A New Empire: A Fog City Novel Read online

  A New Empire

  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

  A Note From Layla

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Layla Reyne

  About the Author

  A New Empire

  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

  November, 2019

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-7341753-0-1

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7341753-1-8

  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; explicit language; violence.

  About this Book

  Legacies were made to be rewritten.

  Assassin Hawes Madigan wants to do right—by his family, his organization, his city, and the man he’s falling for, ATF agent Christopher Perri. But Hawes’s rules are being challenged by someone willing to kill for the old ways. To save his soul and his empire, Hawes must make an impossible decision: fight from the outside or bend the knee to win back his throne from within.

  Chris is used to being the inside man, the one undercover. Now, he’s on the outside marshaling forces in support of the man and the ring of assassins he was supposed to take down. His mission shifted when he found something that’s been missing for ten long years—a home, with Hawes.

  As Hawes and Chris make a dangerous play for control, the lines between allies and traitors blur. Trusting the wrong person could destroy the legacy Hawes envisions for the Madigans. But not trusting anyone, or each other, could mean lights out on their love and lives forever.

  The King and King Slayer fight together in this thrilling conclusion to the Fog City Trilogy!

  For LJ (and Ethan),

  who showed me the way to lovable assassins.

  Chapter One

  The salvage boat, jacked as it was for smuggling, was more than fast enough to outrun the converging officers and agents. Hawes swung the boat around, gunned the engine, and disappeared into the night, the lights and shouts fading into the darkness behind him.

  If only his conscience—his heart—was that easy to outrun.

  Dante…Chris…was back there, shot and sinking in the cold, dark water. The only things that kept Hawes driving forward, kept him from yanking the wheel and turning the boat around, were the tracker he’d slipped into Chris’s pocket, the flare he’d thrown into the Bay where Chris had gone under, and Kane’s shouts as the chief had splashed into the water.

  They would find him. It was a clean wound. He’d be fine.

  And Hawes had another bleeding agent on deck to worry about. Not to mention the other bodies…

  He withdrew two phones from his pocket. On the first, he texted Holt, alerting him to the tracker on Chris. Then he tossed that phone onto the deck, brought his heel down on it, and kicked the shattered pieces overboard. On the second, a burner, he texted an SOS to the single programmed contact. He had alerted her in advance and asked if she’d be willing to assist, in case he had to put certain contingency plans into motion. She was ready and waiting. Coordinates came back in less than a minute.

  Ten minutes after that, Hawes maneuvered alongside a sleek yacht with Irish and American flags flying off the stern. He lowered the salvage vessel’s anchor, killed the engine, and moved to greet the statuesque woman standing at the portside rail of the other boat.

  “Went sideways?” Melissa Cruz asked, her dark eyes assessing the wreck of a deck Hawes had picked his way across. Bodies, blood, weapons.

  “Sideways, upside down, briefly right side up, then underwater.” Hawes tossed a mooring line to the former FBI Special Agent in Charge. In the private sector now, Mel handled security for Talley Enterprises and hunted down bounties on the side.

  She secured the rope to the yacht’s rail, helping to steady the two vessels so Hawes could extend a gangway between them. She was dressed down in jeans and a sweater, her dark curls piled in a bun atop her head, but casual wear did nothing to make her any less intimidating. Hawes knew of only one person who had ever bested Helena in hand-to-hand combat, and that person was standing across from him. “Sounds like an eventful night,” she said.

  “As expected.” And unexpected in other ways—Reeves’s involvement, Zoe’s betrayal, Chris’s change of heart, the unconscious agent Hawes now hefted into his arms. “We need to get him medical attention,” he said, carrying ATF agent Scott Wheeler across the gangway to the yacht.

  “I’m not set up here,” Mel said, “but the Ellen has a full-scale infirmary. I can have a doctor meet us there.”

  “She’s in dock?” Hawes was familiar with TE’s shipping vessels, Madigan Cold Storage having custom-built or retrofitted the refrigeration units on most of them.

  “Port of Oakland.” She helped him get Wheeler situated. “They finished off-loading yesterday. Good timing.”

  That was about the only thing good right now. Hawes straightened, and his gaze strayed back to the salvage vessel. To Zoe lying dead next to Reeves and Gilbert. His breath caught, and heat stung the corners of his eyes, betrayal burning through him like a branding iron. So much betrayal littering that deck. Littering his life.

  She.

  The deepest cut, if he and Chris were right.

  “What do you want to do about it?” Mel asked.

  The cold night air swallowed Hawes’s bitter chuckle. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, then nodded toward the other boat. “About that?”

