Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1)(59)

She kicked, fought with all of her might, but made no purchase as she was carried backward toward the loading dock. Then, she was dropped onto her feet as a door was opened, shoved inside of what looked like a storage closet?

Was he helping her?

And now, she was face-to-face with the man—because it was quite obviously a man with the strength he possessed—that had dragged her away from the bullets.

To her surprise, he was wearing a mask, one that was entirely black with cutouts for the eyes, and just a slash across the nose area so he could breathe. Despite her earlier fear, she didn’t continue to fight him.

His eyes…they felt familiar.

When she made to speak though, he pressed a gloved finger to her lips and shook his head, silently demanding she not speak. Then, he moved that same finger from her lips to where his own would be without the mask, another silent command.

Only when Reagan nodded did he step back and shut the door, his shadow disappearing from beneath the crack in the door.

She didn’t move, nor did she speak a word. Not when she heard others on the opposite side of the door, or even when she heard Liam yelling her name.

No, she didn’t attempt to open the door until the silence on the other side was deafening. Before now, she had never heard a gunshot before, surprising considering where she came from, so she’d had no idea just how loud they could be—or how after they tapered off, the sounds still echoed in her ears.

Reagan didn’t know how long she stood in the closet, but when she finally stepped out of it, she didn’t see anyone. Angry voices carried from the other side of the warehouse where she had been with Liam, and when she rounded the corner to leave, ready to get the hell out of there, she ran into one of Rourke’s men.

A gun was pointed in her face, making her jump back. When he blinked, seeming to recognize her, he grabbed hold of her arm, marching her right back in the direction she had come from, not stopping until they entered the part of the place where Liam and his family were standing, arguing in loud voices now about how best to handle the situation.

But there was only one voice that really mattered, and when he finally spoke, the others in the room fell silent.

“It’s no problem?” Donovan asked, an edge to his voice. “Look the f*ck around, there is a problem. I warned you that the moment you f*cked this, I would pull your arse back home. Perhaps you thought I was kidding?”

“I can fix this, Da. I—” His lips snapped shut when Donovan glared at him, that look enough to make Reagan afraid to speak.

There was someone Liam feared, she realized, his father.

“Get to the bottom of this and clean it up, or I’ll do it for you.”

Donovan signaled to his men, all of which walked both ahead and behind him as they left, never sparing another glance to any of them.

It was then that Liam turned in her direction and realized she had witnessed all of that—and probably noticed the look of fear on his face when he addressed his father.

But before he could address her, Rourke spoke up.

“Fecking Declan Flanagan, that was,” Rourke exclaimed in his gravelly tone. “We need to put him in the ground before he can pull this shite again.”

Liam didn’t look away from her, his open expression shifting to something akin to a silent fury. “We will—and anyone standing at his side.”

Her brother. His name might have been left unspoken, but it hung between them all the same.



* * *



Toweling her hair dry, Reagan was both mentally and physically exhausted as she left her bathroom with a towel wrapped around her body and another in her hand.

After everything that had happened at the warehouse, the police sirens could be heard miles away and Liam wasted no time with having someone take her home, ensuring the police never got a chance to talk to her.

And during that long journey home, her thoughts had turned to Jimmy and the fact that she still hadn’t heard from him. She no longer doubted that he had gotten into contact with their old childhood friend, but she was more worried about just how involved he was with what happened at the warehouse.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go over to his apartment and finally figure all of this out. There was one thing about ignoring her calls, but he couldn’t avoid her if she was camped out at his place.

Reagan was almost to the kitchen, thinking about the slice of cake sitting in her refrigerator that she was looking forward to when she noticed someone sitting by the window in her living room, shrouded by darkness.

Yelping in surprise, she nearly lost the towel that shielded her nudity. She didn’t even have time to do anything else before the man stood and stepped forward, looking positively annoyed…like he had any reason to.

“Niklaus? What the f*ck? It’s not bad enough that you knew where I lived, but now you’re breaking into my place?”

He didn’t answer her question, not right away. No, his attention was rapt on her bare legs, slowly making their way up, stopping to linger where she had ahold of the towel.

Even she had a hard time remembering why she was angry with the way he was looking at her.

“Niklaus,” she called his name again, hoping to actually capture his attention this time.

“You could’ve been killed today, you know.”

She frowned, about to ask him how he could possibly know about that, but then she remembered the person in the mask. Now it made sense why his eyes seemed so familiar. “That was you? What the hell were you doing there? What…”