by Nancy Gideon
“They all do,” he argued, voice raw with certainty. “I’ve been carrying every one of those lost souls, and I can’t do it anymore, Katy. I can’t.”
She combed soothing fingers through newly-shorn hair. “Not alone. That’s why I’m here.” Then, wisely, she said nothing more, just holding him.
“Kendra,” he began, leaning back. That lovely face of calm focused his careening emotions.
“No.” A single firm word. “I’m not leaving. My place is with you.”
When had his gentle, loving mate gotten so hard and strong? Before he could speak, fingertips pressed to his lips.
“Not here, my king, not like this. Let’s go upstairs so I can see for myself that you’re all right, and I won’t be reassured until I’ve examined every inch of you.”
He managed a faint smile. “And then?”
“And then you’re going to sleep and let me carry the burden of your dreams.” Before he could relax, she concluded, “Tomorrow, we’ll have that discussion.”
A chagrinned, “Yes, my queen.” And as she led him past the partially opened door to the parlor, he called in to his brothers, “Tomorrow we get down to business. But not too early.”
They had the decency not to chuckle until he was out of earshot.
– – –
The next morning, for a brief respite, the old plantation home on River Road filled with sounds of joy instead of sadness. Turow’s flamboyant mate, Sylvia, had ferried not only their queen but Colin’s three sisters from the safety of her casino hideaway in Pahrump, Nevada for a tearfully overdue reunion. They hadn’t seen each other since he’d secretly sent them off the mountain while their stubborn mother refused to leave . . . and had died on it. Kip brought his younger siblings, increasing the noise level as they mixed and mingled.
While the women and children exchanged updates and stories in the parlor, Max addressed Cale and his brothers over artery-stripping coffee.
“I know a thing or two about losing the only home you know. Mine was stolen from me when I was child, and for a time, I believed I had one here, in this house. But like you, I was just a tool in the hand of a tyrant.” He paused, letting that similar truth settle in deep. “I’m free now. My life is my own. How can I help release you?”
Five unblinking stares fixed upon him. Silence forced him to continue.
“I invited you into our territory and my home to recover, but also to help you rebuild. Is it your plan to do that in Nevada?”
“There’s nothing but ashes and ghosts there,” Colin answered for all, the destruction he’d witnessed upon a brief return evident in his lifeless tone. “We can’t move toward the future until the past is dealt with. A monster’s been released from the hell of his own making, and if we don’t stuff him back into those fires fast, he’s going to burn down the rest of our world.”
Bram the Beast, father of the royal sons of different mothers, once numbering twelve.
“As long as he’s free, our clan is divided. There’ll be no rebuilding, no home, no stability for anyone. He’ll come after you, after all of us,” Colin laid out, matter-of-factly looking from Cale to each of his brothers. “He has to if he’s going to regain control of our clan.”
“Who still follows him?” Max needed to know.
“For starters, our brothers Stephen and Lee, who helped free him.” Kip shook his head. “What the hell were they thinking?”
“Stephen’s a stupid, jealous bastard,” Cale answered, “but Lee, I can’t figure. He’s not ambitious.”
“But,” Turow interrupted, “he might think it’s a safer road for his mate and children to travel.”
Max understood that powerful draw of strength and safety. Hadn’t he almost succumbed to that deadly illusion himself? “A tyrant,” he mused, “holding all in a familiar fist or a visionary opening the way to an uncertain future? The pack mentality versus that of the individual. An interesting, and in this case, dangerous division.”
Cale heaved a weary sigh, troubled by his people’s and his brothers’ disunion. “We need to find him and stop them before they get those who’ve nothing at stake thinking that the old way was safer, and that my ideas are what got everyone killed.”
Max addressed Cale directly. “Is that what you think?” When Cale didn’t answer and his brothers failed to speak up in his defense, Max withdrew the question to offer another. “What do you plan to do about it?”
“It’s my problem. I’ll take care of it.”
