Shattered Fate (King’s Crossing #4)

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Gage

I don’t miss my brother. Half-brother. We weren’t close. You might think that’s a shitty thing to say, even admit to, but Max...how do I describe Max? He was Ivy League. Harvard, Princeton. Columbia. He was Carnegie Hall. I’m...King’s Crossing Technical College—the one in the slums—and a biker bar in the industrial park that has open mic on Saturday nights.

None of that means I didn’t love the guy, but him getting mixed up with the Maddoxes and the Blacks only proves my point.

Zarah Maddox.

She’s sleek, like a cat, you know? Like one of those jaguars that wears a collar full of rubies rich people keep as pets. I feel like I gotta pay a fee just to look at her.

And my brother was fucking her.

Yeah, completely out of my league.

Not that I want her, and this isn’t the case of protesting too much, either. I know my place. It’s a tiny apartment and a knocked-up woman in the kitchen waiting for me to come home and do her over the table.

Not that I have one right now.

The knocked-up woman.

Or the kitchen table.

I eat over my sink. You think I’m some kind of heathen, getting crumbs all over my floor?

Even if my dog is a canine vacuum.

I shift in my seat, a burger wrapper crinkling under my ass.

“Getting bored?”

That’s my old man. Max and I have different fathers, and I’m in business with mine. We hunt down runaway kids, tail cheating husbands, that kind of thing. It’s not much, but it pays the bills.

“She’s not going anywhere.”

We’re parked on the street in a nice residential section of King’s Crossing. By nice, I mean rich. People have yards here. Gated community. Pop put a taxi light on the top of our car and we’re waiting for the soon-to-be ex-wife of a wealthy businessman to meet her lover. This guy doesn’t want to pay the alimony he’ll owe her if the split doesn’t involve adultery on her part, and so far, the woman’s clean. Our client won’t take too kindly to the news he’s the only one that has a piece of ass on the side.

This is my life. It’s no wonder Max and I didn’t get along. Though his job as a reporter wasn’t much better. Only, he was paid more for digging shit up on people and he died a hero.

“Nope, but he’s paying so we might as well see what she does.”

There are worse things we could be doing, honestly, and a million worse places we could be staking out.

Pop settles behind the wheel and pulls his baseball cap lower over his eyes though it’s midnight and he’s not blocking out any light. He rests his hands on his stomach. He looks like he’s about to take a snooze and let me watch for the woman alone, but I know my old man. He wants to talk.

“You see his lawyer yet?”

There it is.

“Nope.”

“Gage.”

I hate when Pop says my name like that. I’m disappointing him. “I know.”

When Max died, he left all his shit to me. Don’t know why, but he did. For the past year, his attorney’s been hounding me to go to his office, sign some paperwork, and pick up the key to Max’s apartment. His estate went through probate, but I haven’t done anything with the money he left me. I need to clean his place out, too. I’ve been throwing cash at his rent to avoid the inevitable.

I contacted Zane Maddox through Max’s attorney and arranged to grab the few things Max had with him when he was doing his own stakeout with all his hoity-toity friends. Some asshole took his cat without asking, but I’ve never been a cat person, and Baby, my German shepherd/husky mix, wouldn’t like sharing my attention. Because the guy did me a favor, I didn’t press the issue.

“It’s about time to do something about that, yeah?” Pop cracks an eye open at me, then lets it drift lazily shut.

“Yeah.” I pause. “I don’t need his money.”

Max did okay as a reporter for the King’s Crossing Chronicle. Better than me and Pop, but I have a roof over my head and can afford dog chow for Baby, and lately, that’s all I need. I don’t care about, or want, Max’s savings account or his 401k, or anything else he put away because he was a responsible human being. I hate banks and keep cash under my pillow next to my Glock.

“Maybe he wanted you to have something else.”

Yeah, a pain in the ass.

I push the car door open and let Baby out of the backseat. She’s a good girl, taken down a hood or two, and patient. Would just as soon lick you senseless than gnaw your arm off. She’s never let me down, not like some females of the human variety. She gracefully hops out of the car like she wasn’t just sleeping in a nest made out of Mickey D wrappers and lifts her leg near a row of hedges that have lost some of their leaves. I breathe in the early winter air, pulling at my jacket. It’s going to snow soon. I can smell it in the breeze whistling through the trees.

Headlights blink on down the road, and Pop straightens behind the wheel. “Looks like she has plans after all.”

