by Layla Reyne
“An outsider,” Chris reasoned. “Someone who’d promised Amelia the head of the table when this was all over. Someone who wanted an ally there and was willing to use those explosives to do it. Maybe for something else too.” He picked up his tacks and string and put a red X out to the right side of the org chart.
Good, Dante. Now, when did the outsider enter the picture?
He rotated and examined the opposite wall.
Crime scene photos and reports from the night of Izzy’s death were assembled in a collage with three years’ worth of case notes. It had been the first thing Chris had arranged in his home office when he’d returned to San Francisco for this operation. He didn’t care about the holes in the walls; they needed a fresh coat of paint anyway. He’d do that once he completed this mission, once he was done and had time to transform this place back into a home.
He reached out and grabbed the top folder off the stack on his desk. Withdrawing the offshore bank account ledger he’d shown to Hawes, he flipped it over to the oldest highlighted transaction on the back. He grabbed another tack and added this latest piece of evidence to the collection. Three years ago, Amelia had paid Zander Rowe from that account. Two years after Hawes had assumed the throne, operationally if not officially.
Their mysterious outsider was playing the long game. They’d decided fairly quickly that they didn’t want Hawes in charge. Had made an attempt using Rowe somehow, and it had backfired. After Izzy’s death, Hawes had solidified the organization’s new direction. Gone even further toward caution and vigilantism versus straight-up fear and power. So the objectors, led by this outsider, had waited until Papa Cal’s death—the official transfer of power—to strike.
Why, Dante?
“Because transfers of power are hectic. A good time to strike.”
But that couldn’t be all. He glanced out the bay windows on the other side of his desk. He couldn’t see the Bay from here, but it was out there. And so too was Lucas, somewhere at the bottom of its inky depths. He remembered what the traitor had said on the boat that day Hawes had all but ordered him killed. Remembered what Amelia had said in her final stand at the condo. “Because someone thought Hawes was weak.”
Hawes, however, had embraced the perceived weakness—in his person and his motives—and had made it his strength. And now he wasn’t just a prince but a king. A threat of the highest order.
To whom?
“Competitors, former allies, former clients.”
And who can lead you to those?
“Amelia Madigan.”
Chris had been focused on digging into Hawes’s connections, then into Holt’s. Time to shift gears. Amelia was his way in. Who had she crossed paths with? Where did her loyalties truly lie? Were the answers on the flash drive backup? Where the fuck was it? He needed to find it before the Madigans did. And he needed to find the outsider before Hawes did, because, while it was in the ATF’s and Chris’s interests to catch that person and put them on trial, to get justice for Izzy’s death, among other crimes, Hawes, Chris expected, had a very different endgame in mind. The only one that would secure his family’s future and protect those he held dear.
You can’t let that happen.
“I know.”
Even if a not small part of Chris didn’t object to Hawes’s brand of justice.
Chapter Four
The light on the flash drive plugged into Chris’s computer blinked orange, signaling the file transfer was in progress, just as the click of electronic door locks sounded from his desk speakers. He’d powered them on and synced them with his phone as soon as he’d returned home. Someone else had finally returned home too.
“Hey, girl,” Hawes said. “Sorry I was gone all day.” His voice was gentle and quiet—and tired, his exhale breathy, his syllables long. People claimed there wasn’t a California accent, and Chris generally agreed, except there was a distinctive cadence, which was more noticeable when it was off, like it was in Hawes’s voice now.
Iris let out a warbling meow, sounding both angry and confused. She made the noise again, then screeched a protest yowl. Hawes’s words were amplified when he spoke next. “Just me, you little traitor.”
Chris smiled at the memory of being stretched out on Hawes’s couch, pretending to be asleep with Iris on his feet while Hawes prepared for a job, and at the irony of Hawes’s words, more true than he knew. Chris had tucked his bug into the narrow folds of Iris’s collar, which was transmitting loud and clear with the cat in Hawes’s arms.
