by Layla Reyne
“I didn’t really expect my grandmother to ever trust me again, but to have it confirmed like this…” Hawes lowered his arm and leaned fully back into Chris, head resting on his shoulder. “Forced into a battle of wills, of power, that could cost people their lives. I just want to do right by my family, by my city, by my people.” He buried his face in Chris’s neck. “And by you and the past.”
By me, Izzy supplied, and Chris stiffened, remembering the flash drives in his pocket.
Hawes turned in his arms and reversed, thinking Chris’s tension was something he’d caused. “What is it?”
Chris didn’t let him get away. “Scotty and Jax didn’t just find information on Rose’s current activities.”
“Her past ones too? Her involvement with Izzy’s death?”
“Jax thinks so, and they recovered the video footage of the incident.”
Face awash with remembered pain, Hawes did escape this time, wrenching out of Chris’s arms and pressing himself back against the windows. “Did you watch it?”
Chris shook his head. “I didn’t need that distraction right now. Which was the same reason why I didn’t hand it over to Tran.” He withdrew the second flash drive from his pocket. “Or give her this one.”
Hawes paled impossibly further. “What’s on that one?”
“Amelia left it for me when she took Scotty. After her last present, seeing what it did to you and your siblings, I didn’t want to watch whatever’s on here alone.”
Hawes’s gaze skipped toward the adjacent offices. “There’s a computer still in one of those.” He made no effort to move in that direction, though.
Neither did Chris. Instead, he crowded Hawes against the window, front to front, his right forearm braced over his head, not letting him escape. “I’m not sure we can handle what’s on that drive on top of everything else.”
“What if it’s something we need to know?” Hawes whispered, like it was the very last thing he wanted to ask but had no choice.
“What if it’s something meant to throw us off?” Chris countered.
“I thought you said Amelia is on our side.”
“Can we be sure of that?”
“Of course not.” Hawes closed his eyes and rested his head against the glass, fatigue overwhelming him once more.
Chris wished he could alleviate it, wished he could fast-forward through the events to come later that morning and be done with all of this. Arrest Rose now and skip the risky part altogether. But those were not the cards they’d been dealt. The best they could do was solve one problem at a time. The best he could do, in this moment, was try to ease Hawes’s distress. He brushed the falling top strands off his forehead. “Let’s not add more pieces to the already crowded board.”
Chris glided his hand down, cupped Hawes’s cheek, and Hawes nuzzled into the touch. “But isn’t this the battle that matters most to you? What this has been about for you all along?”
Chris lightly grasped his chin and righted his gaze. Hawes opened his too blue eyes, and they were a cyclone of regret, weariness, determination, and desire, spinning so fast it would drown Hawes unless Chris could give him some peace in the storm. “This stopped being about vengeance for me a while ago.”
“She deserves justice.”
“And she’ll get it, when we put Rose behind bars.”
“Is that enough for you?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
Chris soothed it with his thumb. “You’re enough for me.”
“Even after the hell my family has put you through, is still putting—”
Chris silenced the rest of his words and the self-recriminations bubbling up from the floor of Hawes’s emotions. Showing him instead what this had become about for him. The lips under his, the tongue sliding against his own, the sharp, stubbled jaw beneath his palms, and the tight, hard body between his and the window.
The heart beating in time with his.
Breaking the kiss, Chris rested his forehead against Hawes’s, the other man’s face in his hands. “You made me feel at home for the first time since Ro died.”
“Dante.”
Chris smiled so wide, it hurt his face. “And then there’s that.”
“I don’t understand how, after what I did.”
“You say it like you’re lucky, like you think you still don’t deserve it.” Chris traced his thumbs through the wetness under Hawes’s eyes. Through the evidence of the assassin’s soul. “You do, baby. You make your family better, this city better, me better. And I want to make a home here, with you.”
