by AJ Sherwood
He’d never seen a child do this. All children liked to be picked up, hugged, held. But they were also independent. They wanted to go explore, get into things, play. Especially in a new house, like this, why wasn’t she running up and down the stairs, exploring? Claiming a bedroom? Remi demonstrated none of that behavior. If she wasn’t holding onto her father, she was in Ivan’s lap, or pressed up against Kyou’s leg. She acted as if she’d spent years starved of affection, only to now be offered a constant feast. Even knowing she’d have access later, she couldn’t stop indulging.
He might be wrong, but Carter trusted his instincts and observational skills to keep him alive. He didn’t think he was wrong. It raised even more questions, questions he’d likely never get an answer to. Why had Remi recently gone to her father instead of her mother? Likely because it was safer with her father. Despite his profession. Remi had the air of a formerly neglected child. She was definitely getting all of the love and attention a child deserved now, no question, but she clearly was still overcoming a darker period of her life. If Carter were smart, he’d make allowances for that.
The observations whirled in his head as he went about setting things up. He chose a bedroom upstairs, made his bed up with new sheets and a comforter, listened as Ari and Remi did the same in their own rooms. Then he wandered back down, coming to Kyou’s side as the man screwed the glass and metal desk together. “Want a hand?”
“Sure. And I talked it over with the others. If you want to start tracking expenses, go for it. One less thing for me to worry about. Food is on our own heads, but that’s it.”
Carter felt like he’d finally been accepted with this responsibility. He grinned without really meaning to. “Okay. After we get you set up, hand all the receipts over to me.”
“Can do.” Kyou offered him a table leg.
He took it, and they silently screwed in brackets and lifted things into place.
Ivan came out of the back bedroom, trailing over to stand nearby and watch. “I want pizza. Anyone else hungry?”
A little girl voice called down the stairwell, “Me!”
Turning his head, Ivan called back, “I did not ask the bottomless pit!”
Remi giggled.
“Seriously, that kid,” Kyou groused in an affectionate manner. “Is she in a growth spurt? She’s constantly hungry.”
That’s not it, Carter couldn’t help but think. That wasn’t it at all. She was proving, time and again, that these men were invested enough in her to feed her. Did they realize? Were they just playing along?
Ivan was already on his phone, looking up restaurants. “Harrison, what do you like on yours?”
“Huh? Oh, anything but anchovies and olives.”
Kyou gasped and feigned horror. “You don’t like olives? What’s wrong with you?”
“Says the man who puts pineapple on his pizza,” Ivan mocked, still scrolling, not even looking up from the screen.
“Screw you, pineapple on pizza is delicious.”
“No pineapple!” Ari called down the stairs.
Ivan raised a hand as if voting. “Motion carried. Three larges?”
“And breadsticks,” Kyou insisted. Was that a pout on his face? “Garlic.”
Shrugging good naturedly, Ivan put in the order before calling up the stairs, “Solnishko, you want Sprite?”
She sounded resigned as she answered. “Yeah.”
The rule about not getting caffeine was apparently rather firm. It made Carter wonder, did she get that hyper?
Ivan settled on the new couch, legs tucked off to the side, chin on his fist. He had an expression on his face that was part thoughtful, part worried. It in turn made Carter worry, and he paused what he was doing to ask, “What?”
With the desk in place, Kyou looked around as well, studying his friend’s face and groaning. “Uh-oh. I know that look. What now?”
“I think this is not a job where we can make assumptions,” Ivan said carefully, as if weighing each word.
Staring at him, Kyou’s eyes narrowed to mere slits. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No,” Ivan admitted cheerfully. “I am, though.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Ari! Get down here!” Kyou waited the three seconds it took for the assassin to join them before he said, “Ivan’s plotting shit again.”
“I object to the word plot! I just think we may have made an assumption we should not have.”