The low, fierce tone alerted Cale’s brothers. Colin jumped in first, demanding, “How? You have the look of doing something stupid all over you, Cale.” No respectful my king this time. “If you think we’re gonna let you go off on some reckless crusade alone, it’s so not happening. None of us are eager to step into your job, and none will live beyond a minute if that old bastard takes back his crown.”
While Cale thought that over, Max, from his emotionally removed position, offered another, calmer solution. “Before your new king goes standing out on a street corner with a bullseye painted on his chest, you—we need to find them first.”
“Sounds good, but just how you gonna make that happen? Send an engraved invitation?”
Kip answered Cale’s wry question by posing his own idea. “We set the trap using someone they won’t be expecting.”
Silence. Then Cale shook his head. “We can’t trust him. He already sold us out once.”
Caution coiled as Max remained outwardly unmoving. Where was this going? Down a dangerous dead end for all of them? He’d believed Christopher Terriot to be the logical thinker of the group. Was revenge for his heart-shaking loss getting the better of well-grounded reason? He waited for that answer to unfold, hoping he wouldn’t have to forcefully intercede on behalf of his city and the fate of his new friends.
Kip spoke again with that quiet ferocity. “But then, we didn’t know he was our enemy.”
Rico looked between his brothers, clearly disturbed. “Are we talking about Fraser, that traitorous fuck?”
Kip remained unflinching at the harsh truth. “They used him. So, can we.”
“Obviously, that blood-thicker-than-water thing didn’t work out so well the first time.”
Cale caught Kip’s arm as he surged up to challenge Rico’s flip remark, calming the potential conflict with a quiet, “Chris, you talk to him. If you get a good feel and think we can use him, we’ll speak on this again.”
Max’s relief as Kip sat back, hackles settling, was short lived as the young male said, “I’d like Savoie to back me when I have that conversation.”
When attention jumped to Max, all he asked was, “What is it you think I can do?”
“What you do every damned time you’re in the room,” Rico muttered. When Max fixed him with a penetrating stare, the redhead smiled. “Yeah. That. You put the fear of hellfire into folks. Joe doesn’t know you, but he’s heard what rumors say you’re capable of.”
“And what he fears can only help us,” Cale concluded with a narrow smile. “Savoie? You asked what you could do. You willin’?”
Though he hadn’t planned to get involved, Max couldn’t deny the youngster’s logic. An unknown variable could shake the staunchest resolve. And he was exceptionally good at playing a bluff when the stakes were high. Perhaps a wild card was required.
“I’ll back you.” In turn, Max looked each of them directly in the eye. “This is our city, and our families will live here without fear. That’s my promise to you.”
And they believed him.
– – –
Joseph Fraser had come to New Orleans an unknowing prisoner and remained as such at Alain Babineau’s direction in an out-of-the-way safe house, guarded by those who owed the detective and were willing to pay up with off-duty time and silence. He himself met Kip and Max at the door to silently wave them into the non-descript, nearly bare kitchen.
Fraser sat leg-shackled to the bolted down table, wearing ill-fitting clothes, hair disheveled, cheeks stu
bbly, and eyes dull, playing a game of solitaire. His expression never flickered when he saw his late brother’s stepson. But the sight of Max Savoie behind Kip drained his face of color.
“W-what’s he doing here?”
“I asked him to come.” Kip pulled out a chair opposite the now nervous male while Max leaned casually back against the counter behind the young prince, letting the older man fidget beneath his unblinking stare. Fraser’s anxious gaze cut between them, trying to figure the connection and how it’d affect his longevity.
Kip spelled it out. “My father. Why the hell would you have anything to do with setting him free?”
Weakness fell from Fraser’s features, replaced by a sphinxlike sullenness. Silence dragged out until Max made a move, coming to sit in the seat between uncle and nephew. Sweat broke on Fraser’s brow.
“I know a thing or two about fathers and sons,” Max began, tone as quiet as the whisper of an ill-wind. “There’s nothing sacred about that relationship to those who’d use it as leverage. Mine was a master at it. I’ve never met your previous king, but nothing I’ve heard can convince me that anyone sane would prefer him over who you have now.” He let that sink in for a moment before continuing with attention-claiming confidence.