“You hardly know me. I’ve lied—”
“So have I.” He hadn’t denied it to Hawes’s operatives, and he wouldn’t deny it to the man himself. But it wasn’t the entire story. “We’ve both lied, but the things that mattered were true.” He removed a hand from Hawes’s face and laid it over his heart. “I know you here.” He trailed the hand lower, over his cock, which had stiffened against Chris’s thigh as they’d kissed. “And here.”
Chris stroked up and down Hawes’s erection, which grew harder in his hand. He knew he was playing dirty, but he was on the cusp of winning this debate—the last time he wanted to have it. He needed Hawes confident going into this op, feeling like the king he was, and the fact that Chris could give that to him, that truth, mattered too. That part had never been a lie.
“That night in your condo against the ladder, when you gave me control of you, what mattered more—that you hardly knew me, or that I could give you this?” Chris pressed harder against Hawes, pinning him to the window, shoving his thigh between Hawes’s legs.
Hawes keened. “Fuck yes.”
“Or the times we’ve been together since. In my condo when I fed you my cock. The other morning in your bed.” Chris kissed him, slow and deep, until they were both panting. “Does it make any difference to you that I don’t know what your favorite color is? Or what your favorite food is?” Chris slowly sank to his knees. “Or does it matter that I make you feel steady?”
“Oh God,” Hawes groaned, thrusting forward as Chris worked open his fly. “I need you.”
Chris yanked Hawes’s jeans and boxers down and breathed against the cock straining toward him. “I need you too, baby. In my mouth, in my home, in my future.” He shifted back on his haunches and stared up at a lust-drunk Hawes Madigan. Hands on Hawes’s hips, Chris pressed Hawes’s bare ass against the window, breaking his daze enough to make him loll his head forward, gazing down at Chris. “Do you want that too, with me?”
“Fuck yes,” Hawes moaned again. “All of it.”
“Then trust me. Trust this as much as I do.”
Chris expected an okay, an I do, a yes. He didn’t expect Hawes to step out of his jeans and boxers and slink down the window onto his knees, bringing them front to front. To give Chris a long, claiming kiss, the best of Chris’s life. He didn’t expect Hawes to draw gently back with a “thank you” and then lie back on the floor, completely open for the taking.
Trusting.
Chris rewarded that trust. Teasing his cock and balls with licks and kisses. Nipping his way back up Hawes’s body as he rid him of his tank, flattening his tongue over his nipples, sucking and biting and making Hawes’s spine bow. Spreading Hawes’s legs and ass cheeks and working him open with his tongue. And once Hawes was good and slick, writhing and begging for more, pumping his fingers in and out as he jacked Hawes’s cock with his other hand. Leaning over and catching the eruption in his mouth as Hawes’s chants of “I love you, I love you, I love you” echoed off the walls.
Then, once Hawes had caught his breath, Chris falling onto the floor next to him and trusting Hawes to handle him with the same care. Arching his back and scrabbling at the unforgiving floor as Hawes mercilessly teased, kissed, and licked, then shouting as Hawes swallowed him down without preamble, confident and in control. Returning the chorus of “I love you, I love you, I love you” as his king sucked him off to the light of the morning sun streaming in through t
he windows and brightening their world.
Chapter Thirteen
Elegant only lasted as far as the San Mateo Bridge. They had just crested the mid-rise and were coming down into Foster City when not one but two tails fell in behind them.
“We’ve got company,” Hawes said. “Two bikes behind us.”
“Bogey at the turnoff,” Chris radioed. He was a few car lengths ahead, riding passenger in the transport van while Tran drove. “Black Jeep Trackhawk. Tinted windows. Can’t detect the number of bodies inside.”
The tails were unexpected, the bogey was not. This was one of the third-party rip-off spots they had anticipated. A spot where highway patrol frequently hid to speed-trap drivers who hadn’t slowed down after coming off the bridge. A spot where someone aiming to highjack the van full of explosives could dart right out of.
Fuck, they weren’t even going to get to where Alice and Sue were supposedly hijacking the transport. Someone else was doing it first.
“Intercept four,” Holt announced to the rest of the team, deducing the same. “Initiate traffic break at 101 and on the bridge at the rise. No more traffic coming through. Perri, slow enough for the traffic around you all to clear out.”
