by Layla Reyne
Because Brax kept his word. And that Braxton Kane—a man who valued his honor, his reputation, his job, and the difference he made in others’ lives—wouldn’t risk all that, his word, for a bribe. “I’m sure.”
Holt scrolled to the video embedded in the news bulletin, pressed play, and watched as the assistant chief issued brief remarks, stating that an investigation was ongoing, and that Chief Kane was on administrative leave.
Suspension, effectively.
“Fuck.” He handed the phone back to Helena before he gave in to the earlier urge to chuck it across the room. He reached for his daughter, needing the comfort she provided. When his thoughts were a tornado, there had only ever been a few things that could quiet the storm: hacking; Amelia, for a time; Lily; and Brax. “Did you call him?”
“Tried,” Helena said. “So did Hawes and Chris. No answer.”
Not a good sign. “I have to go to him.”
“Yeah, you do.” Reading his intent, Helena was already packing Lily’s go bag. Holt scrambled around the room, Lily still on his hip, as he packed up the rest of her things one-handed. When he turned back to Helena, she held out the toddler carrier to him. “Bike or Beemer?”
He took the carrier, rolled it, and tucked it under his other arm. “Beemer. I want to take Lily.” She had the same calming effect on Brax as she did on him. Another reason this distance was absurd. Why not at least let him drop off Lily for some time with her godfather? They hadn’t had a proper visit in months. “She’ll make him feel better.”
Helena’s face transformed from mission critical into the soft expression Holt had seen more often lately, thanks to Celia.
“What’s that smile for?” he asked.
She grinned wider. “Nothin’. Don’t let him push you away. This is too serious for whatever stick he has up his ass.”
Nodding, he readjusted Lily and added her go bag to the same shoulder his laptop bag hung from. “Can you close up here?”
“Sure thing. Keys?”
“There’s a spare set in the top kitchen drawer.” They were supposed to be for Brax. “And—”
“I’ll round up Hawes and Chris for a debrief this afternoon. House or MCS?”
“House,” he said, following her down the stairs. “Let’s get a handle on this privately before involving others. But do put Oak on alert.”
She opened the door for him. “Already did.”
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
“Good luck!” she shouted after him as he hustled down the steps and along the short path to the driveway.
He popped the SUV’s trunk, tossed the bags on top of the folded stroller in back, then carried Lily around to her car seat, fighting the tremble of his hands as he fastened her in.
Her little hands patted his arm excitedly. “Go?”
“Yeah, baby girl, we go.” He smoothed her wild auburn curls and kissed her forehead, letting the warmth and smell of her calm his nerves. “To see your Uncle Brax.”
She clapped. “Ba-Ba!”
Holt hoped Brax would be as happy to see them.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Holt glanced up from where Lily was crawling after the multi-colored sensory balls on Brax’s carpeted office floor. Holt had been heartened to find the toys still stashed in Brax’s bottom desk drawer. Brax stood in the doorway, just back from a meeting that, by the hard set of his jaw, the deep crease between his brows, and his overly wrinkled shirt sleeves, had turned his already bad day to worse. Guilt racked Holt; he should have been here sooner.
Shouldn’t have let three months go by with only a single phone call.
“I just saw the news. I’m so—”
Brax slammed the door shut. “You can’t be here.” He crossed the room to the interior bullpen window and peeked through the slatted blinds. Blinds Holt had called ahead to Jax about, to make sure they were closed. The usual protocol. That and some hijacked electronic locks and surveillance cameras. “No one saw us come in.”
“I’m sure no one did.” Brax snatched his fingers out of the blinds and turned, hands on his hips. “But it’s grand fucking central around here. Anyone could come in at any—”
Holt stood, picked up Lily, and thrust her at Brax, giving him no choice but to take his excited goddaughter. “Ba-Ba!”
As Holt expected, Brax crushed her to his chest. The maneuver muffled her squeals of joy, but the peace that swept over Brax’s face—the fluttering closed of his eyelids, the flattening of the divot between his brows, the loosening of the muscle at the corner of his jaw—was indication enough that concealing their presence hadn’t been his only motive. “Hey, princess,” he whispered and dropped a kiss in her curls.
Lily shoved an arm between them, lifting a toy, almost ramming it into his nose. “Yes!”
Brax chuckled. “Your wish is my command.” He took the toy and tossed it in the air a couple times, catching it easily.
Lily clapped and Brax held her closer, rubbing a hand over her back and shushing her.
“Better?” Holt asked once she settled.
“Yes, but I’m serious, Holt.” He rested back against the credenza under the bullpen window. “The hot water is rising, IA is already on my case, and the state attorney general is asking questions now too.”
“Internal Affairs? Since when? We didn’t get any flags.”
Brax tossed the ball again, ignoring him.
Ignoring him.
“Is that why you’ve been pushing us away? An IA investigation? We can take care—”
“I can’t answer that, and you can’t get involved. This can’t lead back to you.”
