by Leslie North
His low, throaty chuckle shook the mattress.
She rolled over in his embrace. The sight of him made her smile. She may not have today—all of today—but she had now. And if Max had taught her anything, life sometimes had to be lived in the now.
#
"It's almost over."
Max didn't know why he felt the need to reassure Baudin. He suspected it had something to do with Lola's influence. Maybe, in the end, she was right about the hitman wanting to right his wrongs. Rockwell had given Max another chance, once, to turn his life around when the after-effects of battle threatened to send him back to the bad choices of his youth. Was it possible that a man like Baudin deserved the same chance?
Still, Max couldn't shake his suspicion that people were, fundamentally, incapable of change.
He brewed two mugs of coffee, placed one on the table beside Baudin, and settled opposite him in the suite’s common room. The man’s incessant stringing of beads and litany of prayers once bothered him, but today Max was hard-pressed to muster any animosity at witnessing Baudin’s ritual. Not after yesterday. Not after Lola.
Max worried about the future. Not just the immediate future—Freeman's trial had been looming over them for a while, and he would be glad when it was all over. He worried that he was falling in love with Lola Reyes. She was the whole package: intelligent, funny, beautiful, the kindest heart of anyone he had ever met—all the qualities any man would want in a woman. He counted himself lucky to find that his feelings had been reciprocated, especially given the circumstances that brought them together.
But by the light of day, he couldn’t see how they would ever reconcile their lives.
He lived danger, and Lola… Lola was nurturing and warm and loving. She was the epitome of what it was to be safe. Max knew that if he really cared about her, he couldn't endanger that. His job entailed protecting those who deserved protecting. Lola was the most deserving person he had ever known.
Baudin worked his way past his final rosary bead. He kissed the ornate silver cross and curled the string beside the steaming mug.
“Mademoiselle still sleeping?”
Max nodded.
“No doubt the many amorous activities throughout the night. I thought I might have to request alternate accommodations.”
“Have some class, Baudin. Mention anything to her, and I’ll dump you in the river on the way to the courthouse. I doubt anyone would miss you.”
“Do not mistake my observation for judgement.” Baudin fished a cigarette and lighter from his pocket and married the two around his unsolicited advice. “And do not believe, for one moment, that your excuses will vanish once I have moved on. For you, Monsieur, there will always be another. And another. Such a shame. Mademoiselle is a rare heart. I have met only one other like her.”
“At eighteen? In Paris?”
“How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“She was a novice at the Abbay-aux-Bois, six months from her vows. I had already committed my first crime.”
“You fell in love with a nun?”
“Renèe Marie. She wanted to leave the church. For me. I had nothing to offer her but heartache. We were to meet at the Square Tino Rossi along the Seine on Ash Wednesday. I did not go.”
“Why not?”
“Had I asked her to become anything but who she was, her light would have dimmed.”
Baudin stood and moved to the window. The hand holding his cigarette trembled. His ashen face took on the pallor of an ill man in the glass’s reflection. He seemed to have aged decades in the weeks Max knew him.
Baudin’s story wrapped Max’s shoulders like a lead apron. Baudin was normally up to his eyeballs in bullshit, but Max knew, without a doubt, there had once been a Renèe Marie, a young, innocent woman who waited for a man on the banks of the Seine who never came, and that, quite possibly, such a pure heart found something in Baudin to love.
A sharp rap at the suite door shattered the morning quiet.
Max cringed. The knock had been loud enough to rouse the dead, and he had hoped to give Lola a few more minutes of sleep to make up for the hour he stole in her arms at dawn. Baudin had probably called down for more cigarettes against orders not to make any more calls to room service. The guy stared out the window, unmoving.
“In your room, Baudin.”
Baudin took one more extended drag, smashed out the butt, and returned to his room.
Max waited for Baudin’s door to close then crossed to the suite door and opened it a crack.