But not so much that the tails behind them would catch up. It was a tricky balance. Avery, driving the vehicle Hawes was in, slowed to keep pace. At least whatever hell was about to break loose would be contained to this stretch of only a few miles. Didn’t make the knot in Hawes’s gut loosen much. Yes, he was ready to get this over with. Yes, he’d directed other complicated ops before, including the one last night. But none of those ops had this much riding on it—the lives of those he loved, the future of their organization, his family’s legacy. He’d be a fool not to feel some apprehension.
“Clear of surrounding vehicles,” Holt said.
Beside Hawes, Avery stepped on the gas, moving closer to the transport van. And Chris.
“Any idea who?” Hawes asked.
Holt, who was operating remote command in a Jax-driven van a mile ahead of the transport, was tapped into the traffic cams, full access courtesy of SFPD. “Can’t get a read on the bikes’ plates. Will get the Jeep’s plates as soon as it hits the freeway.”
Was this a true third-party rip-off, or Remy or Brewster springing early, or Rose trying to take off with the explosives while keeping Brewster’s money? All options were on the table. Any of them could hijack the van, keep driving west on 92, hit 280, and be home free. Which was why they had planned for this scenario as well. They were ready.
More than ready. Fuck it. “Faster, Chris. Let’s get this done.”
Chris had the gall to chuckle. “Your patience is for shit.”
“For this, it is. We’ve controlled the variables as much as we can. Let’s do this, on our terms.”
“Roger that.”
Hawes heard the lingering smile in his voice, and it steadied him, even as the bikes behind them grew louder, speeding up too. “You ready to drive like our lives depend on it?” he said to Avery.
Her grin was positively ecstatic. “Always, boss.”
“Three minutes out,” Helena said over the roar of her Ducati.
“Hena,” he warned, a reminder of their conversation last night.
“Backup only, I know.”
“Victoria, Malik,” Holt said, “confirm position.”
“In position,” Victoria replied. They were waiting just past the turnoff, in a parking lot near where the mileage sign overhung the freeway, a hole cut through the wire fence so the SUV they were in could plow through and enter the freeway if needed.
“Bogey is on the move,” Tran said.
As were the bikes behind them, drawing up on either side of Hawes’s rear bumper. “Faster, Avery.”
Chris started the countdown ahead. “Passing the intercept point in three…two…”
“Fuck!” Holt shouted. “I’ve lost eyes on!”
And on the heels of that report, Chris bit out, “Jesus Christ!”
Hawes whipped around in his seat, looking ahead to where the bogey had charged onto the freeway right in front of the transport. The van swerved to avoid hitting the Jeep but clipped its back fender and sent it spinning. The van careened the opposite direction, teetering on two wheels, then came down hard, one tire blowing out with a bang.
Hawes caught sight of Chris’s wide brown eyes for a split second before Avery shouted, “Incoming eastbound.”
Hawes whipped his gaze to the other side of the freeway. Two sedans were drifting across the lanes, sliding so they’d align right on the other side of the dividing barrier. It would be a short hop over the concrete half wall and across a lane of traffic to where the transport had shuddered to a stop.
Hawes pointed ahead, to the gap. “Get between them.”
“Can’t go that direction. Bike’s between me and the wall.” Sure enough, the tail on their left had drawn up alongside the back door. And they were both closing in too fast on the van to just smash the bike into the wall. They wouldn’t fit.
Hawes drew several knives out of the bag at his feet. Wrapping his nonthrowing arm through the seat-belt strap, he leaned out the car window, aiming for the bike on their right first, eliminating the other rider’s cover. Two knives—one into the driver’s chest, the other into his front tire—and the bike and rider went down. He climbed farther out, ass on the window frame, and aimed toward the other rider. The first throw ricocheted off the rider’s shoulder, slowing them down enough that Avery drew ahead, and Hawes got enough distance to hit the rider center mass with his next throw.