The implication stung, but it was reality. Holt’s family ran a criminal empire—he was a criminal. Whose best friend was the chief of police. Conflicts of interest were bound to catch up to them eventually. But it hadn’t stopped Holt from telling Brax to take the job with SFPD. He would’ve done anything to have Brax in the same place with him again. And he’d do anything to make sure Brax was happy, his job secure, even if that meant backing off. But he didn’t think that’s what Brax needed either.
“You’re worried about being connected to us,” he said. “Don’t be, Cap. I covered—”
Hazel eyes, made more green than brown today by the darkening circles beneath them, shot to his. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about them using me to get to you and your family. You can’t be involved.”
Holt should’ve known. Sacrifice, thy name is Braxton Kane. Well, fuck that. Brax had sacrificed enough already.
“Our family, and they won’t get to us.” He leaned a hip against the credenza next to Brax’s. “And I won’t let them take this from you either. I can handle IA.” He and Hawes regularly reviewed SFPD’s roster and updated data and leverage points. He knew what levers to pull, which keys to strike.
“Don’t,” Brax bit out. “It’s too risky.” He patted Lily’s back. “For both of you.”
It was riskier to do nothing, but Holt didn’t say that. Arguing wasn’t what Brax needed. He’d already had enough of that today by the look of him.
Brax inhaled deep, seeming to accept Holt’s silence for acceptance. Or just falling under Lily’s comforting spell. She was humming a wordless tune and tapping out an uncoordinated rhythm on his chest. He listened for another minute before lifting his gaze. “You’re not going to ask about the picture?”
“I don’t need to.” Holt shifted closer, one hand on Lily’s back, the other braced behind Brax, caging him in for what Holt had to say next, expecting a protest. “And besides, Helena and Oak will ask enough for all of us.”
Sure enough, Brax tried to push off the credenza and failed. His words shook with the growled brunt of his distress. “What part of can’t be involved didn’t you understand?”
“What part of family didn’t you understand?”
Lily ended the debate for them, placing a tiny hand on the side of Brax’s face. “Yes, Ba-Ba.”
; The innocent gesture knocked the wind right out of Brax. Deflating, he wobbled, and Holt lifted the arm behind him, curling it around Brax’s shoulders and curling him into them. Holding him up with Lily between them. For the first time in months, he had Brax in his arms again, and the threads that tied them together didn’t feel so frayed. “I’ve got you,” he said, lending his physical weight. “I’ll make this right,” he added, lending the full weight of his heart, his skills, and their family’s influence to back up the promise.
Chapter Ten
Holt opened the front door to his family’s Victorian monster and was blasted with a wave of enticing aromas: braised beef, carrots and onions, garlic and herbs, red wine gravy. Not the first time he’d had the pleasure lately, and Holt was grateful for the food and the company. At the end of last year, with Hawes moved into Chris’s renovated condo and Helena out of town for work, it had just been him, Lily, and the cats knocking around the house. They’d lost so many people—to betrayal, to jail, to death, to whatever the fuck was keeping Brax away—that the big empty house had felt like a giant cavern of loneliness and regrets. But it wasn’t only the added company that had chased those ghosts away. This place was finally starting to feel like a home again.
Thanks in no small part to the Perri invasion. Celia and her two kids had practically moved in, and because Chris wanted to spend time with his sister and niblings, he was around more often, bringing Hawes with him. Gloria, the Perri matriarch, frequently visited too, and that woman was so full of energy she could power an electrical grid. A part of Holt felt disconnected still, outside their circle, but overall, it was a welcome counterbalance to the darkness that had surrounded the Madigans for too long.
Darkness that Holt couldn’t handle at eighteen, so his grandfather had suggested he join the army. He’d needed the escape, and while there’d been darkness in the desert too, it had been a different sort. And there had been Brax. It had been a relief, a simpler life for a time, until he’d been needed back home. He’d been afraid to return, to the darkness and everything his family was, and it sure as fuck had gotten darker than he’d ever imagined, but the bright spots—his siblings, Lily, Brax—had carried him through to now when their family was expanding and life had finally begun to brighten again. Except that brightness had somehow skirted around Brax, and those same gray clouds were threatening Holt’s daylight too.
Motion from across the dining room snapped Holt out of his thoughts. Celia tossed her apron on a chair, set an empty mason jar on the table, and grabbed her oversized leather purse off the floor, disturbing the snowy white Siberian who’d nested on it. She scratched the cat behind her ears. “Sorry, Daisy,” she cooed. “Momma will give you a treat for your trouble.” The tabby Tulip meowed in agreement. Grinning, Celia straightened and stepped to Helena’s side. “Treat the cats.”
“You fucking set me up.”
“I did, and that’s a dollar for you in the swear jar. The shelter kids are gonna have a bumper year at this rate.” Celia had been warning them since Lily started talking that fuck would be one of her first words if they didn’t all cut back on using it. Holt tended to think Lily should learn when and when not to use it, but Celia had correctly noted that a toddler wasn’t exactly the master of a well-timed fuck. So the swear jar had been introduced, with all proceeds going to their shelters. “Beef stew should be done in a few hours,” she said. “I’m gonna swing by the shop, make sure all is under control, then pick up the kids and head to Ma’s.” She pecked Helena’s cheek. “Call me when you get a break.”
Helena gave her a longer smooch on the lips. “Thanks, baby.”
