by Layla Reyne
He pressed the gun harder into Chris’s abs, waiting for him to take hold of it, and only continuing once he had. “I want to know the whole truth, and so do you. More than that, I want to stop it from ever happening again, and I can’t do that alone. I went into this using you, but you’re right—we flew way past that, and now I need you. Help me stop this, and then I’ll turn myself over to you, on or off the books.”
Chris moved the gun out from between them and eased his grip on Hawes’s face, but he didn’t step back, held there by truth and lies and all the gray space between them. “After the strike tomorrow.”
Hawes nodded. “We shut this down, and then I’m yours.”
Chapter Seventeen
Chris found Wheeler in the war room, as expected. Tie gone, sleeves rolled up, he was shuffling through surveillance photos and street maps with one hand and tapping out a staccato rhythm with the pen in his other. “You’ve been trying to reach me,” Chris said, making his presence known.
Wheeler’s head shot up, gaze surprised, then furious. “For an entire fucking day.” His temper quelled, though, at whatever he saw on Chris’s face. He dialed it down from a ten to a tolerable five. “You haven’t been answering my calls and you’ve been ignoring my voice mails.”
“One, learn to text. Two, I was sorting some stuff out, which we’ll get to in a minute.” He lowered himself into the chair across the table. “But first, is this the tactical plan for tomorrow?”
“Yeah, based on our work yesterday.”
Chris nodded. “Okay, give me the rundown.”
Wheeler walked him through it, step-by-step—the pick-up, the approach, the convergence, the attack, and the seizure. Assuming all went according to plan. He had contingencies mapped out, multiple means of transport ready, and surveillance points and tactical check-ins every step of the way. He’d done good work, had coordinated with SFPD seamlessly, and all systems were a go for the operation. Chris intended to follow ninety-nine percent of the plan. He didn’t think Wheeler would mind the one percent change.
“That’s not exactly how the op is going to go down,” he said.
Fury returned as Wheeler shot to his feet. “I’m sorry, what?” He expected Chris to override him, to scrap the tactical plan he’d lost God only knew how many hours of sleep over.
“Hear me out,” Chris said. “I want the same thing you do.”
“To secure the explosives.”
“And to bring down the Madigans.”
After the confrontation with Hawes, he’d walked the park for an hour, debating Hawes’s offer. I’m yours. To kill, to fuck, to arrest, to walk away from.
To keep.
That last option had driven him here. He couldn’t keep Hawes and get justice for Izzy. They were incompatible. Hawes had killed Izzy. Chris had to bring the ATF in on this because it was what she deserved, and because the temptation to do otherwise was a siren song he didn’t know if he could resist, even through a hurricane of betrayal.
Brown eyes wide, Wheeler barely managed to aim his ass into his chair as he fell back into it. “Since when?”
“Since I found out who killed my partner.”
“What did you find out?”
“That it wasn’t a domestic disturbance, that the Madigans covered it up, and that the person who pulled the trigger isn’t the only one responsible.” He wasn’t willing to turn over all his cards—Chris would only completely trust himself now—but Wheeler could help win the hand. “I want all of them, and the explosives are the common thread.”
“I may have a lead on that.” Wheeler bounded out of his chair, no longer unsure, and darted for the stack of files at the other end of the conference table. He dug out a manila folder, and from it, photos of their mystery man from the auction site. “He’s not a building resident, but I used the surveillance time stamp and the building access logs to see which units were pinged for entry at the time he arrived. There were two, and when I searched each of those residents’ social media feeds, I found this.” He handed Chris a second photo, a screenshot of an Instagram feed.
This was why you wanted Scotty Wheeler on your cases. Never met a haystack he didn’t like. “Karen Alexander,” he said. “Unit 501.”
Chris examined the photo.
The twenty-something blonde, dressed for a day of sailing, stood on the deck of a boat, the Bay Bridge in the background, their mystery man at her side. Chris read the caption, dated the morning of the op: Thanks for the tug, GB. Dinner on me tonight?
