by Layla Reyne
Holt slumped in the chair. “Oh, thank fuck.”
“Be careful.” Celia shifted with them, resting a hip against the desk. “She’s going to start picking up more words, including the naughty ones.”
“Only because society says it’s naughty. Between this family and a cop as a godfather, that word in particular is unavoidable. I’d rather she learn when to use it, not make it a forbidden fruit.”
“Hmm, wonder if that approach would’ve worked with me and Chris?”
Holt arched a brow, and Celia was glad to see his dry sense of humor returning.
“Probably not,” she agreed. “And I agree, it is a great word. So useful. But she’s a little young to understand how and when to use it best.”
“Fair point. Fuck.” His eyes flared at the immediate slip, and he slapped a hand over his mouth, cursing behind it again.
Celia laughed. “We may need to think about a swear jar.”
Holt laughed with her, more of his tension easing, until Chris’s voice trickled out through the computer speakers. “Holt, you copy?”
Holt glanced over his shoulder, and Celia followed his line of sight. The image on one of the monitors resolved—Helena and Hawes in a booth at a restaurant or club. So that’s where they were tonight. Part of Celia wanted to keep watching, wanted to know what danger they were walking into, but a bigger part of Celia knew this was something she wasn’t supposed to know. Probably wouldn’t want to. And an even bigger part of her was distracted by the screen to the far right, the image on it split between the shop and her mother’s house that Celia and the kids had moved into last year. “You’re monitoring the shop and house too?”
He nodded. “My techs wired the house first, then the shop once SFPD released the scene.”
Jesus, that fast? Less than a day? How? She shook the questions out of her head. The answers would be information she didn’t want or need. The shop and house were safe. That was enough. “Thank you.” She tore her gaze from the monitors and focused on Lily, who, without Celia’s finger in her mouth, had started to squirm again. “You need me to take her?”
“If you don’t mind, just for a minute.”
“Not at all.” She cradled Lily in one arm, retrieved the sippy cup and ramekin with her free hand, and retreated to the seating area. She claimed the near end of the couch and offered Lily measured sips from the cup.
The rapid-fire typing and exchange between Holt, Chris, and several other voices, two she recognized as Avery and Victoria, a few others she didn’t, continued for another few minutes before the activity quieted and Holt stood. Phone in hand, he joined them across the room, sitting on a chair arm. “That helps?” He jutted his chin toward the cup.
She removed the cup from Lily’s lips and gave it a shake, the cubes inside rattling. “Ice in the water. Helps with the fever and the pain.” She returned the cup to an eager Lily and jutted her chin toward the computer wall. “All good there?”
He wobbled his hand and opened his mouth, about to say more, before he caught himself and pressed his lips shut.
“Should I go downstairs?” she asked.
“That’s your call.”
She shifted on the couch, putting her back to the screens. “Just tell me they’re safe.”
“Safe and with eyes on, Chris’s included.”
She covered her nerves by swapping out the cup for the spoon.
“Plus, they’re meeting a contact we know,” Holt added.
Celia focused on getting the spoon situated so Lily could bite down on the cold surface without causing further pain. “This is connected to what happened at the shop?”
“It is.” Holt slid backward off the arm of the chair into the seat. “We’re gonna figure it out, Cee.”
“I don’t like putting everyone in danger.”
“You didn’t.”
“And I don’t like causing all of you lost sleep.”
Holt’s chuckle was tired and resigned. “If it wasn’t you, it’d be something else.”
“So coffee is always an appropriate gift?” She’d reach out and squeeze his arm, try to offer more comfort than teasing words, if her own arms weren’t full of adorable ginger munchkin.
“Always.”
“Are you usually here?” Celia asked, sweeping her gaze around the room, only lingering a second on the screen displaying Hawes and Helena. “When they’re working?”