Across the table, Chris averted his gaze, hilariously scandalized, while Hawes and Jax snickered. Holt laughed too, letting the warmth settle after an unsettled night and crazier day. He was happy his sister had found a partner so perfectly suited for her. Said partner approached him where he stood over the threshold of the room. Celia’s dark eyes and easy smile were kind as she ruffled a sleeping Lily’s hair. “You need anything, you let me know, okay?”
“Thanks, Cee.”
He stepped back into the foyer and opened the door for her, waiting to hear her SUV crank before sneaking back inside. He didn’t immediately return to the dining room, instead tucking Lily into her pack and play in the living room and diverting through the kitchen for a ginger ale and another whiff of goodness. “Someone’s challenging you for best chef, Big H.”
Hawes shot him the bird.
Helena preened. “I fucking scored.”
Chris pointed at the swear jar. “That’s my sister you’re talking about.”
Helena snickered as she shoved a wad of cash into the jar. “Your point, Mr. Hair?”
Definitely starting to feel like a home again, sibling teasing turned up to twenty.
“How’d it go with the chief?” Jax asked, bringing everyone back to the grim reality of why they were gathered there. His hacker protégé ran a hand over their head, flattening their pink-streaked Mohawk, the gesture strikingly similar to Brax’s nervous tick. They were picking up both their habits—Holt’s skills and Brax’s behaviors. Not surprising. While Holt had been their mentor in hacker mayhem, Brax had been their mentor in law-abiding citizenry, taking Jax under his wing and giving them a postshelter gig as an IT specialist with SFPD.
“This is going to be harder than we thought.” Holt set his can of soda on the buffet table that ran along one wall, away from the dining table covered in photos and printouts. He repressed his twitch at all the paper; Chris’s doing no doubt. “Brax is pulling away. Doesn’t want our help.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Helena said. “He’s family.”
“He doesn’t want his family hurt,” Chris correctly surmised.
Holt nodded. “Gold star for Mr. Hair.” He lowered himself into a chair. “IA’s all over his ass, and he’s worried they’ll use him to get to us. I got the impression IA wasn’t only looking at this latest scandal.”
“That’s why he’s been pulling away,” Helena said.
“Makes sense,” Hawes said. “Do we know what IA is after?”
Holt shook his head. “Brax wouldn’t tell me.”
All three Madigan heads swung to Jax, who lifted their hands. “Today was the first I heard IA was involved. I’ll see if I can find out more.” They gestured at the photos on the table. “Can we focus on these for now?”
Hawes rolled up his shirt sleeves and braced one hand on the table. With the other, he pushed three photos across to Holt. “Jax brought these over.”
“These are from the news report?”
“Yes,” Jax said. “I cleaned up the resolution on the original then split it in two, so we’ve also got solo close-ups of the chief and the other person.”
Holt moved Brax’s photo aside—that was clearly him—and examined the picture of the unidentified man. White, male, dark hair, dark suit. Late thirties or early forties if Holt had to guess. Still didn’t recognize him.
He swapped the solo photo for the wide frame shot. Noticed something off. He pushed it out of the way and grabbed the solo shot of Brax. The same something was off there too, only it was clearer. “The photo’s been doctored.”
“I thought so too,” Chris said. “Missing shadow.” The former ATF agent was sharp. Good thing he was officially on their side now. “You wouldn’t be able to tell in the fuzzy picture that’s all over the news.”
“Explain,” Helena said.
Holt slid the photo of the two men in front of his sister. “It’s not even that noticeable here because Brax’s shadow eclipses most of it.” The sun was slicing down the alley where they’d stood, between buildings and over roofs, casting long shadows on the pavement and up the walls. “But look here…” He tapped the spot where their shadows almost connected at the lower corner of the building.
Almost.
Helena bent and squinted, her blue eyes going wide, her brows racing high, when she also realized what was missing. “There’s no shado
w of the bills.”
Holt nudged over the solo picture of Brax. “The missing shadow’s more obvious in this one. Just two hands reaching toward each other. No straight line that would indicate a solid object between them.”
“But he was there.” Helena claimed the chair next to him. “Only the money wasn’t.” She wasn’t wrong and that was a problem for them.
“Who got the photo first?” Hawes asked Jax. “Department or reporters?”
“Department.”
Holt jerked in surprise, then briefly mentally applauded himself for setting his soda can aside before his anger—and worry—burned away the praise. “We have a leak to deal with too?”
“Which makes no sense,” Jax said. “Everyone loves the chief.”
“Except IA.” Hawes, both hands on the table now, drummed his thumbs against the lacquered wood. “Leverage. Everyone has a weak spot.”
And Holt, in his role for the organization, was a master at finding those, but first he had to find the leak. “Can you get me into the system?” he asked Jax.
“Yep,” they replied. “Anything I can do to help.”
“Did the photo come into IA?”
“No, it was sent to Assistant Chief Thompson.” Jax scrounged around in their messenger bag, produced a tablet, and after a few quick taps, laid the tablet face up in the middle of the table, an email displayed. “She received it and turned it over to Internal Affairs like she’s supposed to.”