The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 1

by Maegan Beaumont

  PROMISES TO KEEP, SABRINA VAUGHN #3

  When your past comes back to kill you...

  "Edge-of-the-seat plotting will keep readers' attention late into the night."―Library Journal

  For years, Michael O'Shea has been forced to act as a personal assassin for Livingston Shaw, the cold-blooded puppet master who controls the remote bioweapon implanted in Michael's back. Shaw offers to release him if he can recover a kidnapped boy, but the only witnesses are being murdered and Michael can't shake the agonizing memories of another child he was once sworn to protect.

  Meanwhile, police Inspector Sabrina Vaughn―the woman Michael passionately loves but has been kept from seeing―discovers a body that bears a striking resemblance to the missing boy. Against all his instincts, Michael must draw Sabrina into his life as one of the world's most notorious assassins if he's to overcome the legacy of his past.

  Promises to Keep is the third book in the Sabrina Vaughn Series.

  Click here to order Promises to Keep, Sabrina Vaughn #3 now

  Turn the page to read a sample —>

  PROMISES TO KEEP: Chapter 1

  Cofre del Tesoro, Columbia

  December ~ 2007

  There was blood on Michael’s boot.

  Not a lot—just a drop or two—but it bothered him. He licked the pad of his thumb and rubbed.

  Should’ve bought the black pair…

  “I’m sorry—am I boring you?”

  Looking up, he found Alberto Reyes staring at him from behind his desk with the small, glittering eyes of a snake.

  He shrugged and kept rubbing. Reyes continued to stare. After a few moments the spot came clean and he dropped his foot to the floor, giving the man his full attention.

  “As I was saying… I’m a fan of your work, Cartero. I find your brutality quite beautiful.” Reyes studied the pictures he had fanned across his desk as if he were trying to choose his favorite among them. He picked one up and held it close to his face, tilting his head to the side. “Your knife work is exceptional—absolutely no hesitation, just… exquisite.” Reyes placed the photo on top of the pile and got back to watching him. Michael folded his arms across his chest and made himself smile.

  “I don’t get paid to hesitate, Reyes. I get paid to deliver messages and I’ve delivered yours, so…” He stood, pinned the smaller man with a look that said he’d rather not discuss his knife skills.

  “Ah, yes—so, you have,” Reyes said. He opened a side drawer on his massive desk and pulled out a large manila envelope. It bulged from all sides—its contents barely leaving room to seal it. “Your payment, as agreed.” Reyes placed it on the desk and his hands on top of it, barring him from taking it. “But first, I have a matter I’d like to discuss…”

  Michael stifled an eye roll and stood. Taking a trip to the window, he looked out across the compound. The helicopter that had brought him here sat on its pad waiting to take him back to the mainland. A small fleet of speed boats bobbed along the surface of the distant ocean. Beyond them, a long stretch of white sand seemed to mold itself to the water’s edge.

  He’d never been to the beach in anything but fatigues. Never lay in the sand without his eye pressed to a scope, finger resting on the trigger. He felt the weight of the life he'd chosen pressing down on him. Rooting him in place.

  He dug his hands into the pockets of his fatigues, brushing a finger across the photograph he kept there and took a few deep breaths. He missed his parents. He missed his sister… but his parents were long dead, and Frankie? Well, she was better off without him.

  Thinking of the man behind him, Michael let go of the picture. Alberto Reyes always had a matter to discuss, business to conduct. A year ago he’d been nothing more than a lieutenant in his cousin's cartel. It was his single-mindedness that allowed him to climb to the top of Columbia’s drug trade in a matter of months. That and the fact that Reyes had hired him to kill every rival he had. Starting with his own cousin. The one kill Michael would’ve made for free.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone left, Reyes. Pretty sure I killed ‘em all.”

  “So you have.” Reyes chuckled. “I admire your work ethic, Cartero—so few of our generation understand the dedication required to not only obtain power, but to keep it.” Reyes stood and joined him at the window.

