by Layla Reyne
Dante struggled against the hold, but Hawes kept him pinned, arm twisted between them, leg thrust between Dante’s thighs, his knee pressed to the pole.
“Why are you attacking me?” Dante gritted out, voice low.
Hawes, fearing no danger, didn’t bother to moderate his volume. “Because I don’t want you to shoot my cat.”
The tense body under his relaxed and shook with laughter.
Hawes took a half step back, whipped Dante around to face him, and hand to his chest, shoved him back against the pole. “And because you need to know I can take care of myself. Don’t ever do that again.”
Dante lifted his hands, palms out. “Understood,” he said with a smile. It faded, however, as he reached out and used his thumb to catch a bead of sweat trickling down the side of Hawes’s face. “Fit guy like you breaks a sweat from a few self-defense moves?”
Hawes wanted to chase after the touch—rough and gentle, warm and dangerous—but he stepped away instead, using the opposite wall for support. “Ray brought his pistol down on my back before you got there.”
“Must’ve been the shout I heard.” Dante retrieved his gun, tucked it into his waistband, and crossed the hall in two strides. “And I saw what you did to your other associate. I know you can take care of yourself.”
Hawes rested his head against the wall, trying to put space between them where there wasn’t any. Dante had more muscle on his frame, but at about the same height, they were practically nose-to-nose. “Then what are you doing here?”
“You owe me a thank-you.”
Laughter bubbled out of Hawes, unexpected and welcome, even if it did set off another ripple of back spasms. He grasped Dante’s biceps, rotated him toward the main area, and gave him a shove. “I wasn’t sure if that rock-star strut was an act or if you were that damn arrogant.”
Dante grinned over his shoulder. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I’m sure.”
At the end of the hall, Hawes hit the next set of switches, illuminating the open-plan kitchen, den, and dining areas. Track lighting hanging from the overhead beams reflected off polished hardwood floors, white cabinets and countertops, sterling-gray walls, and huge windows and glass balcony doors in the brick wall at the far end of the space.
Dante circled the den, laying his jacket and gun on the leather couch, while Hawes scratched behind the ears of his black Bombay cat, who’d taken up position on the dining table. She clawed at the bandages on his hand and hissed at the stranger in their domain. “Iris doesn’t like you.”
“Iris doesn’t know me.” Nevertheless, Dante wisely steered clear of her claws and came to a stop next to the rolling wooden ladder, which was locked in place on its short track. “Nice place, though I’m not sure about the ladder to nowhere.” He snaked an arm through the rungs, showing off his broad chest and flexing biceps.
Hawes licked his lips. Even better than the abs.
“You want to show me?” Dante said.
“I hardly know you,” he hedged. “You’re lucky I let you in at all.”
“Doesn’t stop you from picking up guys in the clubs when you go out.”
He’d been tracking him, then. Hawes tucked away that piece of information. “Those guys don’t open by telling me someone wants to kill me.”
“I may have gone about that wrong,” Dante conceded.
“If you were trying to get into my pants, yes.”
“Into your head?”
Mission accomplished there. Hawes ignored the phone buzzing in his pocket and rested a hip on the corner of the built-in desk behind the couch. As much distance as he could get from the too tempting man leaning against the ladder. “What do you want, Mr. Perry?”
“I want to stop the person trying to unseat you.”
“My guardian angel sent from North Beach.” Hawes folded his arms. “And why is that?”
Dante’s posture remained casual, but his gaze sharpened, dark and ominous. “Because I think the same person is responsible for Isabelle Costa’s death.”
“Her death was ruled a domestic disturbance. Her boyfriend also died at the scene.”
“We both know that’s a load of horseshit.”
Hawes remained motionless, even as bile stung the back of his throat. “Who was she to you?” he asked, trying to crack that door open wider.
“Someone who mattered.”
She’d mattered to Hawes too. Not enough before her death, the world after.
