by Layla Reyne
Tran smiled, and Chris thought maybe he’d slipped into an alternate reality. Until another blast from the past surprised him back to this one as she said, “Remy Pak.”
“We have her?” Remy Pak ran guns for the Russian mob and had been a supplier for the gang Chris had dismantled in Seattle.
“We’ve been on her since you hauled her in,” Tran said. “She slipped up about six months ago, and she’s ours now. She’ll pretend to have the means to help steal back the explosives, and Rose will get the added satisfaction of double-crossing Brewster. We’ll catch Rose red-handed.”
“And we need Amelia to facilitate,” Chris said, anticipating the play.
Tran drew two folded sheets of paper from her coat pocket. “This,” she said, handing him the first, “is the signed order officially transferring Amelia into your custody, should you need it.” She held out the second. “And that’s the name of one of Remy’s captains who was in lockup with Amelia. She just has to tell Rose that Remy reached out and wants to play ball.” Tran sat back, legs crossed. “I’ll drop a bug in Rose’s ear too.”
“What’s in this for Amelia?” Chris asked as he glanced at each sheet of paper. He tucked the first into his coat pocket and kept the second out, tapping the folded crease against his knuckles. “We have to offer her something.”
“Besides not extending her sentence for trying to break out of jail?”
“She was as much, if not more of a pawn than anyone,” Chris countered. “She had no family before Cal brought her into the fold. Rose treated her like a grandchild, elevated her above her biological ones. And she married Holt and had the first great-grandchild. If she went against Rose, she could have lost all that.”
There was a commotion outside the van. A horn blowing, voices calling for gates to open, the clank of metal and whir of gears. Amelia was on her way.
“Did she drink the Kool-Aid? Yes,” Chris continued, raising his voice to be heard over the racket. “Did she have a choice? Not really.”
Tran considered him a moment, dark eyes assessing, then stood. “Her cooperation won’t go unnoticed.”
“How much do I tell her?”
“You haven’t made a wrong step yet, Agent Perri. Do what you think is best.” The voices were right outside the van now. “You work your Madigan contacts, I’ll work mine.” Tran turned and hustled out the front of the van, disappearing from sight just as the back doors swung open.
Amelia, standing between two marshals, spotted him, and her green eyes widened. But that was the only part of her that looked alive. Despite the designer threads and heels she’d changed into for her court appearance she looked like she had aged five years in the mere five days since Chris had last seen her.
She climbed into the van, and the marshals entered behind her, long enough to attach her shackles to the hook on the floorboard and to toss Chris the key. They backed out and shut the doors behind them. A transport driver slid into the front cab, checked that they were all set, and then secured the interior doors between the cab and the back of the van, leaving Chris and Amelia alone.
When they got moving a minute later, Amelia was the first to speak. “What’s going on? Anything to do with why they let me change first?”
Chris considered again his question to Tran. How much to tell Amelia? If the past few days had taught him anything, it was that the truth got him a lot further than lies. And right now, with the way Amelia kept rubbing her right hand over her right shoulder, where he remembered she had a water lily tattoo that matched the one on Holt’s chest, Chris believed that Amelia would do just about anything to get back to her daughter. She needed to trust that Chris wanted to get her there too, and that he wanted to protect her family.
Breaching the distance between them, he held out the second slip of paper Tran had given him.
Amelia took it with her chained hands. “What’s this?”
“That’s the key to saving yourself and your family. I’m trusting that’s what you want most now.” He leaned forward, making sure, even in the shadows of the van, that she could see the sincerity in his eyes. “I need you to trust that’s what I want too. And that I can help you get it.”
She stared down at the paper for a long moment, then green eyes lifted to meet his, and while there was a truckload of apprehension in them, there was also a spark of hope. “How?”
Chris could work with that.
Chapter Seven
“You know you’re half a foot shorter than her, right?”
A very sharp stiletto dug into the top of Hawes’s foot, hard enough to sting through the brushed leather of his loafers. “That’s what these five-inch Louboutins are for,” Helena said. “And you’re a fool if you think I’m gonna sit this one out.”
