ESCANTA: A James Thomas Novel (The James Thomas Series Book 1)

by Brooke Sivendra

  His eyes flickered, his face resumed its composed look, and he pressed his ear and said, “Copy.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  He pressed his ear again. “Samuel, Deacon, Cami…everyone. I have an earwig in, and when I squeeze it I can turn mute on and off. Look, we don’t have much time. Deacon’s on his way over to pick us up.”

  “No—tell him to wait,” Mak said.

  “I can’t. The team created a diversion so that I could get you out of the car without being seen. I need to check that everyone’s okay, and then debrief.” He sighed. “We need to talk about this, and you really need time to think it all over. You have adrenaline in your body, and you’re in the middle of a huge trial, and right now is not the time to be a making a decision like this. And I need to know I gave you time to really consider what ‘we’ would mean.

  “You might think you know who I am, Mak, but you don’t. I used to justify my career, my actions, because I was given orders for them. But then I saw too much. And I decided to punish those men that used me to do their dirty work. I became the kind of man you despise and I made a lot of enemies in the process,” he said, visibly swallowing.

  “You need to understand that that is all I will ever be able to tell you, and that your life would be at risk by being my girlfriend. You really need to think about that when you have a clear head and aren’t reacting to the moment. When your trial is over we’ll talk, and if you change your mind there will be no hard feelings. In fact I pray to God you change your mind,” James said, shaking his head.

  “Until then,” he continued, “this stays between us. Deacon and I have a few rules, one of them is no girlfriends, for several reasons—one of which being it complicates things greatly. I will talk to him and deal with this, but I’m not going to do that until you’re sure that this is what you want.”

  “Okay,” Mak said. Baby steps.

  “We need to go downstairs,” he said, but instead of moving away he drew her in closer. He gazed down at her, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. He leaned in and kissed her, letting his lips brush over hers. He closed his eyes, and Mak did the same, letting her soul fall into the kiss.

  “Now we really need to go downstairs,” he said with a sexy smirk. He took her hand, picking up the room keys as he led her out of the room and toward the elevator.

  The elevator doors opened and he shuffled her in. There were two other guests in the elevator, so they didn’t speak but he kept her close to his side.

  When they reached the lobby floor he waited for the guests to exit and then they walked up to the same desk they had just checked in at.

  “Checking out. Thank you for your hospitality,” James said.

  The man nodded once. “It is always our pleasure to have you, Mr. Jones.”

  No money was exchanged, nor were any personal details, but from the interaction between the two men it was clear this was not James Thomas’ first stay.

  They walked toward the lobby and Mak whispered the same question he’d refused to answer before. “Mr. Jones?”

  “I have many names, Mak, but James Thomas is my favorite,” he said under his breath.

  Mak was greeted by a group of ten men and ushered into a waiting car before she had a chance to ask the question in her mind: Why was James Thomas his favorite?

  He slid in next to her and the car pulled away before he barely had the door closed.

  “How are you doing, Mak?”

  Mak craned her head to see the driver—the same man who addressed her. It was Deacon.

  “I’m fine. How is everyone? Is Cami okay?”

  “She’s perfectly fine. Everyone got out unscathed,” he said, his eyes meeting hers in the rear-view mirror.

  “Good,” she said, relieved.

  Neither James nor Deacon spoke again. And James didn’t touch her; if anything, he sat as far away from her as possible.

  When they arrived at Thomas Security, the tension seemed to drop as they pulled up. And in the safety of their parking lot, there was less of a flurry getting Mak out of the car.

  “I’ll take Mak up to her apartment and then meet you in Samuel’s office,” James said once they were in the elevator. He pressed two buttons on the elevator panel. Deacon got out at the first stop and Mak noted the floor level—ten. They continued up to Mak’s apartment.

  James unlocked the apartment for her and closed the door behind them. “I’m going to be in Samuel’s office for the next few hours, debriefing and working out what happened tonight. Do you need anything before I leave?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Mak said.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? A lot happened tonight, and you haven’t had a chance to decompress from any of it.”

  Mak nodded her head. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said honestly. Maybe she was in shock, or maybe it was the truth, because she felt safe with him and she felt safe in this building.

  “I have to get downstairs,” he said, drawing her in once more. “Try and get some sleep, but call me if you need anything at all.”

  “Sure,” she said, nodding her head.

  He seemed hesitant to leave, and she didn’t want him to either. He brought his lips to hers and she opened her mouth for him, melting into his arms as he kissed her. But it was a short-lived kiss. “I need to go before they turn on the cameras in here and see this,” he said.

  “When are we going to talk?” Mak said as he began to walk away.

  “Soon.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN –

  JAMES THOMAS

  His dream team was settled in Samuel’s office for what was going to be a long night.

  “Who is hurt?” James said immediately. It was impossible, with a situation like they’d experienced tonight, for someone not to be hurt. Hopefully no one was dead. But he was glad Deacon had had the sense to lie to Mak about it.

  “Tommy’s got a flesh wound—medics are treating it—and there are a few other glass and shrapnel wounds but everyone’s looking good,” Deacon said, pulling out a chair for him.

