Prince of Killers: A Fog City Novel Read online

  Prince of Killers

  A Fog City Novel

  Layla Reyne

  Contents

  About this Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Thank You

  Coming Soon

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Layla Reyne

  About the Author

  Prince of Killers

  Copyright © 2019 by Layla Reyne

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright owner, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover Designer: Cate Ashwood, Cate Ashwood Designs

  Cover Photography: Wander Aguiar, Wander Aguiar Photography

  Layout: Leslie Copeland, LesCourt Author Services

  Professional Beta Reading: Leslie Copeland, LesCourt Author Services

  Developmental Editing: Kristi Yanta, Edits by Kristi

  Copy Editing: Keren Reed, Keren Reed Editing

  Proofreading: Susan Selva, LesCourt Author Services

  First Edition

  June, 2019

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-7320883-6-8

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7320883-7-5

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Content Warnings: explicit sex including mild kink; explicit language; violence; instances and/or discussion of homophobia; off-page instances and/or discussion of PTSD, drug use, and abuse of minor characters.

  About this Book

  No indiscriminate killing. No collateral damage. No unvetted targets.

  These are the rules Hawes Madigan lives by. Rules that make being Fog City’s Prince of Killers bearable. Soon, he’ll be king—of an organization of assassins—and the crown has never felt heavier. Until the mysterious Dante Perry swaggers into his life.

  Dante looks like a rock god and carries himself like one too, all loose-limbed and casually confident. He also carries a concealed weapon, a private investigator’s license, and a message for the prince. Someone inside Hawes’s organization is out to kill the future king.

  In the chaos that follows the timely warning, Hawes comes to depend on Dante. On his skills as an investigator, on the steadiness he offers, and on their moments alone when Hawes lets Dante take control. As alliances are tested and traitors exposed, Hawes needs Dante at his back and in his bed. But if the PI ever learns Hawes’s darkest secret, Hawes is sure to get a knife to the heart—and a bullet to the brain—instead.

  There’s no shortage of twists and turns in this new romantic suspense trilogy from Layla Reyne. Prince of Killers is book one of three. Fair warning: buckle up, cliffhangers ahead!

  To Allison,

  who said I couldn’t buy the pretties until I had a story. Ta-da!

  Chapter One

  Hawes clocked him the second he walked through the restaurant door. At first glance, and he was getting plenty of those, the striking man with long dark hair and leather bracelets could easily be mistaken for a rock star. Not uncommon for Restaurant Gary Danko, the local watering hole of San Francisco’s elite. In the fog-shrouded hills of Fisherman’s Wharf, the Michelin-starred restaurant with its elegant yet laid-back vibe attracted athletes, entertainers, tech kings, and financial wizards, as well as the city’s political players and old-money families. Mr. Double Denim Rock God, with his long legs, windswept hair, and studded leather belt fit right in.

  He carried himself like a rock star too, all loose-limbed and casually confident. All that was missing was the instrument, but a guitar slung over his back would be awfully inconvenient if Mr. Not A Rock God had to draw his real instrument of choice—the pistol tucked at the small of his back. Underneath a black tank and denim jacket, its impression was hardly noticeable, unless you were looking.

  Hawes was always looking.

  As was the chief of police sitting at the corner of the bar closest to the door. Braxton Kane moved quickly and discreetly, rotating on his stool and placing a hand on the stranger’s right forearm, playing the odds that the man was right-handed. His bet was correct. The man instinctively jerked back with his dominant hand, but then he settled just as fast, his casual air returning in a blink. He exchanged a few words with Kane and withdrew a small leather case from his jacket pocket. He pulled out what looked like a business card—from Hawes’s distance across the dining room—and handed it to Kane. The chief glanced at the card, and the wiry muscles of his army-honed body relaxed. He nodded toward Hawes’s table, apparently giving the stranger the go-ahead.

  Cop.

  Hawes dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. That gorgeous hair was the antithesis of regulation, his carriage was all wrong, and Kane hadn’t recognized him. Neither had Hawes, and he made it a habit to regularly review the rosters of the local law enforcement agencies, SFPD and FBI included. The last thing he wanted to do was kill a LEO and upset the balance he’d spent the past five years rebuilding.

  Merc was Hawes’s next best guess, the same conclusion reached by the man and woman on either side of him, judging by the flash of metal barrels under the table.

  “Safeties on,” Hawes ordered, voice low. There was a crowded dining room full of innocents between the door and their corner booth. And Kane wouldn’t have sent Canadian Tuxedo in his direction if he’d thought a shoot-out would ensue.

