by Layla Reyne
The reprieve was short-lived, and Chris worried the next, larger wave of attack would be more than their trio could handle. Hawes recognized it too. He stepped closer, their shoulders brushing. “She’s trying to wear us out.”
“Call in the captains?” Helena said.
“No,” Hawes said. “We need them in reserve.”
“No need,” Holt radioed. “Rest of the cavalry is here.”
He’d barely finished speaking when the flash of blue and red lights reflected in the charging mercenaries’ eyes.
“Break, Hena!” Hawes shouted.
She spun left, Hawes right, taking Chris with him. The maneuver put them outside the mercs charging into the middle, easier to handle just the few on the perimeter, while the others scattered in the wake of cop cars and cruisers setting up a barricade, officers and agents taking position behind them.
“We brought friends!” Hawes said.
“Cops and feds,” Reeves said. “What happened to you?”
“I trusted the right people.”
Warmth flooded Chris’s chest, then fled at Reeves’s next words. “They’ll find the explosives and arrest you.”
That had been the plan, but Chris had thrown that plan into jeopardy when he’d thrown Hawes over that wall. Tossed it out all together when Hawes had laid a hand on his back as they’d prepared to charge the yard. Together. At least for the duration of this battle. Longer, if he could figure out how to reconcile justice, his conscience, and his heart. He didn’t think the answer in any scenario was the arrest or death of Hawes Madigan or his siblings.
As for the immediate challenge, Holt solved that problem for them. Zoe’s and Reeves’s own pre-battle words—claiming ownership of the explosives, the intent to make, sell, and use more—blasted out of the yard speakers.
“Sounds like those are your weapons,” Hawes said.
“Which you intend to use in the commission of a crime,” Chris added.
“With the intent to make and distribute more,” Helena finished. “And you can bet we’ll also be filing trespassing charges.”
“And the bodies at your feet?” Reeves said.
“Not dead,” Chris replied. “And if they were, self-defense.” Beside him, Hawes chuckled. Chris likewise smiled at the irony of his words, the past week coming full circle.
“Stand down, Reeves,” Kane bellowed through a megaphone. “It’s over.”
“Fall back!” Zoe ordered. Only two soldiers joined her and Reeves and the couple remaining mercs as they sprinted around the opposite side of the building and down the access ramp to the water.
“They’re headed for the docks!” Hawes said.
“They’ll run into agents that way,” Chris said. The boat coming up from Hunter’s Point, and Wheeler’s three-man team who thought they were there to capture Hawes.
“I’ll stay and manage the scene here,” Helena said. “Go!”
Rather than following down the ramp, Hawes ran flat-out toward the front door, Chris in his wake. “We’ll go through the middle,” he said, as the doors opened for them. “Thanks, Little H.”
They circled the security desk, cut through the break room and cafeteria, and hustled down the same stairwell they’d used last week. Hawes slammed open the emergency exit door to a hail of gunfire, and Chris acted on instinct, forcing him against the wall and covering Hawes’s body with his larger one. Hawes could be pissed at him later.
Except he wasn’t. He fisted the sides of Chris’s shirt and held him tighter, closer, face buried in the crook of his neck.
“You hit?” Chris whispered in his ear. Hawes shook his head. Neither was Chris. He looked up and around. They were alone. Gunfire broke out again. “It’s at the docks.”
Hawes drew back enough to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. I just needed a second.”
Chris lowered an arm from over Hawes’s head and palmed his cheek. “Steady, now?”
He nodded, confident once more. “Let’s go.”
Chris, however, held him firm. There was one more thing he needed to say, before they walked into the firefight. “You need to know—”
“That you intended to arrest me, if we survived this night.”
Chris blinked, then smiled. Of course he knew. “That’s not my intention anymore.”
Hawes circled his wrist, fingers over his pulse point, and squeezed. “My promise holds. I’m yours, either way.”
Chris knew which of the options he wanted now. But the ratcheting up of gunfire drew their attention and they were off again, running for the docks. The scene there was not good. Wheeler’s team of ATF agents, plus the four-man team from the other boat, were now on Gilbert’s salvage vessel, taking on Zoe, Reeves and their reinforcements. It should have been an easy win for the ATF, based on numbers, but while their orders were to capture, the bad guys had no qualms about killing or throwing LEOs overboard.
Zoe was directly engaged with Wheeler while Reeves and Gilbert stood out of the way by the helm, like this was not what they’d signed up for. Chris thought maybe they could use that. He and Hawes crept closer, almost to the boat. The view was good enough, the distance short enough, that when Zoe pulled her gun and shot Scotty in the side, right where the Kevlar didn’t cover, she caught Chris’s movement as his hand whipped to his side arm.