He decided not to remind her that Amelia would be in similar heels, thereby obliterating her advantage. “You have a bigger role in this,” he said instead. This whole plan would fall apart if she failed at either of her two critical tasks. Which was why Hawes only trusted Helena to accomplish them.
She removed her heel from his foot and buttoned her tailored suit coat. Black, same as the tailored pants and designer heels, with a simple beige top completing the outfit. All of it chosen to blend in and be easily replicated. “Don’t worry, Big H. I’ll take out the Klimt.”
“And…” Holt prompted over the comm.
“And switch out the Renoir.”
“Good, because it’s showtime.”
Hawes peered around Helena, out the long narrow window next to where they stood on one of the lower floors of the Federal Building. A prison van was backing up to the rear entrance, the one that led directly to the secure elevators used to transport prisoners and witnesses to the various agencies and courtrooms in the building.
“Monet on the move,” Helena said, and Hawes righted his gaze in time to observe Victoria, one of their captains, striding past them toward the main bank of elevators. The doors opened to a packed cab going up, and Victoria, wearing a suit similar to Helena’s, her long dark curls straightened for the occasion, slid inside.
“Cézanne on fifteen,” Alice radioed. “Inside Judge Riley’s chambers.” Which were located directly across from the witness and prisoner holding rooms used for the federal courtrooms on the same floor.
Alice, the blonde captain with a passing resemblance to Helena, was likewise pulling double duty, first posing as Helena to get into the secure area, then donning a wig for her next role, to come shortly.
The real Helena hip-checked Hawes. “The artists are a nice touch.”
“It was your idea.” Decades ago, before they knew their prize or the very real complications involved in this heist. But it was the least he could do to show his appreciation for his sister, who always had his back, especially in this, their future.
She rose on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for remembering.” And then she was gone, skirting past him toward the stairs. “Van Gogh on the move.”
“Don’t lose an ear,” Hawes added, and chuckled at the middle finger she shot him as she disappeared into the stairwell.
“Eyes on Renoir and da Vinci,” Holt reported, and Hawes snapped his gaze back to the window, to the man and woman exiting the van outside. Mostly to the man. Had it only been thirty hours since he’d lain in those arms? It felt like a lifetime. And with no idea when he might get the chance again, a lifetime felt like fucking eternity. But they couldn’t risk it, not until this was over, which meant this heist had to go off without a hitch. They needed to move on to whatever Rose planned next so they could set the final trap for her. So they could be done with this and Hawes could get back to the life, to the future, he’d just begun to think possible.
As the van pulled away, a Madigan soldier, Eva, dressed in the same black suit, with her normally dyed bright hair now a sedate brown, appeared and passed close by Chris. Their hands brushed, too passing a touch for a casual observer to notice. “Munch has made the handoff,” Hawes said.
Eva c
ontinued on to the sidewalk, while Chris and Amelia made their way to the entry doors, Chris rubbing at his right ear. A moment later there was a click, and Holt confirmed, “Da Vinci is live.”
Chris grumbled, “Very funny,” and Hawes had to stifle a laugh with his hand.
“Well, we couldn’t use Dan—” Helena sniped, only to be cut off by Holt. “Da Vinci and Renoir are in the elevator.”
“Rembrandt on the move,” Hawes said, forestalling any further verbal sparring. He’d spotted his mark—one of the federal judges’ clerks. The chambers access badge Hawes needed hung from the pocket of the hipster’s corduroy jacket, right where Helena said it would be. He followed the clerk into the crowded elevator, and ninety seconds and a little pickpocketing later, exited onto the fifteenth floor, the rectangular piece of plastic in his palm. “Access secured.”
“Monet, Gauguin,” Holt said. “You’re up.”
With federal courtrooms on either side of the expansive lobby, jurors, attorneys, press, and even a tour group filled the high-traffic area. And among them, half a dozen brunettes in the same dark suit, slipping in and out of courtrooms, like any other legal or court personnel. Hawes had to concentrate to track each one, to catch the do-si-do two of their operatives, Gayle and Sue, executed, before they headed in opposite directions. It was masterful, and Hawes regretted Helena wasn’t here to see all the moving parts in action, including Victoria and Elisabeth—Monet and Gauguin—break out into an argument in the middle of the lobby. As intended, the escalating altercation drew the armed guard off the door marked Authorized Personnel Only.