  The man’s long limbs remained loose as he approached; his core, however, did not, the gun against his spine a steadying rod. Or were his abs just that tight? Hawes could see their defined ridges through the fitted tank as the stranger drew near. He stopped on the other side of the table and braced his hands on top of the lone chair there. The lighter ends of his hair draped over his shoulders, and Hawes wanted to run his fingers through the strands. Wanted to curl them around his fist and see if all the shades of brown in his hair matched the many shades of rain-soaked earth in his eyes.

  Hawes wanted a lot of things he didn’t often get.

  A name and explanation, though, he demanded. “Who are you?” No sense mincing words or introducing himself. The man obviously knew who Hawes was and had come here looking for him.

  “Dante Perry.” No Canadian accent to go with the double denim. Fucking shame. Though the rest of it made sense. Dark hair and eyes, long face, olive skin, and a pronounced Roman nose. Italian descent to go with the Italian name, and judging by his lack of accent, local. Or if he’d had an accent at one time, he’d since lost it or otherwise trained it out.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Perry?”

  Dante pulled out the chair but paused before sitting, his keen eyes darting between the table and Hawes’s companions, as if he could see what their hands held beneath the white linen and lacquered wood. He shifted his gaze back to Hawes. “I don’t plan to draw mine.”

  “Plans,” Hawes said, skepticall
y. “All I’ve got is your name, Mr. Perry. I don’t know that I trust you and your plans.” He trusted Kane more, but better safe than sorry.

  And he also demanded the show of respect. Commanded it.

  Dante obliged. Hands on the table, where everyone could see them, he lowered himself into the chair. “I’m trusting you.”

  Hawes’s gut clenched.

  He ignored it and spread his arms over the back of the booth. A display of ease and confidence for their visitor, Kane, and anyone else watching. A signal for his associates to stand down, for the time being. Leverage, if Hawes needed to lift a leg and kick the table over, which would be another fucking shame. He hoped he wouldn’t have to mess up Dante’s handsome face. “All right, Mr. Perry, state your business.”

  Dante leaned forward, forearms resting on the table, and lowered his voice. “Someone in your organization wants to kill you.”

  Is that all?

  Hawes laughed out loud, drawing curious looks from the nearby tables. Dante’s eyes flashed with frustration, his scruff-covered jaw tightening to match.

  “Not my organization,” Hawes said, even as he mentally heard his sister chide, Trap! Their family hadn’t survived at the top of the food chain for three generations by disclosing the full scope of their operations. Madigan Cold Storage was a legit business. They sold and shipped refrigeration units and frozen goods for more Bay Area restaurants, businesses, and fisheries than Hawes could count. It was also a legit euphemism.

  “Not yet,” Dante said. “How is Papa Cal?”

  Hawes dropped his arms, and the safeties-off snick was unmistakable.

  Dante raised his hands. “Don’t shoot me for reading the news.”

  Fair point. Hawes’s grandfather’s declining health had first made news five years ago, when Callum Madigan’s Alzheimer’s had advanced enough to force him to step down as CEO of the family company, as well as from the various charities and local boards he sat on. Hawes had stepped into his shoes at twenty-eight, two years before he could even access the trust fund his deceased parents had left him. Reporters had come back around last month, when news had leaked that Pacific Heights’s much beloved—and to a different segment of San Francisco, much feared—Papa Cal had been moved into a local hospice house for end-of-life care.

  A leak, the origin of which Hawes’s brother still couldn’t hack.

  “You know my family’s business?”

  Dante’s eyes flicked again to the table and back up. Evidently so.

  “Given the nature of our work,” Hawes said, “I expect a disgruntled employee from time to time.”

  Translation: Running an organization of assassins, Hawes expected murder to cross the minds of his associates. That’s what they were paid well for with respect to their contracted targets. With respect to Hawes, thinking about or wanting to kill him, their boss, was a natural hyperbolic gripe of any employee. Actually trying to kill him was a very different matter. There’d been no whiff of discontent arising to that level.

  But the leak, of a fact known only among the top levels of the organization at the time, still rankled.

  Dante drummed his fingers on the table. “I wonder if one of those disgruntled employees knows what really happened to Isabelle Costa.”

  Hawes’s blood ran cold. “Leave us,” he ordered his associates. He braced a foot on the stand beneath the tabletop, flip ready.

  “No, don’t.” Dante stood, slowly, no sudden movements, and reached into his jacket pocket. He withdrew the card case Hawes had seen him handle earlier.

  This close, Hawes could read Dante pressed into the leather on one side, and a time stamp—23:01—pressed into the other. The precise time was familiar, but Hawes couldn’t place it, not when his attention was focused on the two business cards Dante placed on the table. He slid the first one to Hawes, thumb and index finger pressing firmly on the corners. Dante Perry, Private Investigator, the plain ecru card read, with a local post office box, phone number, and email address.