“Gilbert Baker,” Wheeler said, beating Chris to the question. “He runs a tug and”—he curled his fingers in air quotes—“salvage operation out of China Basin.”
“And by salvage you mean smuggler.”
“Never charged officially.”
“Of course not. Wouldn’t be in business long if he had.” Chris worked through this new development. “He’s not high-level enough to be competition for the Madigans, but if you were in the market for explosives and needed to move them…”
“He would be your guy.” A stack of stapled papers—a list—appeared under his nose. “The people he does business with.”
Chris whistled low. It wasn’t a short list, and many of the names—legitimate and otherwise—were recognizable, including one from Izzy’s files. “Carl Reeves is on this list.”
Reeves’s front company, a shipping business, had contracts with MCS. Izzy had suspected there was more to it than supplying freezer units for his shipping vessels but had never gotten the evidence she needed to officially pursue the lead. She’d sniffed around, though. If Reeves had gotten wind of that, of Izzy, if he’d dug into those investigating him, maybe he’d learned who Izzy really was. Who Chris was. If they were looking for a player with the juice to move everyone around the board, Reeves fit the bill. And a hostile takeover of the Madigans would fit the bill too. Vertical integration for his legit business. Trained assassins and a stockpile of explosives to protect his other enterprise. A force on land and on sea.
Wheeler lowered himself back into the chair across from Chris. “I’m guessing Karen’s boat didn’t just happen to have engine failure that day.”
“Good guess.”
Reeves would have seen the Madigans auction notice on the dark web and been looking for a way in, a way to set the trap. Gilbert secured entry and likely smuggled those explosives into the building.
“His contracts with the Madigans began to dwindle five years ago, then were completely terminated at the three-year mark.”
“Because Hawes didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Or because Reeves knew they’d been infiltrated. It’s all tied together,” Wheeler said with a nod. “I believe you.”
And now Reeves was reaching out to Helena. Overthrowing the man who’d ruined his plan and installing a new queen for his empire. Chris had other ideas. “Check his connections to all the siblings and to Rose.” The matriarch wasn’t just sitting by. She had effectively run that meeting at the Buena Vista. Was she also running something on the side? Was she unhappy with the more restrained direction her grandkids were taking the company? “Let’s be ready so when we catch him, all of them, in our trap, we can take them down.”
Wheeler’s grin was just shy of feral. “The King Slayer came to play.”
Chris forced himself not to cringe, the instinct automatic. But the King Slayer was who he needed to be right now, to take down the man who wanted to be king and to get justice against the king who’d killed his partner. The King Slayer could silence the sirens, forget the picture of home they sang of.
“I’m assuming you can adjust the strike plan?” he said to Wheeler. “We secure the explosives, then we secure the targets. All of them.”
“I need a couple more agents. Two, maybe three.”
“Vet them.” Chris did cringe then, reminded of Amelia’s jab. He did sound like Hawes, but in this instance, their op depended on it. They couldn’t have any leaks. “If they’re clear, bring them in.”
Chris shook his head. “Compromised.” Then almost laughed out loud at the pot-kettle irony of labeling Kane compromised when he’d been the one jerking Hawes off in an alley last night. But it wasn’t Kane’s partner Hawes had killed. Let the chief struggle with whether his loyalty lay with the law or the Madigans. Chris knew where his lay: with Izzy. “ATF only.”
With a sharp nod, Wheeler rose and hustled toward the door. “Give me an hour. I’ll call in who I need and have a revised tactical ready—”
Chris waved him off. “Sleep, Scotty. We can go over everything in the morning. The op isn’t until tomorrow night.”
Wheeler let out a breath and a tired chuckle and ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “I broke up with sleep a long time ago.”
“Kiss and make up,” Chris said. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow. I need you sharp.”
“I’ll try. And you too.”