  “I don’t want power.” He wanted his money so he could get the hell out of here.

  “Any other man I’d call a liar, but you… you, I believe.” Reyes wagged a finger at him. “I take pride in finding a man’s weaknesses. Yours are few and far between. Your fees are outrageous but I’ve seen the way you live. You care little for money. You kill for drug dealers but abhor drugs. You take women, but never the same one more than a few times so no attachment is ever made...”

  He thought of Reyes’ cousin, Mateo Moreno. His blood and brain sprayed across the courthouse steps. The kick of his rifle against his shoulder a split second after he’d taken the shot. “I got what I wanted.”

  “Revenge is a powerful motivator but for a man like you… killing my cousin was more of a need than an actual want. You needed to kill Mateo—to put right what he’d done to the Ramos woman and your brethren. Your wants are much... softer.”

  Michael could practically see the forked tongue, peeking out from behind his teeth. “Is that so?” he said, a trace of east Texas creeping into his drawl. “Right now, what I’m wanting… it don’t feel too soft.”

  Reyes laughed. “This is why I like you, Cartero. You have no fear. I made a study of you—what you wanted. It became an obsession of sorts.” Reyes smiled like they were friends. “I almost gave up... but then, I realized that it isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you can’t have.”

  For some reason, his thoughts turned toward the photograph in his pocket. The baby sister he’d probably never see again. Frankie.

  “I want you to work for me. Exclusively.”

  Michael’s hands curled into fists. He was like a cheerleader with too many dates to the prom. They all wanted exclusivity. To keep him as a pet. “No thanks… I’m a free spirit.”

  Reyes laughed again, clapped him on the shoulder like they were lifelong friends. “But aren’t you curious? You don’t even know what I have in mind for you.”

  He’d heard it all before—Come, be my personal sicario. Stand at my right hand and slit the throats of my enemies… blah, blah, blah… he shrugged and returned his attention to the faraway ocean. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t do exclusive.”

  “I want you to protect my daughter, Christina.”

  He turned his face from the window. “Excuse me?”

  Reyes’ handsome face split in a grin reserved for putting people at ease. He’d seen him use it on rivals and underlings—usually right before he had them fitted for a Columbian necktie. “This is a dangerous life, my friend—one I’ve chosen, but my Christina is innocent in all this. She has no choice. I would never be able to live with myself if the decisions I’ve made caused her death.”

  Reyes was saying the right things, making the appropriate gestures of concern for his only daughter but Michael didn’t buy it for a second. Reyes cared for no one but himself. Providing for his daughter’s safety was a means to an end—nothing more.

  “So you hire an assassin to play babysitter?” He eased his shoulder from beneath Reyes’ hand. Well, aren’t you Ward friggin’ Cleaver…

  “Who could be better? My business takes me away from home more often than I’d like. Those who would seek to harm her would never dare—not if it were El Cartero who guarded her,” Reyes said, leaning in and speaking softly. “You are the only thing they fear.”

  He tipped his head toward the window, a nice try, asshole smile on his face. “You built this fortress on an island, fifty miles from the mainland. I think she’s safe.”

  Just then, the study doors flung open and in ran a little girl, no more than four or five. She clamored at her father’s feet, black pigtails bouncing wildly in a jumble of corksc
rew curls. The little girl climbed up Reyes’ leg and he lifted her into his arms, settling her against his side.

  “Christina, what have I told you about barging into my office when I’m with friends?” He chided her gently but Michael had a feeling that it was all for show, an act.

  The little girl looked confused. “Not to—but you said—”

  “It is no matter. Since you are here, I’d like you to meet a friend. His name is Michael,” Reyes said, turning the girl in his arms so that he could get a good look at her. Chubby cheeks, framed by those riotous curls and a pair of chocolate brown eyes stared back at him. She reminded him of, Frankie… the Frankie he knew—not the one who’d grown up without him.

  “I’m Christina.” The little girl held out her hand and he took it, gave it a gentle shake.

  He looked past the girl, to her father who watched the exchange with the satisfied smile of someone who knew he’d won.

