How to Shield an Assassin (Unholy Trifecta Book 1)

by AJ Sherwood

  “You’d break her heart even offering that. Ari, I’ve got the regular family background. Grew up in the suburbs with siblings and two loving parents, the full works. Trust me, you’re doing fine. You’re just as good a father as my own, and my dad’s great. Don’t think you’re not doing right by her. You’re just doing it in an unconventional way.”

  That eased his concerns as nothing else would have. Ari had no idea just how much he’d needed to hear the reassurance until this moment. It also gave him more information about Carter, which was welcome. He really didn’t know much about the man aside from Kyou’s files. “You really grew up in a normal family?”

  “Yup.”

  “How did you become a mercenary?”

  “After I was kicked out of the army, not many places would hire me. And I really suck at deskwork and retail. I got approached by a slightly sleazy broker for a job and discovered I was rather good at the mercenary thing.” Carter shrugged as if he was nothing more than an open and shut case. “But don’t get me sidetracked. I have a few more questions about Remi.”

  Ari didn’t mind that. “Shoot.”

  “Her mom?”

  “I’m tempted to hunt the woman down and put a few bullets in her too. Piece of trash didn’t even name Remi.”

  “That bad, huh. Okay. There’s…I don’t know how to say this without putting your back up.”

  They pulled up to a stoplight and Ari took advantage to catch Carter’s hand and squeeze it once. “I won’t take it wrong. What?”

  Carter eyed him sideways but spoke. “You realize Remi’s behavior isn’t entirely healthy right now?”

  Honestly surprised, Ari’s grip tightened on his hand unwittingly for a second. “I thought she was doing okay. She’s so much better now than she was.”

  “Considering what she told me, I’d believe it. But I realized about a half hour into meeting her something wasn’t quite right. She’s too clingy with all of you. Kids her age—or at least my nieces and nephews—they’re all about getting into things. Exploring new places, wandering into areas they probably shouldn’t, crap like that. Remi sticks to you guys like glue. The only time I’ve seen her willingly separate is if we’re playing a game or she’s going to bed.”

  Come to think of it…that wasn’t normal, was it? Ari frowned but had to let go as the light was green and it was time to move again. “What else are you seeing?”

  “The food thing. Half the time, she’s not really hungry. She’s reassuring herself, time and again, that you’ll feed her. When she talked to me about asking you out, you know what she told me?”

  Ari shook his head. “She didn’t tell me what she said. Just that she’d talked to you.”

  “She said people have a lot of ways of saying ‘I love you.’ Two of the things she mentioned were: You want the last slice? You hungry?”

  Ari might need to pull over. He wasn’t sure if he was going to rage or cry—the emotions were currently duking it out. Maybe both. “Porca troia.”

  “Yeah. Hit me in the heartstrings too. Ari, you tell me she’s leagues better now than she was in the beginning, and I believe you, but maybe think of a way for her to get some therapy? Love heals a lot, but sometimes you need additional help.”

  Ari didn’t take offense at the suggestion. “I don’t know how. Any therapist worth their salt is going to get the full story out of Remi, and that’ll paint me as the criminal I am, and then what?”

  “Doctor-patient confidentiality should cover you, but…yeah. I see your point. Okay, after this job, let’s put our heads together. We’ll figure it out.”

  ‘We’ll’ figure it out, eh? The inclusion made Ari smile. He did like the sound of that. “But you think she’ll be fine?”

  “Girl’s got more backup than most kids. She’ll be great. I’m not really worried, just wanted you to know what I saw.”

  “It’s good to know. I don’t always see her as clearly as I should. Maybe I’m too close, I don’t know.” Or he just didn’t know what normal should look like. None of them did, come to think of it. Kyou had been in foster with him. Ivan refused to talk about his childhood at all.

  But his almost-boyfriend did and was steadfastly offering his support. Carter would make up the difference. Ari shot him a smile, caught one in return. Dating Carter might be the smartest decision he’d made this year. Ari mentally gave himself a pat on the back.

