Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1) (20 page)

It was the only warning he would give.

W
hen Niklaus said
he was going to send somebody, she wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting, but when the burly-toned Irishman came strolling into her pub making himself at home on one of the barstools, she knew it hadn’t been him.

“So you’re Reagan, then?” he asked giving her a once over, resting his elbows on the bar top, leaning forward.

“And you are?” she asked in return. While she knew Niklaus had somebody coming to drop in on her, he hadn’t bothered to mention a name.

And what were the odds that the someone he was sending was also Irish?

“Celt is what they call me. Red mentioned you were a looker, I shouldn’t have doubted him.”

Reagan wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so instead she thought to ask him questions. “How long have you known Nik—Red?”

“Long enough to know everything and nothing about him.”

“Seriously?” she asked as she sat a pint of Guinness in front of him. “Do the two of you always have to speak in code?”

“Rules of the trade, doll.”

She could believe that. Even she had to recall the way Niklaus had often told her so much about himself, and yet she still felt like she hadn’t known him at all.

And though things had changed, and she felt like she was seeing more of him than he had ever revealed before, Reagan still felt like he was holding something back from her.

“He fancies you, ya know,” Celt said after taking a long drink of his Guinness, setting the glass down in front of him. “Didn’t think when I first met him that he would ever recover from whatever the feck brought him into my path, but here we are.”

“How so?”

“Because you, unlike so many, know his name. And the wee fact that he brought me to you. Had he not given a shite about you, you would have never known I existed.”

She didn’t doubt that. With just one look at him, Reagan had to remind herself that he was on Niklaus’ side, that he was there to protect her and not to harm her.

Unlike Niklaus, Celt sported a full beard, had cool green eyes bracketed by laugh lines, and had an undercut, the longish strands down the middle pulled into a small man bun. He didn’t look like he moved within the shadows, but rather right in front of someone, with little care as to who witnessed it.

But while Reagan contemplated the differences between the pair—and the similarities in their personalities—she also thought of how she was going to manage getting over to Jimmy’s place to have a look around.

She knew for a fact that Niklaus wouldn’t have wanted her to go—and probably for good reason—but she couldn’t wait any longer, needed to find
something
on where Jimmy was. It would probably be easier to do once she had the pub closed up, then she could head across town, have a look around, and be back before Niklaus came around.

But what about Celt?

She didn’t doubt for a second that Niklaus had probably told him to stay with her until he came back from whatever he had needed to do earlier.

So how exactly was she going to give him the slip?

Reagan had plenty of time to think about it as the hours went on, and though he had to be bored to death, Celt remain diligent on that bar stool, leaving only in brief respite to head to the restrooms in the back. By the time they made it to ‘last call,’ and the last few patrons were heading out the front doors, Reagan had finally made a decision.

Once they were outside, and he was walking her to her place, she had already spied the motorcycle he had left parked back in front of the pub.

“Are you staying until he gets back?” she asked when they were in front of her door. Fitting the key into the lock, she twisted, then pushed it open, but before she could go in, Celt swept past her.

“Aye,” he answered as he went walking through her home, like he had every right to.

“But I’ll be fine here by myself.”

“Maybe.”

“No, I will. This isn’t the first time something has happened that Liam wanted to get revenge for. Like then, he’s probably going to forget I even exist for a few days.”

“Better safe than sorry,” he said taking a seat, folding his arms across his chest as a corner of his mouth tilted up.

She was almost sure she wasn’t going to be able to get rid of him when his phone chimed. Reagan was hoping it would be Niklaus, telling him that he was close, or that he was no longer needed, but from the way he frowned, she could tell it wasn’t Niklaus at all.

Turning away from her, he accepted the call. “Yeah?” It was several seconds before Celt spoke again. “Right, you need a meeting right now? Yeah, I’ll be there.”

The minute he was done with that call, he was placing another. “Red, problem. The Kingmaker called me in—wants to meet in twenty minutes.” He glanced back at her. “I can probably stall him—”

Reagan might not have known who the Kingmaker was, but he sounded like he was Celt’s boss, and while she couldn’t begin to understand their jobs, she couldn’t imagine that the boss of a mercenary would look too kindly on someone being late. “You don’t have to do that. Just tell Niklaus I’ll be fine until he gets here. And if it makes him feel any better, I won’t open the door for anyone but him.”