He fled the scene of the crime a second time, avoiding Dante’s gaze and ambling in the direction of the glass and brick wall. Ignoring the pair of tufted leather accent chairs, he draped his arms over the diagonal seismic strut, staring out the balcony windows and watching the fog creep into the moonlit courtyard. “I meant what I said at Danko. I always expect someone wants to kill me.”
“Did you expect your lieutenants to make an actual attempt?”
No, the threats had never been so direct—so close. Two of his most loyal operatives turning on him right after they’d successfully pulled off another job together. No flags, no warnings. If Dante hadn’t been there, would Hawes have ducked in time to avoid Ray’s shot? Would he be lying dead in that alley too? Would the rest of his family be far behind? Hawes closed his eyes and fought against the cold shiver that had slithered around his ankles all night, that snaked through him now like the fog outside.
Heat hit his back, and big, strong hands settled on his hips. “Let me help you.”
Hawes leaned into the warmth, letting it chase away the chill, steadying him from the points of contact inward. “I hardly know you,” he repeated, much less hedging, much more wanting. Need eclipsing caution.
Dante nuzzled behind his ear, nose and lips teasing the sensitive hollow there. “We could change that.”
Hawes reveled in the offered heat and in the faint whiff of eucalyptus that wafted under his nose, the ends of Dante’s hair tickling his shoulders. He opened his eyes, and their reflection in the window—broad, dark, and handsome framing his leaner, pale form—almost did Hawes in.
“Liked that suit tonight,” Dante said. “Like this jeans-and-tank look better.” He grasped the hem of Hawes’s white tank and curled it in his fist, inching the fabric up and exposing skin.
Hawes watched, on the knife’s edge of anticipation, gut clenched with desire, as Dante’s other hand skated off his hip and slid toward his bared abs. He arched his back, wanting to feel Dante’s touch on his skin, wanting to thrust his ass back to feel if other parts of Dante were as hard as his.
Reality had other ideas, and a spike of pain arced up Hawes’s spine. “Fuck,” he cursed, eyes scrunching closed as he leaned forward, fingers curling around the edge of the metal strut.
Dante’s hand flattened over his back, gently rubbing. “You take anything for the pain?”
He shook his head. Amelia had offered, but he’d refused, wanting to stay clearheaded.
“You got ibuprofen around here?”
“Top drawer of the desk.”
The heat at his back disappeared, and Hawes suppressed a whimper of disappointment. He slouched against another of the wooden support poles and tracked Dante around the condo, watching as the PI collected the bottle of pills and a glass of water. He brought them to Hawes, who tipped out two pills and tossed them back with a gulp of water. “Thanks.”
“I saw what you did in that alley,” Dante said as he took the glass and bottle from Hawes and set them aside. “Impressive.”
“I have to be.”
Dante braced his forearm on the pole over Hawes’s head and crowded his side. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
He wasn’t alone. He had his family and his trusted inner circle…as soon as he figured out who among them he could still trust. Beyond that? Maybe one day he’d have what Holt did with Amelia. What his parents and grandparents had enjoyed. A partner who got it, who understood and accepted what he did and stood by his side. Who’d help him protect his family and the empire
they’d built. Fuck, he wanted that, but until then, he could only depend on himself and his family. Not on a stranger whose aims would ultimately be at cross-purposes with his. No matter how tempting the offered comfort was in the present moment.
His phone buzzed in his pocket again, right on cue. “That’s my brother or sister,” he said. “They saw us enter the building and condo together. If I don’t answer soon, they’re going to think you killed me.”
Dante slipped a hand into Hawes’s pocket, fingertips so close to where Hawes wanted them. The asshole grinned as he slowly removed the vibrating device and gently laid it in Hawes’s bandaged palm. “Tell them you’re set for a guard tonight.” He loped over to the couch and picked up his coat, digging out his book. He tossed the coat onto the coffee table, shoved his gun under the couch pillow, and stretched out, one hand holding the book, the other tucked behind his head, those fucking biceps flexed to top temptation.