A police officer waited on the other side of the door. The guy stood several inches shorter than Max, but he was built almost as wide. He was young and dark-haired and vaguely familiar. Max couldn't pinpoint what it was, but he felt as if they had met before.
"Can I help you, officer—?"
The cop's eyes flickered past him. His expression went from routine questioning to shots fired in the span it took Max’s eyes to track behind him. Max turned to see Lola emerging from the bedroom, loose robe and fuck-me hair.
"Jack!" Lola shrieked, now fully awake.
The police officer's glare shifted back Max. His jaw set like a steel cage.
Shit. Lola’s brother.
Max eased into the moment with a calm tenor. "Easy—"
"On the ground!"
The door blasted open beneath the heel of Jack Reyes' boot as he drew his gun. Max raised his hands in surrender and dropped to his knees obediently. He gave the appearance of complete calm on the outside, but his pulse throbbed in his neck, and he had to remind himself to breathe.
This was not good.
Thankfully, Lola rushed to his rescue in an instant, leaving Jack unable to deliver the pistol-whip they both knew he had in him. Max guessed there were very few things, including police protocol, that could keep a vengeful brother from delivering immense amounts of pain, the interference of his sister being one of them.
"Jack, stop!" Lola placed herself between them and held her arms out. Unfortunately, this caused the robe she wore to slip low past one shoulder.
Jack's dark eyes widened until Max thought they would pop out of the other man's skull.
“Out of the way, Lola.”
“No.”
"Did he touch you?" Jack demanded. He trained his gun at a sharper angle to Max’s face. "I'll kill you, motherfucker."
"Jack, you're not going to kill him," Lola argued. "Put the gun away. This man is Max Sterling. He works for the government."
"More of an offshoot," Max muttered. He could tell by Jack's coloring that the other man still nursed a healthy fury at having found his sister in such a compromising position, but the immediate danger seemed to have passed for the moment. Jack stalled a little longer, before lowering his gun and taking a step back.
Max rose to his feet gratefully.
"I don't get it," Jack said to Lola. "I get a call from you telling me you're in danger then I don't hear from you for days. Will someone please tell me what the fuck’s going on here?"
Clearly the Reyes no-cursing thing began and ended at Lola.
"How did you find us?" Lola countered with a question of her own. She looked genuinely impressed by Jack's detective work.
Jack holstered his gun. "I put out word you went missing. Security spotted you yesterday on the grounds of the resort and notified me. They tried to talk me out of coming." Jack's hostile gaze returned to Max. "Said it looked like you were someone on your honeymoon, not some woman held against her will."
"Jack, Max is with witness protection," Lola said slowly. "When I left you that message saying I had been kidnapped, I didn't have the full story.”
“What about your car? Someone on routine patrol found it wrapped around a tree.”
“Distracted driving. I crashed it outside Max’s safe house. He had no choice but to take me with him when I compromised the safety of his client—a witness in a big case. The trial’s today, and then I’m free to go. Right?" Lola turned to Max eagerly. T
oo eagerly.
The question was a bullet to his chest. He gave a curt nod in agreement.
"Trial? What trial?" Jack demanded.
“Miller Freeman,” said Max.
The door to Baudin’s room opened. Typical of the sonofabitch’s timing. He walked in carrying his suit on a hanger, spouting in a charged blend of English and French about its wrinkled state. As if realizing he had a captive audience, Baudin raised his head. His words stalled as his gaze collided with Jack.
"You!" both men exclaimed at once.
"You’ve got to be kidding me." The words were out of Max's mouth before he could stop them. "You two know each other?"
"Know each other?" Jack's expression twisted in a rage beyond recognition. Max lost all sight of the family resemblance to Lola. "I helped bring this asshole in. He's also testifying against Miller today?"
“That’s why that name was so familiar,” said Lola to Max. “Jack is set to testify against Miller, too.”
