seconds to get out of here before he really got caught in some stupid shootout and the half mil pay was so not worth it.

  Another report of a gun, and this time it hit his back window, again breaking out the glass. Ari kept his head down as he floored it. The adrenaline ran hot in his veins, his heartbeat a war drum in his ears, so it took a few seconds before he could hear Kyou’s voice again.

  “—he’s okay, Remi. Look, princess, watch. He’s driving, right? He’s driving right through a red light, granted, but driving regardless. Malvagio? Say something, you’re scaring the fuck out of your daughter.”

  “I’m okay,” he rasped, hand clamped to the freely bleeding wound on the side of his neck. Shit, shit, shit, it was a mistake for him to let Remi watch this time. “Remi, breathe, I’m alright. It’s just a graze.”

  “Sorry, man. Those guys obviously knew the blind spots, as they slid in between the cameras way too smoothly. I did not see them coming until they were right on you. You coming back or swinging around for a re-approach?”

  Ari was tempted to try again but…naw. This had become a crapshoot and he really had no respect for his client setting him up like this. “Coming back. The client fucked himself by opening up the contract; I’m not lying in that shit.”

  “Don’t blame you. Okay, I’ve got the first aid kit out for you.”

  “Thanks.” Ari focused on driving and losing anyone who might be following him. It was colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon out here, and he was shivering pretty hard even with the heat blasting, but he couldn’t take chances. Paranoia was not only a healthy habit in his profession but a way of life. When he was satisfied it was alright, he chose the back way into Kyou’s place, down the alley he knew his friend had complete control over, and into the parking garage underneath. The glass and the damage to his SUV he’d have to deal with later. For now, he took his gear out and lugged it up the flight of stairs and into the apartment.

  Remi waited in the open doorway, dancing in place, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Ari’s heart about broke seeing that terrified expression on her face. He’d never wanted to see that. “Ahhh, Rems. I’m okay. Honest, it’s just a scratch.”

  She more or less launched herself at him, hugging him tightly around his waist, tears wetting his shirt. Ari switched the case to his other hand so he could stroke her hair back without getting blood all over her.

  Kyou appeared as well, looking him over with a critical eye. “Yeah, you’re mostly okay. Give me the gear. Ivan called and demanded an update while you were out. I told him, so now he’s pissed. I think he’s gone hunting.”

  “You sicced Ivan on them?” Ari grinned in delight. “You got popcorn?”

  “It’s definitely going to be a show.”

  Remi pulled back and frowned at both of them. But the banter was working, she wasn’t as upset as she had been a moment before. “But what if Uncle Ivan gets hurt too?”

  “Won’t happen,” Kyou assured her blithely. “Trust me, they’ll never see him coming. Your dad’s good, he’s stealthy. But Ivan’s a fucking ghost. Let’s get Ari patched up so we can sit in front of the monitors and watch Ivan take them all down.”

  This offer more or less dried up the tears. Remi’s face stuck with the frown as she played assistant for Kyou, handing him alcohol wipes and gauze and tape as requested. Patching Ari up seemed to alleviate most of her concerns as she saw it really wasn’t that serious. Ari was still kicking himself about this whole ordeal. Why the hell hadn’t he really considered what this would do to Remi? Ari was careful, of course he was—being careless meant a quick death in this business. But still, as careful as he was, he got hurt. Not regularly, but it wasn’t uncommon. If she saw him harmed, of course it would terrify her. Remi had no other person to depend on but him.

  He really, truly needed to find a way to loop his brother more firmly into this. Just so Remi had a proper safety net if something happened to him.

  Kyou popped a bag of popcorn into the microwave, found a few beers and one coke, and brought it all out for his guests. As he did, Ari spoke up. “Hey, Eidolon.”

  “Malvagio, you alright?”

  “Just a scratch, man. Thanks for being my avenging angel and all. Remi saw me take the hit and it rattled her some. I didn’t want to stick around.”

  Ivan was quick on the uptake. “It was good call. She still watching, I take it?”

  “Yeah, we all are.”

  “Then I not shoot to kill. Just rough them up, da?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Anything for my solnishko.”

  Ari rolled his eyes. Of course. Did he expect Ivan to say anything else?

  Kyou found another computer chair and pulled it up, and they sat side by side, munching on popcorn with Remi in Ari’s lap. She watched without any comment as Ivan did indeed wound the two men who had shot at Ari previously. Ari felt vindicated but also a little miffed he hadn’t been able to close the job or get his own revenge. Oh well. It wasn’t like he and Ivan didn’t regularly swap favors anyway. He’d repay the man in some future time.

  As Ivan waved at the camera in a smug manner, Remi finally spoke. “Daddy? Next time, will you take Uncle Ivan too?”

  “Ah…” Ari drew the sound out, buying himself a second to think. He exchanged a look with Kyou, but the hacker just shrugged, leaving him on his own. The rat. “Well, gattina, we do a lot of jobs together. But we can’t always take all the same jobs.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, the jobs don’t always need a hacker, thief, and assassin. Sometimes it just needs one. And sometimes the others have things they have to do too.”