“I still love you anyway,” Hawes cooed. “Let’s get you some food.” His voice faded as he put Iris down, the cat no doubt scampering off to her bowl in the kitchen.
Chris turned the speaker volume down and tried not to listen too closely as Hawes moved about his condo. If Hawes contacted his siblings or another organization associate, Chris would detect the change in tone and tune back in. Until then, he didn’t want to completely trample Hawes’s expectation of privacy. The condo—his home—was a safe haven, from work, the organization, and his family, when he needed a break. As it was, it had been violated by the chaos Amelia had wrought. Chris didn’t want to compound any insecurity Hawes already felt inside the space… which consideration for his mark was fucking ridiculous. Chris should be doing everything he could to throw Hawes Madigan off-balance, to make him feel unsafe and on-guard. He’d be more likely to make a mistake then, and Chris had an inside track. He knew better than most which buttons to push to multiply the mistakes. He’d made a physical and emotional connection with the cold, untouchable, beautiful, and efficient killer Izzy had described in her files. Chris didn’t disagree with the latter two, but the first two couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything about Hawes was hot, and every inch of him was eminently touchable. The waves of light brown hair, the smooth pale skin dotted with freckles, all those sharp angles. Chris had convinced himself that he’d been the one taking Hawes apart that night in the condo against the ladder, finding a way into the assassin’s mind and body, but Hawes had snuck under Chris’s skin too. Further even, if the ache in his chest and groin were any indication.
Not good, Izzy chided.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
He propped his elbows on the desk and scrubbed his hands over his face. Fingers tunneling into his hair, he loosened the tie around his topknot and massaged his scalp as the long strands fell free. This couldn’t be about what he wanted. None of that mattered until he was done, after he found Izzy’s killer and closed the ATF’s investigation into the explosives. Chris had a better chance of succeeding on both fronts by working with the Madigans against whoever it was working against them. That was the real enemy here—the party who wanted to turn the organization back into the indiscriminate killing machine of Papa Cal’s reign. The party who would use the stolen explosives to make their objective a reality. It was all twisted and tied together. Chris couldn’t solve one without the other.
Which was what he needed to focus on. Not the clink of whisky bottles, not the splash of water in Hawes’s shower, not the snippets of the Giants game on replay, and not Hawes’s light snores. Not how rumpled and enticing Hawes must look lying on his couch. Like he’d looked Friday morning before Chris had woken him—wavy top strands sticking out in every direction, lean, corded muscles relaxed in sleep, a layer of darker scruff shadowing his angular jaw.
He wanted him still, maybe even more so than when he’d last seen Hawes. But what would be left of what he wanted when he was done with what he had to do? Was there a shot in hell Hawes would ever forgive him? That he’d ever touch—
Stop it!
His voice, not Izzy’s. He shut down the thoughts making his jeans uncomfortable and got back to work. He took another spin through his and Izzy’s files, recasting contacts and events around Amelia, searching for her connections and hiding places. An hour later, he was scrolling through search results—pre-Madigan-Amelia’s last known addresses and places of employment cross-referenced against all persons flagged
in the previous Madigan investigations—when Hawes’s voice trickled out of the speakers again. Chris turned up the volume so he could hear it more clearly.
“No, no, no,” Hawes mumbled. “Get off me! I can’t just leave!”
Chris shot to his feet and snatched his keys off the desk. Someone was in Hawes’s condo trying to force him to leave. Granted, Hawes could take care of himself, but if the intruder had surprised Hawes in his sleep, like Chris had done yesterday, then Hawes could be at their mercy. Fuck, Chris needed to get there. But he couldn’t get there quickly enough from his place in Mission Dolores. He should alert Kane, get an officer on Hawes. Or better yet…
Chris grabbed his phone and scrolled to Holt’s contact info. But then he stalled, thumb over the Call button, as his mind pushed through the panic to comprehend what he was hearing.
