by Layla Reyne
He thought he was prepared for it, all but certain of what—who—he was going to see. He wasn’t wrong as to the parties on-screen: Reeves, Amelia, and her. But he wasn’t prepared. He wasn’t ready for the explosion that rocketed through him.
He smashed the keys as he desperately tried to pause the video, to pause the truth so it didn’t blind him all at once. The playback froze on a picture of her. Gray hair perfectly twisted into a chignon, Chanel suit perfectly in place, her facial expression perfectly imperious. Hawes slammed his eyes shut, a million denials running through his head despite the truth on the screen, the truth he and Chris had already put together.
Chris.
Hawes scrambled blindly for the phone. He clutched it in a death grip, as if he could draw some steadiness out of the mere possibility that he could call Chris or his siblings.
Fuck, his siblings. What was this going to do to Holt and Helena? They were already fraying at the seams, and now this. To learn that the last remaining pillar of their family…
Hawes lost the battle with the storm, his insides surrendering to the riot of thoughts in his head and the pain in his heart. He shoved back from the desk and grabbed the nearest trash can, spinning so he faced away from the computer and door as he emptied his stomach. It didn’t relieve the sour in his soul or in his gut, and the sting and stench of bile in his throat and nostrils only made it worse. He had to get rid of it, had to not look at the computer screen again just yet.
Had to deny the truth a little longer.
He stumbled to the en-suite bathroom, washed out the trash can and his mouth, then, back in the main room, made a beeline for the wet bar, aiming to burn away the remnants of the awful taste in his mouth. He shuffled around bottles until he found a whiskey, one that cost far more than his Crown Royal, but it did the trick, giving him a different kind of burn than bile and betrayal to focus on. He tossed back the rest of his first pour, then poured another two fingers’ worth into the cut-crystal tumbler. He started back toward the desk but only made it halfway, stalling out at the end of the bed. It didn’t, however, stop the scene from the video replaying in his mind.
Disregarding the people in it, the setting was familiar to Hawes. From the plate-glass windows overlooking the Bay, to the fluted plaster crenellations around the door and the metal seismic struts running to the roof, to his brother’s command station visible through a connecting door. They were in Hawes’s office at MCS, formerly his grandfather’s. And that’s what the three people in the video had been arguing about before Hawes had paused it.
“He’s cutting me off,” Reeves had said. “Do you know how much this is going to cost me? This is not the agreement I had with Cal. We were supposed to do more business together, not less.”
“Have you talked to Hawes?” Amelia asked.
“He says MCS is going a different direction.”
“He is the CEO now.”
“And the other business?” Reeves glared at the older woman behind the desk. “It’s not only official business I need the Madigans for. Cal understood that.”
“We expected some shifts,” she answered. “Some new ideas.”
“Do you expect his legacy—”
“He’s not dead.” The daggers of ice in each word were enough to cut, as were the daggers shot from the ice-blue eyes in her murderous expression.
That’s where Hawes had managed to pause it. Where he needed to resume. Sitting on the end of this bed was not going to change what happened in the past. But facing the truth could change the future. He had to finish this—the video, and all of it. He downed the rest of the whiskey and stood. He grabbed the burner phone, clutched it tight, and situating himself in front of the computer again, pressed Play.
In the video, Reeves stepped back and raised his hands, palms out. “You’re right. My apologies.” He lowered his voice and continued, tone and manner deferential. “When he passes, will your family’s empire survive? Because this isn’t the way to do it. And I’m not the only one Hawes has cut off. You need to bring him in line.”
“We’re working on it.”
“Why didn’t you take over?”
“Because day-to-day operations has never been my role. And there are complications I’d rather not be tied to directly.”
“Complications?”
“You likewise might be better off unconnected,” Amelia said. “For the moment.”
Reeves looked back and forth between them. “You’ve got a mole?”
“We’re handling it,” the other woman said. “And we’ll handle Hawes.”