No sooner had he let the knife fly than Avery yanked him back into the car. He fell into his seat, and he could swear his right hand scraped metal as Avery drove them into the gap, swerving and wedging them to a grinding halt. An added barrier for the unrecognizable mercs climbing out of their cars.
“This way!” Knife in one hand, Hawes threw open his door with the other, and Avery climbed out after him, her door jammed against the barrier.
A shot flew overhead, Hawes and Avery ducked behind their vehicle, and then the roar of a bike Hawes knew well sounded not just over his comm. “I’m on them,” Helena said.
Hawes turned, looking back through the window, and watched as a knife flipped end over end, lodging in the chest of the merc half over the wall. Helena didn’t even slow, just kept bearing down on the other merc, who was now running the opposite direction.
Toward where two more cars were careening over the mid-rise of the bridge.
“Holt!” Hawes called. “We need eyes, ASAP! They keep coming! Malik, get back there for rear support!” He needed to get to where he could hear Chris and Tran engaged in combat, but he couldn’t leave them exposed back here.
“On my way,” Malik replied, while Holt continued to curse.
“She’s fucking locking me out.”
“Who?” Hawes said.
“Amelia! I can recognize my own code.”
Hawes’s blood ran cold.
This was Rose. Again.
Except these were hired mercs attacking them. Not soldiers.
He glanced again at the car descending the rise. Eva’s. And was that another soldier in the passenger seat? Were they coming to attack or support? Helena’s tires squealed, smoking, as she wheeled back around. Leaving her back exposed to the incoming cars. Because she knew who those belonged to. Who they were loyal to.
Same as the sirens that now joined the cacophony of noise. The cavalry was closing in too.
They had the numbers.
They had Rose.
And Hawes was so done with this shit.
Knife at the ready, Hawes stood and stalked across the freeway toward Chris, who was engaged in hand to hand with another merc. Catching sight of him, Chris kicked his attacker back, right into Hawes. Looping an arm around the merc’s chest, Hawes sliced the knife across his throat, dropping the merc.
There was a merc at Tran’s feet too, but her focus was on the Jeep. “There’s a
nother one in there,” she said, holding her gun at the ready. “I’m on it.”
Hawes took his eyes off Tran for one second. One second to sweep his eyes up and down Chris, to check for any injuries, and in that one second, a shot rang out.
Tran’s body spun, the force of the bullet sending her to the ground. “Tran’s hit!” Chris shouted as he grabbed Hawes and yanked him behind the van.
“Victoria,” Hawes called. She was the operative closest to Tran. “Get her clear.”
“On it.”
“We need to see who’s in that car,” Chris said, and Hawes nodded. Chris signaled to Avery to cover them, and he and Hawes approached together, Chris in front with his gun at the ready.
“ATF. Get out of the car.”
Chris took another step toward the Jeep and a shot flew out the open back window. Hawes grabbed Chris by the back of the shirt and hauled him down, just in time.
“It’s Scotty!” came Holt’s panicked voice over the comm. “It’s Wheeler in the car!”
“Are you sure?” Chris said.
“Amelia’s blocking my eyes, but she sent me a message in the code.”
Hawes hardly heard them, their back and forth no match for the blood rushing in his ears. Déjà vu of the worst kind washed over him, his worst nightmare come to life again. He saw the scene through his eyes of three years ago, something he’d fought to block out, same as he fought to control the variables in this op today, three years later.
Today was different. Light instead of dark. Dry instead of rainy. No gun in his hand, versus the Colt 1911. Yet it was the same. His future, his life, versus an innocent’s.
The back door of the Jeep swung open, and bloodied wrists appeared, a gun in Scotty’s hands, the bracing one missing a finger.
Calm resignation—and acceptance—washed over Hawes. It had never really been over, but it would be today, one way or the other. “Chris, back up.”
“Hawes, no!” Chris shouted as Hawes moved in front of him.
Scotty wobbled on unsteady legs, tears streaming down his face as blood dripped from his wrists and hands. “I don’t want to shoot you.”