The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2 Read online

  The Sabrina Vaughn Series Books 3-4

  Promises to Keep, Blood of Saints

  Maegan Beaumont

  Copyright © 2015, 2016 by Maegan Beaumont.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Severn River Publishing.

  Contents

  Promises to Keep

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Blood of Saints

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Also by Maegan Beaumont

  Thanks for Reading

  Next in Series

  WAITING IN DARKNESS: Chapter 1

  WAITING IN DARKNESS: Chapter 2

  WAITING IN DARKNESS: Chapter 3

  WAITING IN DARKNESS: Chapter 4

  Read Waiting in Darkness

  About the Author

  Promises to Keep

  A Sabrina Vaughn Novel

  The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

  But I have promises to keep,

  And miles to go before I sleep,

  And miles to go before I sleep.

  ~ Robert Frost

  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 han
ds 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 corkscrew 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.

  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.