“Here or at one of my other control centers.” He waved his phone hand at the massive wall of computers. “This is my job.” Holt leaned forward, tickling the bottom of his daughter’s foot. Lily made a happy giggle, a good sign. “And her. And for other reasons.” His gaze drifted out the window, then back. “We always try to keep one of us out of the line of fire.” Celia couldn’t hold back the flinch, and Holt rushed to clarify. “So to speak.”
Before Celia could fret more over Holt’s slip, a drowsy Lily mumbled “Ba-Ba” around the spoon, and the same pained look from earlier swept across Holt’s face. Creased brow, downcast eyes, a shaky gasp. Celia thought he would ignore it, same as he mostly had last time, but his shoulders slumped on another shaky exhale. “Right after Da-Da, she started with Ba-Ba, and we thought she was asking for her bottle or blanket.”
Same as Celia mistakenly had. “She’s asking for the chief?”
Holt nodded and raked a hand through his hair, making a bigger mess of the reddish-blond waves.
“Where is—”
He dropped his arm and stood abruptly. “Give Helena a chance. You’re good for her, and we all need someone.” Celia didn’t think he was only talking about his sister. “The change your brother has made in Hawes is unbelievable.” Or only about his brother, but Celia didn’t press.
“He’s been good for Chris too,” she said.
On cue, Chris’s voice filled the room. “Holt, copy.”
“Sounds like they’re playing your tune again,” Celia said as she removed the spoon from a snoozing Lily’s mouth. “Go. I’ve got her.”
“I’ll put in my earbuds,” he said. “You want ear plugs too?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got two teens and an Italian mother whose primary profession is gossip. I’m an expert at blocking out background noise.” She tilted her head, lifting the ear angled toward the screens. “And I’ve got tinnitus in this ear from the shop noise. I won’t hear as long as you’ve got yours in.”
Holt clasped her shoulder as he smiled down at his sleeping daughter. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much.”
She smiled up at him. “Been here, done this. I’ve got you.”
As Holt returned to his command center, Celia snuggled farther into the corner of the couch, the snoozing baby in her arms calming her as well. So calm she almost missed the phone when it vibrated in her pocket. Careful not to wake Lily, she withdrew it and peeked at the screen.
All good here, read the text from Helena. Get some rest. Will fill you in tomorrow morning.
Celia was debating what to type back, finger hovering over the digital keypad—was “good luck” appropriate in these situations or was it better not to distract her at all?—when another text pinged. Not from Helena. She flipped back to the Messages screen and her stomach sank at seeing her ex-husband’s name in bold, a new message from Dex waiting.
Ignoring it, Celia opened her text thread with Mia. You guys good down there? she asked.
Reply bubbles appeared, then a text. Yep, Marco’s already snoring.
She laughed. Get some rest, she typed, giving Mia the same advice Helena had given her. Might be up here longer than expected. Lily is teething and fussy.
Aww, you’re the mom-friend.
She rolled her eyes even though Mia couldn’t see her and even though the sentiment filled her with warmth and happiness, same as the baby in her arms. The snark, she texted back.
Mia replied with You’re the best mom and the kiss-face emoji.
But also the love. There was no shortage of it among her family these days, and sh
e sensed it in the Madigans too. It just needed teasing out. Perris were good for teasing, as evidenced by her own daughter.
Kisses to Lily too, Mia added with more kiss-face emojis.
Celia pocketed her phone and let the rapid-fire typing behind her, her daughter’s words, and the warm bundle of joy in her arms temper the need to peek over her shoulder at the Madigan onscreen she’d like to tease. If their lives would ever allow it.
Chapter Nine
Sitting in the center of the curved booth, Helena tapped her toe against the pole beneath the table, her motion in time with the thumping music and pulsing club lights bouncing off Club Sterling’s abundance of chrome and glass. “I’m still surprised they let us back in here.”
Beside her, Hawes sipped his whiskey. “We paid them well for the repairs and upgrades.”
He wasn’t wrong. After they’d put on a show of force here last summer, besting several other of the city’s criminal elements, they’d become Club Sterling’s patron saints. Repairs to the floors and furnishings and upgrades to the security and systems, which was why they were able to get those shots of Lenny and Frank. A small fortune, but worth it given the club’s proximity to MCS. “And it’s neutral ground now,” she added. “Relatively.” Another of the agreements she’d negotiated with allies and rivals.