“D’you hear that? Right.” Celt hung up, pocketing the device. He took one last look around before walking to the door. “Take it easy. Stay inside, and try not to do anything that’s going to send him after my arse, yeah?”

“Don’t worry,” she said even as she started closing the door. “I won’t.”

Celt was gone without a backwards glance moments later. Hurrying over to the window, she just caught sight of him heading back towards the pub.

Grabbing a hoodie—and only her wallet and keys from her purse—she left her apartment next, pulling the hood up over her head as she circled the building and went down the backstreet instead, just in case he hadn’t driven off yet.

Jimmy lived in a six-story walkup, one that was a bitch to travel to without actually trying to make it up to his apartment that was located on the fifth floor. No matter when she tried, whether morning or night, there was always traffic outside his place, constant horns honking as people tried to get to their destinations.

She didn’t understand how he could stand to stay there with the constant noise, but after three years, it seemed he was content with the place.

Palming the key to his place, Reagan let herself into his building, and after the exhausting journey up the stairs, into his place as well.

The apartment was dark, all lights turned out, and even the curtains that she had forced him to buy after a sixteen-minute argument as to why he needed them were closed around his windows.

Feeling for the light switch on the wall, she belatedly remembered that his place didn’t have traditional lights, and instead, crossed to where one of the lamps rested on the table.

Once she could finally see, she scanned his living room, taking in the leather furniture, the pictures on the wall, and the cleanliness.

And that was the problem.

While Jimmy always had a knack for making sure everything was in its proper place, there was still
something
that he forgot to put away, even if it was just a cup still sitting on the table. But now, there was nothing. Nothing. Like he had gone through his place and cleaned from top to bottom. Even though there was plenty of evidence that someone had once lived there, it didn’t look like Jimmy had been home in a while.

Had that been done on purpose?

Did they erase the signs of a struggle?

Venturing down the hallway, Reagan was almost to Jimmy’s bedroom the soft rattle of a doorknob. If it weren’t so quiet in the apartment, she might have thought she imagined it, but she quickly realized she hadn’t been wrong when the lights illuminating the hallway, briefly lit up the inside of the apartment.

Thinking fast, she slipped into the bathroom, pushing the door shut without closing it entirely as she used the dim light of the room to find a weapon of some kind.

To her luck, there was a bottle of hairspray sitting on his sink, and while it might not have been as great as a bat, she could still use it to blind whoever it was and get out of there.

Trying to breathe easily was hard as she remained still, hearing the soft footsteps bringing them closer to her direction.

When they stopped in front of the door, she took a step back, raising her weapon until she gave a cry of surprise as the door flew open with the force of the body flying through it, landing in a heap on the floor as she scrambled out of the way.

Her heart was racing so fast that she couldn’t begin to comprehend that the man, whoever he was, was unconscious, and the man who’d made him that way still standing on the other side.

“Is this going to be a thing with you,” Niklaus asked glaring at her, looking all the more intimidating because of his attire.

It was easy hearing that he was a mercenary, but seeing the proof of it as he stood before her, dressed and armed like he was readying for a war, she believed it.

Never mind that he had stopped whoever the man on the floor was, Niklaus seemed more pissed off at her.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question, babe, I want an answer.”

Focusing on Niklaus, though taking one last quick glance as the man he had knocked out, she considered what he had said. “Is what going to be a thing?”

“Me telling you to do something, you doing the complete fucking opposite.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Then, by all means,” he said as he leaned back against the wall, folding those powerful arms of his across his chest before waving her on with a gloved hand. “Fucking enlighten me.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, she said, “I haven’t heard from my brother in like a week. I just wanted to see if he was home, or at least some clue as to where he went if he
did
leave.”

“What did I tell you? Huh? I said I would find him—that was my promise to you.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, buts. When I say to do something, do it. Otherwise, this,” he said gesturing to the man on the floor between them, “could have ended differently.”

“Fine. But that still doesn’t explain Jimmy, and where he is.”

Withdrawing a phone from his pocket, he punched in a number and called, handing it to her a second later.

“Say whatever you need, make your peace, then we’re getting the hell out of here.”

She didn’t understand what he meant, not until the call finally connected and her brother’s voice echoed over the line. “Where the hell have you been, Jimmy? I’ve been worried sick.”

“All the worrying you’re doing? I heard you were there when Declan made a play against McCarthy. And who in the hell is that you have with you? I heard he was a big, angry Russian.”

