Celt. (Den of Mercenaries #2)(79)

And this painting, this god-awful f*cking painting was a part of it.

He could still remember when he was a boy, how happy his mother had been when she received it as a token of his father’s love for her. It didn’t matter that there was a certain somberness to the work, his mother had merely seen another expensive bauble and gladly accepted it.

But her appreciation for it had withered as she became the woman depicted.

Taking a swig of his scotch, Uilleam tapped his finger against the glass, the ring adorning his middle finger making a sharp sound as it came in contact with it. Only a few more seconds of contemplation passed before he was setting his drink down and getting to his feet.

From one second to the next, he was across the room, plucking the painting from its place and tossing it, frame and all, into the fire.

Kneeling before it, he watched as the flames licked at the edges, the center of the canvas already changing to an inky black as it burned through. While it may have been consumed by the fire around it, it wasn’t destroyed completely.

Not yet.

But there was one thing Uilleam had as he went back and reclaimed his seat.

He had time to watch it burn.



* * *



As Uilleam exited his car, heading into a building that looked rather unassuming from the outside, the minute he stepped foot out of the elevator, the tangy scent of blood assaulted his senses.

People had the tendency to forget just how far a person was willing to go for someone they loved. Reason went out the window when dealing with matters of the heart, and even Uilleam had felt that overwhelming emotion when he was fighting for someone he had no business fighting for.

But that was better left to the past where it belonged.

Celt, on the other hand …

The Irish mercenary was in a precarious position, one where if he made even the slightest of mistakes, the girl he had fallen in love with would die.

Uilleam was used to death, had felt its cold, unforgiving hand more than once as people he had cared for were stolen from him.

Now, death was just another part of his world.

If he had no use for a person, they didn’t matter to him. And while the girl the Irish mercenary seemed to fancy was quite skilled at forgery, he had no use for one at the moment, so whether she lived or died because someone had their knickers in a twist over a simple deception … well that really wasn’t his problem.

It wasn’t until he had learned the name of the person wanting Celt’s lover dead did Uilleam take an interest in it all.

Elora Colliette.

Uilleam despised the woman, and not just because she had decided to work with his mysterious enemy, whoever it was. It was because he found her annoying. She tried to play a game she had no business in, and she was starting to irk his nerves.

This last event, her making such a bold play against him was just the final straw.

She just hadn’t known it yet.

But he didn’t doubt, as he stood in her office, her eyes rapt on him as her fearful gaze wondered when the next bullet would come, she understood the gravity of her mistake.

But she only let that fear control her momentarily before it was replaced with anger. “I should have known,” she spat at him the moment Celt and the girl were no longer in the room.

Tilting his head to the side, a sly smile played on Uilleam’s lips as he regarded her. “Known what, exactly?”

“This,” she said with a sharp slash of her hand in the air at the bodies that lay around them. “I knew you were bold, but this? I never would have thought you would go this far. And for what? A meaningless painting.”

He found it amusing that she thought it meaningless now that he had her exactly where he wanted her. She seemed to have forgotten that it was she who had killed three people in her quest to acquire it.

And despite his private feelings for the painting itself, Uilleam made sure to correct her. “If you doubted my abilities before, I hope I’ve rectified that.”

“What do you want?” she asked, folding her hands in front of her. “It was never about the painting, was it? You already have that. You set all of this up to back me into a corner, undoubtedly.”

Perhaps she wasn’t as clueless as he had first pegged her. She was correct in her assumption that it had never been about the painting for him, so there was no point in revealing as much.

“Three years ago, you had an affair with a man by the name of Malcolm Turner.”

Her brow knit in confusion as she cast her mind back. “The investment banker? I can’t see how he will be of any use to you considering he’s dead.”

That wasn’t news to Uilleam. It also wasn’t news that she was the one behind the man’s death. Of course, Malcolm hadn’t been innocent during his fifty-six years of living. Laundering money for people he really shouldn’t have been in business with and paying off a number of young girls to keep their mouths shut about the depraved things he had made them do. So, he hadn’t cared much when Elora poisoned the man and inherited everything.

“I knew he would die the minute he crawled between your legs, but I know you, Elora. And I know that you took more from him than just his fortune, particularly, his files.”

Her jaw clenched, her gaze darting around the room as she considered lying. Because he was in the mood, he allowed her the chance to shift through the thoughts in that diabolical brain of hers.