Promises to Keep

by Maegan Beaumont

  Michael was suddenly sure Reyes knew he’d allowed Lydia to visit Christina unsupervised. Looking down at the little girl, something close to panic settled into his bones. He could leave. Just pack his shit and walk out

  But he wouldn’t. And Reyes knew it.

  “Christina, listen to me—”

  She shook her head. “I hate him. Why can’t you be—”

  His heart did a quick flip-flop in his chest. “Don’t. Don’t say it.” He looked around to make sure no guards or servants were lurking. Listening. He took her by the arm and pulled her a bit closer. “I’m not the kind of guy any kid should be wishing was her father, so … ”Michael stood, shoving the carefully wrapped box into her hand and stood. “Go give your father his gift and wish him a happy birthday so we can go to the beach.” He said it roughly, took a step back, and shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from pulling her away from the door.

  Tears spilled over her bottom lids and she swiped at them as if they annoyed her. Turning toward the door, she wiped her face again before giving it a soft rap with her knuckles. They waited only seconds for the door to open, finding Reyes on the other side, a young man standing beside him.

  “Happy birthday, Papa,” Christina said. Michael knew she was smiling, but the lift of her mouth didn’t quite ease the rigid set of her shoulders. If Reyes noticed, he said nothing. He gave her a smile, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  “I was sure you’d be at the beach by now, Christina.” Reyes looked up and over the girl’s head and found Michael’s gaze. “I know how much you like to build sandcastles.” The last was said directly to him. The kid next to Reyes made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat and gave him a look to match.

  Michael’s fists balled in the front pocket of his jeans and he stared back until the kid looked away. Reyes, who’d caught the split-second exchange, laughed. “Don’t be fooled into thinking he’s gone soft, Estefan. He may have developed a taste for sandcastles and tea parties, but Michael is a killer. He would slit your throat in the space of a few seconds without even thinking about it—isn’t that right, Cartero?”

  Christina looked at him over her shoulder, but Michael stared straight ahead, refusing to look at the little girl in front of him.

  His gaze settled on the boy again. This time he noticed the tat that stretched from his nape to his collarbone. It was new—the black ink puffy and edged in red. A scorpion, pincers raised, tail curled against his neck, poised to strike.

  “Nice brand,” he said, and the kid visibly stiffened at the barely veiled insult.

  “I wear it proudly.” Estefan tipped his chin at a defiant angle before looking at Reyes. “My father is a great man.”

  Father? Michael shot a look at Reyes, who just smiled without acknowledging the boy’s claim. He looked to be in his early twenties—at least fifteen years older than Christina. If Reyes was his father, he’d been young when this kid had been born.

  “Now that you two have met, I’d like to ask you a small favor, Cartero,” Reyes said, his words instantly stiffening the back of Michael’s neck.

  “Not sure I have time for a favor—my schedule’s pretty packed, what with all my sandcastles and tea parties,” he replied, doing his level best to keep his voice light and casual. He had a feeling that whatever it was that Reyes wanted from him, it was something he wouldn’t want to give.

  Reyes smiled, trying to hide his reaction to the veiled refusal. “I’m sure you can make time for this. It’s time Estefan received training, and I’d like you to be the one to teach him.”

  Michael cocked his head, letting his gaze travel the length of the boy beside Reyes. Teaching this kid to use a knife would be a mistake. “Combat training? Are you serious?”

  “Think of it as self-defense. I was thinking a few hours in the evenings to start—after your sandcastles and tea parties,” Reyes said to him before looking down at Christina. “Someday it will be Estefan’s job to look after her.” He looked up again; this time his gaze was as sharp as a blade. “You won’t be here forever, Cartero.”

  Christina’s hand found Michael’s, her small fingers curled around his own, and she squeezed.

  She turned to her father and thrust the package into his hands. “Happy birthday,” she said again before turning to pull Michael down the hall. He could feel Reyes’s eyes drilling into his back.