A shiver ran down Hawes’s spine, replaying how she’d handled him the past three years. The setup with Isabella, using him as a scapegoat. Conspiring with Jodie, Ray, and Lucas to kill him. With Amelia, Zoe, and Reeves to hijack the explosives. Going so far as to willingly injure herself. All to handle him.
“Rest assured, the ship will be righted, and you’ll be there with us. With me.” Her tone had melted from winter to spring, sweet enough to draw the bees into her garden. Like she had drawn so many people into her web over the years—business leaders, socialites, and politicians, all dirty enough to be leveraged. That’s what she did best. That was her role. And she’d weaponized it against Hawes. “Can I count on your support?” she said to Reeves.
“Of course,” he acquiesced, putty in her hands.
Because she was the queen. Because she was Rose Madigan, and Hawes had been a fool to forget his grandmother was the most dangerous of them all.
Hawes watched from the infirmary window as the late afternoon fog rolled back in, snaking around Sutro Tower and through the city’s skyscrapers, creeping toward MCS and the waterfront, across the Bay from where Hawes was still waiting on Scotty Wheeler to wake up.
The holding pattern, while frustrating, had also been valuable. It had given him time to process and plan. He was still working out details—contingencies if Wheeler didn’t cooperate, if Helena or Holt didn’t get on board, if Rose didn’t buy his performance—but he was more confident now than he had been last night or this morning. Granted, he still didn’t have all the details—there were more files for Holt to decrypt—but Hawes had enough to go on.
He turned the flash drive end over end in his hand, started to clutch it like he had the burner phone, then stopped himself. The narrow piece of plastic wouldn’t withstand the force, though even the phone hadn’t withstood his anger. As soon as Hawes had been able to think straight after watching that video, he’d texted Holt: Get Lily. She stays with you, Hena, or Brax at all times. Immediately after, he’d powered off the device and hurled it against the wall, shattering it to pieces. The swell of anger, and its release, had felt good. He’d used that rolling wave to power through the rest of the day. Mel had checked on him periodically, bringing him food he forced down and updates about the investigation and Chris, who was still unconscious post-surgery. Chris’s family was at the hospital, as was Hawes’s. Hawes didn’t necessarily like that Helena and Holt were in the same place, but at least Kane was there too, standing guard.
Now, if Wheeler would just wake up, Hawes could get the rest of his plan underway. On cue, a groan sounded behind him. Hawes turned and waited with his back against the wall, watching Wheeler grow increasingly agitated, as if caught in a nightmare. Hawes knew the feeling well and was sure when he got the chance to sleep again, the memories of shooting Isabella would be joined by fresh ones of shooting Chris. Torture all the same, no matter if the latter had been done with permission.
Mumbling from Wheeler brought Hawes back to the present. The sounds resolved into a name. “Sam… Sam, no…”
“Wheeler.” Hawes stepped toward the bed. “Wake up.”
The agent’s breath hitched, and his body froze, surprised into wakefulness. The next instant, he visibly forced his breathing to even out, pretending to still be asleep.
“I know you’re awake, Scotty,” Hawes said, trying the nickname for more of a response.
Nothing.
Hawes wasn’t going to pry—he didn’t like when strangers pried into his nightmares either—but Wheeler wasn’t giving him a choice. He had to do something to break this standoff. “Who’s Sam?”
Another hitched breath, and then dark blond lashes fluttered up, the brown eyes underneath hazy but alert. “I don’t know any Sam.”
Yes, he did, and Sam, whoever they were, haunted the man’s thoughts. Sympathetic to his plight, and having gotten what he wanted, Hawes let it go. “All right.”
“Where am I?” Wheeler asked.
“On a boat.”
“Captain obvious,” Mel said, appearing in the doorway. “You’re on the Ellen, Agent Wheeler. Talley Enterprises’ flagship vessel.”
Wheeler’s eyes rounded, wide as saucers. “Agent Cruz.” He struggled to push himself upright and winced. Hawes moved closer to help, and Wheeler jerked in the opposite direction.
Judging by that instinctive reaction and the wariness in his eyes, Wheeler still read him as an enemy. Hawes mentally recalculated his contingencies; he might have to put the first into action right away.