Ari crossed both arms over his chest and glared at Ivan. “It’s when you use this oh-so-reasonable tone that we know you’re actually plotting trouble. Alright, out with it.”
Ivan paused only long enough for Remi to join them, pulling her in to sit on his lap as he asked, “How do we know the painting is in the vault?”
Carter blinked at him because actually, that was a very valid question. They’d all assumed it must be, because openly displaying it in the gallery would be impossible. Not when a painting that well known and famous should be at the Met. But….
“Come to think of it, they might have hung it elsewhere in the house. Like a bedroom or a study, a place most of their guests wouldn’t go. And anyone who saw it in the house would assume it a reproduction and nothing more. Not many people have the expertise to know a reproduction from the original to begin with.”
The thief gave him a gracious nod. “Exactly the point I make, da? How do we know it’s in the vault? It could be inside the house.”
“You just want to go play.” Kyou shook a finger at him in accusation.
Ivan splayed a hand over his heart, a pout forming. “You wound me.”
“That can be so arranged,” Ari growled at him. “Ivan, seriously, do you actually believe the painting is in the house and not the vault? Or are you just bored and want to go poke at the viper’s nest?”
“We need to do a dry run to test if Harrison’s intel is accurate,” Ivan pointed out, maintaining that oh-so-reasonable tone of his.
It formed a tic at the corner of Ari’s eye, which Carter carefully didn’t show any amusement about. He had a feeling Ivan routinely pulled stunts that prematurely aged his friends.
Ari held his breath, skin turning red, then blew it out in a huff. Turning to him and Kyou, he growled, “I hate it when he makes a good point.”
“It’s what makes arguing with him so fun,” Kyou agreed in the same tone. “You’re really that sure you can get into the house with no trouble?”
“We’ll need to do some prep for it. But if I can’t even get into the house, then the vault is a lost cause.” Ivan’s raised brows dared them to disagree.
Carter hated to admit it, but… “I really can’t disagree with that logic. And my intel is now a month old, things could have changed since then.”
“Mine’s not much more up to date,” Kyou grumbled, staring blackly at his computer, still in various boxes, waiting to be assembled. “Okay, Ivan, fine. We’ll prep for a dry run first. I’ll need a few days to get ready on my end. You’re not going in there blind.”
Ivan did pout this time, and the expression just looked wrong on a former Russian mafioso’s face. “You suck all joy from life.”
“The phrase you’re looking for is ‘you take all the fun out of things’ but good try.” Kyou ran a hand roughly through his hair, looking as stressed now as he had been on the phone earlier. “Alright. There’s a few things we need to tackle, and we don’t have a lot of time to do them in. First thing: because this job has the potential to go to shit very quickly, I’ve got panic buttons for all of you. It looks like a wristwatch, and it’s easy to engage. Slap it quickly three times, and it engages a GPS alert beacon. I’ll be able to follow you wherever you are.”
Carter had the distinct impression the watches were less for their sakes and more for Remi’s but had the sense to not say so. The little girl was far more likely to keep hers on if they all wore one. That and he was realistic enough to admit he’d prefer a panic button for this job, as Kyou was unfortunately correct. It could
go wrong very quickly.
“Harrison, where did that red hard case get off to?”
He had to think for a second, as he’d carried a lot in from the car. “Island, I think, near the sink.”
Kyou went to fetch it, still talking as he went. “There’s a function on the watch that allows you to track everyone else, too. I’ll teach you how to use it while we’re waiting on the pizza. After lunch, I’ll need to put my system back together. What are you three going to be doing?”
“We’ll need to get a fake Monet to switch out for the real one,” Carter answered, watching curiously as Kyou unzipped the red case, revealing a selection of masculine watches that looked like those smart watches or calorie counters people wore. “I figured it would be good to start there, have it on hand.”
“And drones,” Ivan added.
Taking the watch Kyou handed him, Carter looked askance at Ivan. Drones? They hadn’t talked about drones at all for this job. Or was this a carryover from the first time they’d done Knowles?