Hawes approached the door—not too fast, not too slow—not wanting to redraw the guard’s attention and giving Holt time to blind the eye in the sky, the black bubble cam right over the door.
“Countdown for Rembrandt,” Holt said, and Hawes took a step closer with each tick. “Three. Two. One. Clear.”
Hawes flashed the access card, the lock turned green, and he pushed through like he had every right to do so. Again, less likely to draw attention. The door had barely shut behind him when a deep, surprised voice sounded over a comm. “Amelia, what—”
Oakland Ashe’s words died, a thump followed, then silence. They had ten seconds, at most, before their timing was shot. It only took five. “Klimt is down,” Helena confirmed.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Hawes’s gaze shot up, meeting that of the bailiff at the end of the hallway closest to the stairs.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” the older man said.
Behind the bailiff, the stairwell door banged open and Helena emerged, looking more like herself with the dark wig gone. “Sorry, Jimmy,” she said, laying a hand on the big man’s arm. “Hawes knows the rules but getting him to follow them is a full-time job.”
Hawes reached into his coat, dropped the access card into his pocket, and withdrew a photo of Lily. “Just wanted to give this”—he stepped closer and held up the picture—“to my sister-in-law. It’s her daughter.”
The drawn V of the bailiff’s brows eased as he looked from Helena to the photo to Hawes, then deepened again when he looked past Hawes to the lobby door. “How did you—” And then deeper still as his gaze skittered farther down the hall to the opening elevator doors. “You’re not the usual marshal.”
Chris held up his badge one-handed, his other hand over Amelia’s cuffed wrists at her back, as they stepped into the hallway. “Special Agent Christopher Perri. ATF. Relieved the marshal as she’s our prisoner. I have the paperwork, if you need it.”
Amelia looked like hell. Pale skin, limp hair, dark circles under her dull green eyes. Hawes worried maybe this wouldn’t work, the surface appearances not close enough, but the way Amelia still carried herself—proud and alert, shoulders back, chin held high, and eyes darting around the hallway—would be the things a stranger recognized first. Those mannerisms were replicable, and the rest was close enough. Assuming Amelia, who was clearly assessing escape routes, didn’t make a break for it and fuck this whole operation. And assuming Chris had been able to convince her to help them, not Rose.
Either way, they were out of time, Holt giving the next order. “Monet, Cézanne, go.”
Between where Hawes stood and where Chris and Amelia had halted, Alice, dark wig on now, appeared out of Judge Riley’s chambers, and across from her, the lobby door opened again, admitting Elisabeth. The operatives bumbled into each other mid-hallway, a few feet from Chris and Amelia, and with the three women similarly styled, and Chris also in black jeans, a black leather coat, and his long dark hair loose, it was a virtual traffic jam of sameness. If the bailiff’s face were an emoji just then, it would have been the head-exploding one.
Helena pounced, stepping closer to him. “So, Jimmy, about that offer you made on the Ducati. I might be willing to consider it.” Suddenly, she had all the big man’s attention.
And in that instant, in a blink, Amelia’s freed hands dropped to her sides, she spun one way, Elisabeth the other, and in the next blink, Elisabeth was beside Chris in Amelia’s place, hands behind her back.
And Amelia was free. Her eyes cut to the lobby door, and it took everything in Hawes not to step her direction, to trust that Chris had come through and that Amelia would put her daughter first.
His trust was not unfounded.
Alice struck up a conversation with Amelia as if they were besties, and Amelia played along, looping an arm through Alice’s, and together, they exited back out to the lobby. The door shut behind them, and Alice reported through the comms, “Renoir secured.”
Helena didn’t miss a beat, shifting the bailiff’s attention back to the people in the hallway so he wouldn’t dwell on the two who’d just left it. “Seriously, Hawes, you have to go.”