  The boat, the bodies, were evidence Chris and Kane and their teams could use. That maybe even Holt could extract valuable information out of. Hawes never put anything past his hacker twin.

  “Sell it,” Chris’s voice echoed in his head. Sell the story they needed her to believe.

  She would want it destroyed, would want all the evidence erased. Clean up your messes. That’s what she’d taught him.

  “Protect him,” Chris had urged.

  Hawes glanced over his shoulder at Wheeler. Burning the boat would accomplish that too. Would buy Hawes time to convince Wheeler to play along. To keep him safe. To fool her.

  And that’s what Hawes had to do. Fool her. Put on the best performance of his li
fe. Because if he faltered, if he couldn’t sell it, the lives of too many people, including those he loved, would be on the line. Hell, were already on the line. Losing them—losing any more innocent lives in the fallout—was unacceptable. It violated his rules. Rules he had fought too damn hard for, lost too damn much for, and he would be damned if he didn’t see them to victory.

  For the sake of his family, his heart, and his soul.

  Sell it.

  He righted his gaze and nodded. “We burn it.”

  Hawes flipped through the morning news programs. On one, the woman he recognized as Chris’s boss, Special Agent in Charge Vivienne Tran, was claiming victory for last night’s seizure of a major weapons cache. Kane stood beside her, looking grim and uncomfortable in his uniform. Another local station showed predawn footage of the smoldering salvage vessel. A third featured exterior shots of MCS’s headquarters. Business as usual there this morning, except for the cops at the gate, checking anyone going in or out. Three flips through each program and no other references to his company, his family…or Chris. Or the unconscious agent in the infirmary bed beside which Hawes sat. Tran didn’t mention any loss of life in her remarks, focusing instead on the weapons seizure and case closure, the successful culmination of a long-term ATF operation. No acknowledgment of Christopher Perri’s or Isabella Constantine’s roles in that effort.

  A wave of sympathy rolled through Hawes—for Chris’s mission, for the agent’s devotion to his partner, and for the difference Isabella had made in Hawes’s life. For the better, even if it had led to the present chaos. Inevitable, if Hawes was being honest with himself. Change didn’t happen without resistance. The new would always run up against the old. That was the way of the world—in business, in politics, in life, and in families, including his own…if he was right.

  “You owe me two bounties.”

  Hawes muted the wall-mounted television and shifted his attention to the woman standing in the doorway. “Reeves’s mercs?”

  Mel nodded. “The price on their heads was high, but honestly, I’m not too cut up about it. Saved me the hassle.”

  Hawes slumped in his chair. “But brought you more.”

  She sauntered into the room and lowered herself into the chair on the other side of Wheeler’s bed. “You know, I’ve watched you for years. I even considered recruiting you and your siblings into the FBI, but I sensed something different about you three. That maybe you’d be more valuable on the outside. When you came to me three years ago, torn up and ready to make a real change, and when Holt and Helena backed that play, I knew I had made the right decision.”

  “And now?”

  “More sure than ever.” Her dark eyes flickered to the TV, the press conference still going. “Just finish this, Hawes, and stop making life difficult for my family and friends.”

  “Christopher Perri one of those friends?”

  The corners of her mouth tipped up, like she was fighting a smile. “He’s what you needed, isn’t he?”

  One second, he was amused at her playing matchmaker. The next second, the full meaning of what she’d said sank in, and Hawes shot to the end of his chair. “You sent him to me?” He had thought it was Amelia who’d sent Chris the flash drive that had accelerated his appearance on the scene and in Hawes’s life. There had been two folders on that drive. One full of pictures of Isabella’s crime scene. The other with various surveillance shots of Hawes, a bull’s-eye on each. Enough to pique the interest of the investigator with a personal stake in the case.

  “Chris was already sniffing around,” Mel said. “He’s a good man, a good agent, and he was getting closer by the day. I wanted to make sure he ended up on the right side of this.” She leaned forward and pinned Hawes with a look he was sure more than a few targets had been uncomfortably familiar with. Her husband too probably. The don’t-argue-with-me-because-I-always-win stare-down. “With you.”

  He wouldn’t argue that point. He liked having Chris on his side too, for multiple reasons—professional and personal—but there was a fact still nagging him. “How did you get into Holt’s system?” They had been sure it was Amelia, who had a photographic memory and who had frequently positioned herself to spy on her hacker husband.

  “She didn’t,” a voice said from the doorway. “I did.”

  Hawes didn’t have to ask who the man standing in the doorway was. He wasn’t Hawes’s type—too clean-cut, too boy-next-door—but he was no doubt the handsomest, and tallest, man Hawes had ever seen. His wide, easy smile was as inviting and attractive in real life as it was on ESPN, as was his honeyed Southern accent. Thank fuck Chris wasn’t here to see Hawes swoon. And thank fuck he was sitting down so Jameson “Whiskey” Walker didn’t notice either.