Baby wags her tail with anticipation and jumps into the car. I settle into the passenger seat and close the heavy door as quietly as I can.

Pop eases away from the curb. “Tomorrow.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Okay. Tomorrow.”

It shuts him up, and we follow the soon-to-be divorcée to a twenty-four hour liquor store and watch her buy a case of white zin. The lone clerk helps her load it into the back of her SUV, and after all of fifteen minutes, she drives home.

We call it a night, and he drops me off at my loft apartment near the industrial park.

I don’t want to see Max’s attorney, and too keyed up to sleep, I take Baby for a run. We do a quick six miles and all the while I feel like I’m running away from something I’ll never be able to escape.

I sleep like garbage, but Pop’s asking me do something I don’t want to do. That doesn’t happen very often. Baby can get me to let her out for a leak in the middle of the night, but that’s about it. Even my mother can’t talk me into doing shit for her anymore, and she stopped trying a long time ago.

Sipping on hot, black coffee, I stand under an equally hot shower, trying to rinse some of the fuzz out of my brain. I wrap a towel around my waist and stand in front of my closet, my gaze swinging back and forth. Max’s attorney’s office is located downtown. I won’t fit in no matter how hard I try, but I guess I should make an effort and I pull on black dress pants and a white button-down shirt. I look like a waiter, but it’s the best I can do. I don’t wear ties. The last time I wore one was at Max’s funeral.

I feel even worse thinking about it, and I push the day from my mind. It’s harder to blank out Zarah Maddox’s expression when I told her she wasn’t welcome at my brother’s funeral and that if she wanted to pay her respects, she could do it at the memorial service the night before at the funeral home. I hadn’t known then he’d been sleeping with her. I hadn’t known then Max had been hopelessly in love with her.

Not sure if knowing would have made much difference.

It was the Maddox bullshit that got Max killed, and no one can convince me otherwise.

Baby stays home, and she shoots me a mournful look when I palm my keys off a little table near the door. I had to buy the table so I wouldn’t keep losing my keys. A guy got away from me a few years ago because my truck keys were shoved between the cushions of my couch and I couldn’t find them. We didn’t get paid, and Pop was pissed.

I never make the same mistake twice.

Well, I try not to.

I am a man, after all.

“You’d hate it,” I say, rubbing her neck and trying to smooth out her hurt feelings.

She snorts like she doesn’t believe me and closes her eyes as I open the door.

My truck’s new and she goes from zero to seventy in fifteen seconds. She’s my pride and joy besides Baby.

The traffic’s light, and too soon for my liking, skyscrapers block out the struggling autumn sun. Winter in Minnesota is a fucking drag, and I’m not looking forward to it. It’s hard to get anything done. Sometimes the cold can be an advantage, if we’re chasing a runaway kid who has nowhere to go or tracking down a homeless guy who had family pop up out of the woodwork, but sitting on a stakeout gets old fast and there’s nothing as disappointing as learning a person you were looking for fell through a frozen part of the Renegade and is in the morgue dead from hypothermia.

You don’t get paid for a dead guy.

Lucky for us, we aren’t bounty hunters and tracking down a jerk running from the cops doesn’t happen very often.

I tap my thumb on the steering wheel as I look for a place to park. Like hell I want to pay twenty bucks at a parking garage for a half an hour’s worth of time, but finding a place on the street is going to be impossible. I swallow a mouthful of swear words and park in the ramp across from Maddox Industries. Zane Maddox let my brother die, and I want to shove my way into his office and beat the shit out of him. I don’t have any pride in the fact Max helped tear down half the assholes in King’s Crossing.

They’re falling too. Like fiery ash spewing out of a volcano, every time I turn on the news another bigshot is being cuffed and led away in humiliation. Latest one had a girl chained to a bed in the basement of his house. Said he got her from Ash Black. Claimed she could leave whenever she wanted, but that’s kind of hard to do if you have a shackle locked around your ankle, like that pretty little thing did. It’s hard enough with the ones that are only figurative.

Never had a ball and chain myself.

I had a close call once. She did me a favor hooking up with another guy.

Yeah, Max did a lot of good for King’s Crossing. Scrubbed a toilet brush over the entire city.

I regret it a little that we grew apart while we were growing up.

Just a little.

Like I said, we were from different worlds, and I didn’t try to fit into his.

