“What is it, exactly, that you need from me?”
“I have a shipment of girls coming in from the Ukraine—a gift from the Russians should I choose to enter into a deal with them.” Caesar rested thick elbows on the table, leaning forward slightly. “He assured me that should I find a proper route, this can be an ongoing arrangement.”
Depending on how the deal was negotiated, it could very well be profitable for them all, but there were only a few problems with this arrangement.
Kit needed to know, and agree to, whoever was involved in the deal, down to the person that drove the fucking trucks.
And there were just too many variables that didn’t equate for this to be worth it for him in the end.
“The first shipment won’t arrive for another six months,” Caesar went on when he didn’t respond, “but should that go well, the next would be here much faster.”
Kit didn’t bother placating the man with false smiles and promises he knew he wouldn’t keep. “As tempting as your offer is, I’ll pass.”
Caesar hadn’t expected that.
Kit could tell from the way the man’s joyful expression bled away. “You’ll reconsider then, once you hear the figures.”
“Apologies, but you couldn’t afford my services.”
All of Caesar’s grace fled as he pulled the thick cigar from behind his ear, fitting it between his lips and lighting it. After taking two deep pulls, the end briefly lighting up, he said, “You’ll reconsider.”
“I can assure you, I won’t. So, if this is all you needed …”
Kit got to his feet, offering his hand to Aidra. They couldn’t have been in the lounge more than a few minutes at most, but he was already ready to leave.
“I am a powerful enemy to have, señor Phoenix. You—”
“If you think you know me, you should know that I don’t respond well to idle threats. I suggest you stop while I’m in a forgiving mood.”
Reluctantly, and with great effort, Caesar closed his mouth, though there was hatred burning in his eyes. “I’ll see you again, Phoenix.”
Aidra collected their weapons, and by the time they were driving out of the lot, Kit was more annoyed than he had been before they got there.
“Filter through any that you haven’t. Anyone involved in those trades is automatically rejected, is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“And figure out who his associates are.”
“Right—shit!”
Aidra’s panicked exclamation had him looking in her direction sharply, but her attention was on the incoming messages on her phone.
“What is it?” Kit asked. Aidra was never one to panic easy.
“It’s your brother—he’s been shot.”
Kit snapped into action a moment later, first dialing Luna’s mobile phone, and when she didn’t answer, he punched in Fang’s number and called.
“Yo.”
“Stay on the line,” he snapped before looking at Aidra. “There were three separate protocols Uilleam implements should this happen—figure out which one it was.”
He and his brother had a lot of time to prepare for this considering it was a rarity that he was ever harmed despite the legion of enemies he had—his mercenaries never let them get close enough.
But should one of them have succeeded, there were only three numbers he would call, and each one had a different stash house that he could be found in.
“The warehouse on 57th,” Aidra said once she finished on the phone.
“D’you hear that?” Kit demanded to Fang, already hearing him telling the others to gear up. “Find Luna and take her to the safe house, no matter what she says. Do not fail in this.”
“On it.”
Fang hung up without another word.
Kit tossed his phone in the cup holder and pressed his foot harder against the gas.
If Luna were ever inclined to smoke, now would be a choice time.
It hadn’t been more than a minute between the biker driving off and an ambulance screeching to a stop near where Luna kneeled next to Uilleam.
From the second those back doors came open and a pair jumped out the back in scrubs, she followed their orders blindly, scrambling into the ambulance after Uilleam was loaded.
She watched helplessly as his clothes were cut out of the way, an IV placed into his arm, as well as a tube down his throat.
He’s gonna be fine.
He’s gonna be fine.
He’s gonna be fine.
She repeated the words over and over to herself as they barreled through the streets, so fast that she was surprised everything wasn’t knocking over in the process.
They drove for another twenty minutes before she heard a metal garage door being lifted and they came to a stop on the other side of it.
She quickly climbed out the back, her gaze seizing on the sectioned-off space in the middle of the room. Thick plastic curtains stood around a hospital bed, along with machines that Luna didn’t know the name of—like a typical hospital room, but in the middle of a warehouse.
Skorpion had pulled up not too much later, on the phone with who she thought was Zachariah, but she couldn’t look away from Uilleam as they removed the rest of his clothes once they got him settled on the table.
Toward the end, Lawrence had begged for his life, just as so many others, but despite their blood having been all around her, she hadn’t been moved by the sight of it.
But as she felt the grit on her hands, remembering the slippery warmth of Uilleam’s blood spilling over her fingers, she was dangerously close to either freaking out, or bursting into tears.
“He’ll be fine,” Skorpion said joining her as he stuffed his phone in his pocket.
She wanted to believe that—she really did. “I counted at least three,” she said softly, watching as Uilleam’s chest was cracked open. “He’s—”
“Too fucking stubborn to die—trust me. He’d stay alive just to spite whoever did this.”
Luna blew out a breath. “Who the hell was that?”
Four years next to Kit had shown her a world of killers and specialists, but none of them had been nearly as skilled as the man that had managed to get the drop on them.