  She was quiet for a moment, kept walking down the long stretch of hall between her father’s study and the foyer. Finally she looked at him. “Mama’s not coming today, is she?”

  His first instinct was to lie, but in the end he simply shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is he going to kill her?” She sounded different. He didn’t want to look at her, suddenly sure it was an old woman standing next to him and not the little girl he knew.

  He swallowed hard, the lump in throat making it difficult for him to breath. He shook his head again, looking down at her. “No.”

  She squeezed his hand, gazing up at him with eyes that seemed to have seen and understood more than could possibly fit into the tiny span of her lifetime. “Do you promise?”

  He looked away. “I promise.”

  Thirty-Four

  The dead boy wasn’t Leo Maddox.

  Michael wasn’t surprised. Leon Maddox’s only grandson was a valuable commodity, one that wouldn’t be squandered or sold into the hands of a pervert—at least not until he’d served his purpose.

  The Maddox boy had been granted a stay of execution, not a pardon. No one understood the concept of living on borrowed time better than he did.

  He looked at Sabrina and felt the familiar knot growing in the pit of his stomach that took root whenever he was close enough to touch her. Those roots grew deep, seeming to wrap around his spine. Digging cold fingers into the capsule that hugged it, reminding him that he’d never be allowed to have what he wanted.

  Miss Ettie set a fine-bone China cup in front of him. She’d come out of nowhere, Alex Kotko trailing behind her in baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt with a picture of a cat on it, and got busy pouring coffee while the boy wedged himself under the table.

  Michael looked up at the old woman and forced himself to smile. “Thanks.”

  She didn’t say anything, just patted his shoulder and gave him an odd look that was half smile, half frown. Like she could read his mind and felt sorry for him. He dropped his gaze to the boy on the floor, back slammed against the side of Sabrina’s chair. On impulse, he lifted a stack of cookies from the plate Miss Ettie placed on the table and held them down at his side. The kid swiped them out of his hand and started shoving them into his mouth, two at a time. Michael smiled for a moment, but it died quickly, memories he’d thought long dead pushing in around him.

  He dropped his now empty hand on the table and slouched in his chair, waiting for Miss Ettie to leave the room before speaking. “You in or out, Lark?”

  Lark looked him straight in the eye. “In.”

  “Good. Now you can prove it by telling us what the hell kind of deal Shaw’s got going with Reyes,” Michael said.

  Lark just laughed. “You think I know?” He flicked a glare across the table to where Ben had taken a seat. “I’m not the boss’s kid; I’m his dog. I get to know precisely what I need to in order to get the job done. Not one syllable more.”

  “Alright. What was your assignment here?” Michael said.

  “Report back to Shaw if you got close to finding the Maddox kid. Let him know if you got a bead on Reyes.”

  It was probably true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “Is that it?”

  Lark cut him a humorless grin. “You know how it is.”

  Michael nodded, understanding perfectly—Lark was here to kill him. Nothing he didn’t know already, but having it confirmed wiped out any residual guilt he might’ve been feeling about throwing that capsule do
wn Lark’s throat. Ironically, the capsule and the help from Lark it ensured were the only things stopping him from reaching across the table and snapping Lark’s neck. For now, trying to kill each other would have to wait.

  “What were you doing at Elm’s office this afternoon?” Sabrina said.

  Lark hesitated, seeming to be choosing his words carefully. “Shit went down—and not like it was supposed to.”

  So things had gotten messy and he’d been called in to clean up. Too bad for him that Sabrina and her partner had gotten in the way.

  “Who ordered the hit on Elm?” Michael said, but he already knew the answer, even if Lark didn’t.

  Lark shrugged. “Either Reyes or Shaw. Take your pick.”

  His money was on Reyes. Shaw had nothing to gain by Elm’s death.

  “So who’d the shooter belong to?” Ben said.

  Lark shook his head. “I never saw ’em, but I’d put my money on Team Reyes. Pips don’t usually get down like that.”

  Michael leaned forward. “Like what?”