“No, no, no,” Hawes repeated. “Get off me! I can’t just leave!”
If an assailant was in the condo, if an actual fight was imminent, Iris would have bolted, not gotten closer, as indicated by Hawes’s louder mumbles. Add to that her frantic purring, so loud it sounded like the hum of Chris’s Harley, and he deduced the cat was trying to wake her owner from a nightmare.
Finally, she meowed, so plaintive and piercing that Chris winced.
And Hawes fell silent. Until the counting began. Same as it had the first night Chris had slept there, then again the night after Papa Cal died. Those times Chris had been in Hawes’s condo. He could have gone to him if necessary. But Hawes had shaken himself out of it after a few repetitions, the arrival of his siblings hastening the process. Tonight, however, Hawes was alone, the counting continued, and Chris was halfway across town, feeling untethered, like Hawes had described feeling earlier in the week.
Chris tapped back to his contacts list, thumb hovering over Hawes’s name. Would he even take Chris’s call? In the unlikely event he did, what the fuck would Chris say? He had zero reason for calling at one in the morning. It wouldn’t be case related. They already had a meet scheduled for that. No, this was dick related at best, heart related at worst.
“Fuck!”
Chris bolted out of the study and charged into the kitchen, nearly ripping the fridge door off in his haste to get a beer. He tossed the phone onto the island, dug out a bottle opener, and popped the cap, which bounced off the tiles and rolled across the hardwood floor toward the study. Tempting him to follow it back in there. To listen. He rounded the kitchen island and leaned back against it, pretending not to see the cap there, not to hear the only other sound in his too quiet condo.
Hawes’s counting.
Through half the bottle of beer, then the rest of it.
Chris snatched up the phone and hit the Call button.
Iris hissed, knocked something over as she skittered across the metal coffee table, and Chris realized he only had a couple of seconds to move—the time it would take Hawes to reach for his phone—or else Hawes would hear the echo from Chris’s speakers.
He hustled the length of the open kitchen, past the dining table, and down the long hallway bisecting his unit, to the seating area at the back of his narrow, second-floor condo. This area was intended as a mudroom entry from the stairs leading down to the backyard, but Chris rarely ventured out there. Instead, he’d made this room his reading nook—a leaning bookcase brimming over with paperbacks on one short wall, a coffee table and low-slung chaise on the long wall, and across from the chaise, big casement windows through which he had a decent view of the city. South, toward the condo and the man in it, who answered his call with, “It’s late.”
Better than the “fuck off” Chris had expected. He moved a stack of books from the chaise to the bookshelf, then lowered himself into the lounge’s soft padded corner. “You’re awake.”
“So are you,” Hawes said, rough and rumbly. “At one in the morning. Why’s that?”
“Was reviewing Izzy’s case files.”
“Izzy.” The background noise of the TV quieted. Still in the den, and by the lack of footsteps anywhere, still on the couch. “Your partner.”
How much to disclose? Chris wanted to keep Hawes talking, keep him engaged, and this particular cat was out of the bag already. A little truth could go a long way. “I considered her that, as much as two undercover agents could be. She recruited and trained me at a time when I needed a new direction. One of us would be in the field, undercover, while the other was operational backup. Then, about four years ago, we were assigned separately. I was sent to Florida on a cartel sting.”
Hawes was silent, long enough that Chris checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Hawes, you there?”
“And she was sent to infiltrate my organization.” His dark tone set off a ripple of goose bumps that lifted the hairs on Chris’s arms.
“That’s right.”
“And three years later, here you are.” Hawes hummed, contemplative. “Patience.”
“Something like that.”
Pensive gave way to indignant. “You waited until I was weakest.”
“No.” Chris shifted forward on the chaise, as if to emphasize his point to an imaginary Hawes leaning against the windows. “I waited until I got that flash drive and it became apparent someone else was making a move.”
“So that wasn’t bullshit?”
“I told you it wasn’t all a lie.”