“Christopher has told me your history with his former king. I understand your hatred. He killed your father, brutally, right in front of your mother, brother, and you. That can’t be forgiven. But that was one man’s act, not the choice of his entire family.”
Fraser never blinked, so Max surged up close and very personal, nose to nose. The glitter of malice in his eyes widened the other man’s.
“You look at this boy beside me and tell him any part of you wanted to see his mother, your brother, and your mate die the way they did. Look at him, not me!” The sudden roar of Max’s voice made Fraser clear the seat of his chair.
A reluctant cant of focus. Joe tried to hold his gaze steady, but soon it overflowed. His words trembled. “It’s no secret I was jealous of you, boy. The life you led. The privileges you took for granted. You had those because my father died!” When his nephew flinched but his direct stare didn’t flicker, Joe’s words softened.
“I didn’t blame you, Chris. I never blamed you. It was him. Bram the Beast. He just had to have it all.” Breath rattled between clenched teeth. “I never got the chance to settle that score before your new king put him in that cushy prison. Not until now.”
Kip’s eyes popped wide, dread building in his expression. “What did you do, Uncle Joe?”
“I paid them with the money I took from your accounts.” The older male’s features tightened with fierce slyness. “I needed him out where I could get to him. These people promised a diversion so your brothers could free him.” A pause. “They didn’t tell me what they were going to do.” His expression fractured, chin quivering. “They didn’t tell me, Chris.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Kip’s harsh demand struck hard as any blow.
“What was your plan, Mr. Fraser?” Max asked, tone gently coaxing now that the dam of emotional truth had cracked.
“I wanted to kill him,” the elder male sobbed. “I wanted to look in his eyes when I did it and tell him who it was for, for my father who wanted his first grandson to lead a normal life instead of one inside Terriot’s gilded prison. It’s all I’ve wanted since I helped my mother and brother mop up his blood.”
“Revenge is a costly pursuit,” Max murmured, expression now neutral. “Was it worth it?”
“Worth their lives? No.” That moaned from him as he stared wretchedly at the tabletop. “Worth all those innocent lives? No. But they’re gone, and he’s still alive. How am I supposed to carry that?”
Max pressed his shoulder and offered absolution. “Help us. That’s a start.”
“How, shackled to this chair?”
“We need to find my brothers.” Kip leaned in, stare both fierce and urgently compelling. “And my father.”
“And when you do,” Joe sneered, rubbing at leaking eyes and nose, “what then? Another jail suite in a high-rise hotel as punishment for all his sins?”
Kip brushed that aside for the moment to demand, “Who were these people you spoke of? The ones who offered to help you?”
“I don’t know. Your brother Stephen said they met in Reno. They talked and offered a solution to both our problems.”
“What was their problem, Uncle Joe?”
Carefully avoiding a glance in Max’s direction, he put it plain. “Your new king joining with New Orleans and Memphis. An unnatural alliance that’ll crush us under their control.”
“Whose control?” his nephew pushed.
“Them in the North.”
Kip and Max exchanged quick glances. When Max would push for more on that, Kip turned to his uncle once again, focus intense. “Can you get ahold of Stephen or Lee if you need to?”
“Lee. Him and me had a number of talks ’bout how we’d change the direction our clan’s going.”
“How would you contact him?”
“He was seeing a waitress at a club in Vegas. She’d reach him for me.”
With her name and that of the club, now so could they.
Looking pathetically old and tired, Joe slumped over folded arms, eyes downcast, voice hollow. “What happens to me?”
Kip pushed up out of his chair, sending it screeching back against the linoleum. He laid palms on the table to glare down at the older male as he growled through gritted teeth, “Whatever it is, it’s less than you deserve. Think about that and what you’d do in my place.” He shoved off the surface and stalked into the other room as a deflated Joe looked up at the leader of New Orleans.