  The shirts were collected and put away in a closet so they wouldn’t wrinkle. It was little details that often gave people away, and this was potentially one of them. The uniform for the security company was very starched shirts, black slacks, and black shoes. Showing up in anything wrinkled would be a tell, and they didn’t have the time to spare for those.

  Carter had caught him in the garage before they entered the house and spent several minutes kissing him senseless, so Ari miiiight have had some trouble getting his focus to, you know, actually focus. Damn, the man could kiss. Ari’s lips still tingled.

  A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face and Ari glared at Ivan. “What?”

  The thief smirked back at him and said in a tone that made it clear he’d repeated himself, “We’re meeting now in the living room to discuss how to get me in. You think you can focus on something aside from hot mercenary?”

  He tried to scowl in return but it was a little difficult being upset at anything just now. “Shut it. I can focus just fine.”

  Ivan’s grey eyes twinkled in laughter. “Prove it.”

  Grumbling a curse in Italian, Ari shoved past him. He felt the pat on his back, though, and knew what Ivan silently meant to say—he was honestly glad. Glad Ari had taken the chance. After their last talk, Ivan probably hadn’t expected it. Hell, Ari hadn’t expected it. Carter was just charming. He laid all blame for this on the other man’s shoulders.

  As they walked into the living room, Carter and Remi were on their backs in the middle of the floor, using the space between the two couches and Kyou’s desk. Carter was explaining seriously, “—any average coffin has enough air in it for about an hour or two. So don’t panic, and definitely don’t scream. Just inhale deeply, exhale very slowly.”

  Remi drew in a breath, her arms crossed over her chest like she was pretending she really was in a coffin, and exhaled slowly. Then did it again.

  “Right, just like that,” Carter encouraged her with an approving smile. “Now, if someone’s burying you quickly, odds are they’ll pick a cheap coffin. You can shake the lid up with your hands, maybe even make a hole. Like with a belt, I’ve done that. But before you do that, cross your arms over your chest, and pull your shirt upwards, then tie a knot at the top of your head to keep the dirt from falling down and suffocating you. Then, when you’re secure there, kick the lid with your legs. A lot of the cheap coffins, the lid will already be damaged by the dirt piled up on top of it. So it’ll be easy to get it partially up. Any dirt that falls in, push it down towards the bottom, near your feet. More dirt that falls in, the more clear space you have above you. So dirt falling is good, okay?”

  Remi followed this all very seriously. “What if it’s raining?”

  “Then move fast,” Carter warned. “Water makes dirt heavy and sticky. But if it’s dry, you should be able to get up. Grave dirt is pretty loose, so battling your way up is actually easier than you’d think.”

  All of the information was interesting to Ari, who hadn’t actually known any of this. Kyou was paying close attention too, he noted, and even Ivan seemed to be taking mental notes as he settled into the couch. Ari bent at the waist to regard the two on the floor, leaning over their feet, and couldn’t help but ask, “What brought this on?”

  “Remi asked me what was the scariest thing I’d ever lived through,” Carter explained with a warm smile at the little girl. “First time I was buried alive came to mind.”

  Everything in Ari froze. “First time?”

  Carter’s eyes snapped back to Ari and honed in. He spoke carefully, each word deliberately phra
sed. “Yeah. First time was hella scary. I’ve been buried three times in total.”

  Later, without the audience, Ari would get the full story on every instance. His curiosity demanded the answer. For now, he asked the most pertinent question. “And are any of those people who stupidly buried you still alive?”

  “Aww, are you offering to go settle things for me?” Carter turned his head to whisper loudly to Remi, “He’s sexy when he’s pissed and protective.”

  Remi giggled back and nodded in avid agreement.

  “Don’t worry, hon,” Carter assured him cheerfully. “I didn’t leave anyone alive in my wake.”

  There was that, at least. Ari grunted acknowledgement and offered them both a hand. Remi was easy to haul to her feet, Carter more of a challenge. The man was solid and not a lightweight. Remi gave him a quick hug around the leg before bouncing over to sit with Ivan. Carter leaned in to kiss him just under his jaw and whispered huskily, “Thanks.”