“Came to play, finally.”
“Zoe, let’s go!” Reeves yelled.
“He’s not the one pulling the strings,” Chris said under his breath.
As Chris made the observation, Zoe swung her gun arm around and shot Reeves, point-blank between the eyes. Gilbert screamed, which was the exact wrong move. Zoe’s focus shifted to him, and he went down in a heap next to Reeves.
Her attention diverted, Hawes made a break for the boat. Cursing, Chris drew his weapon and ran after him. They got two steps onto the deck when Zoe brought them up short with a warning shot right between their heads.
“Reeves fits your criteria,” she said to Hawes. “The smuggler too. Don’t they?”
Hawes didn’t take the bait. “Who are you working for?”
“The person who’s always put this organization’s interests first.”
“You calling working with Reeves putting us first?”
“He was a pawn, like all of you.” Her hazel gaze shifted to Chris. “Including your old partner. She knew.”
Chris gasped. “What?” His knees would have given out from under him, if he hadn’t stood braced against the waves already.
Zoe smirked, the same smug grin that Tamela had worn at the BART station. “So does your current partner. He came to us, just like Isabella did. But I’m done trusting feds.”
She raised her arm, gun pointed directly at Scotty’s head, and Chris didn’t hesitate to draw his and fire. At Zoe. She crumpled to the deck, lifeless, and Hawes crumpled over, hands on his knees, expelling a giant breath.
Chris’s head was spinning with the revelations of the past minute, but he kept himself upright by focusing on the man beside him, who was reining in what had to be an even bigger hurricane in his mind. He laid a hand on Hawes’s back and circled to kneel in front of him. “She was going to kill him.”
Eyes still closed, Hawes nodded. “It was the right move. The last thing we need are more dead feds.”
So much for ignoring Zoe’s words about Izzy. Was the lieutenant playing them? Or was there more to the story of Izzy’s murder than Chris or Hawes knew? Chris was ninety-nine percent sure Izzy hadn’t been dirty, but he couldn’t say that with one hundred percent certainty. Tran believed she’d gone rogue when she’d gone dark right before her death. Chris didn’t have an explanation for it, and now there were more questions swirling in that dark space. Questions that made him hold back that one percent. A one percent they needed to account for, and the person who could help them get answers—the person Chris had zero doubts about—was on this boat.
“Listen to me, Hawes.” Blue eyes opened and locked onto his. “Scotty Wheeler is the last person—”
“I believe you.” Hawes took a deep breath and straightened, and Chris moved to check on Scotty.
The agent was still breathing, and the blood loss was thankfully slow. The hit to his head when he’d fallen was probably what had knocked him out. Chris grabbed a deck towel, shoved it over the wound, and rearranged Scotty’s vest to keep the towel wedged there.
“Got a tip earlier today that he was dirty,” Hawes said. “More traps.”
Chris stood and looked back and forth between him and Wheeler. “Then—”
“She needs to think I fell for it. And I need you to help me sell it.”
Anger sparked brightest in the whirlwind of emotions, all of it spinning too fast. “What part of don’t leave me out of the loop—”
Hawes cut him off and deflated his anger by stepping forward and putting one hand on his hip and the other around his neck. “Until twenty minutes ago, I thought you were going to kill me, not kill to protect my organization.”
Chris closed the distance between them and rested his forehead against Hawes’s. “Baby, I can’t kill you. I think I might love you.”
Hawes inhaled sharply, then smiled that wry grin that twisted and warmed Chris’s insides. “Will you still love me when I throw you off this boat?”
“Fuck, I was afraid of that.” He stepped back and looked over the side at the dark water, all thoughts of warmth fleeing. He couldn’t look at Hawes when he asked, “Do you know who she is?” He didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes, didn’t think he could bear it.
“I think so, and I think you do too. I can’t believe my—” The hurt in his voice, though, was a million times worse.
Turning back to him, Chris put a hand over his mouth to stop the painful sound. “Don’t say it, not until you’re sure.” He nodded at Wheeler. “I had my suspicions too. Had him check. That’s probably why they flagged him, then tried to get you to eliminate him.”
“Two birds, one stone.”
“Same as they tried the night of Izzy’s murder.” Which was a thousand times more complicated now. “When he comes to, he’s your best bet for confirming it. And Izzy’s involvement.”
“If she was involved.”
