Celt. (Den of Mercenaries #2)(38)

And it was blue. Such a brilliant sapphire shade that it was amazing she had missed it when they first came in.

It was a beautiful dress, that couldn’t be denied, but it was different than what she had been thinking.

“You don’t think this one is a bit … dramatic for an auction?”

“Mish once took me to an auction and they were dressed like it was the red carpet, so no, it looks fine. And while it might not be the same kind of auction, the people spending money are.” Lauren smiled wide. “So try it on and see if it works.”

It only took one glance in the mirror for her to decide that she was in love with it and couldn’t possibly say no. Bought and bagged, Amber carried it back to Lauren’s car, laying it out along the backseat.

The shopping done, they found a restaurant to eat at, Mishca’s guy remained in the background and out of sight. Though she had wondered what it would be like for him to trail them all day, she couldn’t actually remember seeing him until they were getting in the car and saw him through the rearview mirror.

By the time she got home and had the dress stashed away, she was pulling out her phone to call Kyrnon.



* * *



“Are you coming over later?”

Setting his mobile on the passenger seat as he reached for his gloves, Kyrnon kept his gaze set on the gallery a block down the street. As much as he would have loved to already be with her, he still had a job to do. And as of late, he had absolute shite.

During the times he picked her up and dropped her off, he still hadn’t seen anything that could remotely link him to the painting, or even just the relationship between Elliot and Gabriel. Even when he went inside there once under the guise of visiting her, he still hadn’t found anything.

It wasn’t until he noticed a reoccurring theme with her that he finally understood what he was missing. Before she went in to work, and as she was getting off, she would always send a text. So while she slept beside him one night, he checked her messages and found the number, which ultimately led him to a shipping company that Kyrnon knew Gabriel owned.

That was why he was here tonight, to figure out why she would need to contact someone about a painting she was working on.

And more curious, she never talked to him about it.

It was one of the things he liked about her, her willingness to share herself with him. She was open and honest, almost to a fault. Kyrnon was suspicious by nature, so he couldn’t ignore that she was hiding something from him.

“I’ll be there,” Kyrnon said as he carefully opened the car door. “And I’ll even bring dinner. See you soon.”

He could hear the smile in her voice as she hung up. Pocketing the device, he started for Cedar, checking the time on his watch as he went.

Rule number sixteen: Get in and get out in under six minutes.

It didn’t matter if he was only doing recon, or if he was actually taking something from the place he was breaking into, he needed to be sure it could be done in a short period time. Most days, he tried to keep that time even shorter, especially if there was a better security system.

It would only take one time to f*ck up and he’d be spending some time in a federal prison, at least if they caught him first.

And that was if the Kingmaker even let it get that far. There had only been a few in all the years Kyrnon had served as a mercenary for the Den that had been caught.

They didn’t see the next sunrise.

Circling the back of the building, knowing there was another entrance that wasn’t as visible as the one on the street, he turned the dial on his watch, set his timer, and sent it off before he was crouching down to pick the lock.

Five minutes, thirty seconds …

The lock was easy enough, and since he had seen Amber enter it enough, he keyed in the security code, watching the lights flash green before he had the door open and shut behind him, and was moving down the hallway.

Though there was no one meant to be inside, Kyrnon still moved cautiously, knowing that the best planning in the world couldn’t account for human error.

It only took one person deciding to stay later, or coming back for a cell phone that would mess up his plan.

Five minutes …

He knew whatever Amber worked on wouldn’t be out in the main gallery, and he had already checked for L’amant Flétrie and found no evidence of it ever having been out there.

But there was one room he had seen her emerge from that was off the back hallway—storage, he had thought it was. Before he started for it, however, he made a spliff of the camera feed.

Despite the security measures in place, the room was fairly easy to get into. It was storage considering the crates inside the room, plus the supplies, but it was the pair of easels on the other side of the room that caught his attention.

L’amant Flétrie.

And a copy.

Fucking hell.

Had she been the one to do this? If so, she was good. Had he not studied everything he could on the original, he might not have noticed the slight differences between the two, but to the undiscerning eye, they were identical.

But that only raised another question?

Why was she making a forgery?

At least he understood why she had never mentioned it to him. Forgeries were bad business. And he doubted she was doing this on her own. Elliot probably put the deal together.

And that was how Gabriel and Elliot were connected, Kyrnon realized.