by Layla Reyne
“Hawes texted,” Helena said. “After all that’s happened, we’re not in the habit of questioning him.”
Chris took another gulp of water, then handed the cup back to Helena. “I need you to remember that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chris eyed the woman beside her, and Celia scoffed. “I know that look,” she said. “Shop talk, and not my kind.” She lifted a hand, fingers spread. “Five minutes, for Mom and the kids to see you. They’ve been waiting all day.”
“All day?”
“It’s almost eight.”
“In the morning?”
“At night.”
“You’ve been out all day,” Helena said. “Doc said your body was demanding sleep.”
“Fuck sleep.” He moved to sit fully upright, ignoring the pain that shot through his shoulder. They had to get out of here, find out what Hawes needed, how they could help him. “We’ve got to—”
Helena planted a hand on his chest. “You know I can take you healthy. I can fuck you up good like this.” Her evil grin left no doubt as to the truth of that statement. “Doctor and family first.”
“We don’t have time—”
“It’ll give us time to call Brax back from the cafeteria and to get Rose here.”
Chris swallowed back a wave of nausea. “Just Kane.”
The siblings exchanged a look, and the air in the room grew heavy, ripe with tension. As did Helena’s hand still on his chest. Had they already discussed the possibility? Or did Holt and Helena still doubt his loyalty? The latter would be fair; he couldn’t blame them. Either way, they let it pass for now. Holt nodded, and Helena removed her hand, after a little shove. “Always a negotiation with this one.”
“Try growing up with him.” Celia rolled her eyes for added effect, and the tension in the room eased.
And eased further with the parade of visitors that followed. The doctor on duty checked his wound—a clean through and through, no damage; Hawes had known exactly where to aim—and pronounced him healing well. Dischargeable by the end of the night, thank fuck. After the doctor left, Gloria barreled in with a box of mistletoe cannoli, Mia with a paperback for him, and Marco with eyes that kept straying to Helena.
“Too old for you, Plato,” Chris said, and his nephew turned beet red as the rest of the room erupted into laughter.
Helena bumped his shoulder. “Don’t take it personally. I only date folks older than me.” Her blue eyes strayed to Celia, who was older than her by three months.
Chris did not want to think about that. Better to think about another cannoli instead. They demolished the box of pastries, leaving only one for Kane, who, when he entered the room, moved to stand behind Holt and Lily. The chief made polite chatter, but his attention was mostly on Holt, who hadn’t spoken other than to settle his daughter or mumble, “Thank you,” when handed a cannoli.
Once his family finally cleared out, and it was just Helena, Holt, and Kane in the room with him, Chris asked, “How did you get the visiting hours relaxed?”
A pale Holt finally spoke. “They’re used to us around here. Amelia…”
Chris could have kicked himself. Of course. Holt’s wife had been a nurse here. The whole lot of Madigans were probably fixtures here too. They certainly had been over the past two weeks.
“All right,” Helena said, taking up position on the windowsill. “Spill, Mr. Hair.”
“Where’s Rose?” he asked.
“At MCS, I assume. She’s been holding things down there.” Helena crossed her arms. “You didn’t want her here.”
“What’s this about?” Kane asked.
There was no easy way to do this. Just rip off the Band-Aid. They didn’t have time to waste. “We think she’s the traitor.”
Helena shot forward, bearing down on him. “We?”
“Me and Hawes, I think.”
She stopped at the bed rail, barely. “You think?”
“We didn’t get to work it all out, given the circumstances. I wanted to be sure before leveling that on him.”
“But you’ll level it on us? You could just be trying to tear this family apart. More than you already have.”
So maybe that earlier tension had been about him, then, not Rose. “If you don’t trust me, why are you here?”
“Because you had my back last night.” Her gaze flickered to the door. “And your sister is kinda hot.”
“Fucking hell.” Chris scrubbed a hand over his face. “That’s the last thing any of us need right now.”
“I’m not good enough for your sister?”