  Ari couldn’t quite suppress the shiver. Right then he had a pep talk with his instincts: Look, get over this reaction to having Carter in close. The man was sex on legs. Time to relax and take advantage.

  Kyou cleared his throat pointedly and stared at them until they took their own seats. Ari ended up with Carter pressed up against his side, their hands loosely joined, Carter’s thumb idly tracing a circle on his skin. The skinship was nice. Distracting, but nice.

  “Right. Let this strategy session now commence. Since we can’t use the van and uniforms to sneak Ivan in, how do we do it? I really don’t want to assume the painting is in the vault and then go in blind. If we can at least check the house beforehand, make sure it isn’t somewhere in a private bedroom, I’d feel better.”

  “Same,” Ari admitted openly. “The house isn’t as tightly guarded as the vault. Do you see any weak points?”

  “Not really. I mean, you’re right, it’s not as tightly defended. But it’s still locked down pretty well.”

  Ivan perked up, jostling the child in his lap, an excited smile crossing his face. “I have a solution.”

  With understandable doubt, Kyou looked at him dubiously. “Really?”

  “It involves fire.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Knowing where Ivan headed with this, Ari tacked on, “No explosions, either. We’re not going with your usual rule of thumb on this.”

  Ivan slumped with a noise much like a deflating balloon.

  Seeing Carter didn’t entirely follow, Kyou explained, “Ivan’s usual rule of thumb is everything counts as a stealth mission if no one’s alive to talk about it afterwards.”

  “Ah. No, that rule of thumb doesn’t work in this case.” Carter actually gave the man a commiserating smile. “Sorry, Ivan.”

  “It’s fine. At least I can play with the drones later.” Ivan sighed gustily and let his head fall back onto the couch. “Alright. Let’s walk through. One point of entry through the fence. Ground sensors along the perimeter. Cameras throughout. Kyou, how many on roster for night duty?”

  “Eight. Four for house, four for vault.”

  “So slightly larger crew than during the day. And you can’t get access to their cameras.”

  “Not without sending someone in,” Kyou said with a shake of the head. He looked distinctly unhappy, almost pouting. “Something of a catch-22 situation. I hate they were smart enough to wire the cameras straight to the server.”

  “So I’ll have to evade ground sensors, guards, and cameras? What type of cameras?”

  “Well, last time they had both motion sensor and infrared. No thermal, but they could have changed that since. I don’t have a way of verifying without,” Kyou sighed again, this time a groan mixed in, “sending someone or something in. Guys, maybe we should just axe this idea. We risk tipping our hand if Ivan gets caught.”

  Ivan made an affronted sound and splayed a hand over his chest, aghast Kyou would even suggest such a thing. Remi giggled at the theatrics.

  “Knowles is stupidly difficult,” Kyou argued with a wild gesture towards his computer. “And we have a very narrow time window. We’ve got three weeks, meaning we don’t have time to let this fully cool off and try again later.”

  “I can get in,” Ivan assured him, then turned his head to assure them all. “Really.”

  Ari didn’t actually doubt this. Kyou was the worry-wart among them. He liked backup plans, and redundancies, and escape routes that didn’t involve potentially getting his head blown off. Ari and Ivan both worked a lot closer to the edge. Sometimes, you just had to, in order to get the job done.

  “Bedsheets, and licking sensors, and all of that?” Carter tilted forward on the couch so he could see around Ari and look at the thief closely. “You really think you can, or are you bored and want to try it?”

  “Little of both,” Ivan admitted with a mile-wide smile.

  Yes, it was the ‘both’ worrying Ari. He really believed Ivan could get in, but on the off chance something went wrong? What then?

  “I don’t want to walk in there blind, working off assumptions,” Ari finally said.

  Carter nodded agreement. “I don’t think that’s wise. But I hear what you’re saying, Kyou. Let’s go through this again. Ivan, tell me how you’d get in. Walk me through it, step by step. If this is doable, then we can at least try it. If it doesn’t sound workable to all of us, we’ll take a step back and rethink it.”