“You gonna kill me?” His heavy tone sounded almost hopeful.
“Not up to me.” Max leaned in, eyes flaring with sparks of red and silver. When he spoke, sharp teeth gleamed like a shark’s. “Be very glad it isn’t.”
– – –
After Kip thanked his brother-in-law for his assistance and hurried outside, ashamed of his obvious turmoil, Max paused to ask, “Where’s your partner this morning? Not off alone doing something foolish is she?”
Alain shrugged. “Foolish? Not for me to say, but she’s not alone.” At Max’s unblinking stare, he offered, “She’s with MacCreedy.” Another long pause before he caved. “They’re trying to get support for the case against Brady.”
The detective was doing a poor job of hiding something. So, Max took a step closer, the shadow of his presence telegraphing impatience. Sometimes, just being him came in pretty damn handy. Finally, Babineau sighed, survival being the better part of valor when he had a family to protect. Savoie could take care of his own.
“They’re talking to Carmen Blutafino.”
– – –
Carmen “Manny Blu” Blutafino’s pudgy, well-manicured fingers were in everything illegal going on in New Orleans and its surrounding parishes.
While making his deals and robbing patrons in the upstairs gambling rooms of his strip club, The Sweat Shop, he looked on the surface like an overweight, cheap Mob caricature in an expensive suit with sleazy taste in jewelry and entertainment. Those who mistook him as such had never looked deeply into his cold, kill-your-mama stare.
Those eyes narrowed as two of his best assets joined him in his office. He’d known them as the slicked-back, bespectacled Mac Creed, a skilled dealer who’d lost his place at Manny’s tables by helping Max Savoie scam him out of a quarter mil; and Chili Pepper, the dead-sexy dancer who was Savoie’s supposed side piece ringer for his wife. Manny had had big plans in his organization for both.
But today they sat across his desk in their true personas, making him feel more the fool for not recognizing them for what they were . . . NOPD detectives.
“Fuck me,” summed it up succinctly.
“Needless to say,” Charlotte Caissie began, “I won’t be returning to the center stage pole.”
A longtime self-serving businessman, Manny got right
to it with a philosophical sigh. “What do you want?”
“World peace would be nice,” Silas MacCreedy suggested, leaning back comfortably in his well-worn suit coat over white shirt, bland tie and jeans. Without the slicked, dyed black hair, fancy suit and thick glasses, the only thing razor sharp about his somewhat weary persona was a pale grey stare sharp enough to cut glass. “But we’ll settle for a little harmony in our own slice of Heaven here in Louisiana.”
Though they’d certainly played him for one this time, Manny was no fool. “This is about Warren.”
“The man gets a prize,” Cee Cee drawled. “But is it a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card? Depends on you, Manny.”
No respectful “Mr. Blutafino.” How had she managed to fool him? Probably, as his late wife always said, because ambition clouded common sense, and he’d desperately wanted something to hold over Max Savoie’s head. Grim truth was, he had no plan to be prison pals with Warren Brady. The next minutes would cement his future, either paving the way to control of the city or forming heavy shoes to sink him in Lake Pontchartrain.
“Let’s get the formalities out of the way, shall we?” Manny showed his teeth in a feral smile. “I want a Teflon umbrella. If I’m going out into the storm, I don’t want to get my feet wet.”
Cee Cee returned the death’s head grin. “You know I can’t make promises until I examine the goods.”
“My customers have been enjoying an eyeful of yours, Detective.” An unwise smirk. “A shame to have to permanently retire you.” He let that linger, a double-edged sword of ill intention.
“I’ll relay that to my husband. He appreciates a heartfelt compliment.”
As the corners of his mouth U-turned, Manny’s thoughts skidded over pride in a race toward self-preservation. “I don’t want any of the stink from your investigation on me.”
Cee Cee’s partner laughed. “Manny, you already reek to high heavens. But because we’re such good friends,” he flexed one of the hands shattered when he’d been retired from his undercover position at the mobster’s crooked table, “we’ll show the same courtesy we’d expect from you.”