“No, that’s not it at all.” He dropped his hand. “You’re exactly what she needs, but after the bullets stop flying, please.”
Helena shrugged. And fought a smile, poorly. “Fair enough.”
“What proof do you have?” Kane asked, bringing them back on track.
Chris began counting off on his fingers. “She’s the person with the juice to make this happen. The Madigan with the most connections.” He lifted a second finger. “She and Cal built this empire, your parents fueled the fear and image of a killing machine, and now Rose doesn’t like where your generation”—he split a glance between Holt and Helena—“is taking things.” A third finger. “She’s all about power. I saw that Wednesday night at the Buena Vista. She’s intimidating as hell.”
“Speculation based on circumstantial evidence,” Helena said.
“Lawyer.”
“Yes, that’s my day job, remember?”
“And yet you”—Chris shifted his gaze to Holt—“don’t look surprised.”
The oldest Madigan in the room remained tight-lipped, and the tension ratcheted up again. Until Lily’s soft snuffles turned into a wail, and everyone’s attention momentarily shifted to taking care of the littlest Madigan. Helena fetched a bottle out of the diaper bag, and when Holt lifted Lily toward Kane, the chief took her and the bottle. He situated the munchkin in his arms and began feeding her like it was the most natural thing in the world. The surprising sight would have kept Chris transfixed, if not for Holt retrieving the laptop he’d set aside and turning it so the screen faced Helena and Chris.
“Reeves wasn’t on Rose’s list,” Holt started, voice scratchy. “When he showed up at MCS last night, her omission was hard to ignore. I’ve been digging to see when and where their paths last crossed.”
“Anything?”
“Almost all their contact went through Amelia.” He pointed at the windows open on the screen. “Phone records, email records, and several reservations and other meetings. Same time and place.”
“You said almost.”
“There are instances of them at the same events, around town and whatnot. And he was a veteran too, so he was at those benefits with us.”
“What else?” Helena asked, accurately reading her brother’s caginess.
He turned the computer halfway back around, closing windows and opening others. “I also went back and looked at visitor logs.”
Kane peered over his shoulder. “Are those for the hospice house where Cal—”
Nausea walloped Chris again, and Helena looked sick to match. “He was there?” she asked, voice barely a whisper.
Holt nodded, and Helena inhaled sharply, her knuckles white where her hands curled around the bed rail. Chris laid his good hand over one of hers and asked the question she couldn’t. A question no kid or grandkid should have to ask, but that’s where they were, and Chris hated Rose for putting them—and him—in this situation. “Did she have anything—”
“No,” Holt said, and Helena exhaled her held breath. “I contacted the doctors. She had nothing to do with Papa Cal’s death. Completely natural causes.”
“But Reeves was there,” Helena said, “plotting with her and Amelia to kill our brother.”
“They were plotting it long before then,” came a voice from the doorway.
If not for the Georgia-twang on the last word, Chris wouldn’t have recognized the man dres
sed in Talley Enterprises coveralls, his face shadowed by a Giants baseball cap, beads of sweat at his temples. Scotty Wheeler leaned precariously against the door jamb, and his feverish brown gaze darted around the room, settling, to Chris’s surprise, on Holt. The plastic stick he held up explained the direction of his focus. “I have proof, from your brother.”
“Which one is that?” Kane griped gruffly, despite the nursing baby in his arms. “I’m getting tired of fucking flash drives.”
Chris shared the sentiment, except there was a certain flash drive still at-large that held special interest for him. He had a feeling he was looking at it in Wheeler’s hand. “Is that—”
“Amelia’s backup,” he confirmed.
Helena withdrew her hand from under Chris’s before he could crush it. He tried crushing her with his scowl instead. “You had it all along?”
“Didn’t trust you. Still don’t completely.” She shifted her icy glare to Scotty. “Trust you even less. What are you doing here, with that?”