  “Run my prints, check me out, then call me when you’re ready to talk human resources.” He pushed the second card across the table. “Call her if you need more than your brother’s exhaustive background checks. She’ll vouch for me.”

  Hawes forced himself not to react. This card had no doubt been the one Dante had given Kane. It was a card Hawes carried in his own wallet.

  “I’ll look for your call.” Confident, Dante turned and swaggered toward the exit like a rock star, as if he didn’t know two pistols were aimed at him. But the private investigator did know, and he didn’t care. He knew Hawes would call.

  And he was right. No matter the background checks or references, Hawes would make contact. Because Dante Perry had walked into this restaurant tonight, into Hawes’s life, and resurrected his worst nightmare.

  Hawes kept his foot braced on the pole beneath the table until Dante cleared the door.

  “Follow him,” he ordered Jodie. “But be back in ten. We’re on the clock.”

  She nodded, slipped out of the booth, and glided across the dining room on silver stilettos, a flash of violet lamé hustling the same direction Dante had departed.

  “Can I put a soufflé in the oven for you, Mr. Madigan?”

  Hawes’s attention snapped to the waiter approaching his table and to Kane passing behind him. Catching Hawes’s eye, Kane tilted his head toward the restrooms and continued walking in that direction.

  “Not tonight, thank you,” Hawes answered the waiter. He hoped his smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. Everyone here was always so good to him, but his mind was now a million miles away from the dinner he’d enjoyed. And he was expected elsewhere. Yet courtesy was still owed, as his grandmother had drilled into him. “Cheese course did me in,” he added with a pat to his belly. A compliment for all involved. “I think the check is all I have room for.”

  The waiter smiled, pleased. “Right away, sir.”

  Hawes tossed his napkin onto the table and fished out his wallet. “Pay the check and bring the car around,” he said to Ray, his other associate, as he shoved a stack of bills into his hand.

  Ray cut his eyes to the restroom hallway, reading Hawes’s intent. “It’s not wise.”

  “I didn’t ask you.”

  “At least let me go with you. It’s my job.”

  “Your job is to be my backup on the contract we’re executing tonight. You are not here for my protection, which in any event, is unnecessary where Kane is concerned.” Hawes pocketed his wallet, pulled out his phone, and carefully tucked the two cards Dante had left behind into the card compartment on the back. “Text me when the car is out front. I don’t want to be late.”

  He slid out of the booth before Ray could object further. Hawes was confident in his hand-to-hand abilities against Kane, and he was equally confident it would never come to that with the chief.

  Kane was waiting for him inside the otherwise empty men’s room. Wise choice; no cameras or recording devices in here. Being seen dining at the same establishment or exchanging pleasantries at a charity or veterans’ event was one thing; secret meetings were another. Potentially damning, for both their reputations.

  “You didn’t know him?” Hawes asked without preamble.

  “I didn’t.” Kane flashed the same card Hawes now had in his pocket. “But he checks out with Cruz.”

  Saved Hawes the call, but he’d still have Holt run the background checks and Dante’s prints. He’d dropped too big a bomb to ignore. “Have you heard of him at all?”

  Kane shook his head. “He wasn’t on my radar.” He dug a caramel candy out of his pocket, peeled off the golden wrapper, and popped it into his mouth. “You gonna tell me what he wanted?”

  “He told me someone wanted to kill me.”

  Kane laughed, same as Hawes had. “Is it a day that ends in y?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that only explains your bark of laughter.” Kane leaned back against the vanity, hands braced on either side of his
narrow hips, fingers curled around the sink’s porcelain lip. “Perry said something else that made you and your fire team go on alert. You gonna tell me what that was?”

  Of course the top cop had picked up on the abrupt change in mood.

  “No,” Hawes answered. Not until he knew more about Dante’s motives and his connection to Isabelle. No sense unleashing that ghost on anyone else if it turned out to be just that—a ghost, whose haunting was limited to Hawes. A specter that had reared its head periodically over the past three years but never gained form enough to torture anyone but him.

  “Didn’t figure you would.” Kane hung his head, and Hawes wondered how much one Madigan or another had contributed to the chief’s thinning hairline. His high and tight buzz cut disguised it from most, but Hawes had seen pictures of the before and the reality of the after.

  “Safer for you, Brax.”

  The chief lifted a hand, then his hazel eyes. “I know the drill. Just give me a warning if things are about to go tits-up.”

  Hawes cringed. “You know I hate that saying, right?”

  “You know I spent two decades in the military, right?”

  The heavy mood eased with their laughter. Kane’s sense of humor, his sass, and his loyalty when it mattered most—a promise he’d never wavered from—were the underpinnings of this unlikely alliance. That and his willingness to look the other way as long as Hawes kept his promises too. “Yes, Chief Kane, I will let you know if the shit is about to hit the fan.”