“Drones?” Ari repeated in confusion.
Okay, obviously not.
“I had an idea last time we were here,” Ivan explained with all the excitement of a child before Christmas. “I’ll need a drone. Airborne distraction.”
“And at some point today, we need to sit down and actually discuss the plan,” Kyou added as if he were merely continuing from his own original thread. “Because obviously people have ideas to share. Okay, Princess, give me your wrist.”
Remi promptly did so and beamed as a Black Widow watch fit over her thin wrist. “You got me Black Widow!”
“Of course I did, what kind of uncle do you take me for, anyway?” Kyou seemed pleased by her reaction. Then again, the man had bought that particular band in mind for the little girl who loved the superhero.
Carter watched them together, the ease of their affection, the way they teased and worked, and a pang of envy settled in his chest. He’d always liked being part of a team dynamic. It was where he felt most at home. Most of his adult life, however, he’d been outside of one. No matter what he tried, he seemed to just miss having the connection he sought. He looked at these men, and the darling little girl they doted on, and wondered.
Maybe he could try again?
The thought lingered in his mind as he went to the unused dining room. It had nothing but a card table in it and his gear. Carter went through his duffle bag, double checking what he had, doing an inventory on ammunition. This wasn’t supposed to be a shootout at any point, but…well, it never hurt to be prepared. And it gave his hands something to do so he could think. Right now, he really needed a minute to think.
Remi appeared out of nowhere and looked at the display of guns curiously. “You need all of this?”
“Need? Probably not. Want? Yes.” He grinned down at her. “You know what it’s like. The man who dies with the most toys wins.”
She nodded sagely back at him. “Daddy’s the same way. You’re a lot alike.”
Her last statement had not been innocent. Carter eyed her suspiciously. “What are you driving at, kid?”
“You know,” Remi said seriously, “People say ‘I love you’ in a lot of different ways.”
Carter hunkered down to her level, regarding her curiously. He literally never knew what this kid was going to say next. “Yeah? How?”
Ticking them off on her fingers, she starting quoting: “Have you eaten? Get some sleep. Buckle up, kiddo. Be safe. You can have the last slice. Are you tired?”
Throat tightening, Carter felt tears burning at the back of his eyes. Those common questions really meant that much to her? “To you, all of those words mean ‘I love you?’”
“Yeah. ’Cause no one ever said them to me before. Daddy was the first to say them to me. Then Uncle Ivan, and Uncle Kyou. Now you. You have to care about the person to think of them.”
Damn, she was going to make him start bawling any minute. Which was ridiculous, he was a street-tough mercenary. Eight-year-olds should not be able to break him this easily. In self-defense, he hugged her to him for a second. She threw her arms around his neck and settled into the hug for a moment with a satisfied sigh. For all of her dynamic personality, she felt entirely fragile in his arms. Carter felt his protective instincts kick into higher gear, and it was with reluctance he let her ease back.
Remi kept her hands on his chest, keeping them physically connected. With that same earnest expression, she encouraged, “Daddy says those things to you. You say them back. You like each other.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Carter looked away for a second, wondering how to explain the difference between liking someone and being attracted to them.
“And he thinks you’re beautiful,” she tacked on hopefully. “But he said he wouldn’t flirt with you because it would make you uncomfortable.”
Carter froze, staring at her from the corner of his eye. “Bullshit. He did not say that.”
Sensing victory already, she grinned at him. “You could ask him out.”
Heaven help him. He was being matched by a child with an agenda. “Wait, Remi—”
Getting a belligerent look on her face, she stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “You do like him.”
“Well, yeah, I do—”
“And he likes you and says you’re beautiful.”
“You’re not making that part up, are you?”
A hair’s breadth from stomping her foot, Remi pointed a finger toward her father’s direction. “Stop being chicken. Go ask him out.”
“Can you explain to me why you want me to ask him out? Aside from what you just said.”