“How do I trust you won’t kill me in my sleep?” Hawes sniped, more out of sexual frustration than any real fear. He felt more like himself than he had all night. Steady again.
“Same way I’m going to have to trust you not to kill me. You are the Prince of Killers, aren’t you?”
Hawes bit his tongue, fighting the words that wanted to form. Twice in one night. Hawes’s hate for the title crested once more. Hate that he was the prince when it was actually the three of them—him, Holt, and Helena—running the organization. Hate that he’d been forced into the role because he was the oldest, technically, and hate that when someone had to make the tough decisions, it was always him. He’d been the prince since he was sixteen and had given the doctors permission to turn off his parents’ ventilators when neither his grandparents, who were absent at the time, nor his siblings could make the call.
Cold as ice, the stories went.
He hated the killer part just as much. It implied malice, evilness, and cruelty when Hawes had strived to take those variables out of the equation. He knew what he was, what his family did, but there was a place for them, a need for assassins in a world where people didn’t play by the rules and legal justice missed its mark. He’d felt like a killer only twice in his life—that morning in the hospital when he’d become the prince, and that night three years ago when he’d spilled an innocent woman’s blood. A day that had somehow brought into his life the man now stretched out on his couch. And Hawes needed him to think he was the Prince of Killers, for both their sakes.
For now.
So he held his words, bottled his hate, and exerted control over his body, his emotions, and the situation. He ignored the part of himself that desperately wanted to let go and accept Dante’s offer to get to know him better. Ignored the twin flares of pain as he flexed his hands and straightened his spine. Ignored the bitterness in his mouth and in his soul as he declared, “I am,” before retreating to his bedroom, alone.
Chapter Six
Sprawled on his back, Hawes stared at the ceiling of his lofted bedroom, counting the rings around a knot in one of the wooden planks. From there he counted the planks and beams themselves, the track lighting fixtures, the sprinkler heads on the exposed pipes, and the cables that ran along the beam directly over his head and down the pillars on either side of the bed. The numbers hadn’t changed since he’d counted an hour ago, when the gray light of morning had first trickled over the loft’s half wall. Hadn’t changed since yesterday morning, or since the morning after he’d bought the place once he’d turned thirty and could access his trust fund.
The counting usually helped after he woke from a nightmare, but only if it was light out. The predawn darkness was hell. Without light, all he could do was count the mistakes he’d made that night three years ago, replaying them over and over. Not fully vetting the tip. Giving chase without backup. Assuming the other passenger in the van was a traitor too, one who’d kill him or blow the van, exposing his family either way. Squeezing the trigger before he made a positive ID. Spending the first few hours of his thirtieth birthday scrubbing blood from his hands. There was more to the count, but those were the low points. They replayed in his head until it was light enough to count other things, to force himself back to sleep for a few hours. Today, however, those stolen hours of early morning sleep were out of reach, the smell of coffee and the sound of voices drifting up from the kitchen below.
His siblings had let themselves in fifteen minutes ago, set the coffee to brew, and Helena had commenced the grilling. “You don’t have a bed of your own?” was her latest pointed inquiry. A little too pointed, the wrong direction, in Hawes’s opinion.
“Hena!” he shouted, making his wakefulness known. “Leave him be.”
“I have a sister,” Dante called back. “I get it.”
Hawes didn’t think he did, unless Dante’s sister was an attorney too. He needed to get down there. He tested his hands first—some lingering soreness, but under the bandages, his palms were back to normal. He threw off the quilted comforter and moved quickly but deliberately, careful not to antagonize his stiff back that wasn’t as well recovered as his hands. He shooed Iris off last night’s jeans, pulled them on with a clean T-shirt, and shoved his feet into a pair of flip-flops.
Helena, meanwhile, continued her cross-examination. “Where’s your sister?”
“Here in the city,” Dante answered.
“Your family?”
“Also here.”
She was testing him and the answers she already had. “How long have you been a PI?”
“Going on ten years.”