At his distance, he should have missed at least one of the shots he fired. In actuality, he had landed his mark each time, and worse, fired through a car to connect with Uilleam.
He was good.
Skorpion shrugged. “I have no fucking idea, but I’ll find out.”
And if anyone could, it would be Skorpion.
Freight doors slamming open made Luna jump, but the doctors barely glanced away from their patient. There was no mistaking the four walking into the warehouse, not with the masks they wore.
“Fang? How did you—”
“Time for you to go,” came his robotic, disembodied voice because of whatever program they used to conceal their voices.
Their attention didn’t stray from her despite a quick assessing glance of Skorpion. Despite the chaos on the other side of the room, they didn’t seem fazed by it.
It was clear she was their mission.
But she didn’t care about it, not a bit. “I’m not leaving.”
“The objective is to move you to a safe house.”
“That’s not happening,” she returned with a sharp shake of her head. “Not until he’s okay.”
Fang didn’t repeat himself, and she knew without a doubt that if she didn’t move within the next two minutes, he was going to move her himself.
Before she could warn him not to try that, Skorpion laid a hand on her shoulder. “Go. The second I know something, I’ll let you know.”
Grinding her teeth, Luna conceded, glancing over at Uilleam as she moved to Fang’s side. There was no point in fighting it. “Fine.”
Pocketing her keys, Luna headed for the doors the Wild Bunch had come out of. Thanatos walked ahead of her, Invictus behind, with Fang and Tăcut on either side. If she didn't know any better, she would hav
e thought it was her life that'd been threatened.
Thanatos put his phone to his ear once the gates closed and said, “Package secure. Two hours out.”
“Is that K—”
Before she could ask, he hung up, stowing the device away. It had been a while since she had been around their group, but she had forgotten how serious they could be when they were on the job.
Downstairs, there was a Challenger at the curb, and what looked like a massive moving truck.
“Don’t worry,” Fang said as he shuffled her into the back of the muscle car. “Your bike’s in the truck.”
She could tell she was in for a long ride, but she hadn't realized they were heading out of the city, or that they weren't going to his château.
Knowing better than to ask—they rarely told her anything—Luna figured it would be best for her to wait and see once they arrived. Even after all these years, she still couldn’t say just how many properties Kit owned in New York, let alone the rest of the world.
Settling in for the ride, she tried closing her eyes, letting the chaos running rampant in her head have a chance to calm down, but every time she did, all she could see was Uilleam dying beneath her.
Counting backward in her head, she forced herself to think about anything other than the last hour.
She thought about Kit—the way he’d smiled when she walked to him on the beach. She thought about his need to check his phone every twenty minutes for work. It didn’t feel like it was only yesterday that they got back from their honeymoon.
She almost wished she could go back in time and hold onto yesterday just a little bit tighter, but the other part of her was glad that she had been back.
Luna was dozing off when they turned onto a gravel road. She sat up a little straighter, peering through the windows to try and make sense of where she was.
It didn’t help that she was always traveling, with and without Kit, so though she had lived in New York for four years, she still wasn’t familiar with every part of it.
Once they reached a clearing, at least two miles from the road, Fang was the first one out of the car, grabbing her arm, albeit gently, and pulled her out, walking her through the house until they reached an upstairs bedroom.
Yanking on the spine of a book, tumblers came undone as the bookcase gave way to a panic room.
“Boss is en route. Stay put.”
Fang locked her in before she could get a word in. As far as panic rooms went, this one was undoubtedly state of the art, but the last thing she wanted to be doing was being locked in a room.
Dropping down on the lone couch in the room, she dug her phone out, but to her luck, she had no bars.
Once again, the only thing she could do was wait.
But this time, it wasn’t for long.
The sharp click of a lock disengaging had her sitting up, an angry retort at the tip of her tongue for having been locked in this room, but she swallowed them back down at the look on Kit’s face.
Whatever annoyance she felt bled away as she glanced down at herself, then back to him, realizing how she looked. “I’m fine.”
But that wasn’t enough.
The sight of her covered in blood had frozen him in place, but the moment he spoke, he was reaching for her, his hands ghosting over every inch of her as though to reassure himself of what she’d just said.
She let him, waiting until he was back on his feet before saying again, “I’m fine.”
Kit still didn’t speak, cradling her face in his bigger hands, eyes assessing. “Jesus, Luna. What happened?”
Drawing in a breath, she told him, starting from the time she arrived until the moment the Wild Bunch had come to retrieve her. Kit didn’t interrupt, hardly blinked, but once she finished and he seemed to take a moment to fully digest what she’d told him, his brows drew together.
“California, you said? Why would he want you there?”
Luna shrugged. “We never got around to that.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, but whatever thoughts were running through his head, he didn’t share.
“Have you heard from Skorpion, or Zachariah?”
“He’s stable,” he said before pressing a hard kiss to her forehead. “I was told I had you to thank for that.”