  “What the fuck happened to that tire?” James asked.

  “A nail took it out,” Cami said. “A nail conveniently placed. We went back and had a look, they were scattered over all of our possible exit routes.”

  Mak’s driver changed routes nearly every night, in order not to be predictable, so the assholes had to litter all of the streets. There were going to be a lot of flat tires in Manhattan over the next twenty-four hours.

  As soon as the tire had blown, James had called the first code. He’d been in the car behind, and his instincts told him something was very wrong. The initial code plan had been to change her into his car. Until her car was rammed from the side. Samuel had given them warning, enough to stop Mak from being crushed, but they didn’t get any luckier than that.

  James then called a diversion code. His team played out a scene they’d rehearsed hundreds of times, and used a couple of times. His men fell into grids, blocking off and zoning the site. And then they ushered Cami into Deacon’s car, making it look like it was Mak, while James snatched her from the other side of the car. None of it would’ve been possible without the flashbangs they’d set off. They’d effectively dazzled their enemies and bought a few precious seconds. Taking Mak on his own was a risk, but he’d used this strategy several times before and it had never failed him. And he knew he was just blocks from Hotel Tivoli—a safe house for men like him. There was one strict rule in that hotel, and that was that no one was to be harmed. Ever. If you did, the punishment was the death penalty, and they didn’t give you a quick injection to end your life.

  James looked at Samuel, who in return eyed him suspiciously. Samuel knew that something had happened between James and Mak. Samuel wouldn’t have accessed Hotel Tivoli’s cameras—that was one of the few systems he would never hack—but he would’ve known James was turning his earwig on and off mute. And that spoke volumes—particularly given he never did that.

  “What do we know about
the men in the car?”

  “Three men were in the car, and another firing from a motorbike behind them,” Samuel said, clarifying. “Americans. But all have visited Italy in the last eighteen months. This one, though,” Samuel said, loading a photograph onto one of the screens, “is Special Forces. Or was Special Forces but is apparently running in a different group now. The other three are dead, but he escaped.”

  James chewed on his cheek—that was news he didn’t want to hear.

  “He made a sudden departure, and we lost him,” Samuel said, pushing his glasses up the ridge of his nose.

  “When did the mob start inducting Special Forces guys?” James asked. The Camarro mob were traditionalists, especially the old boys. They were renowned for recruiting through extended family and close associates. And the more Italian blood you had, the better. James could see just by looking at this guy’s photograph that very little, if any, Italian blood flowed through his veins.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Deacon said. “Something’s not right about this.”

  “Maybe they’ve had to adapt,” Cami suggested. “Times have changed and to be competitive they need guys like him.”

  “Maybe,” James said, unconvinced. “Keep working on this, Samuel. I want to know what other ties they have to the Italian mob other than making a trip or two to Italy.

  “By the way, what’s the damage estimate?” James said, screwing up his nose. He didn’t even want to know the answer. Last year their insurance premiums had become so expensive that it had essentially deemed them uninsurable. It was cheaper now just to pay for the damage outright.

  “Several hundred thousand at least. You’ve got two damaged cars, one of which is going to be a write-off,” Samuel said, shifting in his chair. “The car chase, and now this…You’re attracting way too much attention.” He looked at James when he said this—too much attention, and therefore too much cover-up, created too many questions by the wrong men. And gossip traveled faster in a criminal circle than it did in a women’s knitting club.

  “She’s becoming very expensive,” Deacon said pointedly.

  James shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we charge our other clients ludicrous prices so think of her as our good deed for the year.”

  They spent the next two hours going over further details and designing a new security plan for tomorrow. When James was finally confident in their strategy, he suggested everyone get some sleep. They all piled into the elevator and then said their goodnights as Samuel and Cami exited on their floor. James and Deacon rode up one more level and Deacon seemed relieved that James didn’t get out on the floor below.

  “Night,” James said, unlocking his apartment.

  Instead of going to bed, though, he made a cup of tea and sat at his kitchen island, staring at the speckled granite bench top. They were missing something and he knew it.

  Death is but an illusion, as you will soon see.

  Keep your eyes open, Makaela.

  Contact. Wait out.

  Only the third note made sense to him, and they hadn’t had to wait long for the enemy to attack. James wasn’t sure that was their big move, though—he had a feeling it was only the prelude.

  Either the mob had indeed starting recruiting Special Forces guys, or someone else was targeting her. But why? James couldn’t find one viable motive. If she had touched the money, it would make sense, but the money sat dormant in the bank accounts. James didn’t believe that whoever was the payee of those deposits didn’t know where it was, even if it had been shuffled from other bank accounts. Creative accounting wouldn’t hide six million dollars from a criminal in an account in Eric’s name. He’d never intended to hide it, James was sure of that, and that fact alone didn’t make sense.

  James himself never had money, or even bank accounts, in the alias’ he used in his everyday life—James Thomas didn’t exist on paper. And never, ever, would he put money into an account in his birth name.

