by Layla Reyne
“We’ve got a hit,” Lauren nearly shouted.
Smiling, Brax patted Holt’s knee, then rolled to make more space between them. “Do your thing, Private.”
Distance was good. He needed it to concentrate, including on the incoming messages from Sam that were lighting up Jamie’s screen. Holt was supposed to be back tracing them, trying to get a lock on Sam’s location, while Jamie kept the negotiation going.
Need more, Jamie typed after some initial back and forth, “confirming” identities.
The photo wasn’t enough? Sam replied.
There’s some doubt. Lawyers.
Price has doubled.
Fine, time is tighter.
Two days, Sam offered.
Two hours, Jamie countered. “Gamble,” he said aloud to the others who had gathered around them. “But we don’t have time to waste.”
They waited—the longest five minutes of Holt’s life—for Sam’s response. Photo or email?
Email to/from BK.
Other party?
“Okay, I need that email address,” Jamie said to Lauren, then to the group. “This is the other gamble. Do we think she’ll check it?”
“Whose is it?” Hawes asked.
“Reno’s guy you gave us last year,” Aidan replied. “We turned him. Planted him in Camino.”
Chris flipped through Sam’s file. “Her rap sheet doesn’t indicate she’s deep in the organization.”
“She wouldn’t be,” Scotty said. “I would have found her by now if she were. I haven’t because she’s stayed on the move, never tying herself to one party.”
“Until she caught Remy’s eye,” Helena said.
“Seems so,” Scotty replied. “In any event, chances are good she won’t know or look that closely. That’s not her business.”
“The less she knows the better,” Hawes said.
“Exactly.”
“Do it,” Brax said, and Jamie sent the address through.
Give me an hour, Sam replied. Price just tripled.
Lauren glanced up, blue eyes wide. “That’s more than we’re authorized for.”
“We’ll cover the difference,” Hawes said, stepping to Lauren’s side. “Just tell me where the money needs to go.”
“You can’t—” Brax started.
Helena cut him off. “You’re family, Brax. We can and we will.”
“We square?” Jamie asked.
Holt rolled to Brax’s side. “Come on, Cap, let us do this. We’re this close.”
After another long moment, Brax nodded.
Account number? Jamie typed back.
An encrypted link appeared, and Lauren went to work, finalizing the wire transfers on the third computer. “It’s rerouting through a cartel account we seized,” she explained. “And the money is on its way.”
Sam’s acknowledgement came fast. Received. Give me an hour.
It only took her fifteen minutes. Two emails appeared in Brax’s mailbox, arranging the meeting and discussing the payment that was supposedly evidenced in the photo. Holt snapped the after pictures.
“Bingo!” Helena said, looking over Jamie’s shoulder. “That’s it.”
“Did we get a lock on her location?” Scotty asked.
“We did,” Holt said, zeroing in on the location. “Looks like a rental. Mussel Shoals area, between Santa Barbara and Ventura.”
“Give me a head start, Talley,” Scotty said, his accent thicker, taking on an edge of desperation. “I’ll catch the next flight out of here. Let me convince her to cooperate.”
“And if she bolts?”
Mel snatched the Savannah Ryan folder out of Chris’s hand. “Seems I have a bounty to catch.”
Holt glanced to Helena, then to Hawes. This was enough to clear Brax, who had Holt and Helena at his back. Someone else needed Hawes and Chris.
“We’ve got this covered,” Helena said, reading Holt loud and clear.
Hawes had too. “Chris and I will back them up.”
Aidan had that same stunned look on his face like Jax had the other day.
“Shake it off, hermano,” Mel said with a laugh. “You and Daniel do the same.”
The redhead laughed, then smoothed down his jacket and tie. “It’ll take me a few hours to get the warrants and coordinate with the LA field office. That’s your head start.”
Scotty hung up, and Hawes and Chris bolted for the door, Mel on their heels.
“We’ll need the records of the conversation,” Helena said. “And those screenshots of Brax’s mailbox.”