He didn’t give Chris a chance to respond or to pass back the list and photo in his hand. Chris stared at the missing pieces to the puzzle of that night three years ago. He was so close to bringing Izzy’s killers to justice. He kept that thought at the front of his mind, ignoring the kernel of suspicion in the back of it that this—targeting Hawes and his siblings—was exactly what the person who’d engineered that night wanted him to do.
One hour and half a bottle of whisky later, that kernel of doubt had turned into a whole field of corn. And Chris was fucking lost in it.
The confrontation with Hawes continued to play in his head, the I’m Yours no less loud. Nor was the image of a defiant yet resigned Hawes any less vivid. Shoulders square, jaw set, ready to take a bullet if Chris delivered it, tonight or a day from now.
Chris lifted the bottle of Crown Royal and took another swig. The fiery rye burned across his tongue and down his throat, but it failed to burn away the indecision that knotted his stomach, twisted his heart, and fucked with his head. Torn between what he wanted to do and what he should do, and the multiple options in each of those columns.
Fuck.
He capped the bottle and lay back on the narrow strip of grass he called a backyard, staring up at the dark sky that failed to give him any answers. He half expected Hawes to be lingering, to appear out of the fog at any moment, but so far, it was just Chris and the dark, unhelpful nothingness.
He closed his eyes, saw Hawes behind his lids, heard I’m yours in his ears, remembered Amelia’s and Kane’s words from the station, recalled Scotty’s gleeful King Slayer, and the merry-go-round started again. Was he being manipulated too? Was he playing right into Reeves’s hand? Did it fucking matter if he got justice for Izzy?
The spinning only stopped with the metal clank of the side-gate latch. Instantly alert, Chris rolled onto his side, adjusted his grip on the bottle, the only weapon he had at the ready, and cocked back his arm, preparing to hurl it at the late-night intruder. But then the burst of adrenaline sharpened into focus, and a tread as familiar as his own reached his ears.
Relaxing on his hip, he took another swig of whisky and waited for his sister to appear from around the corner. In the dark, with only the ambient light of the flat above them, the bruises on her face and neck weren’t as glaring, but the way she moved was careful and measured, feeling the aches and pains of the fight with Dex. There was also a steely, encouraging set to her spine that had been long missing. And a helmet in her hands that made him grin. “You bring me a gift, Cee?”
“I brought you the thing that’s required by law.”
“You’re such a mom.”
“Shut it.” She tossed her purse on the rusty, broken beach chair and lowered herself, cross-legged, next to him on the ground. “Lawyer called today. Wanted to say thank you.”
“At midnight?”
“Another lawyer called. She said you might need someone tonight.”
He raised a brow. “And you decided to be that person?”
She shoved the helmet at his chest, and he collapsed back, feigning injury. She laughed, a good, welcome sign, before snagging the bottle and taking a healthy swallow. “Neither of us has been there for the other like we should have been. Like we used to be. But you were there for me today, and I’m here for you now.”
Warmth, the first since this morning, suffused his person and soothed a little of the ache in his chest, turned the chaos down a measure in his head. He ran a hand over the basic yet durable helmet, letting that calm him further too, thankful for the reprieve.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“I found out who killed Izzy.”
She covered his hand with hers. “Not the boyfriend?”
Fuck, he wished it had been Zander Rowe, wished he could rewind and tell the grief-stricken, vengeful Agent Perri of three years ago to let it go, to just accept the official cover version of events. It would have been a whole lot less painful, less complicated. “Not who I thought it was at all.”
“And you’re not happy about that.”
He laughed, because what the fuck else was he going to do? Cry? He pushed himself upright, set the helmet on the ground, and reclaimed the bottle, taking another swig.
Gaze downcast, Celia picked at the shop grease under her nails. “Dex isn’t who I thought he was either.”
“Cee…”
“I know I have a blind spot where he’s concerned, but we had some good years before the bad. He gave me two beautiful kids, but then he changed, and so did I.” She sighed, heavy and tired. “But you know what didn’t change? My responsibility to those kids, and I let them down. I should have left him years ago, for their sakes.”
