Celt. (Den of Mercenaries #2)(32)

“It didn’t sound like a one-time thing,” Lauren said with a frown. “Did something happen?”

Amber quickly ran through everything, which was mostly nothing since she hadn’t actually talked to Kyrnon, but she did tell her everything that had happened between them up until this point.

“And you said his name is Kyrnon? That’s an interesting name.”

“He’s Irish.”

Lauren’s smile returned. “Oh, an Irishman? Besides Reagan, the only other Irish person I know is C—”

“Daddy!”

The exclamation came from Sacha as the office door came swinging open, revealing both Mishca and Luka Sergeyev on the other side.

The former, and her best friend’s husband, was just as intimidating as he had been the first time she met him. Except now, he seemed even more so. He still wore his customary three-piece suit, scruff on his jaw, and hair that always looked like it was in need of a cut.

The latter, however … he was much harder to describe.

There was always that one friend in the group, the risk taker, the one that loved to make jokes, and smiled a lot. But Luka was an enhanced version of that.

His risks included guns and knives.

His jokes were usually at another’s expense.

And his smiles were always a bit manic, and one could never tell if it was friendly or threatening.

The Mad Hatter always came to mind.

Questionable goodness. A small streak of evil. And a hell of a lot of madness.

Mishca caught his son, smiling down at the toddler as he brought him up in his arms with a brilliant smile. “How’s my boy?” Sacha smiled in return at his father. “And were you good for your mama today?” That, too, was answered with a smile. Smoothing a hand over Sacha’s head, Mishca’s gaze turned to her. “Amber, it’s nice to see you.”

“And you, Mish. How’s the, uh, other side treating you?” she never outright asked, but she didn’t pretend like she didn’t know.

“I can’t complain.”

“Enough about him,” Luka declared stepping further into the room. “Let’s talk about me.”

Laughing, Amber asked, “And how are you, Luka?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Lauren cut in before Luka could get out a word. “You’re asking how he’s doing, the next he’s telling you about the time he cut a man open to make him talk.”

Luka waved her words away. “I had a bad childhood.”

“See what I mean? Besides, we were talking about Kyrnon.”

“Kyrnon? Who’s Kyrnon?” The question came from Mishca.

Well that canceled out him being in the mafia, or at least he wasn’t a part of one in this state. And considering him and his brother ran in similar circles, that probably meant he wasn’t a mercenary either.

“He’s nobody,” Amber said. “Just a guy I met.”

“Did he do something wrong?” Luka asked, sounding a bit more serious than he had moments prior. “Because I’ll f*ck him up, just give me the word.”

She believed that.

Wholeheartedly.

And not because he had done something wrong to her, but just because he liked doing it.

“It was nothing like that, Luka. Simmer down.”

“Well you’re no fun.”

“Anyway. We’re leaving, Mish. I’ll call you later.”

After kisses for both Mishca and Sacha, and a disgruntled one for Luka who complained that he was being shunned, Lauren walked out of the office first, Amber behind her.

Once they were out the back door where a car and two rather large Russians were waiting for them, Lauren drew in a deep breath and said, “Tell me everything.”

And for the next three hours, she did.



* * *



Kyrnon had f*cked up.

He knew it the moment he was running out of the old, abandoned house in Brussels, seconds before it went up in flames. It wasn’t because he was burning the residence down that there was a problem, but rather because the fuse had sparked earlier than expected, and during his haste to get out in time, he had lost his phone in the process.

It wouldn’t be the first time he lost some tech, and wasn’t too concerned with anyone being able to extract anything off it even if they were to investigate the fire, he had safeguards in place for that.

No, he was thinking about Amber and how he wouldn’t be able to get in contact with her until his assignment in Brussels was over. He didn’t know her number by memory, and the same safeguards that protected others from hacking into his phone, prevented him from accessing any data as well.

But, he had figured as long as he was there for their date, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Except there was delay after f*cking delay that by the time he was boarding a plane and heading back to the States, he knew she was going to be royally pissed at him.

While honesty was the best policy, there was no way he could tell her about the mission. Even if he did, what was the likelihood that she would believe a story like that anyway, even if it was the truth.

His only hope was to smooth things over, try to win her favor.

Not even for the assignment, but because he didn’t want to be the reason why she was upset. It was already starting to not feel like a job when it came to her.