“Yep,” Lauren said with a nod, her bun wobbling precariously. She blew an errant strand out of her face. “Let me get everything into evidentiary format.”
Jamie stood and stretched. “I can help with that. Just like the good ol’ days.”
“All the data’s transferred to my office,” Lauren said. “Let’s go.”
The three of them left, catching Aidan up in their wake and leaving Holt and Brax still in their chairs. Even Holt was half in awe at how fast that had all gone down. Brax too, judging by his dazed, “Did that just happen?”
Holt rolled over and pulled him into a hug. “You’re almost clear, Cap.”
They held each other, silent as the computers whirred around them. When Brax’s body began to tremble, Holt thought he might be crying, until a bubble of laughter escaped from between them. “Did those fools just leave you, Holt Madigan, in the FBI cyber cave?”
Holt drew back enough to appreciate the easy smile stretched across Brax’s face. “Guess they figured it was safe with the chief of police.”
Brax smiled wider. “If I still am, it’s because of you.” The tears did appear then, Brax’s eyes going glassy. He hid the tears before they fell, burying his face in Holt’s neck. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Holt hugged him tighter, not the least bit tempted by direct access to the FBI servers, not when he had Braxton Kane wrapped in his arms instead.
Chapter Fifteen
Holt sat in the passenger seat of the X5, knee bouncing, fingers tapping the open window frame. Sunny and sixty-five, a perfect spring day in San Francisco. He hoped the news they were waiting for didn’t dampen the mood.
“I’m about two seconds from ejecting your ass out of this car,” Avery said, not taking her eyes off the building across the street from the lot where they were parked. “That or putting on some music so I can at least pretend the fidgeting is in rhythm.”
“I’ve got rhythm.”
Avery flicked him a side-eye. “Okay, white boy.”
“Hawes and Helena both do.”
“They do.”
“I went to a club once. Had people all over me.”
“It wasn’t your rhythm they were all over.” Her gaze slid forward again, and the corner of her mouth twitched. “I’ve seen you dance with Lily in your arms while Brax tries to sing. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Chuckling, he dropped his elbow from the open window and shifted in his seat, trying and failing to ignore the memories that wouldn’t stay locked down. Brax could move, even if he couldn’t sing, and those moves had been getting all kinds of attention that night in DC. Same as Holt acknowledged Aidan’s and Jamie’s objective good looks, he wasn’t blind to Brax’s. Tall, leanly muscled, a way of carrying himself that spoke of authority but not the fear-me kind. Hair, eyes, and features that all complemented. But that night in DC, attraction had flared, a new appreciation for Brax’s handsome qualities stoked by years of friendship and trust and amplified to twenty by how free and at peace Brax had been on that dance floor. So much of Brax had been hidden, even from Holt, by virtue of the army, DADT, and their ranks, but that night, the uniform and insignia had come off, and Holt had seen more of Brax than he ever had before. Than he had since. And fuck if Holt didn’t want to see more of the free and real Brax again. Holt had briefly glimpsed that Brax yesterday morning at the FBI, a layer of the ever-present exhaustion peeled back, more of those threads of trust between t
hem stitched back together. Now, if they could just navigate the latest obstacle—
“Showtime,” Avery said.
Across the south and northbound lanes of Third, on the sidewalk near the entrance to SFPD headquarters, the gathered press surged forward. The glass doors opened, Assistant Chief Thompson emerging first. Behind her exited Brax and Oak, the former’s chin down, the latter’s face carefully blank. No sign of Fletcher. Helena and Jax were last through the door, hanging back and stepping the opposite direction of the cameras.
Holt leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin resting on his clasped hands, using his own weight and strength to suppress the nervous energy that wanted to bounce every part of him. What had IA decided? It drove him nuts that he couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was too risky to bug Helena today. He contemplated grabbing his tablet from the door pocket, but he couldn’t tear his attention from Brax. Standing beside Thompson, his posture was soldier perfect, always the consummate professional. He only shifted when Thompson stepped aside and stretched out a hand to him. He lifted his chin, smiling, and shook his deputy’s hand, which she used to yank him into a crushing hug.