He’d seen the same play out before, in Jennifer’s family and in the circles he’d infiltrated as an agent. He knew who was to blame, and it wasn’t his sister or the kids. “That’s not how abuse works, Cee.”
“I’m not sure how a lot of things work.”
“Except an engine.”
She glanced up at him, a small, welcome smile flitting across her face. “That I do know.”
“Dad taught us well. You better.”
Surprising him, she reached for his hand. “But that’s not the only engine he taught us about. Mom and Pop, they also showed us how to run the engine of a family and a job too. My kids, the shop, those are the things that keep me going. I’ll focus on them, fine-tune ’em, and let that drive me. What’s driving you, big brother?”
I’m yours.
He shook the thought away. “I’ll sleep, then I’ll get up tomorrow, and Special Agent Christopher Perri will do his job.” One last time. For Izzy. For Ro. For this family. Complete his final mission and get out. He’d lost sight of that, blinded by a future he couldn’t have. He remembered it now, and he’d let it drive him. He’d be done tomorrow, one way or the other.
Chapter Eighteen
A black town car pulled into the drive of the Madigan family fort, headlights blasting the sage-green Victorian. Lights also beamed bright above, the house ablaze from the main floor all the way up to Holt’s attic lair, giving the impression that the hacker was there. Not sitting behind Chris in the back seat of Kane’s cruiser, parked in the shadows of the driveway across the street.
“Here we go,” Helena singsonged, her voice echoing out of the cruiser’s speakers. She leaned over and kissed Rose’s cheek, the matriarch standing in front of the big bay windows, Lily in her arms.
“We’ve got you,” Holt reported back as the red dot on the dashboard screen tracking Helena’s movements headed for the door. “Keep your channel open so we can hear, but no further communication.”
“Not a rook, Little H.”
No, Helena definitely wasn’t. Her posture was relaxed, her demeanor calm as she descended the porch steps, approached the town car, and stretched out her arms, allowing the driver to check her for weapons and devices. Unarmed and all clear, the same undetectable tech Chris had planted on Iris undetectable once more. The driver opened the door for her, and Helena slid into t
he back seat. She had no idea what she was getting into, who might be waiting for her, and yet the petite blonde clad in leather and cashmere didn’t display an ounce of trepidation. Impressive was right, and confident in the fact that she was deadlier than a good percentage of the population.
Chris wondered, not for the first time since he’d squared off with her in Kane’s office yesterday, how involved she’d been the night Izzy died. She’d clearly known what had happened and understood how the fallout had changed her brother. Had she been there? Had she left Izzy in the street? Been the one to tamper with the crime scene to make it look just enough like a domestic disturbance? With Kane then at SFPD, willing to cover for them, and the ATF silent, unwilling to disclose their presence, how much time and evidence had they lost? Maybe Chris would have put the pieces together sooner, before everything had become a jumbled mess.
“So, just me and you?” Helena’s polite chitchat with the driver brought Chris back to the present. She was letting them know she was alone in the car as it started down the hill out of Pac Heights.
“Alpha on the move,” Chris radioed the task force teams. “Tactical, hold for advance. Beta, go in sixty.”
Exactly a minute later, a Benz crept out of the alley two blocks up, Avery behind the wheel, Hawes in the passenger seat. A blue dot appeared on Kane’s dashboard screen, following a discreet distance behind the town car. “Beta on the move.”
Kane waited another minute before easing the unmarked cruiser out after them. “Command on the move,” Chris reported. “Tactical, hold another sixty, then commence advance.”
As planned, Helena’s response to the seller had insisted on visual proof. She wouldn’t make any deal without clapping eyes on the entire lot of explosives. In reply, the seller proposed a meet, location undisclosed, making the task force’s rolling tails one of the trickier aspects of the op. Never mind the twist Chris had planned for the end, assuming they secured the explosives first.