  PROMISES TO KEEP: Chapter 2

  Barcelona, Spain

  2015

  Michael looked at the woman sitting next to him. Her name was Pia Cordova and he was going to kill her father.

  “What’s the matter, baby?” Pia said in his ear, relying on proximity rather than volume to make herself heard over the frantic pulse of music that flooded the club’s VIP lounge. “Don’t you like me?” She gave the front of his shirt a light rake with her manicured nails. He imagined she was trying to turn him on but she was doing a piss-poor job of it. He made himself look at her, forced a leering smile onto his face. She was beautiful, in a bleach-blonde-fake-breast sort of way. The only child of one of Europe’s premier arms dealers; she’d have been his type a couple of years ago. Eager to please and easy to forget.

  These days he’d rather stick his dick in a bear trap.

  As it was, he could barely look at her, let alone do what came next. A sharp kick was delivered to the bottom of his foot. He shot a glare at his partner. Ben had a woman in his lap and his tongue down her throat and still managed to give him a hey, asshole—get with the program look. Time to nut up and do his job.

  He leaned into Pia and smiled. “Like isn't really the word I'd use to describe how I'm feeling,” he said in heavily accented English. Nuzzling her neck, he pressed his lips to the tender spot behind her earlobe. “Let me get you a drink. Vodka?” he tilted his chin at her empty glass.

  Her lips curved into a predatory smile as she took his hand, running it up her smooth, naked leg, pushing his fingers beyond her skirt’s too-short-to-be-decent hemline while she licked at his earlobe. “Getting me drunk isn’t necessary,” she purred.

  With Ben still giving him the stink-eye, he forced his hand higher. “I want to take care of you…” His other hand caught her chin as he lowered his lips onto her open mouth, kissing her until she was splayed against the black leather couch they sat on, panting.

  Standing, he grinned down at her for a moment before he turned and headed for the VIP’s private bar, shouldering his way in. He got the attention of the same bartender he’d been using all night—a petite blonde with a pixie-cut and sly brown eyes—and held up two fingers. As soon as she saw him she nodded, continuing to mix the drink for the waitress who was waiting next to him.

  “I thought it was you but I was unsure.”

  Michael secured a puzzled look on his face before turning. “Do I know you?” he said in the same thick German accent he’d been using all night, giving the man behind him a remote smile, his gaze straying to the long, raised scar that slid down the side of his face into a hook near the corner of his mouth. It gave him a perverse satisfaction to know that it hadn’t faded over time.

  The smile returned, causing the scar to crinkle. “Come on, I won’t ruin your game. I just wanted to say hello,” the man said. “It’s been too long.”

  Not nearly long enough.

  He looked past the young man in front of him. Two armed guards were standing a few yards away and he smirked. “I see Daddy still won’t let you cross the street by yourself,” Michael said, sufficiently knocking the smug look off his face. “What are you doing here, Estefan?”

  “My father’s businesses have grown in your absence, Cartero,” Estefan said with another self-satisfied smile. “I am his second in command these days.”

  “Good for you,” he said with a disinterested shrug—as if he hadn’t been keeping tabs on Alberto Reyes and his ever-growing reach. As if the idea of killing both Estefan and his goons wasn’t fighting to take precedence over the job he was currently working.

  His bartender slid two drinks across the bar. A Kettle One and a water, both on the rocks. The water was marked with a lime wedge but she tapped a manicured finger against its rim, just in case and he smiled at her. Pia’s vodka had enough Rohypnol in it to tranquilize a horse.

  Michael reached into the breast pocket of his suit to pull out a thick stack of bills, held together with a wide silver clip. He peeled off a few hundred Euros. “Pour Mr. Second-in-Command whatever he wants—the rest is for you,” he said, picking up his drinks before he turned and looked Estefan full in the face and gave him a wink. “See you around, kid.”

  PROMISES TO KEEP: Chapter 3

  He and Ben had been called into FSS’ Barcelona office at three AM. By Livingston Shaw. Whatever was about to go down couldn’t be good.