I ride the elevator to street level and lope down the sidewalk to my brother’s attorney’s office. I didn’t call to make an appointment. I figure if he wants to get this shit off his desk, he’ll see me and I’m not wrong. I tell the receptionist my name and she shows me to Mike McClennan’s door the minute the last syllable of my last name leaves my mouth.

The elegant blonde gestures me into his office and a distinguished gentleman rises to his feet, but I wave him back. I don’t need special treatment. Just show me the Xs, and I’ll be on my way.

“Nice of you to finally stop by. It’s only been a fucking year,” he says, sifting through a towering pile of folders on his desk. The mess resembles how Pop works. A method to a madness.

His language doesn’t bother me, and I shrug and drop into a chair. I don’t pull my jacket off, the only good one I have, because I don’t plan to stay long.

He peers at me over the rims of his glasses. “Coffee? It’s too early for something stronger.”

“I’m fine. Show me what I have to sign, and I’ll get out of your face.”

McClennan thrums his fingers on the pile of folders in thought. “What the fuck did I do with it?” he mutters. “Oh, right.” He swivels in his padded chair and pulls a file out of a black cabinet behind him. It’s squat, not the tall kind, and framed pictures of kids playing sports and a curvy brunette sitting in a garden cover the surface. “He wanted you to read this,” he says, shoving a white business envelope toward me. “ Twelve months ago .” In Max’s blocky print, my name is carved into the paper, and my throat feels like I swallowed a fireball.

Max is gone.

I was an asshole, and I’ll never get to apologize.

I don’t want to touch it. That would be like admitting he’s really dead. If I read what’s inside, I’ll be ensuring Max never comes back.

It’s stupid.

He clears his throat. “Do you need a minute?” He doesn’t say it sympathetically. His tone implies I’ve had a year to come to terms with Max’s death. All I’ve done is ignore it.

“No.”

I lift the envelope off the cluttered desk. It’s light, and someone sealed it closed. I tear it open. The letter is written on notebook paper, blue ink matching the light blue lines. Max ripped it from the spiral, and the fringes along the side sprinkle bits of torn paper into my lap.

McClennan leaves even though just five seconds ago I told him he didn’t need to, muttering something about coffee, and alone, pressing a fist to my lips, I let tears fill my eyes.

Max and I weren’t close. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw him—before his funeral, I mean. Probably at Mom’s house. I don’t visit my mother very often. Baby hates Max’s father, and my dog is more family than my mom and stepdad will ever be. I’m happier celebrating the holidays with Baby and Pop.

The date at the top indicates he wrote the letter the morning of Ashton and Clayton Black’s fundraiser last year. The day Ash Black shot him. A stab of guilt hits me in the heart. I waited too long to do this.

Gage , the letter starts in his neat, even printing. I used to tease him, but he’d always wanted to be a reporter and he’d practice his penmanship every day. “I need to be able to read my notes,” he’d say defensively.

My own ineligible scrawl has landed me in trouble a time or two, especially in school, a huge red F on the top of a homework assignment, but Max wasn’t the type to say I told you so.

I almost expect the letter to start, “If you’re reading this, I must be dead,” like all the classic goodbye letters in the movies, but once again, Max proves me wrong.

I need you to do something for me. Something isn’t right with this whole thing. I don’t believe everything will end with Ash and Clayton Black. They’re in deep, and they know more than they’ll ever say. There’s a feeling in my bones—call it my reporter’s intuition—but I don’t believe Ash Black will leave Zarah alone. Even from prison (with God’s mercy that’s where he’ll end up when all this is finished). He’s obsessed. He feeds on torturing her and I don’t think he’s done.

If you’re reading this, they got me, and I’m sorry we were never close. If you want to make it up to me, find Zarah. Protect her. Keep her safe. The Blacks aren’t through with her. I know it. I just can’t prove it.

And I know you don’t want to, but take care of Smokey, okay? Baby won’t like it, but I love that cat and Mom will bring him to the pound if you don’t keep him.

If I could do it over again, I’d change things between us, but I can’t. It’s too late. No matter what though, I love you, big brother. Look up to you. Please, find Zarah. Make sure she’s safe. I love her, Gage. Something isn’t right.

Love, Max.

I sigh and press my fingers into my eyes.

At least I don’t have to worry about his cat. The guy who took him will take better care of him than I could.

But this Zarah Maddox stuff. What am I supposed to do? Over a year has passed since Max wrote this, and while I personally haven’t kept track of her, she’s been in the news. If she’s not with her brother, her brother’s fiancée, Stella Mayfair, or her companion, she’s home at their country house. That’s all she does.