  Lark didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked at Sabrina. “You saw Elm’s secretary. That shit wasn’t necessary.”

  Sabrina nodded. “Every kill in the building was totally methodical. One bullet, head shot at close range. We found a mess in the breakroom, like someone put up a fight—my guess is Elm’s secretary. I’ll have the ME scrape her nails for trace. Maybe she got a chunk of him. We might get lucky with an ID,” she said.

  “Whoever it is will come back as a known associate of Alberto Reyes. The hit on Elm was a mop-job. The rest of them were just collateral damage.” Michael looked down at the boy again. He was practically catatonic. The Reyes he knew wouldn’t waste the price of a bullet, let alone the manpower it took to track down and kill one small boy. But it’d been Cordova’s men at the hospital, not Reyes’s. Which meant whatever Alex Kotko knew, whoever he was, he was valuable—not only to Reyes, but also to his enemies.

  Michael took a few seconds, weighing the boy’s importance against that of Leo Maddox. He calculated the odds of getting them both out alive and measured them against his need to complete the mission. He glanced up and found Sabrina watching him. She knew what he was doing—considering a trade—and she’d shoot him before letting him apply the most logical solution.

  He looked away from her, told himself that he averted his eyes because he found her almost obsessive need to save everyone annoying—not because the wary expression on her face was one she’d give an untrustworthy stranger.

  “Shooters,” Lark said out of nowhere. “Plural. As in there were two of them.”

  “What?” Ben said in a bored tone that was at total odds with the interest that sharpened his gaze.

  “Robert Elm wasn’t shot at close range.” He shot a glance at Sabrina and cracked a smile. “Don’t sweat it, sweetheart, it was an easy miss. You had your hands full with trying to figure out a way to bash my skull in with an ashtray—no way you or your partner’d notice something like that,” he said to her before turning his attention back to Ben. “It was a long-distant, lateral shot.” Lark reached out and jabbed a finger at Ben’s forehead, drilling him in the center of it. “There was no stippling around the entrance wound. Clean, high-powered round. Only place to make a shot like that is damn near a mile from the crime scene.” Lark shifted around in his seat and spoke to Michael directly. “I clocked it on the way here, while you and Lady Cop were busy getting reacquainted.”

  Michael studied his former friend. Every twitch and tic. He’d always been able to tell when he was lying, and Brian Lark was telling the truth.

  “You’re the only person I know that’s ever been on Reyes’s payroll with those kinds of skills.” Lark said to him. “Shit, only a handful of you in Shaw’s stable, for that matter.”

  So who made the shot?

  He had a sudden flash. The scarf girl, Eliza—the bright red stain on her forehead. The spray of blood across the cool white tablecloth. All she’d wanted was her little brother back. She’d been desperate and stupid. And about to tell him something he wasn’t supposed to know.

  “Who is it?” he said quietly, his words a blanketing weight, suppressing every other sound. “Who’d Shaw send to clean up Reyes’s mess?” But he already knew.

  Lark was right—there weren’t many of his kind running around.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was Church,” Lark said, confirming his suspicions.

  Things had just gone from insanely bad to downright un-

  survivable.

  Thirty-Five

  Church.

  The name formed a rock in his gut. Church was in San Francisco. It suddenly became a very real possibility that none of them would survive the next forty-eight hours.

  “Church? Here?” Ben gave a low whistle, slouching back in his seat. “And you’re just deciding to tell us this now? Did your mom drop you on your fuckin’ head or something?”

  From the look on his face, Lark had reached his limit. He stood, the force of the move sending his chair skittering across the hardwood floor. “Look, I got Lady Cop tryin’ to beat my brains out, him”—he jabbed a finger in Michael’s direction—“throwing ricin down my throat and threatening to shoot me every time I blink, and you running your goddamn mouth nonstop. Sorry I’ve been a little too preoccupied to sweat the small stuff.”

  “Church is hardly small stuff,” Ben said.

  What Church was, was a game changer.