As she watched Niklaus haul the man up and over his shoulder, carrying him out of the apartment entirely, she didn’t disagree with that assessment.

“Niklaus…he’s a long story.”

“Be prepared to tell it the moment we get back—Shelby will have questions.”

Shelby.

Their oldest brother.

One she hadn’t spoken to in over seven years after their father had kicked him, and her other two eldest brothers out of their home.

Last she had heard, they’d gone back to Ireland and joined the rebellion.

“Have you seen him?” she asked, too afraid to hope otherwise.

“
We’re
coming back, Reagan. But that’s a story for another day.”

“The same day I tell you all about Niklaus, I imagine.”

There was a smile in his voice as he said, “One and the same. Now, I’ve got things to finish here, be safe there until I get back.”

As Niklaus reappeared, she knew she would be, so long as she had Niklaus at her back.

“Will do,” she said before ending the call. “What did you do with him?”

“He’s in the stairwell—will probably be out for the next thirty minutes.”

“What’s the plan now.”

“Now? We’re going back to your place, I’m going to spank your ass for not listening, then I’ll eat your pussy, and I’m going to sleep. Sound good?”

Was she supposed to say no to that?

As they left the apartment building, Niklaus opening the car door for her, neither noticed the man watching them from a few feet away.

H
e didn’t take
no for an answer.

That just wasn’t the way Liam McCarthy worked. When he wanted something, he took it, by any means necessary. And when he made Hell’s Kitchen his home, and stumbled across Reagan O’Callahan, he had decided he wanted her.

For a spell, he had found her resistance cute, even entertained it for a while, but he knew she would come around—they always did.

But Reagan, she had proven to be more opposed to him than he had originally thought, but he would soon have more time on his hands to show her exactly why she was wrong.

After showing his father the receipts, documenting just how much they had earned over the last six months, he had finally convinced his old man that his decision to move to the States was a good one.

Right now, the only hiccup he was facing was Reagan, especially now that she had disappeared, and no one had seen her go in or out of her apartment.

But she wouldn’t be able to hide for long.

“He’s getting help from the fucking Russians!”

Liam was toying with his phone, thinking over how best to handle Reagan’s disappearing act when Bobby, one of his brother’s soldiers, came walking into his office uninvited, but Bobby’s words managed to make it through his foggy head before he prematurely put a bullet in the man’s head.

“What are you going on about, Bobby?” Liam asked, careful to keep his tone neutral. It wouldn’t be the first time one of the men were too afraid to speak what they needed to say for fear of what he would do next.

Producing his cell phone, he opened up photos he had snapped, scrolling down to the one he needed, then angled the phone in Liam’s direction.

Taking the device, he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

There was a barbershop, one he had never paid much attention to since it seemed rather empty the last few times he had passed it—there was no point in taking from those that weren’t receiving. But then his gaze snapped to the two men at the focus of it.

One was Declan, of that he was sure. He had seen the lad around enough, even before he had thought to make trouble for them, but it was the other man that made him pause to look closer.

He had seen his face before, that night at Reagan’s pub. He had been sitting at the bar with a drink in his hand, his attention on Reagan as though it had any right to be. If Liam remembered correctly, he had even mouthed off, thinking to get in between Liam and Reagan.

And now that he thought back on it, on the way Reagan had rushed around and stepped between them, he wondered for whose sake she had done it. Was she more concerned with keeping her business secure, or had she been trying to protect him?

Pointing to the one he didn’t know, Liam asked, “Who is he?”

“Mishca Volkov, boss of the Volkov
Bratva
. Word is the
Bratva
and Declan have never seen eye-to-eye, but maybe Declan made a deal for their help to move against us.”

Liam considered the information.

It wasn’t a bad move on Declan’s part, smart even. He would have done the same thing if his family were in a similar circumstance.

“What do you want to do about him?”

Had this Mishca Volkov been waiting for Reagan’s brother? Possibly to have a message sent off. It would make sense, even explain how Declan had been able to make so many moves against them when he was supposed to be in hiding—he had the Russian doing it.

“Donovan has an important meeting in three days. Three
days
. Find them,” Liam said, shoving the phone back at Bobby. “And bury them. We don’t need more complications.”

And once this problem was solved, he would make sure he thoroughly explained to Reagan why not to cross him.