Hawes lowered his glass. “That why Chris is at the bar?” He cut his eyes his fiancé’s direction, then up at the mezzanine floor above the line of booths. “And Victoria and Connor up there?” Then at the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Bay. “And Avery and Elisabeth outside on the boat?”
“Mr. Hair insisted.” She tapped her nails against the side of her cocktail glass. “The rest are my concern.”
“You don’t trust Remy.”
“Of course I don’t, and neither do you. She’s tight with the Russian mob and is a CI for the fucking ATF.”
“Hey!” Chris grumbled over the comms.
“She cooperated last time,” Hawes said, ignoring the former agent’s protest. “How exactly did the New Year’s Eve negotiations go with her?”
“Fine, until the part after negotiations when I wouldn’t sleep with her.”
Hawes choked on his whiskey. “What?”
“How’d that go over?” Chris asked, a smirk in his voice.
“She was miffed at first. Remy is not a woman who is used to hearing ‘no.’ But I bought her a bottle of Dom and got her the hot server’s number. He’d been checking her out all night.” Helena drained the rest of her gimlet. “And I told her I was off the market.”
Hawes’s brow lifted in sync with Chris’s “Oh really?”
Rather than answer either of them, she flipped over her phone where it lay on the table. Still no reply to her text to Celia. She hoped that meant Celia was asleep. They’d had a good time over dinner, Hawes eventually arriving home and finishing the pasta dish with Gloria. Helena had even managed to get Holt to eat a plate while running over the op specs.
Just being at the club, though, should have cautioned her against texting Celia. The part of Helena that wanted to keep Celia safe and apart from all the swirling chaos remained strong. Despite Hawes’s encouragement, Helena’s instinct to protect, to withdraw, had welled up as the day went on, keeping her away for most of it, but the counter-instinct to get closer had brought her back to Celia’s side at dinner, had led her to reach out in that text message, hoping for a response, hoping for fucking hope. She glanced again at the text thread, her insides aching at the nonresponse, then flipped the phone back over, screen side down on the table.
“She’s here,” Holt radioed. “Bay entry in three, two—”
The glass door in the wall of windows swung open, and Remy Pak entered alone, her smooth skin and long black hair a palette the club lights favored, accentuated by the little black dress that hugged her curves. Helena wondered where her weapons were; she always liked to pick up new tricks.
“Backup?” Hawes asked.
“She left one outside,” Elisabeth radioed.
“The other is rounding the bar,” Victoria added.
“Ballsy of her to enter before they cased it,” Connor, a junior captain, said.
Avery chuckled. “That’s got nothing to do with balls.”
No, it didn’t. It was all about confidence, or in Remy’s case, arrogance. There was no denying she was a beautiful woman… and the second most deadly in the room tonight. She knew it. Probably thought she was the deadliest, but that was a cage match for another day.
Helena flicked her hair, knowing it would catch Remy’s attention. Dark eyes shot their direction, then moved on, sweeping the entire club before landing back on their table. Satisfied, she wove through the crowd toward them, and over the comms, Chris hummed “Hungry Like the Wolf.”
Helena glared at her brother. “Can we go back to the days when he was the enemy so I can kill him?”
Hawes laughed out loud, just as Remy reached their table. “Something funny?” she asked.
“Family squabbles,” Hawes said.
“You Madigans do have a lot of those.” She slid into the booth next to Helena, extending an arm behind her and scooting close. “You reconsider my offer?”
Helena made a mental note to check the collar of her shirt where Remy’s fingers flitted, likely dropping a bug. “Good to see you too, Remy.”
“Didn’t expect it to be so soon.” She glanced across the table at Hawes. “Where’s your pet fed?”
A server appeared at the side of their table, a bottle of Stoli Elit and three shot glasses full on his tray. “From the gentleman at the bar.”