“It’s hard to sort out what was and wasn’t.”
“Ask me.” The truth had kept Hawes talking so far. Chris could offer him more, anything, to reestablish this connection. For the sake of the case, of course, nothing to do with what he wanted.
“Are you really from here?” Hawes asked.
Chris bit back his sigh of relief and settled in for the conversation he’d wanted all day. Lifting and bending one leg, he rested it on the cushions and slung an arm along the back of the chaise. “Yes, born and raised in North Beach.”
“Is your family still here?”
“They are.”
Hawes huffed in disbelief. “Why would you tell me that? You’re putting them at risk.”
“I’m not.” Of that, Chris was sure, more so with Hawes’s organization than with any other he’d investigated. “Hurting them would be against your rules.”
“My rules…” Hawes’s words died on a bitter chuckle.
It scraped over Chris’s bones, same as it had earlier. He hated it, hated the doubt he’d added to that mix. “Your rules are a good thing, Madigan.”
“Should have recognized that for what it was. Cop.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I considered it when you walked into Danko.” The leather of the couch creaked and fabric shifted, Hawes relaxing more on his end too. “But then Brax didn’t know you, and…”
“And what?”
“That hair.”
Chris’s cheeks heated, recalling how often Hawes’s gaze had strayed to the long strands, how his hands had tunneled through it, how he’d curled a hank around his fist and tugged. Chris had nearly come on the spot. “You like the hair.”
“Too fucking much.” Judging by the gravel in Hawes’s voice, his mind had gone to the same place. “That, plus your Madigans. Sexy.”
Chris dropped his arm off the back of the chaise, hand landing on his thigh. “Street ran both ways, with your Mr. Perrys.”
“So the formalities wouldn’t have done me any favors, Mr. Perry?”
“Christ.” Chris scooted down and spread his legs, trying to make more room for his thickening cock. “No, Madigan, they would not.”
This was not the conversation Chris had anticipated tonight. He’d needed to get closer again, for the case, but this… This was the closer he wanted but didn’t need. And he was powerless to stop it. Just like he was powerless to stop from sliding his hand toward his erection, which was pressing against the back of his zipper, demanding attention. He gripped himself through the denim, intending to stave off the building desire. He stroked down his length instead. “Probably would have
fucked you sooner,” he gritted out. “Taken you on that deserted dock if you hadn’t stormed off.”
Hawes had been glorious. Fitted, navy suit pants that showed off his high and tight ass, light-brown hair fog kissed and windswept from the ride on the yacht, blue eyes that burned bright with power and lust. Chris bet those eyes were burning bright again now.
Another stroke and Chris bit his lip to hold in the groan.
“I would have let you,” Hawes replied raggedly. “Was already hard.”
“Like you are now?”
“Fuck, Dante.”
Chris bobbled the phone and had to interrupt another stroke to save the device from crashing to the floor. Recovered, he put the phone on speaker and set it on the arm of the chaise. He needed both hands to get his fly open and his dick out as fast as he could. “I remember how you tasted later that night,” he said. “Like the fog.” He swiped his fingers over the slit, collecting moisture, and spread it down his cock, slicking his grip. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto the chaise’s arm. “Light and dark,” he said, remembering the moment. “Hidden and open.” Reliving it. “Suffocating, then freed.”
“I can’t,” Hawes gasped.
Chris paused his strokes and rolled his face toward the phone. “Say the word, and I’ll hang up.”
“Too late.”
Yes, it was, on so many levels. And on this one, Chris wasn’t going to pump the brakes any more than Hawes was. “Get your dick out of those track pants,” he said, figuring that’s what Hawes had changed into after his shower. Commando, as he was prone to do. “And pull your shirt up.” He closed his eyes again, imagining the sight. Hawes laid out on his couch, track pants bunched around his thighs, ribbed tank rucked under his chin, bared torso clenched with tension, the pale skin blotched red with rising heat as Hawes’s hand shuttled up and down his cock.