Or he could wait and let Mel work her magic. “Just Ms. Cruz now.” Smiling kindly, she approached Wheeler’s other side and helped him into a less vulnerable position.
He relaxed a measure and split a glance between them. “What happened? How did I get here?”
“You were shot,” Hawes said.
Wheeler laid a hand over his side, over the surgical gown that covered the bandaged gunshot wound Zoe had inflicted. “By one of your people.”
Hawes shook his head, covering the fresh surge of betrayal that made him want to wince too. “Not one of mine.”
“Hawes brought you here,” Mel said. “Got you medical attention.”
“Why did you do that?” Wheeler asked, eyes narrowed.
“Because that’s what Chris wanted.” Hawes lowered himself into the chair he’d occupied for most of the past twenty-odd hours. Doing what Chris had asked. “He told me to protect you.”
Lines formed in the agent’s forehead. “You were working together?”
“Not exactly.” Yes, they’d planned the strike together, but Chris had had another objective, which he’d then altered mid-course. They hadn’t planned that part together, but it had worked out in Hawes’s favor.
Wheeler tapped his thumbs against the bed rails, no doubt trying to sort out the tangled course of events. “But you are now?”
Hawes tilted his head. “Not exactly.”
“So what, then?” Wheeler barked, growing impatient. Hawes had to admit, he kind of liked needling the agent. It was the first bit of amusement he’d had since… He couldn’t remember. Wheeler, however, wasn’t amused. “You’re holding me hostage?”
“Technically, your agency thinks you’re dead.”
Saucer-eyes returned. “What?” Wheeler pushed back up, wincing but not stopping, until Mel put a hand on one shoulder and Hawes on the other. “I need a phone. I need to call—”
“Whoever you need to call,” Hawes said, “if you want to keep them safe, if you want to see them again, you need to stay dead.” He stepped back when Wheeler shrugged him off. “At least for a few days.”
“And you expect me to trust you?”
“Chris did.”
“Not a ringing endorsement,” Wheeler said. “He’s a wildcard. The whole agency knows it.”
“You got on board with his plan yesterday.”
“Because he’s also one of the best agents I’ve ever worked with.”
“I feel the same,” Mel said. “And if that’s not enough, then trust me.”
As Wheeler considered that, Hawes played his ace, or what he hoped was his ace, while they had the opening. “I need you to take this to Chris.” He held out the flash drive. “He needs to get it to Holt, who can finish the decryption. It’s a copy of Amelia’s backup.”
“You had it all along?”
“We didn’t know who we could trust either. Now I’m trusting you.”
Wheeler took the flash drive, handling it as if it were a grenade. Smart man. “What’s on it?”
Hawes tried not to shatter the bed rail where he gripped it, the anger lapping at the shores of his control again. “Evidence that my own grandmother has spent the past few years trying to overthrow me.”
Wheeler’s gaze shot to Hawes, but he didn’t look surprised. Chris had mentioned that he had Wheeler digging into Rose. This was the other reason Hawes had needed him to wake up.
Hawes reclaimed his chair, crossed one knee over the other, and clasped his hands in his lap, ready for whatever revelations Scotty Wheeler was about to unload on him. “What else did you find out?”
Wheeler’s gaze flickered to Mel, and at her nod, back to Hawes. “She has a separate trust set up for Lily. But you all have trusts set up for Lily, so I didn’t think anything was odd about it. Until…”
“Until what?”
“I found trails of communication between Rose and former Madigan clients, including Carl Reeves.”
“Did you check her travel and communications against Jodie’s and Ray’s? Against Lucas’s and Zoe’s?” The dead lieutenants who’d betrayed him. Hawes suspected they’d find her visiting the same coastal motel when Jodie, Ray, Lucas, and Amelia had. That she would have taken more meetings with Lucas and Zoe, probably at the off-site warehouse where the explosives had been stored. And stolen from.
“That search was running when I left for the op last night.”
“Get those results”—he nodded at the flash drive in Wheeler’s hands—“and that to Chris.”
