Beam Read online

  Beam

  Frankie Love

  Copyright © 2020 by Frankie Love

  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.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  MAKER: Book 4

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Beam

  Coming here to Wavy and Walker’s cabin, to meet their newborn twins, was the right thing to do. I’ve known Walker a long ass time, and we’ve been through some hell together. So seeing him here now, with his wife and kids, makes the shitty parts of our story a little easier to swallow.

  And if he can forgive me, I figure anything is possible.

  Doesn’t seem like Jemma, Wavy’s sister, shares the sentiment.

  And I get it — I do. When we all met, down in L.A., Jemma was an escort and I know being around me — the bodyguard to her boss, Maker — only reminds her of the past. One she’d rather leave buried.

  Wouldn’t we all?

  “How’s the fishing going these days?” Wavy asks me, trying to distract us all from the fact her husband is stitching up Jameson’s back. Jameson and Jemma just showed up after dodging the goddamn mountain militia.

  We all came to Alaska for peace and quiet but it seems with these folks it’s anything but.

  “Ever get lonely?” Wavy asks. I’m guessing she’s wanting to know if I’m seeing anyone.

  I run a hand over my beard, cocking an eyebrow. “Hell, it’s quiet on the water, but it’s just as quiet when I’m on land.”

  Jameson takes another shot of whiskey as Walker pulls the final stitch through and cuts it off. I wince, knowing that with a bullet wound like that, he’s lucky to be alive.

  “Wasn’t so bad, was it?” Walker jokes, wiping his forehead with his wrist.

  Jameson touches the skin around his handiwork. “Look at that,” he says. “You’re a motherfucking artist.”

  Walker takes one of the babies from Wavy’s arm and sways soothingly. I shake my head, never having thought I’d see something like this. A year ago we were all on the run for different reasons, and somehow we managed to make it up to Alaska in one piece. At least most of us.

  There is one woman I haven’t seen in a long ass time. The only woman who really mattered to me. I would do anything to see her again.

  Jemma and Wavy begin cleaning up the medical supplies, and they hiss at one another the way only sisters can, discussing something I can’t hear as they walk to the kitchen.

  “What now?” Wavy asks her as they walk back into the living room.

  I strain my ears to hear Jemma’s response.

  “I’d love to stay and help with the babies,” Jemma says. “But I’m going to leave as soon as I can.”

  Interesting. Figured her and Jameson were together — the way he keeps looking at her makes me think there is something going on. But Jemma just fiddles with her niece’s blankets, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’m going to find Bellamy.”

  “Bellamy?” Jameson asks. “Who is she?”

  “Well, she was Marta… but she changed her name when she left California.”

  Marta? Bellamy? Fuck. Names that bring me back to life. Back to the past.

  “That makes sense,” I say, running a hand over my beard.

  “What does?” Jemma asks.

  I clench my jaw, the past surfacing. I’ve known her — Bellamy — for so damn long. “That she would change her name back to what it used to be.”

  “She used to be Bellamy?”

  I nod, but don’t say any more about it. She wanted to erase her past when Maker met her, brought her in as an escort. Whoever and whatever she’d been before, she wanted to leave it behind.

  So why go back to the person she wanted to bury?

  “So who is she?” Jameson asks again.

  “One of the yacht girls, from when I worked with Maker,” I tell him simply. With a grunt, I run a hand over my beard, trying to focus, but it’s hard when the room seems to be spinning. I pull at the collar of my flannel shirt.

  Wavy and Jemma leave the room, whispering, and I try to make a plan. I need to find her.

  Jameson frowns and looks me up and down. “You like her,” he says. “Bellamy.”

  I don’t respond, what the hell would I say? I more than like her. I love her. I would do anything for her — and I regret so damn much. Everything. Because it means I don’t have her.

  Jameson winces as Walker presses a thick bandage over his wounds, front and back. The militia got him pretty good, but they didn’t kill him. And he may feel like shit right now, but in a few weeks he’ll be okay.

  “What happened to her? Where would Jemma even go looking?” Jameson asks.

  “Marta, well, Bellamy, moved to that cult, Father John’s, about a year ago,” Walker tells us. “They almost got shut down by the feds, and I don’t know how they wormed their way out of that. They’re still up and running somewhere here in Alaska.”

  I walk back to the room where the woman are. “Jemma?” I ask, knowing talking to me isn’t exactly on her list of to-dos.

  She gives me a deeply uncomfortable glance, and then looks away, but doesn’t shut me down. “Mm?”

  I won’t back down. I need to know. I have to. “Do you know where Bellamy is?”

  She swallows, taking her time in answering. “Yes, I do, yeah.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Why would I tell you? You’re part of the problem, Beam.”