“Before that?”
Dante rattled off addresses and post-college odd jobs, all of which had been covered by Holt’s background check. Relatively reassured himself, Hawes took the stairs down and ducked into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, popped a few ibuprofen, pitched the bandages, and washed up, then joined the others.
“Excuse her,” he said. “She can’t turn the lawyer off.”
“Is that it?” Dante eyed the steak knife Helena was using to spread cream cheese on a toasted bagel.
“Just getting to know your new bodyguard,” she quipped.
“Is that it?” Hawes parroted. He strolled past them and over to the couch where Holt sat, a laptop open on his knees, Lily in a polka-dot sling against his chest. Hawes brushed the baby’s auburn fuzz, and his niece stared up at him with big brown eyes that were going to cause them all a truckload of grief one day. For now, she was quiet, content to be nestled against her father’s chest. “Amelia on shift?”
“Seven to seven,” Holt answered without missing a keystroke, his focus on whatever search he was running.
Hawes let him be and returned to the kitchen, claiming one of the metal barstools at the island. “Status?”
Helena handed him a coffee and cut her eyes to their visitor.
“He’s not going anywhere. Not without answering some questions.”
She gasped in mock offense. “You just told me to go easy.”
“Not what I said.” Hawes wrapped his hands around the mug, savoring its warmth, and took a long swallow. He curled forward, stretching out his back, then straightened slowly, flexing the other direction. The stiffness eased, and Hawes sighed in relief. He took another sip and returned his gaze to Helena. “You weren’t asking the questions I want answers to.” He shifted his attention to Dante. “What led you to the restaurant last night? To me?”
“Got a tip about a shift inside your organization. One that may not be to everyone’s liking.”
“From who?”
“Don’t know.”
Helena crunched through her bagel, loudly. Hawes would have laughed if not for his own mounting frustration. “That’s not particularly helpful.”
“You may have accelerated matters,” Helena said around her bite.
Dante leaned against the stainless-steel fridge, mug in hand. “Or flushed the traitors out into the open so you’re aware of the problem and can deal with it.”
“Speaking of…” Haw
es rotated toward Holt. “Did you find anything else on Jodie and Ray?”
“As far as deposits, no.”
Hawes didn’t need twin-speak to discern the caveat in Holt’s answer. “But withdrawals?”
“They made an unscheduled stop on the way back from Paso Robles last week.”
“Shit,” Dante murmured. “The hit on the winemaker was your group, and last night’s warehouse fire was part two of the job. It wasn’t the cartel doing cleanup. It was you.”
“I remember Jodie and Ray being delayed,” Helena said, skipping right over Dante’s remark. It was one thing to acknowledge Dante’s awareness of the organization. It was another to admit to the exact details of a hit. “They were a day late getting back. Said they were waylaid by car trouble so we didn’t flag it.”
“At a remote coastal inn?” Holt nodded at his computer screen.
Hawes stepped behind him and peered at the hotel website on-screen. He whistled low. “Were they taking the scenic route?”
“If they were, Avery and Lucas were taking it too, off-book.” Holt popped up two more windows, each displaying credit card account registers with similar charges for the same night. “There weren’t any other operatives there,” he added, answering Hawes’s next question. “Just these four.”
At least there was that, but still, two more high-ranking, trusted associates were possibly involved. “It had to be someone Jodie and Ray trusted,” he said, echoing their conclusion from last night.
“Avery and Lucas would fit,” his sister replied.
“Shit!” He pushed off the back of the couch and locked his hands behind his head, ignoring the ache in his back as he paced in front of the windows. Avery and Lucas weren’t just high-level turncoats. They were also the two people who’d accompanied Helena to the scene of Isabelle’s death. Who’d found Hawes on his knees on the rain-slicked asphalt, trying to staunch the flow of blood from a gunshot wound he’d delivered. He was starting to think Dante was right. Whatever was happening now was connected to what had happened then, on the night Isabelle Costa died.