  But if it wasn’t about the money, then the only other reasonable explanation was her trial—the mob. It was unlikely, but it was possible they were recruiting Special Forces guys. Or maybe they contract them—that would be a more feasible explanation given the Camarro boys’ heritage.

  Contracting in the underworld was a good way of making money, and it was what James and Deacon had done before Samuel found them. They had initially fled to Asia, where no one knew them, and job by job they built up a considerable cash reserve. It was there that he’d first met Kyoji Tohmatsu. He had been one of the most well-connected criminals James had ever met. And one of the most dangerous.

  Their lives changed in Tokyo. It had been their fresh start, and it was also where Deacon met Nicole. But after her death, Tokyo was a city of loss for Deacon. And they couldn’t go back to Europe, so they headed for the land of opportunity—America.

  James traced the swirling cluster of speckles on the bench top with his index finger as he thought.

  So many different, seemingly unconnected, events had shaped their lives in ways he could never have imagined. And his gut feeling told him Mak’s entrance into their lives was going to do the same. He had that sense of impending change, that something life-altering was waiting in his destiny. And it wasn’t a good feeling. He liked boredom. He liked mundane. He liked calm days and nights.

  He didn’t fear the unknown, but he feared losing the life he’d come to love.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN –

  MAK ASHWOOD

  Mak’s eyes passed over the jury. An odd sense of completion, yet the need to do more, overcame her. She’d delivered her closing argument and rebuttal, and now the fate of Mr. Bassetti was out of her hands. It was in the hands of the men and women in front of her, and she could only pray that they reached the right decision.

  Mak sat down in her seat, catching the eye of the defense lawyer. Mak liked him as little as she liked the defendant, of whom she considered the scum of this earth and the downfall of humankind.

  She’d listened to his predictable arguments, and kept her poker face on even when she really wanted to reveal what she was thinking. She’d wondered again what Mr. Bassetti was paying this man. It was likely in the millions, but that money came with a cost—defending men like him. They say everyone has a price but Mak disagreed—you could never pay her enough to defend such a man.

  The judge began the judge’s charge—the reading of the instructions to the jury—and then the jury retired for deliberation.

  That’s it, Mak thought, I can’t do anything else. She noticed a slight trembling of her hands, an anxious reaction as she watched the jury exit from the courtroom. She packed up her notes and stole a look at her assistant prosecutor—he looked calm and collected but he, too, had a good poker face: it was a requirement of the profession.

  “Let’s go,” Mak said, immediately noticing she’d used the same words James Thomas loved to use. She hadn’t seen him since he’d walked her up to her apartment and kissed her goodbye. If not for the weight of her trial, she doubted she’d have been able to get him out of her mind today, but her focus had been on other things—it had to be.

  Cami flanked her side as they exited the courtroom. Mak made eye contact with the each of the victims’ parents who were present and sitting together, and had been for the entire trial. She gave them a confident smile and a nod of her head, but otherwise she didn’t stop to talk to them. They all knew nothing more could be said today and Mak wasn’t going to offer any false reassurances—that wouldn’t help anyone if the verdicts came back not guilty.

  “We’ll go back to the office. There’s no telling how long the jury might take to reach the verdicts,” Mak said to Cami as they walked side-by-side.

  “Sure,” Cami said.

  As they reached the front entrance to the courthouse, Mak was joined by five other bodyguards. Mak looked to Cami for an explanation.

  “The result of last night,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. Cami spoke little when they were in public.

 
In a perfectly timed coordination, Mak’s car arrived as her heel lifted off the last step and onto the pavement. She was ushered inside, where she finally closed her eyes and dropped the act.

  She kept them closed all the way to her office. She was not in the mood to make small talk—she wasn’t in the mood to talk at all. The trip passed quickly and she went straight up to her office and closed the door. She sat at her desk and hung her head in her hands, exhaling the tension that had taken hostage of her body over the past few months. You did everything you could, Mak told herself, but the words weren’t as comforting as she would’ve liked.

  Mak sat there, still and quiet, but her mind was busy reflecting. It did no help to look back on the trial now but she couldn’t help herself.

  She jumped, startled, when her office phone rang.

  “Mak Ashwood,” she answered.

  “How are you doing?”

  James’ voice was deep but comforting.

  “The suspense is killing me,” Mak admitted. “I’m questioning everything, I…” Her voice trailed off.

  “I’ve been told you were brilliant,” James said.

  Mak scoffed. “Who told you that?”

  “Cami. And Deacon.”

  “They’re biased,” Mak said.

  “No, they’re not at all. If two people love to speak the truth, believe me it’s them,” James said with a light chuckle.

  Mak smiled. Thomas Security must be a very interesting place to be a fly on the wall. “Well, I’ll take the compliment but it doesn’t matter what we think, does it? It only matters what that jury thinks.”

  “Mm. Regardless of what the jury thinks, I think you should be proud. I’m proud of you, Mak. Few lawyers would’ve taken that case, particularly at the stage of your career, and you know it. And you’ve had to deal with this security mess on top everything else.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly—she’d never been good at taking compliments. “Where are you?”

  “Not very far from you,” James said and Mak could almost hear his smile in his words.