  She didn’t look up at him, staring hard at the blood staining his shirt. “But…if it’s dangerous, like this time, will you ask?”

  Ari hadn’t thought it dangerous at all. This job should have been easy. But he knew better than to say that. “Sure. Sure, I’ll ask.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t try to work and figure out this parenting thing at the same time. Ari had enough socked away that he could afford to lay low for a few months, let Remi go to school. Maybe he’d read a few parenting books, and they’d figure more stuff out before trying to leap back into the underworld.

  Yeah. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

  Seeing that white expression on her face put it into perspective for Ari that what he did wasn’t safe. He’d known that—of course he had—but he now had a deeper understanding of the fallout. Of what could happen to Remi if he wasn’t careful. He really needed to sit down and carefully think this all through, put in better safety nets, plan for the future better. He absolutely did not want a repeat of today ever again. His heart hurt to see Remi stare at him with fear and alarm filled eyes.

  Hugging her hard to him, he kissed Remi’s temple and murmured, “Ti voglio bene cucciola di papà.”

  “Love you too,�
� she whispered back, snuggling in.

  For her sake, Ari promised himself then and there to really get his shit together.

  Part Two

  5

  Carter

  Carter was fairly sure that this qualified as a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day.

  He’d had bad team-ups before. Every mercenary had at some point or another. But this one, this one might well take the cake. It wasn’t a string of bad luck that did them in, either. Carter could forgive that. Bad luck was bad luck, no way around it but through it. But these guys hadn’t been professional at all, constantly falling short and blowing off the job as no big deal. Getting drunk without caring if they were hungover in the morning. And the behind the scenes support? Nil.

  Carter looked down at the little girl hanging so tightly to his fingers, her stuffed bunny clutched in her other hand in a death grip. The sad thing was, the job hadn’t really been difficult. The little girl had been lost during the rush of evacuees and landed in the wrong place. It had been a simple retrieval mission when all legalities had failed to come through. What should have taken four days of prep and twenty-six hours to complete had instead taken a full week. In the end, Carter had just taken her and ditched the rest of the guys. They could fight out who would get paid later. He didn’t give a shit at this point. He wanted this little girl properly in her mother’s arms.

  And then he was going to have a long, painful chat with the man who had arranged for this team-up to begin with.

  “Mr. Harrison, are we almost there?” Libby asked him hopefully. Olivia was all of five, but she was very firm about being called Libby. Olivia, apparently, was a name for old ladies.

  “Almost, pumpkin.” Carter kept an automatic watch on their surroundings as they passed through the airport. It should be an easy enough walk out the doors, as no one checked passengers who disembarked, not unless they were coming from a foreign country. He’d already cleared customs with her at the previous airport. New York was their last stop, and hopefully her mother was already waiting near baggage claim. “I texted your mom before we got on board, and she said she’d meet us here. We’re in the home stretch.”

  Libby bounced happily, much like the bunny she held in her arm, giggling.

  Carter felt like giggling himself, for that matter. Seriously, he never wanted to work with men like that again.

  Because he’d been in this business a while, he knew better than to relax his guard. He stayed vigilant as they weaved their way through the wide hallways and to the baggage claim area. Carter looked for his client, trying to match a face with the picture he had of her, but he didn’t get a chance to spot her before he heard a happy voice calling over the crowd.

  “LIBBY!”

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” Libby chanted back, already trying to tug free.

  A woman with the same blond hair and freckles skidded to a stop on her knees, catching her daughter up in a fierce embrace, lifting Libby clean off her toes. She was sobbing and kissing her daughter everywhere she could reach even as Libby giggled and squirmed and hugged her back.

  Carter enjoyed the scene, as it was heartwarming, but still kept an eye around them. He didn’t think they’d have trouble at this point, but he was a little worried about his ‘team’ figuring out he’d taken off with their target and chasing after them. He’d really have to deal with them. But first, he wanted these two safely in a taxi and on their way home.

  The mother finally pulled herself together enough to look up at him. Her eyes were red rimmed but she was smiling, joyfully. “Thank you so much, Mr. Harrison. I was worried you’d not be able to bring her to me.”

  “It did get a bit dicey at one point,” he admitted frankly. Although it shouldn’t have, dammit. “But I’m glad I could get her here safely. Ma’am, let’s move this along. I want you safely in a taxi and on your way home.”

  She nodded in agreement, getting to her feet, bringing her daughter up with her. Libby settled into her mother’s arms with a happy sigh, pillowing her head on the woman’s shoulder.

  Carter stayed a half-step behind as they went through the automatic glass doors. A line of taxis waited, and the pair slid into the backseat of one without issue. Carter waved them off and finally relaxed a hair. He was, frankly, exhausted. Libby had gotten to sleep on the plane, but aside from cat naps, he hadn’t slept at all in three days.