“How?” Wheeler asked, the confused expression back on his face. “You just said I’m supposed to be dead.”
“Don’t get seen.” Hawes withdrew a folded slip of paper from inside his coat pocket and slid to the end of his chair. “Then go here to hide out after.” He’d called in a favor from Shawn Gillespie, who, in return for Hawes having gotten, ironically, this particular ATF agent off his back, was more than happy to offer up one of his real estate projects as a safe house. “Don’t tell anyone you’re going there.”
Wheeler gave the note a cursory glance, then folded it around the flash drive. “Why can’t you take this to him?”
Hawes rested his elbows on his knees. “Because I have to go convince my grandmother I’ve seen the error of my ways.”
“You’re going in?” Mel said from across Wheeler’s bed.
“There are answers we still don’t have. Answers Chris and I, and the rest of my family, need. Inside is the only way to get those answers.”
“How will you convince her?” Wheeler asked.
“I burned Gilbert’s salvage vessel last night. I’ll tell her you were on it. That I destroyed all the evidence against her. That and the fact I shot Chris should buy us a few days.”
“You shot—”
“He’s fine.” Mel’s hand on Wheeler’s shoulder kept the agent from rocketing up again and doing more damage.
“But the ATF—”
“Has accomplished its primary objective,” Hawes said, “according to your boss’s press conference this morning. The explosives are secured. No mention of you or Chris, by the way.”
“She plays things close to the vest,” Wheeler said. “She was out for you and your family too. We can’t be sure she’s going to drop it.”
“All I need is a few days to try and save what’s left of my family, my organization, and my city.” Hawes rose and stood at Wheeler’s bedside, not bothering to hide the plea from his voice or eyes. “Will you help me?”
“Why me? Why not Cruz?”
“Because trust is a two-way street.” That’s what he and Chris had failed to realize until it was almost too late. What his grandmother failed to realize was in their family’s best interest going forward. Trusting Wheeler now would hopefully be further proof that Hawes’s way forward was the better one. “Chris said to trust you. Now you need proof of my motive. So I’m trusting you.”
“He said you were different.” Wheeler closed his fingers around the piece of paper and flash drive and nodded. “Don’t make him a liar.”
Chapter Two
Chris sensed eyes on him, multiple sets. Combined with the furious keystrokes and repetitive beeping, Chris felt like he was in an action movie, like there was a metronome counting each beat of rising tension. Counting down to some suspenseful event. He doubted opening his eyes would be all that exciting. Especially not when he was lying flat on his back in a hospital bed, judging by the beeping heart monitor, the lingering antiseptic smell, and the post-surgery ache in his shoulder. He opened his eyes, and, as expected, the sight of generic, white ceiling tiles was less than earth shattering. The relative dimness of the room, however, was curious. Had he beat the morning sun? He must have been rescued quickly. He’d seen the flare hit the water above him, and now here he was, alive, with sensation in all his limbs, including the arm pinned to his chest in a sling. Had they rushed him from the scene directly into surgery?
He rotated his head to the right, guessing the direction of the window based on the fading cone of light on the ceiling.
Celia’s tired yet relieved face cut off his view. “Hey there,” she said.
Cee, he tried to return, but his mouth was too dry.
Beside Celia, a second person appeared, her blonde hair atop her head in a messy bun. “Drink, Mr. Hair,” Helena said, holding out a paper cup. Celia propped the pillows behind him, and Chris pushed himself up with his good arm. He took the offered cup and sipped through the straw, slurping loudly in the otherwise silent room.
Silence.
The typing had stopped.
And with that realization came another that made Chris’s pulse jump.
Lily. He’d last seen her with…
The worry must have shown on his face because Helena’s fell to match. Chris’s heart skipped another beat. Until she lifted her gaze to the opposite side of the bed. Chris whipped his head around, faster than he should have—twin spikes of pain and nausea assaulting him—but at least his heart resumed its regular rhythm. The redheaded munchkin was safely tucked in a sling against her father’s chest. The sight was comforting enough to even ignore the Toronto Raptors T-shirt Holt wore beneath his flannel.