I know for a fact Zane Maddox has that house locked up tighter than Fort Knox. His money can protect her.

I don’t know what my brother was thinking. A fool in love.

Clayton and Ashton Black are in prison, and that’s where they’ll spend the rest of their pathetic lives.

Zarah’s not in danger.

Max was paranoid.

“Everything okay?” McClennan comes back into the room holding a steaming mug of coffee. The acrid scent twists my stomach.

I fold the notebook paper and shove it into the envelope. I tore it open using too much force, and the edges of Max’s letter stick out. “Yeah, fine. Goodbye shit, you know?”

“Anything I can do to help?” the attorney asks, sitting behind his desk.

“No.”

I leave it at that. McClennan waits, but I’m not forthcoming. I just want to sign what I need to sign and leave.

McClennan gives me permission to clean out Max’s apartment and says the banks are expecting me to access Max’s accounts. I don’t care about that, and impatiently, I tug at my jacket. Sweat drips down my back.

He slides a small silver key across his desk.

“What’s this?” I ask, picking up the key and turning it over.

“A key to a lockbox in his apartment.”

“Why do you have it?”

My PI’s mind starts to hum.

“Max wanted to be part of the group that went to Governor Guthrie’s mansion, and he made arrangements on the off chance things would go sideways. No one wants to think about things like that, but in this case, the provisions he put in place were needed in the end.”

That was Max. Always thinking five steps ahead. It’s what made him a successful reporter. I have to stop being so suspicious.

I pocket the key and stand. Shake McClennan’s hand and see myself out.

People crowd the sidewalk, hurrying to grab a bite for lunch. I lean against the building and try to purge the stench of McClennan’s office out of my nose. His office smelled fine, like Pledge and coffee, but it’s the stink of death I can’t stand, the realization Max is never coming back.

His letter crinkles against my chest where I shoved the envelope into a pocket inside my jacket.

Fuck.

A commotion across the street catches my eye, a group of paparazzi zeroing in on some poor target. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I turn to go, but the short brunette and her distress jabs me like a punch to the gut.

The paps close around her, shouting questions, and she stands frozen on the sidewalk, a beige trench coat hanging from her shaking shoulders. Her handlers are nowhere to be seen, which is unusual. Zarah Maddox, as far as I can ever tell, is never alone. She’s always with a bodyguard, or her companion, or Stella or Zane, for this very reason.

I don’t know all that because I’m a creeper, I certainly never had an interest in any of the Maddoxes in all the years we’ve shared the city, but there’s been no shortage of information about the heiress and I have a sense of curiosity just like anyone else. Besides, the gossip rags pass the time on a stakeout.

I debate leaving her to fend for herself—she’s going to have to learn at some point—but Max’s request slaps me in the face, and I feel like shit, imagining his unhappy scowl.

Without thinking another second, I scramble across the street, a yellow taxi almost clipping my thigh in its effort to run a red light.

“Leave her alone, you fucking vultures.” My foot hits the sidewalk and they all turn to me, my size shutting them up real quick. I didn’t tell you I’m six-three and two hundred and twenty pounds of solid muscle, and if you look real close, you can see the edges of my tattoo sleeves if my cuffs ride up and reveal my wrists.

Yep. I described myself as a biker bar on a Saturday night. You thought it was just an expression, but it’s where I really hang out. Don’t ride a hog though because I bring Baby almost everywhere I go.

One brave pap tries to snap my picture, but I step forward and he thinks better of it. He runs and they all scatter like cockroaches.

Dirty fuckers.

Zarah stands there, petite little thing, her lips trembling, tears wetting her cheeks. A purse hangs from the crook of her arm, her hair a messy halo around her head. Her heels are a mile high, but they still can’t help her compete with my height and I tower over her.

Her eyes are tar pits, black and liquid, and I fall in, or I’m about to. I don’t think any man could resist.

My brother sure as hell hadn’t, and that jerks me out of my haze.

Zarah Maddox was my brother’s lover.

“Are you okay?” I force the words out so I can leave. She’s alone and I look past her shoulder, search for a bodyguard or that companion who seems to be in all the tabloid shots, glued to Zarah’s side, but no one’s running down the sidewalk, no car service coming to her aid. We’re alone near the building she owns, Maddox Industries casting a shadow over us.

She opens her mouth, I guess to answer me, but instead, she crumples to the sidewalk in a cloud of misery and money and starts to cry.