  I swallow back my anger. I’m the problem even though I spent the last decade making sure Maker was protected — and everyone has made their peace with him to some degree. Why not extend me the same goddamn grace?

  I don’t say that though. Because I care more about getting to Bellamy than I do about proving myself to Jemma. She has Jameson — whether or not she is ready to admit it. And Wavy has Walker. But who does Bellamy have?

  Well, the truth is, she has me. She just doesn’t know it yet.

  “Just tell me,” I say. “If she’s in trouble, I can go to her.”

  She narrows her eyes, and I see the fight in her — the fight I know has gotten her in plenty of trouble. “Why should I trust you?”

  “You shouldn’t. I know I have a shitty track record with you. But you can’t go off looking for her.”

  “Oh?” Jemma purses her lips in defiance. “And why not?”

  I look over my shoulder at Jameson, who is taking another shot of whiskey to deal with the searing pain. “Because you need to stay here and nurse your man back to health.”

  “He’s not my—”

  I cut her off. “Call it what you want, but I’m no fool.”

  “Fine.” Jemma rolls her eyes. She has never liked me. And I get it. I’m the heavy to the bad guy. She doesn’t need to like me — but she does need to tell me where Bellamy is. “You want to help, then go out to the cult where Bellamy went. That’s the last place anyone saw her.”

  “Is she in trouble?”

  Jemma’s eyes darken. “Wavy just told me
about the place, Beam. I know we come from a shit storm, but the cult or whatever it is — it’s worse.”

  I grunt. A girl like Bellamy only knows hell… she’s never glimpsed heaven.

  It’s time for that to change.

  “But Beam,” Jemma says. “Don’t do anything that might hurt her. She’s been through enough.”

  Nodding, I watch as Jemma walks away, toward Jameson.

  She has her happily ever after, so does Wavy — and for that I’m glad.

  Now it’s time for Bellamy to get hers.

  Chapter Two

  Bellamy

  My hands shake as I open the letter. I’ve been waiting for this information all my life. Didn’t think I’d ever get it… but John knows people… and somehow, he got this for me.

  Not that I didn’t have to give him plenty to earn it.

  I exhale, not wanting to think about John. Not know. Not ever, but I’ve made my bed, and now I have to sleep in it. Lord knows there isn’t another one waiting for me.

  “Open it, dammit, wasn’t that the whole point?” John asks, laughing at me. “God, and can someone get me a beer?”

  Karla jumps up from her place on the couch and saunters off to the kitchen, her hips pushed out and licking her lips, hoping to earn favor. At John’s beck and call. Aren’t we all?

  On an island in the Middle of Nowhere, Alaska. The leftovers.

  The feds came and tried to shut down Father John’s commune. After that, everything changed — the people who could, left, but there are a handful of us still here, hanging on at the edge of the world.

  People like me, the ones who have nowhere to go, have made the best of what we’ve got. There are a few other men, assholes like John who use women like motorcycle club guys do in the lower forty-eight. Treat them like prized possessions and hope it makes them feel special enough to keep giving blow jobs.

  I’m over that. John knows it too. But I keep the other girls in line — there are about ten of us. And we cook and clean, skin the deer, and collect the eggs. We are roughing it, to be sure.

  This is no paradise, but it’s something. And since I took the role of mama bear, John keeps going to the fresher meat and leaving me alone.

  And now, I’m getting the payday I have been dreaming of all my life.

  Karla comes back with the beer and stands on her tiptoes, offering John a kiss. I look away.

  “So what does it say?” Karla asks. “Who’s your daddy?”

  The phrase turns my stomach. Still, I open the envelope because I want to know the answer to the question as much as anyone else. I’m still floored that John let me have it at all. It was my birthday present, he said. You earned it, he said. My eyes burn with tears.

  Is it because I hold in my hands the information of who my parents were — are — or is it because finding out came at such a cost?

  I open the envelope and scan the paper, realizing as I read the names that they mean very little.

  Bellamy Banks;

  Paternal match: Marlon Santiago

  Maternal match: Justice Banks

  What I really need is an internet connection.

  So, Marlon and Justice are my parents. Somehow, with John’s shady black market connections, he was able to hire someone to hack into the California foster care database and find out who abandoned me.

  And while some abandoned children are adopted, I never was. For whatever reason, I slipped through the cracks. All of the cracks. So many cracks that I ended up here, in Alaska with John and Karla and whoever the hell else, trying to scrape together a story that makes some sense.

  Karla reads over my shoulder. “Justice and Marlon, huh? Santiago sounds so fancy, doesn’t it?” She exhales, nestling against my shoulder. Like a kitten.

  “Yeah,” I exhale softly, emotion burning in my belly. I need air. I walk past them, John and Karla, needing the blue sky in my line of vision because when I look at this paper, I see nothing but blurry images of a past that was never mine.