  Michael thought of the last time he’d been called into a private audience with Shaw. He’d been told that the implant in his back wasn’t just a tracking device, used to keep tabs on him. It was also there to kill him if he got out of line.

  He reached for the base of his spine. It was still there. It would always be there—a capsule, the size of a dime. Inside was enough military-grade bio-toxin to wipe out a small town. It was rigged with a detonation chip that responded to a phone number. Once the number was dialed, voice recognition software would take over. One word code and a seven digit code was all it would take to kill him.

  He looked at Ben. He and his father were the only two who could detonate the capsule. One was his boss. The other was his partner. Ben looked at him and smiled. Michael dropped his hand and stared at the floor.

  First Security Solutions had offices all over the world. On the surface, they were a private firm that provided protection to visiting U.S. dignitaries and supplemental security to American Embassies, worldwide—but that was a bunch of bullshit.

  In reality, FSS was a privatized military organization that specialized in government-sanctioned covert ops. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They went places that'd give the CIA a case of the flop-sweats and did things that’d make a SEAL hide in his mother’s skirts. Michael had been on board for three years now and he’d hated every single second of it.

  They took the elevator to the thirty-second floor. The doors slid open, revealing an expansive office—blood-red carpet surrounded by endless banks of bullet-proof windows. He didn’t have to see it to know what it looked like. Eleven offices in as many countries and they all looked the same, right down to the throw pillows and drink coasters.

  “Shit,” Ben said under his breath. Michael looked up to see Brian Lark standing next to the boss’ desk, poised like a pet dog. Which was exactly what he was.

  He felt the rage—years old and bone-deep—rear its ugly head. Their eyes met and Lark’s dimples popped out as the smirked deepened to an actual smile. Heavily-muscled arms covered in coffee-colored skin crossed over his massive chest. Lark knew exactly what he was thinking—he could read his bring it on, asshole expression from across the room. His hand fell to the grip of his Kimber .45 and began to lift it off his hip.

  Ben stepped in front of him, suddenly all business. “Don’t do it,” he said in a low voice. Michael looked at him, the I’m just a fuck-up vibe he usually threw off was gone in favor of something closer to the truth.

  “Michael. Benjamin, please join us,” Livingston Shaw said from his desk. His tone and words were warm, welcoming even, but Michael knew better. Livingston Shaw was Genghis Khan in a ten
-thousand dollar suit. He didn’t do warm or welcoming unless it served a purpose.

  The kid nailed him with a hard look. “Keep it together,” Ben said in that same low voice before he turned to his father and flashed him a smile. “I’d rather be playing X-box,” he said as he strolled across the room. Michael stayed where he was, taking a few seconds to get himself under control. Lark just kept grinning.

  “Michael…” Livingston let the word trail off but its meaning was clear. Get your ass in here—now. He left the elevator and made himself follow the kid. Stopping a safe distance away, he stood, feet planted shoulder-width apart, hands behind his back to hide the fact that they were balled into fists. Shaw smiled up at him, his guileless blue eyes alert and sharp despite the fact that it was in the middle of the night. “I just received confirmation that the first phase of the Cordova operation is complete.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said in a barely controlled tone while staring at the spot just above Shaw’s head. "Cordova is due back in Barcelona tomorrow night. I'll be ready to move."

  "Good. After which, the two of you will be without assignment,” Shaw said. “I have a private matter that needs your attention.”

  Ben's head snapped up from studying his fingernails. “What? Oh, hell no. A month between jobs, that’s the deal,” he said. “I’m going—”

  “Benjamin.” Shaw’s tone said that anyone else would be dead by now.

  “—to Vegas.” Ben sighed and cut him a sidelong glance. “I had tickets to see Celine.”

  “What do you need done, sir?” he said. The sooner they got their assignment, the sooner he could get the hell out of here. Every second counted when you’re fighting a losing battle against a homicidal urge to kill the man who betrayed you.