"You see? I am in witness protection now," Baudin smoothed the lapels of the suit, as if his preoccupation with appearances would elevate him beyond the veneer of asshole. "We are in league together. We are copains, Monsieur Reyes."
"I hate to interrupt this feel-good moment,” said Lola. “but the trial starts in one hour.”
Leave it to Lola to be the most level headed peacekeeper in the room. She was right. They had to get moving. Max had a million things racing through his head—not the least of which was a niggling notion that Baudin had plenty of dirty cops on his side. Max didn’t want to think Jack would be among them, but he couldn’t allow his feelings for Lola to interfere with his job.
First the trial, and then…
Then what? For the first time in a very long time, Max had no idea what his future might hold. As he watched Lola turn to gather her things for the last time, the decay of impending goodbyes settled in his lungs, right alongside Baudin’s toxic side stream and his words of warning: had I asked her to become anything but who she was, her light would have dimmed.
#
The ride to the courthouse was long and cramped with the four of them piled into the police vehicle. Max had accepted Jack's invitation to drive. In his line of work, it was imperative to switch vehicles as often as possible, especially when transporting a client. He just hoped protocol didn’t outweigh good instincts. In the caged backseat, Max was a fucking sitting duck.
He doubted, however, Jack would try anything with Lola beside him in the passenger seat. Any man that backed up brotherly love with a nine millimeter reeked of loyalty.
The trip largely passed in silence, but for the occasional ten-code chirps from the police radio. Early on, Lola kept a steady, calming dialogue going, catching Jack up on all that had happened, sans the intimacy parts. She did a superb job of parsing the story for her brother, but she shot frequent looks at Max and blushed when she noticed him listening. They both knew there was no hiding their tryst from her brother—not with the way Jack had discovered them—but all three of them appreciated her tact on the subject all the same.
It was extremely obvious that in contrast to his sister's more forgiving feelings, Jack Reyes loathed Aiden Baudin, so much so that Max suspected it was more personal than just a cop seeking justice. He wouldn't be surprised if the two of them had more than one run-in in the past; Baudin's silence seemed to confirm, at least, that he knew the majority occupants of the car did not number themselves among his friends. Either that, or he was nervous about testifying. Max almost missed the days of calculated quips and muttered French obscenities. Almost. For the past thirty miles, Baudin had his beads out, rubbing them hard enough to start a fire.
Jack pulled into the courthouse parking lot with four minutes to spare. He called in their arrival and updated security on the situation. Two men in dark suits and shades descended the steps to meet them.
"This is so exciting," Lola whispered to Jack as security ushered all four of them out of the car. "What do I do? I don't want to be in anyone's way."
Immediately, Max reached for her hand. “Stay close to me. That way, I can protect you if anything goes wrong."
"Aren't you supposed to be protecting Baudin?"
Max said nothing in reply.
"Besides, nothing can go wrong in a courtroom with this much security and Freeman in custody."
Her comment told him how much Lola shouldn’t be here. She believed in courtroom shows on television where the good guys dish out justice in a neat little one-hour pocket of drama. It was the very thing about her that balanced his cynicism, that allowed her to give so much of herself. Had Max any other choice, he would have kept her in that belief forever. She didn’t belong in his world.
"I wish I could be sure of that," Max muttered below his breath.
Chapter 11
Lola’s stomach edged the moment she laid eyes on Miller Freeman.
He was an unassuming man in his mid-fifties, sitting at the long defense table opposite the aisle to front row seat, surrounded by an assembly of council that positively dwarfed him. But there was something undeniably commanding about his presence. Even the prosecution's side of the proceedings seemed to give him a wide and reverential berth.
Lola sat sandwiched between Jack and Max, clutching her handbag in her lap and trying not to feel guilty for taking up bench space reserved for important people. They had even poured her a glass of water from the prosecutor’s decanter to match the glasses on the tiny ledge in front of Jack and the Federal Marshal, who was also testifying.