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Avery said.
Holt unclasped his hands, scrubbed them over his face, and peeked through his fingers, making sure the scene didn’t morph into a nightmare. Nope, still the good kind of dream. Brax and Thompson separated, and she held his badge out to him, the sunlight glinting off the metal shield. Brax’s expression eased but was still professional until he stepped forward and looked across the street, right at Holt. His smile broke free of its reins, and Holt’s curved to match, splitting his face in two.
“Hell yeah!” Avery shouted with a fist pump.
Fuck, Holt didn’t know it was possible to be this happy for someone else. Yes, he’d been in awe the day Lily had been born, and he’d been thrilled for Hawes at his wedding and for Helena when she’d finally accepted all the love Celia had to offer, but this sort of joy was on a whole other level. This was his heart exploding, bumping against his rib cage and making way for a tsunami. Holt did not want to rein in those feelings either. Like that night in DC, he wanted to drown in the waves—happiness, desire… love—but unlike then, he wanted more than a single night. Holt shoved a hand in his pocket, an idea—an overdue celebration—coming to mind. He just needed his phone to order a few things.
He barely had the device out when pings sounded for real, the dream in front of him morphing into a nightmare. Only not as he expected and far more terrifying. The pop, pop, pop of AR fire rent the air, followed by the crack of shattered glass, spiderwebs fanning out from a bullet’s impact against SFPD’s bulletproof lobby wall—behind Brax, directly to the right of his head.
Those shots were meant for him. Bile, very real, churned in Holt’s gut and surged up his throat, chasing away any joy. Another round of shots popped off—from the same direction—and the screaming, scattering crowd devolved into a panicked mob. And fuck if Brax didn’t run forward, without cover, exposing himself more, so he could help Oak and Thompson corral everyone inside the building behind the bulletproof glass.
A call rang through the car’s speakers, Helena’s name flashing on the dash display. Holt slapped the answer button. “Get Jax inside and Brax the fuck out of there.”
“Bike’s in the garage. Meet us at the southside door.”
“On our way.” He yanked on his belt, Avery already doing the same. “Go!”
She careened out of the space, switching the X5 to manual and tapping the paddles. She gunned the engine, flying down the row toward the parking lot’s exit. Another round of shots rang out, from a lower trajectory this time, due east, flying directly over the car. Heart in his throat, hands clutching the belt across his chest, Holt watched as Brax pushed Jax inside the lobby. Holt counted the seconds his brain calculated for the bullet to travel to its target. Two seconds to impact, a flash of blond hair sailed in a circle, Helena grabbing Brax by the arm and spinning him away from the door. Glass shattered, multiple bullets making impact. Holt’s head spun, faster even than Helena had moved. Fuck, he’d been on ops before, had been there last year during the raid at MCS headquarters, coordinated more ops than he could count from command, but nothing had felt like this, nothing had prepared him for this. This was an earthquake like Loma Prieta, rolling and potentially devastating.
A second ringtone jerked Holt back inside the car, to the logistics of the emergency op they all needed to survive. “Converging on your position,” Victoria said. The lieutenant and Connor, one of their captains, had been stationed a block over, just in case, Helena had said. His sister’s instincts were usually right. “Shots coming from the west and northwest.”
“Confirmed,” Holt said. He grabbed his tablet from the door pocket and opened his chat window with Jax. “I’m texting Jax the location of the shooters. They’ll get SFPD there. You and Connor keep coming this way. We may need a diversion.”
Outside, car horns blared from both directions as Avery blasted across four lanes of traffic and the Muni tracks. “How you wanna play this, boss?” she said, once they were on the other side.
“Need to get Brax in the car and get him clear.”
“Agree,” Helena said, still on the open line. “Vic and I will divert.”
“He safe?” Holt asked.
“Fine. Pissed as fuck I dragged him away.”
“Cuff him if you have to.” She was half his size, but only one person had ever bested Helena in hand-to-hand combat, and it wasn’t Brax.