  His phone rang with a non-disclosed number. Growling, since he knew exactly who it was, he answered with a curt, “Harrison.”

  “Mr. Harrison. You violated the terms of our agreement.”

  “My agreement with you didn’t include working with a bunch of frat boys who got drunk every night and were trigger happy. My agreement didn’t cover making bail for them because of a drunk and disorderly. IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. My agreement with you didn’t cover leaving a little girl stranded because they couldn’t pull their acts together long enough to do a simple retrieval.”

  There was a pregnant moment of silence. “They failed to mention the drunk and disorderly.”

  “I fucking bet they did. Let’s be clear on this. I’m taking full payment for this job, because frankly they didn’t do anything to earn it, and I’m the one who got the job done. And this is the last time you get to contact me for a job. I don’t trust your judgement, Baker. I don’t trust the men you hire. The next time I take a team assignment, I’m damn well going to form my own team. You’ve got one hour to pay me.” Carter hung up the phone with a punch of the thumb. He seriously missed the good old days where you could slam a receiver down. It was so much more viscerally satisfying.

  He’d been forced to abandon most of his gear in order to move lightly and get Libby out, so he definitely needed that full paycheck to replace stuff. His brand new laptop had been part of the sacrifice, which just pissed him off. He’d really splurged when buying that, and he’d barely been able to get it set up before the job started. Growling, he went to the next taxi in line and slung himself into the back seat. “Take me to the nearest Marriott, please.”

  “Sure thing,” the driver called back. She cast him a glance as the car pulled away from the curb. “I saw the little girl and her mom. Not yours?”

  Carter had a pat answer for questions like this. “I’m a retrieval specialist. The little girl was stuck in foreign customs, and I was the one to get her back to her mom.”

  “Oh. Cool beans, that’s great. I love guys like you who cut the red tape. You look beat, man, was it rough?”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t a great trip. But successful, which is what counts, right?”

  “Right. No luggage?”

  “Like I said, rough trip.”

  “Ouch, man, that bites.”

  “Tell me about it.” Carter’s phone rang and he groaned. Please not another job, he’d barely gotten off the last one. Swearing a few choice words, he pulled it out of his pocket and let his head rest against the cool glass of the window as he put it up to his ear. “Harrison.”

  “Mr. Harrison. This is the first time we’ve spoken. I’m Emura, a broker.”

  “Yeah, hi. I have to tell you, this isn’t a good time. I just came off a job.”

  “Fortunately, this isn’t an immediate time limit. You have three months to do this in.”

  That should have sounded good, but it was conversely worrying. Jobs that came with long deadlines meant they were stupidly difficult enough that even the client didn’t expect you to get it done anytime soon. “What’s the job?”

  “A certain painting has been illegally acquired, shall we say, and is currently in Knowles.”

  Carter let out a low whistle. The three months deadline now made perfect sense. Knowles was a very famous private art gallery owned by the wealthy Knox family. The Knoxes liked to throw parties to display all of their shinies, and Knowles was the place they hosted them in. It was, in a word, a fortress of security. Carter had never even attempted to access the place, and he’d only heard of one person who had successfully gotten in and out.

/>   Malvagio.

  “Emura, do you mind if I ask a frank question? Why are you contacting me? This isn’t exactly my skillset.”

  A low chuckle answered him. “I don’t mind, Mr. Harrison. In truth, Eidolon would be my first choice, but he is not accepting contracts at this time. But the reason why I’ve called you is very simple. You know how to get the job done. You’re good at collecting the right people for the job, at wrangling them, and completing a task. I have faith that even if this isn’t exactly in your skillset, you can still find the right people to team up with you and accomplish it.”

  Okay, in that context, it made more sense. That was exactly Carter’s reputation. He’d worked damn hard to have it, too. The problem was, he didn’t really know who to call. He’d worked with many people over the years, but they were basically split into three categories for him: 1) Hell no, 2) Maybe, but not for this, and 3) Would love to, but have no idea how to reach him/her. Carter himself was a friendly guy and always wanted to make friends, but most of the people he worked with were private and sort of lone wolves by nature. They didn’t want to stay in contact after the job was done. There were a few exceptions, but not many.

  “Emura, I may or may not know the right people to help me pull this off. Tell you what, give me a few weeks to research this and see if I can pull a team together. If I can, I’ll take a crack at it. If I can’t, I’ll tell you and let someone else have a crack at it.”

  “Fair enough, Mr. Harrison. For your information, I’m taking a one percent fee for this particular task.”

  Only one percent? That was either very generous of him or this was a doozy of a target. “And what’s the job exactly?”

  “Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies.”

  Carter let out a low whistle. The painting was worth forty-three million. But it was also supposed to be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if memory wasn’t mistaken. “Who’s my client?”

  “The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The fee for the job is ten million.”

  Ouch. Now that was just embarrassing, having to steal back your own property. Carter assumed someone had screwed up royally if they were quietly trying to steal it back instead of just reporting it. “Wow. Okay, the terms are good. For now, consider the contract taken.”