  Excited, Ivan shifted Remi to sit next to him, giving him the space to talk with his hands. The more Ari listened, the more he sided with Kyou. Ivan was definitely taking too many chances with this plan. Knowles was difficult, yes, but surely there was a safer way to do a bit of recon.

  Surely.

  20

  Carter

  Carter was woken from a sound sleep by a hand on his arm. He went from dreaming to wide awake, a hand on the gun under his pillow, in mach .02 seconds. Only Ari’s scent and voice kept him from attacking in sheer reflex.

  “Carter. We’ve got a problem. Ivan went in.”

  He took a second to digest the news and then swore, flinging the blankets back. “How far in is he?”

  “The house, he says.” Ari held out the small earbud.

  Slipping it in, Carter demanded, “Eidolon. You good?”

  A soft cackle echoed through his ear. “This is fun. I haven’t done something like this in ages.”

  Kyou growled, “He’s having the time of his life, the bastard.”

  “How did he even get in?” Carter demanded, more bewildered than anything else. After the strategy session spanning most of the afternoon and evening, he hadn’t thought it possible. In fact, they’d largely agreed it wasn’t possible without tipping their hand.

  “I don’t even ask anymore,” Ari admitted ruefully. “He finds a way, he always does. If you ask him, he’ll spin you a story about bedsheets.”

  Ivan cackled again, not denying this.

  Carter twisted to put his legs over the side of the bed. He’d not be able to go back to sleep, and it would behoove them to have a vehicle at the ready to extract Ivan, if he needed that. “Eidolon, how’s it look?”

  “Hmm. Da, horosho.”

  “Yes, good,” Ari translated for Carter’s benefit. “He always slips into Russian when he’s thinking hard.”

  Ah. That did make sense. Carter did the same even though he was quite comfortable with both Spanish and French. If he was too focused, or startled, English came out every time.

  Ari ducked out, no doubt to get dressed, and Carter wasted no time in doing the same, reaching for clothes he’d discarded only a few hours ago. Years of having to move with little notice made it easy for him to fully wake up and function even though he was tired enough to want to roll back into the bed and bury his head under a pillow.

  Ivan reported in a low murmur, “Main floor is clear. I don’t see our target. Ascending to the second. Oops.”

  Oops? Carter froze with one leg in his pants. “What oops?”

  Long silence o
n the other end. Carter assumed Ivan was in a very tight spot and couldn’t answer without giving away his position. Swearing, he jerked on the rest of his clothes, grabbed his shoes, and hoofed it downstairs.

  Kyou sat in front of the monitors, and unlike every other time Carter had seen him in that position, he didn’t have various windows of text and coding up. Instead, he seemed to have several camera feeds lined up on two monitors. He was lining up yet another camera feed when Carter came to a stop next to him. “Is that the mansion’s security feed?”

  “Ivan managed to grab the right piece of tech, for once, and plugged it into the first camera he found. I’ve got control of the main house, at least. Pity the vault isn’t on the same system, but I guess that would be too easy. At the very least, we can watch him.” Kyou didn’t even look up as he spoke.

  Carter eyed him thoughtfully. It was well past midnight but it was clear to him Kyou hadn’t gone to bed yet. A stack of coffee mugs attested to this, as did the man’s messy hair and growing panda eyes. As far as Carter could tell, Kyou hadn’t moved from that chair in almost twenty-four hours. He’d adhere to the chair and grow moss soon if he didn’t leave it. Kyou ran on caffeine and determination, it seemed. He might have to intervene later and make the man rest, if Kyou didn’t have the good sense to do it himself.

  For now, he needed the answer to a different question: “Where is he?”

  “Near the stairwell.” Kyou pointed to the top right corner of the feed.

  Ari appeared at Carter’s side and put his hand on the small of Carter’s back as he leaned in, peering at the screen. “I don’t see him. Is he folded up behind that table?”

  “Yes.” Two bulky shapes went past the cameras, guards on their rounds, and everyone fell silent until the two had passed through the room and out the other side. “Ivan, go.”