“Copy that.”
She clicked off as Avery sped down the street alongside headquarters. Holt held his breath. The half-full parking lot to their left made him nervous. There would have been no advantage to setting up there to take a shot on Brax at the front of the building, and they were going fast enough to be ahead of either converging shooter. But for how long? He sat sideways in his seat, head on a swivel, rotating from the back window, to the parking lot, to the garage door ahead at the back of SFPD headquarters. They pulled to the curb outside the garage door, and the squeal of tires behind them made Holt’s heart leap back into his throat. And almost lose it completely. Victoria’s Wrangler drifted into a skid in front of the road they were on, blocking another vehicle’s entry. Tires skidded, then, on the other side of the Wrangler, a dark SUV sped ahead, down Third toward the adjacent parking lot entrance.
Holt started counting seconds again.
An engine roared to the right, and Helena’s Ducati barreled out of the garage, Brax on the seat behind her.
“Get in!” Holt shouted out the window.
Brax shook his head. “It’s safer if—”
He slapped the outside of the car door. “I am not moving until you get in this car. What’s safer? Me waiting here like a sitting fucking duck, or you in this car so we can get the fuck out of here?”
Properly motivated, Brax practically dove from the Duc and into the car through the door Helena had wrenched open. She slammed it shut behind him, and Holt clasped Brax’s knee through the gap in the front seats, needing to lay a hand on him, to assure himself he was there. Brax’s hand landed on his, squeezing hard, but that was all the time they had. The dark SUV was charging across the parking lot toward the back row, just on the other side of the fence from the X5.
“I’ll cut a path,” Helena shouted, then zoomed ahead.
“Victoria,” Avery said. “Pull alongside.” Avery hit the gas, but not all the way to the floor, giving Victoria and Connor time to catch up. And also giving the SUV time to careen around the corner and start down the row that would bring them even, only a fence and the odd car in the back row here and there between them.
Holt lost his grip on Brax as Avery gunned the X5, the vehicle lunging ahead. The first shot pinged off their back fender. The charging SUV didn’t get off another before Victoria sped in between them. Through the Wrangler’s open top, Connor lobbed flash bangs the direction of the dark SUV, creating a
smoke screen for the X5 and Wrangler to hide behind as they zipped ahead. At the end of the street, Helena had blocked traffic, allowing Avery to shoot out and veer south down Terry Francois. Victoria took the turn with them and switched places with Helena, continuing to cut a path for them. As the smoke cleared behind them, the attack SUV zoomed through, probably thinking they’d caught up, only to find Helena waiting with her blades. Knives flying from both hands with a lightning-fast flick of her wrists, Helena lodged one in each front tire, then drew another and hurled it into the SUV’s grill. They didn’t need flash bangs for cover after that. The SUV careened out of control and plowed into the parked cars and fencing, setting off explosions and billowing smoke of its own.
Revving the Duc, Helena sped to catch up to them, then stayed on their six as Avery and Victoria continued to weave through Mission Bay. Holt only breathed easy, only signaled “All clear,” once they hit 280.
Avery slowed, blending in with the other traffic. “Where to?”
“Teton,” Holt said, using the code name for the house in Pacifica, a location only immediate family and their lieutenants knew about. And Jax, as of this week. It was the closest thing they had to a safe house within a short distance of the city, and it was at least minimally stocked. The cabin in Tahoe was an option, but not before Elisabeth, who was keeping watch over Lily at MCS daycare, another Helena precaution, brought him his daughter.
“Copy that,” his sister said. “Victoria, Connor, good work. Circle back to the scene. Shooters are probably gone by now, but the car may not be.”
“Check on Jax too,” Holt added.
“Will do.” Victoria dropped off the call, and the Wrangler peeled away onto the next exit.
The Ducati did not.
“You sticking with us?” Holt asked his sister.
“Wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean after that ordeal. You want me to have Elisabeth bring Lily down?”
“Please.”
“I’ll ring her now.”