“As I said, your brother gave it to me.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder, back toward the hallway. “And I’m supposed to be playing dead, so…”
“Get in here, Scotty,” Chris said with a wave.
Wheeler hobbled forward and collapsed into the chair on the other side of Helena. Once Kane moved in front of the door, Wheeler removed the ball cap, revealing sweat-soaked hair, and unzipped the coveralls partway, exposing a gray T-shirt that was likewise damp in places. He did not look good, and the hand he placed over his side, right where Zoe had shot him, did not make Chris feel any better about his condition.
He nudged the pitcher of water on the bedside table. “Get him some water,” he said to Helena. He didn’t want Wheeler to pass out before he divulged what had happened to Hawes. Chris had kept those worries at bay long enough to reassure his family, and to prepare Hawes’s for the worst, but now he needed to know Hawes was okay.
Helena beat him to it. “How’s Hawes?” She held a cup out to Wheeler, who took it and drank greedily, until Helena tsked at him. “Easy, or you’ll throw it all back up.”
Wheeler finished more slowly, then handed the cup back to her. “Your brother’s not at all what I thought.”
“Great, you’re having an epiphany, but how—”
“I suspect it’s been one of the worst days of his life.”
Chris bit out a curse. He’d fucking slept the day away here while Hawes had been out there, somewhere, dealing with God only knew what, alone. Chris should have been there. Should have gone with him last night. “Fuck,” he cursed again.
“That flash drive have something to do with it?” Helena asked.
Wheeler dropped the device into her outstretched hand. “You need to be prepared for what you’re about to see.”
“I briefed them in advance,” Chris said. “About Rose.”
“You were right to have me look into her.”
Helena tossed the flash drive across the bed to Holt. “Cue it up, Little H.” She was putting on a front for Wheeler, acting casual and unaffected, like she was unbothered and in control, but Chris had seen that control slip a moment ago, and he didn’t miss how the wobble of her hand threw off what should have been a practiced toss.
Holt nevertheless caught the drive without issue. He plugged it in, then adjusted the laptop so it was visible to the room again.
“I’m going to step out,” Kane said.
He made it less than a step before Holt shot out a hand and grasped his elbow. “I need you to stay.”
Kane motioned with his arms, Lily still in them, toward Helena. “I can give her to—”
“You,” Holt rumbled.
Wheeler watched the exchange like it was a tennis match, Chris like it was further evidence to support his suspicions, and Helena like it was a day that ended in Y. Holt and Brax, for their part, seemed to forget anyone else was in the room.
“I’ve got earplugs,” Holt said, “if you need them.”
Chris took pity on them. “There are two federal agents in this room. Plausible deniability is off the table.”
Denial, however, was the emotion that invaded the room once they’d watched the video. Sitting on the arm of Wheeler’s chair, Helena stared into space and clicked her nails together, a nervous tendency akin to Hawes’s counting. By the window, Holt stood holding Lily, giving his head a shake every few seconds. Chin ducked, Kane waited by the door, arms crossed over his chest, keeping one eye on the floor, the other on Holt. Even Wheeler looked stunned.
For his part, Chris had absorbed all of Helena’s earlier anger and was ready to explode with the force of it. Ready to rocket out of this bed, out of this hospital, so he could hunt down Rose Madigan and exact justice for what she’d done to the family in this room, to Hawes, and to Isabella. He was sure that’s who Rose and Amelia were referring to in the video. Promising to “handle” both Izzy and Hawes. Setting the one up to die, the other to die or take the fall.
But Chris couldn’t leave and couldn’t do a damn thing about his anger because of the damn IV in his hand, the ex-soldier blocking the door, and the missing Madigan who had embarked on a dangerous solo mission. Exactly as Chris had told him to do. He fell back on his pillows and stared at the ceiling. It was the right call—fuck, the only call—and he’d suspected this much, but having it confirmed, knowing with certainty what Hawes was walking into, made his gut clench with fear for him.