  Mel’s bemused chuckle shook Hawes out of his starstruck daze. “Hawes Madigan, meet Jameson Walker. Jamie, meet Hawes.”

  Hawes started to stand, praying for steady legs, but Jamie waved him back down. “Don’t get up on my account.” He approached with an outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, Hawes.”

  “Likewise. I think my brother would like to meet you too,” Hawes said, returning the handshake. “Maybe also kill you.”

  Jamie laughed. “Sucks being second best.”

  “Don’t let Lauren hear you say that,” Mel chimed in.

  “Correction,” Jamie said, still smiling, “third best.” The handsome man’s grin dimmed, however, as he withdrew a flash drive from his pocket. “There’s a reason Holt got this to us.”

  “Amelia’s backup?” Hawes asked, and Mel nodded. Despite what they’d told Chris, Holt had found it earlier in the week, in a hospital lockbox registered to one of Amelia’s nurse mentors who had recently retired. But finding it had been only half the battle. And Holt, after beating his head against the desk for days, hadn’t been able to win the other. He had told Hawes he needed an assist. “You cracked it?”

  “She used one of my older, more obscure protocols.” Jamie handed him the stick. “Messy but relatively simple. Holt was overthinking it. I’ve made the same mistake too.”

  Mel rose to her feet. “We all have.” From the look on her face, Hawes knew she wasn’t only talking about the flash drive encryption. “It wasn’t just you and your siblings she had evidence on.”

  “Her boss?”

  Mel’s expression shifted from bleak to sympathetic, and Hawes had his answer. Yes, they’d overlooked—or more accurately, willfully ignored—a messy but simple explanation. Hawes stood. Time to stop ignoring the mess and clean it up. “Got something I can play this on?”

  “There’s a laptop set up in the Talley stateroom, just down the hall,” Jamie said. “It’s the oldest of the videos. We didn’t open the rest.”

  “Plausible deniability,” Mel explained.

  “I saved the decryption key on the drive so Holt can open them.”

  Hand to his shoulder again, Mel stopped Hawes in the doorway. “You might want to wait for Holt and Helena. I can get them here.”

  Hawes shook his head and averted his gaze, unable to bear the empathy and pity any longer. “I can’t risk them,” he forced out around the lump in his throat. “Not until I confirm what I think is in that video and decide how to play this.”

  “Okay.” She dropped her hand. “We’ll be here if you need us.”

  “Thank you,” Hawes said, to both of them. This was more than they had to, or should, do. But this—these connections with good, decent people, people who had his, Holt’s, and Helena’s backs in the midst of an epic shitstorm, allies he trusted—was what he had to fight for. A better way to conduct their business and their lives. One based on trust, cooperation, and respect, not on fear and betrayal.

  Two unsteady steps later, he paused and called after Mel, “Is our mutual friend okay?” He didn’t mention Chris by name, preserving Jamie’s deniability, just in case.

  “He’s at SF General,” she said. “Out of surgery and in recovery. Stable condition. Kane will keep us updated.”

  An oun
ce of steadiness returned, and Hawes let it carry him the rest of the way to the stateroom. He counted his steps and measured his breaths until he stood behind the desk, flash drive in hand and laptop open. If he didn’t know the Ellen was dry-docked, he would have sworn it was at sea, being tossed around by a hurricane. He lowered himself into the chair before the storm in his head took out his limbs. No swooning this time, just abject terror and despair at what he was ninety-nine percent certain he was about to see.

  He plugged the flash drive into the computer. It lit up, as did the dark screen, the icon for the drive highlighted. Hawes closed his eyes and tried to breathe around his racing heart. He picked up his counting again—breaths, pulse, the nicks in the desk on either side of the leather desk blotter. But the counting didn’t calm him; it only seemed to compound his rising anxiety. He needed to get steady. He withdrew the burner phone from his pocket and punched in Chris’s number. Thumb hovering over Send, he glanced out the window, across the Bay toward SF General. Would Chris even be awake to take his call? Would he curse Hawes for contacting him—the fed Hawes supposedly tried to kill? For not selling it? She would doubt his loyalty, and Hawes was already up against a mountain of suspicion.

  She.

  Fuck it.

  Hawes tossed the phone on the desk, double-clicked the flash drive icon, found the single decrypted file, and in the drop-down menu, hit Open. A video window appeared—dark—with a prompt to hit Play.

  He clicked—another second of darkness as the video loaded—then his world exploded.