Max had insisted that she required as much protection now as any of them. She didn't feel right about being here, but she couldn’t deny her excitement. A far cry from sorting plastic coin replicas into old soup cans. She was almost as jumpy as Baudin, who occupied the seat on the other side of Max. His odd soothing rituals caught and held her attention.
The hitman did not appear to do well in public. He muttered prayer after prayer underneath his breath. Her gaze descended to his lap where Baudin fiddled with his rosary, but not in his usual, orderly way. And something about the string, itself, seemed off, so Lola counted.
Several of the beads were missing.
A dull ache bloomed fresh in her stomach.
She tugged on Max’s shirt sleeve. He leaned his ear close.
“Something’s wrong. Three of his beads are missing.”
In one fluid movement, Max wrenched the beads out of Baudin's unsuspecting hands.
Baudin’s posture bolted upright as if he had been electrocuted.
Jack didn't appear to notice the struggle going on beside him. He raised his water to his lips. At the bottom of the glass, Lola spotted one of the missing red beads roll around, shrink and disintegrate.
A strangled noise caught in her throat.
"Lola! The water!" Max shouted and lunged to his feet, his eyes trained on Jack’s glass.
Every eye in the courtroom turned on them.
Lola backhanded the glass out of Jack’s hand. A little too hard. The glass sailed through the air and shattered in a wet explosion at the feet of the wide-eyed judge, who had just entered from her chambers.
"Lola!" Jack echoed her name in confusion. "What the hell is your problem?"
"The water is poisoned,” said Lola.
The Federal Marshal had his wide eyes trained on her. He quickly put down his own glass.
Baudin’s focus shifted between them all. He looked like a cornered animal, but there was a lethal cunning in his eye that Lola had never seen before. She realized a split second before the others did what he was about to do.
Baudin dove across the table at Jack.
Lola went for her only defense. Purse in hand, she swung. Hard.
Her handbag clocked the side of Baudin's face. The blow landed so hard that, as the man collapsed to the ground, she felt certain she had broken his jaw. What else could have made that horrible cracking sound?
But the thunderous crack came an instant after she knocked her purse into
him. The wooden half-wall separating them from the lawyers exploded into splinters. Lola blinked in confusion, but she had little time to process what had happened. Max grabbed her and threw her hard to the floor beside him. He shoved her half under the bench and shielded her other half. Her brain finally clicked reality into place.
Someone had fired a gun.
Screams rent the courtroom.
“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh.” Her lips moved but no sound came.
From her vantage point, she saw Baudin’s head pinned between the floor and Jack’s knee. His eyes were round and glossy, nearly catatonic, his stare aimed directly at her.
Blood pooled in her ears. Her entire body shook. It was no longer exciting. This world was downright terrifying.
She wanted to go home.
“They’ve pinned the shooter,” said Max. “Stay down until the room’s secure."
She thought it was secure. Ohmygosh.
"Did he hit anyone?" She couldn't keep the panic out of her voice. Her eyes sought Jack. Her brother was moving, fine, as energetic as ever. In fact, he forced Baudin's face into the floor with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
“We’re clear,” said Max.
Pandemonium ruled the courtroom. Two security teams escorted the gunman and Freeman out separate side doors of the courtroom.
Jack hauled Baudin to his feet and handed him off to another officer.
Lola and Max rose slowly together. She looked at Baudin, whose stare had not left her. His lower lip bled from a deep cut, and the left side of his face swelled from where she had landed her strike. Turns out the rock she had slipped in her purse to remember Max and their garden stroll wasn’t so silly after all.
"You saved my life." Baudin sounded mystified, as if he had never considered that he had a life worth saving before.
“You tried to kill my brother.” Lola’s eyes narrowed. Her dry throat threatened to choke out her words again. “I believed in you. When no one else did.”
Baudin’s stare crumbled to the floor.
"Come on, Lola,” said Jack. “You don't need to be here anymore,"