  I was abandoned by these people. So why did I care so damn much about who they are?

  John comes up behind me, outside, and I know he wants something. He always does. A thank you? Gratitude? I have nothing to give.

  “I don’t know why I cared,” I say, turning to face him. John, the man who is as broken as me.

  “I know who he is.”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “Your father.” He smirks. Black hair long and stringy. Black-blue eyes that tell me he’s nothing but bruised.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think I gave you that paper without doing a little digging first?”

  I twist my lips. Why am I not surprised? “And?”

  “And, Bellamy Banks, turns out your daddy is a Mafia boss.”

  “What?” I shake my head, annoyed. There are a hundred things I’d rather have heard him say.

  I’ve fantasized about this, for sure. That my dad was a rock star, a pro football player, the guy who invented Apple. But no. My father is a criminal.

  “No,” I say, my annoyance growing into anger. “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, but it is, sweet Bellamy,” John says, stepping closer. He’s a goddamn ringleader.” He takes the final drink of his beer before tossing the bottle in the dirt. The glass breaks, just like my heart.

  “Well great, now we all know where I come from. Who I am.”

  “Sure,” John says. “We do. But he doesn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he doesn’t know about you, Bell. Or he didn’t.”

  “Stop playing games, John. I’m done with them. Just spell it out for me.”

  John chuckles. “I always had a soft spot for you, you know that, Bell? Even when we were acting at having a commune, you always played your part so well.”

  I blink back tears. “Don’t.” I try to forget about the commune… the things we did here… and before that, the things I did when I worked for Maker. Yacht girl is a fancy way of saying escort. I know what I am. What I always have been.

  A survivor.

  And now, apparently, the daughter of a criminal.

  “The thing is, Bellamy, it’s time for you to pack.”

  I frown. “Pack what?”

  “Your bags, baby. Because it’s time for you to meet your papa.”

  His words hit me hard. I’m so tired of the unknown. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you are going to meet your father. He’s coming up from Nevada. And in exchange for his long-lost daughter, he’s giving us some goods we need up north.”

  I know what he wants — John has been looking for cash to restart his drug dealing business — the sex commune had been his cover before. I don’t want to know what it might be now.

  But now he doesn’t need cash. He just needs me.

  Chapter Three

  Beam

  By the time I leave Walker and Wavy’s place, I have a plan. The pair of them even draw me a goddamn map. Apparently the commune is good as dead, but word on the street — or rather, the mountains — is that there are folks still out there, on the property.

  And maybe Bellamy is one of them.

  As I get in the rented seaplane to head back to Riverside where my boat is docked, I think about all the times I should have made a move. Wanted to. But the thing about Bellamy is, she always had a man. Not one she wanted, I could tell by the look of disgust in her violent blue eyes. But the last thing she needed was another man to tell her she was beautiful. Sexy. That he wanted to make her his.

  That’s all she’d been hearing her whole damn life. Besides, what could a thug like me offer? I was nothing but the heavy to a man who ran the city’s dark underbelly.

  But fuck, how I wanted to be more.

  And now, by the grace of God, I am.

  Living a humble life, for sure. But I’m more than I was before. Now I am working for myself and have a home I built with my own two hands. I’m free. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.


  But I would trade it for someone. For her.

  I know she will remember me. But I don’t think she will be happy to see me. From what Wavy said, the life she left behind in California followed her up here — just with less sunshine and more snow. She’s still earning her keep with her body.

  God, how I want to help her. Give her the same freedom I have.

  Of course, I want so much more… but it’s not mine to take.

  When I finally get to my boat, it’s well past dark. I find some food at a pub near the port, grab a beer and some grub.

  “You from around here?” a woman asks from behind the counter as she pours me my beer. She’s in blue overalls and her hair is in a long braid, a handkerchief on her head.

  “No, I live on a small island, about two hours west.”

  Her eyes brighten as she hands me the IPA. “Did you buy the old Gibson property?”

  I dig into my burger and fries. “I did. How’d you know about that place?”

  “I’m a Gibson, that’s how,” she says. “It was my second cousin’s property. It’s gorgeous out there.”

  “So I take it you are form around here?” I ask.

  She nods. “Born and raised, Alaskan bred. I’m Marley, by the way.”

  “Well hey, Marley. I’m Beam.”

  “So what brings you out here?”

  “I’m a fisherman. I’ve got my boat. Headed out in the morning.”

  She frowns. “You’re fishing tomorrow? I thought it was night fishing everyone was doing this week. Heard that’s when the salmon’s catching.”

  I nod. “I’m not fishing right now. I’m looking for someone.”

  She smiles, innocence covering her. She may work at a bar and grill, but she looks like she was raised in a goddamn cornfield. The opposite of Bellamy in every way, shape and form.