Chris stepped around him and handed Elisabeth over to the bailiff. “Transferring her into your custody.”
Jimmy did a double take, eyes narrowing. Before the bailiff’s suspicions could take form, Hawes handed Elisabeth the picture of Lily and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Holt wanted you to have this. They miss you.”
Elisabeth’s eyes filled with tears, and she lowered her chin, hair falling forward and obscuring her face. Preventing further examination. Hawes made a mental note to elevate her to lieutenant.
“Shall we?” Helena said, gesturing toward the courtroom.
“You’re representing her now?” Jimmy asked. “I thought Oak—”
“Had a family emergency. Just filling in.” She handed him a sheet of paper. “Temporary substitution of counsel.” It had been a stipulation of the retainer when they’d hired Oak to represent Amelia. If for some reason Oak couldn’t make a court date, or was removed from the case, Helena would be able to step right in. An emergency measure. This wasn’t the emergency any of them had had in mind, but it was an advantage they were willing to use under the circumstances.
“I’ll need to clear this with the clerk,” Jimmy said.
“Of course,” Helena said. “We can finish discussing the Ducati while we wait. Inside?”
Interest piqued again, Jimmy moved for the door, then paused, glancing back at Hawes. Chris was already at his side, hand on his arm in an official-like capacity. “I actually need to question this one in our offices.” Just a couple of floors away in the building.
Jimmy bought it. “Thank you, Agent.”
They walked to the stairwell door, slow enough to be sure Jimmy admitted Helena and Elisabeth into the courtroom, and slow enough for Holt to confirm the stairwell cameras were still under his control. Once inside, Hawes slumped against the wall and exhaled. The next instant, a warm body crowded his, surrounded him, and he inhaled eucalyptus, leather, and coffee, and tasted the man he’d been craving.
Tongues and teeth clashed, and Chris slid his hands down Hawes’s arms, caught his wrists, and hauled them up above his head. Pinning him to the wall, their bodies stretched and aligned, almost as close as they could be. Hawes grunted his agreement and hitched a leg around Chr
is’s, closing that last bit of distance, bringing them hard dick to hard dick, and thrusting. Letting go and letting Chris hold him up, burn him up. Fuck, he needed…
“You two cannot fuck in a public stairwell,” Holt grumbled over the comm.
Hawes tore his mouth from Chris’s long enough to bark, “Stop fucking creeping.”
Chris shook with laughter, his brown eyes alight with desire and humor. “As much as I want to fuck you right now, he’s right. And if I keep my left arm up here like this, I won’t be able to help you move that tree.”
“Plus, bogeys five flights away,” Holt said. “So cut the make-out session short and move it.”
Chris trailed his hands down Hawes’s arms, making him shiver, then stepped away. Hawes pouted as he peeled himself off the wall. “Do we have the Renoir?”
“Renoir clear,” Alice said. “On our way to the mountain.”
“Copy that.” Hawes removed the comm from his ear and motioned for Chris to do the same. “Do we really have her?” he asked Chris.
“I hope so.”
Not the answer he wanted. “Hope isn’t good—”
Chris curled a hand around Hawes’s neck, thumb coaxing Hawes’s tightening jaw to relax again. “I’m trusting so.”
Better answer, and Chris’s confidence went a long way to reassuring him.
“Do you trust me?” Chris said.
Hawes kissed him in answer, stealing one more taste, before reluctantly returning to the task at hand. “Let’s go move a tree.”
Chapter Eight
Hawes navigated the SUV up Fassler, routinely checking his rearview mirror for tails. None that he could discern. Only a few cars straggled around him on the winding road up from the Pacific Coast Highway and into Pacifica’s canyons. He reached up and angled the mirror down, checking on the VIP immediately behind him. Thumb in her mouth, Lily remained fast asleep. She’d been fussy the last time they’d brought her out here, the twists and turns tough on her tummy and the climbing altitude no kinder on her ears. But all the activity this morning—a surprise trip to Uncle Brax’s place, then a few hours at MCS—must have tuckered her out.