“What are we going to do about this?” Helena asked after another minute of silence. Past her denial, then; she’d skipped right over the other stages of grief to acceptance and planning.
Impressive.
“Hawes is already doing something,” Chris said, righting himself. “He’s going back in.”
Holt spun from the window. “He’s what?”
“I told Hawes to sell it.” He pointed at the gunshot wound to his shoulder. “I told him to shoot me, to protect Scotty, and to sell it. He’s going to bend the knee.”
Anger roaring back, Helena grabbed the paperback Mia had left on the table and chucked it at him. “This is not a fucking fantasy novel.”
He batted the book down, and it landed in his lap. “In a way, it is.”
“Why would she trust him?” Kane asked.
“He shot me. By all appearances, he killed Scotty. He wielded a gun for the first time in three years. He’ll pretend to abandon his other rules too, pretend to be the soulless assassin she wants him to be, so he can get inside and get the evidence we need.”
“You’re still after what happened to Isabella,” Helena said.
“For what happened to my partner and your brother. Neither of them should have been put in that situation.”
“And the ATF will play ball?” Kane asked Wheeler.
“I can’t say. I’m dead.” He curled his fingers in air quotes around the last word. “But that”—he nodded at the laptop—“is evidence your grandmother was the genesis of the current case. We get more evidence to prove that, then yes, I think the ATF will focus on Rose.”
“Why are you helping us now?” Helena asked.
“Your brother could have let me die last night, but he didn’t. And you have friends”—he tapped the TE patch on the coveralls—“who I trust and respect. They believe you’re truly trying to make a difference. I may not agree with your approach, but in this case, we’re on the same side.” Wheeler was proving the faith Chris had put in him had not been misplaced. He’d admitted his mistake last week, realigned his approach to the case and the Madigans, and now they had another resource and friend.
“Glad you came to see that,” Chris said.
He sheepishly shrugged a shoulder. “Turns out we should have been trying to slay the queen.”
“And who’s going to worry about Hawes?” Holt asked from where he sat propped on the windowsill. “Who’s going to pull him back if he has to break his rules?”
“Me,” Chris said without hesitation. “I’ll pull him back.”
“Why?” Helena pressed.
“Not gonna tell you,” he said, “before I get to tell him, properly.” I think wasn’t good enough. Chris was pretty damn sure he knew, if his earlier anger and the ache in his chest were any indication. And he was damn sure Hawes would be the first to hear those words.
One corner of Helena’s mouth tipped up. She knew the answer. He figured they all did. “How’s that gonna work with you being ATF?”
“I won’t be, after this is done.”
Various expressions of shock filled the room, except from Kane, who already knew Chris’s intentions. Wheeler’s surprise faded first, the agent no doubt putting together the pieces. So Chris spoke to the two Madigans who still needed convincing. “I want a life and home with Hawes.” Either at Hawes’s condo or at his, and regardless of location, he knew who would be showing up, unannounced, to interrupt them, frequently. “And God help me, I want all of you to be a part of that future, with us.”
Chapter Three
“Are you done trying to kill me?”
The chair behind Hawes’s desk swiveled, its occupant rotating to face him. In the otherwise dark office, the twinkling lights of the bridge, combined with the moon’s reflection off the water, cast Rose Madigan in an eerie, foreboding glow. One Hawes had only ever associated with Papa Cal, one that others likely associated with Hawes, but in that moment, his grandmother wore it better than either of them ever had.
“Are you done disrespecting your grandfather’s memory?” Rose countered, not bothering to deny the truth of Hawes’s question. Her verbal knives were almost as sharp as her icy glare. “Your parents’?”
“That’s not—”
She tapped at the in-desk controls, and the room lights came on. “They built all of this,” she said, gesturing at their surroundings. “And our other empire. Both were running smoothly, thriving, until you started severing relationships. Started turning down work, making unwise alliances, and crusading for justice.” She spat the last word like a curse. “What was wrong with the way they—we—did things?”