She opened her mouth, paused, and stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, weighing her words. Finally, she confessed, “He says dating’s hard. He told me that finding a man he liked who he could trust with me was pretty impossible. But he trusts me with you.”
That was quite possibly the bluntest answer he’d ever been given for dating. Logically, it made sense, too. But when had his love life fallen to the point it took an eight-year-old to kick him in the right direction? “Okay, Rems, let’s pause here and consider. Say you’re right, and we do start dating, you realize what that means for you?”
She patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “It’s fine. I like you too. And when you want to do adult things, I can go stay with Uncle Ivan or Uncle Kyou.”
Carter gave up. For his sanity, he didn’t want to continue this conversation. “Right. I’m going to go talk to your father.”
“Okay,” she agreed brightly. With a skip in her step, she went off to the kitchen table, picking up the variety of locks there.
He watched her go. Carter had been thinking about this for two days, but this conversation made it more real to him, somehow. Dating an assassin, having a little girl in his life. Carter squinted at her as he tried to picture it. Did so quite successfully. Had to stop.
Damn. Maybe he was crazy after all, because that had to be the best idea he’d had all year. He could see them so clearly, taking jobs together, doing school and dance classes and family vacations. His imagination happily supplied images of them on a beach, at a dance recital, at Carter’s family’s house for the holidays. It was not only stupidly easy to envision but it filled him with longing. If he daydreamed about it much more, he’d turn into sappy goo on the spot.
The desire to have them was certainly strong. Now the question stood: how did he successfully approach Ari without getting the man’s guard up?
16
Ari
Ari had no idea what Harrison was up to, but if the man didn’t stop soon, he’d…he’d…do something, at any rate. Harrison was driving him straight up the wall and didn’t even seem to be aware of it. It wasn’t even so much when the mercenary had stopped him to tuck Ari’s collar’s tag back in, then let his hand linger in a warm sweep down Ari’s back. He’d had to repress a shiver from the heat of Harrison’s hand spread out between his shoulder blades. And it wasn’t when he’d slid the ch
ain of Ari’s necklace around so the clasp lay hidden away without a single comment, fingers drifting across skin. Or even the way he’d helped Ari into the light windbreaker before they left the house, going to pick up breakfast for everyone. It certainly wasn’t the way he’d topped off Ari’s coffee over breakfast without asking, or that he’d given Remi the last piece of bacon with a warm smile. It wasn’t any of that. Alright, fine, it was partially that. But mostly it was the other thing.
It was that the man was fucking beautiful doing nothing at all.
It was the half-alluring little movements Harrison made as he worked. The cute furrow between his brows as he flipped through receipts, the way he balanced his pen between his nose and upper lip to get Remi to laugh. The pattern of how he shifted in his seat, little huffs when something vexed him, and that one full body stretch that actually made his mouth go dry as Harrison’s muscular strength went on display.
He just found the man insanely attractive and oddly trustworthy, and the combination of those two things were throwing him seriously out of whack. It made him want to try things that had never worked well for him in the past. Libido, maybe let’s learn from past experience, yeah? Not repeat mistakes.
The libido was not listening.
He needed a breath of fresh air, away from all of them, but especially Harrison. He needed to get his head on straight before he messed things up entirely. But he also had to play it cool because if either Ivan or Kyou realized how bad Harrison shook him up, they’d tease him mercilessly about it. Worse than brothers, those two. And he should know.
Ari finished up the breakfast dishes, cleared his throat to get Kyou’s attention and said, “I’ll go do a little scouting around, see if I can’t get us a good Monet fake and a portfolio to carry the real deal in.”
Kyou popped off his headphones, turning in his chair to look at him directly. A great many screens populated the three monitors taking up the new desk, and none of it meant anything to Ari. It could have been Greek for all he could decipher it. “Great idea. I’ll watch the squirt. Take Harrison with you.”