Chris appreciated the consideration, what it meant that Hawes was willing to hold on to Izzy’s innocence, and in doing so, his own culpability in her death. It spoke to the man he was, the man Chris had fallen for. The man who deserved his consideration. “We need to find out the whole truth.” He glanced again at Scotty and sent up a prayer for forgiveness for tangling him up in all this. “Protect him.”
“You know I will.” Hawes ran a shaking hand through his hair, glancing back up the hill where shouts were growing louder and flashlight beams brighter. Kane and his men weren’t around the corner yet, but any minute now… “If we’re right, I may have to bend the knee.”
Chris grabbed his hand and laced their fingers, hauling Hawes close once more. “We’ve been fighting this from the outside. We fight from the inside, if we have to. That might be the only way we find the truth.”
“All of it,” Hawes said, some of his confidence returning.
“All of it,” Chris repeated, then shoved the butt of his gun in Hawes’s middle, same as Hawes had done to him last night. “Sell it, either way.” Chris swallowed Hawes’s gasp, pouring everything into the kiss—admiration, love, trust—and getting the trust back that he so desperately needed. The trust that they would need to find their way home again, because that’s what Hawes was to him. Undeniably. The picture was clear.
Gun in hand, Hawes drew back with a final, achingly sweet kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I think I might love you too.”
Warmth flooded Chris from the center of his chest out to his fingers and toes, shielding him from the pain of the bullet that ripped through his shoulder and the cold dark water of the Bay that swallowed him whole.
For all the latest Fog City news – release dates, sneak peeks, and more—sign up for Layla’s Newsletter and join the Layla’s Lushes Reader Group on Facebook.
A Note From Layla
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for returning to Fog City with me. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long! Just as you discovered who Chris was while reading this book, I discovered who he was while writing it. This was one of the more challenging books I’ve written from that standpoint, but we found our way. Finally! I hope you enjoyed learning more about Chris as much as I did. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of Hawes and Chris’s story in Fog City #3 later this year.
While you wait, and since I have you in the romantic suspense frame of mind, check out my Whiskey Verse books in the Agents Irish and Whiskey and Trouble Brewing series. FBI agents, federal prosecutors, hackers, and non-stop action and romance! The reading order and links for the complete Whiskey Verse are just a few pages over and also available at www.laylareyne.com.
Finally, reviews are an invaluable tool when it comes to spreading the word about great reads. Please consider leaving an honest review for King Slayer on Amazon, BookBub, or your favorite review site. Thank you!
Layla
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you Readers, especially my Lushes, for the continued enthusiasm for this series and all my books. Your support and love of my stories truly mean the world to me!
Thank you to the team that makes Fog City shine: Wander Aguiar and models Patrick and Ryan for the piping hot photography, Cate Ashwood for another amazing cover, Kristi Yanta for always being a phone call or text away when I need a story check-in, Keren Reed for the copy editing expertise, Susan Selva for being the best pair of eyes on my words, and Leslie Copeland for beta reading the first draft and assembling the last one. Speaking of betas, my thanks, love, and all the caffeine to Erin, Lisa, Allison, and Kim for pushing me through this one with their cheering and insightful feedback. Thanks to Judith and the ANTPR team for spreading the word, and thank you Tantor Audio and the incomparable Tristan James for bringing this world to life for listeners!
Thank you again to all the wonderful authors and friends who continue to be an invaluable support system as I swim deeper into these self-pub waters. And thank you to my agent, Laura Bradford, for throwing out a life preserver when I needed it most.
Also by Layla Reyne
Fog City
Prince of Killers
Agents Irish and Whiskey:
Single Malt
Cask Strength
Barrel Proof
Tequila Sunrise
Blended Whiskey
Trouble Brewing:
Imperial Stout
Craft Brew
Noble Hops
Changing Lanes:
Relay
Medley
And Coming Soon:
Dine With Me
About the Author
RITA Finalist Layla Reyne is the author of the Fog City, Whiskey Verse, and Changing Lanes series. A Carolina Tar Heel who now calls the San Francisco Bay Area home, Layla enjoys weaving her bi-coastal experiences into her stories, along with adrenaline-fueled suspense and heart-pounding romance. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and its Kiss of Death and Rainbow Romance Writers chapters. Layla is a 2019 RWA® RITA® Finalist in Contemporary Romance (Mid-Length) and 2016 RWA® Golden Heart® Finalist in Romantic Suspense.
You can find Layla online at laylareyne.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as @laylareyne, and in her reader group on Facebook—Layla’s Lushes.