  Lark had the good sense to look a bit worried. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I wasn’t tryin’ to keep it from you guys, I just … ” He ended it on a shrug, his excuses running out of steam.

  “What is a church?” Sabrina said out of nowhere.

  “Church isn’t a what. It’s a who,” Ben said.

  “Another FSS operative?” she said, bouncing a look around the table.

  Ben shrugged. “We’re not really sure. All we know is the name.”

  “So no one’s ever actually seen this Church?” Sabrina sounded dubious, like Ben had just told her he’d had a Bigfoot encounter.

  Ben caught the tone and smiled. “I’m sure plenty of people have seen Church. I’m also fairly certain that the vast majority of those people are dead.”

  “And how do you know that?” From the look on her face, Sabrina still wasn’t buying it.

  “Because my Daddy told me so,” Ben said, his smile growing wider. “He’s a lying jerkwad, but not about shit like this. I’ve seen firsthand what this asshole can do.”

  Sabrina shook her head, about to speak, but Michael was done listening to them. “Enough,” he said, cutting a look at Ben that matched his tone. “Church is just one in a long line of problems. Right now, figuring out a way to buy Leo Maddox some time is our first priority.”

  They all looked at him, counting on him to know what to do. To do the right thing when he didn’t have a fucking clue what the right thing was.

  Finally he spoke. “You’re gonna call Shaw and tell him that the Maddox boy is dead,” he said to Lark. “You’re gonna tell him that Ben is in the process of falsifying the DNA report to make it look like he’s still alive to buy me some time in the States.”

  “What good is that gonna do?” Lark said, sounding nervous at the prospect at telling Livingston Shaw anything but the absolute truth. He lifted his cup to his lips. The frail china looked ridiculous in his massive hand.

  “A lot, actually,” Michael said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “It might cause a rift between him and Reyes. Play them against each other. Shaw might’ve had a hand in Leo’s kidnapping, but I have a feeling that keeping him alive is essential to whatever plan he’s working. If he thinks Reyes killed his golden goose, he’ll demand proof of life. We might have a shot at intercepting the information. It’s our best bet on figuring out where Reyes is keeping Leo. He’s running out of
time. As soon as Reyes gets what he wants from Shaw, the Maddox kid is as good as dead.” Or worse.

  “That’s all well and good, but if Shaw thinks you’re lying to him in order to keep yourself here, the first thing he’ll do is call you back to Spain,” Lark said.

  “Exactly.”

  “You want to go, but Shaw can’t know that,” Sabrina said, understanding instantly.

  “Despite appearances, San Francisco is not where the action is at for this. If I want to figure out what Shaw’s up to and how Cordova fits into all this, I have to go back,” he said.

  “What are we gonna do with him?” Lark said, aiming his coffee cup at Alex.

  “He can stay here with Miss Ettie,” Ben said. “She won’t mind.”

  Michael looked doubtful. “She won’t be able to protect him if shit goes south. Not with Church running around.”

  “She won’t have to,” Sabrina said. “The lab is running Elm’s DNA against what was found on Alex and the trace Mandy found on Johnny Doe. Based on the financial records that Strick found, we’ll have a warrant to search Elm’s residence by morning. My case is as good as wrapped. I’ve got some vacation time. I’ll take it.”

  He had that feeling again. The one he’d had at the hospital, looking at that deep, ugly furrow dug into her scalp. That feeling that told him he was going to lose her.

  “None of this matters without proof—documented proof—that the dead kid is Leo Maddox,” Lark said, his words cutting through Michael’s thoughts. “Cause you know Shaw’s not taking my word for it.”

  Sabrina flashed them a tight smile and stood. “Leave that to me.”

  Thirty-Six

  Sabrina left them sitting around Miss Ettie’s kitchen table, drinking coffee out of ridiculous cups and plotting on how best to destroy Livingston Shaw. Though he’d agreed to help, Lark was a liability until proven otherwise. She seriously doubted that either Ben or Michael would trust him with every aspect of whatever plan they worked up, but right now that wasn’t her concern.