Under most circumstances, the Runehart brothers were at odds, often at each other’s throats, but despite outward appearances, Luna knew how much Kit cared for his brother.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
She loved Uilleam too.
Then, she asked, “Do you know who it was? The one on the bike?”
Skorpion might not have, but there was a chance Kit did. He knew more people than she could ever keep up with.
“Not yet.”
But she could tell from the look on his face that he had an idea.
“Where are we, anyway?”
“Your home for the next few days.”
Luna narrowed her eyes. “Say that again?”
“Until this situation is under control, I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“I can handle myself. You don’t—”
“Luna.”
Sighing in frustration, she circled around him to leave the safe room, knowing that no matter what she said, he wouldn’t be changing his mind—not when he got that tone.
“Then at least feed me.”
At least then she could be unhappy and full.
The sharp crack of the wooden spoon across his knuckles made Kit flinch, but he didn’t dare utter a noise, knowing all too well the consequences should he make even the slightest of sounds.
Even as young as he was, he had learned how to channel his pain, burying it deep until he felt nothing. Once, he hadn’t realized one of his fingers had been broken until he allowed himself to feel again.
It should have been worrying how easy it was to slip into this role, but there was no one around to notice.
Not really.
“How did this happen!” Abigail demanded, her weapon in one hand, her glass of wine in the other as she violently swung around to point the spoon back where Uilleam sat at the dining room table, tears spilling from his eyes.
Eyes that were trained on them.
His arm was being set by the family’s physician, the man as ancient in appearance as he seemed in age. He, unlike Uilleam, refused to even glance in their direction. He knew better than to get involved.
“I’m sorry,” Kit said, sounding shockingly calm despite the way Abigail stood over him with wild, watery eyes.
He had long since learned not to plead his case when she was in one of her moods—and he had long since stopped calling her Mum once he realized that if he did within hearing distance of her, she smacked him on the back of his head.
And also because he would rather not assign a title like that to a woman who didn’t deserve it.
“I told you to watch after your brother, but no! You can’t even manage that. Stupid! Useless! Boy!” Each word was punctuated by a sharp crack of the spoon.
She struck with abandon, without fear. She didn’t care that she hurt him, only that in her mind, he had hurt Uilleam.
It didn’t matter that Kit wasn’t responsible, that he had warned Uilleam not to climb onto the roof after him. The boy did what he wanted, whenever he wanted, and this wasn’t news to anyone that shared a home with him.
But because Kit had been out there too, the fault lay at his feet.
Uilleam’s fall onto the balcony below where they had sat was an accident, a slip of his grip on the stone’s edge. Kit’s heart had felt like it dropped out of his chest as he’d reached to catch him, his hands catching air.
But when he heard Uilleam’s scream of pain below, he had never been more thankful for anything in his short life.
He knew what would come later.
He knew Abigail would punish him, but he accepted it, because the punishment he would have received if Uilleam hadn’t drawn another breath would have been far worse.
Abi
gail continued to wail on him, changing her target until she had grown weak and was too tired to continue. Once she was gone, ushering Uilleam up the stairs for bed, she ordered that Kit remain exactly where he was for the remainder of the night.
As he was leaving, the physician hesitated. “This … this was not your fault.”
Kit didn’t respond.
It was his fault because Abigail was right.
He should have protected his brother.
Kit entered the warehouse with a brief look around.
There were a few nurses on standby, though they were engrossed by their own conversation to pay much attention to Kit’s entrance.
He didn’t go unnoticed by Skorpion, however.
How long had it been since he had last seen the mercenary?
A couple of years?
At one time, the man had been Uilleam’s personal guard, but has since taken on more jobs with the Den as opposed to with Uilleam.
The mercenary jerked his chin in Kit’s direction, but didn’t move from his vantage point that allowed an unobstructed view of the room.
Returning the gesture, Kit slipped behind the curtain that divided where Uilleam rested and the rest of the floor. Uilleam was watching him, but the usual playful arrogance was gone from his eyes.
A white sheet covered his lap, and beneath the dotted gown he wore, Kit could just see the edge of bandages.
“It’s good to see you’re awake,” Kit said, hanging his coat on the back of a chair before sitting.
Uilleam frowned, pressing a button on the remote in his hand to lift the bed so he was sitting up. “I wish I wasn’t.” His voice was rough, tinged with pain. “How on earth did you manage this?”
“I make it a point not to get shot, Uilleam.”
Sure, he’d been winged a few times, but he had managed to kill those that attempted to kill him.
Grimacing in pain as he shifted to get a better look at Kit, Uilleam asked, “What are you doing here anyway, brother? It almost feels as though you care.”
“Despite what you lead yourself to believe, Uilleam, you’re my brother and I love you—even when you’re attempting to get a rise out of me.”
“Your love is due to obligation and nothing more.”
“Is that how you look at it?” Kit asked. “Who am I obligated to exactly?”
Den of Mercenaries: Volume One (The Mercenaries Book 1) Page 70