He stepped out of the way enough for Chris to be visible, lifting his own shot of top-shelf vodka.
“I take it back,” Helena said to Hawes. “We can keep him.” She liked the ex-fed’s humor much better when it wasn’t directed at her.
“Happy to help solve that domestic,” Remy said, having clearly caught on to the squabble. She claimed one of the glasses the server had left in the center of the table with the bottle. “You can invite him over.”
“I like him there,” Hawes said.
She tipped her glass Chris’s direction, then threw back the shot. “His ass always did look good in jeans.”
“And that ass is off the market too.”
“Shame.” She refilled her glass. “What about your brother? I hear he’s available now.”
Helena snagged a glass and pushed the other in front of Hawes. “Chief of police might have something to say about that.” Regardless of Holt and Brax’s tiff, there was no way she or Brax would let Holt get tangled up with Remy. And it was good to remind Remy where they had connections.
“Greedy lot, you all.” Remy sipped at her second shot. “So, if no one wants to have fun, let’s get down to business. Why am I here?”
Hawes moved his shot out of the way and rested his suited forearms on the table. “What can you tell us about Adrian Zima?”
Remy lowered her glass and retracted her arm from behind Helena. “Tell your ex-fed I appreciated the vodka.”
She moved, as if to exit, and beneath the table, Helena tipped up Remy’s closest leg with her toe, then hooked the heel of her foot around Remy’s calf, locking her in place. “Not so fast,” Helena said. Remy’s opposite arm went to her side, as if to draw a weapon, but Helena’s arm was over her shoulders faster, a hand beneath her biceps, holding her limb out of reach. And bringing them close enough for Helena to whisper low, “There was a drive-by shooting yesterday. Someone shot at me and someone I care about. We’re trying to determine the target, the shooter, and how to handle it.”
“The person who took you off the market?”
It was a risk letting Remy in on the truth, but maybe also the only way to convince her how serious this was. “Yes.”
Remy stopped fighting, and Helena was surprised to see the lick of fear in her eyes. “You better hope it’s not Adrian targeting either of you.”
“He scares you.”
“Fuck yeah, he scares me.”
“Because if he knew you were a CI for the ATF he’d kill you too?” Hawes said.
“Keep spinning your theories.” She relaxed her battle stance, slouching into Helena’s side, close enough to whisper, “Who else is listening?”
Meaning she was willing to talk, on certain conditions. Untangling herself, Helena downed her shot and reached for the bottle, discreetly lifting the coaster beneath it as she lifted the vodka. “Extra privacy,” she said, explaining the metal strip underneath. She refilled her glass, then set the bottle back on the coaster.
Remy angled toward them, a sheet of glossy black hair obscuring the side of her face, preventing anyone from reading her lips. “Yeah, that,” she said, answering Hawes’s question. “And because Adrian is cold as ice.”
“He’s low level,” Hawes said. “Just a soldier.”
“Talk is he’s angling to climb, and fast.”
Meaning the drive-by could have been a test. Or a renegade move. “You took our regards to Dimitri and the Bratva?” Helena asked.
The Bratva were bigger than them. They’d picked off low-level thugs and associates, but never anyone above soldier. That would start a war, which, as good as they were, they could lose, and it would be a war with collateral damage. That was against their rules now, and they’d made certain promises—including to Brax—that they wouldn’t bring that kind of war to San Francisco.
“We’re in a good place,” Helena said. “So are the Bratva as a result. They’re no doubt profiting from our scale back.”
“I did, and they are,” Remy said. “They understand the terms.”
“Would they order this anyway?” Hawes asked.
“A hit on you?” she said to Helena. “The queen?”
Helena suppressed her shiver and nodded.
“Order it, no. Object if it happened…” She shrugged.
Meaning she was the more likely target if Adrian did have a hand in this. Why else would he shoot up Perri Auto Works? Unless it had something to do with the other players potentially involved. She flipped over her phone again and pulled up a photo of Lenny. “You ever seen this guy around?”