Thank you for joining us for a spotlight on the newly released Promises To Keep, a Thriller by Maegan Beaumont (1 August 2015, Midnight Ink, 456 pages). This is the third book in the Sabrina Vaughn series.
"Reads like the transcript of a breathlessly bloody computer game."—Publishers Weekly
PREVIEW: Read the first five chapters with Amazon Look Inside.
Check out the book's trailer, synopsis and excerpt below, then find out details about the whole series and meet author Maegan Beaumont in our Q&A.
Trailer | Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author |
Synopsis
When your past comes back to kill you . . .For three years, Michael O’Shea has been forced to act as a personal assassin for Livingston Shaw, the cold-blooded puppet master who controls the remote bioweapon implanted in Michael’s back. When Shaw offers to release him if he can recover a kidnapped child, Michael works with every ounce of his being to put the pieces together before all the witnesses are murdered.
Meanwhile, police Inspector Sabrina Vaughn—the woman Michael passionately loves but has been kept from seeing—discovers the body of a little boy that bears a striking resemblance to the missing child. Against all his instincts, Michael must draw Sabrina into his life as one of the world’s most notorious assassins if he’s to overcome the legacy of his bloodthirsty past.
Teaser: Excerpt
One
Cofre del Tesoro, Colombia
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 up one and held it close to his face, tilting his head to the side. “You’re 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 and 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 set his hands on top of it, barring Michael from taking it. “But first, I have a matter I’d like to discuss …”
Michael stifled an eye roll. 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 speedboats bobbed along the surface of the distant ocean. In front of 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 laid in the sand without his eye pressed to a scope, finger resting on a trigger. He now 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 Colombia’s drug trade in a matter of months. That, and the fact that Reyes had hired Michael O’Shea 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.” Michael 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’s cousin, Mateo Moreno. His blood and brains 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— of 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, Michael’s thoughts turned toward the photo 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, clapping 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’s handsome face split in a grin reserved for putting people at ease. Michael had seen him use it on rivals and underlings— usually right before he had them fitted for a Colombian necktie. “This is a dangerous life, my friend— one I’ve chosen, but 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’s 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 clambered at her father’s feet, black pigtails bouncing wildly in a jumble of corkscrew curls. The little girl climbed up Reyes’s 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 Michael could get a good look at her. Chubby cheeks framed by those riotous curls. 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, giving 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.
Promises To Keep - available NOW!
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The Series: Sabrina Vaughn
Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
Carved in Darkness [1]
Melissa begins a new life as homicide inspector Sabrina Vaughn. With a new face and a new name, it’s her job to hunt down murderers—a job she does very well.
But when Michael O’Shea, a childhood acquaintance with a suspicious past, suddenly finds her, he brings to life the nightmare Sabrina has long since buried.
Believing his sister was recently murdered by the same monster who attacked Sabrina, Michael is dead set on getting his revenge—using Sabrina as bait. [Published 1 May 2013, 410 pages]
Sacrificial Muse [2]
San Francisco Detective Sabrina Vaughn is able to shrug off the nine red roses being delivered to her office every day. But when only eight roses arrive on the same day a Berkeley student’s mutilated body is found, Sabrina fears that the killer is taunting her. Forced into a partnership with a deceitful reporter who somehow remains one step ahead of her, Sabrina discovers that she’s the object of a psychopath’s twisted delusion . . . and there may be no escape. [Published 1 July 2014, 378 pages]
About the Author
Maegan Beaumont is the author of the award-winning Sabrina Vaughn thriller series (available through MIDNIGHT INK). When she isn't busy fulfilling her duties as Domestic Goddess for her high school sweetheart turned husband, Joe, and their four children, six dogs, nine chickens and too many goldfish to count, she's locked in her office with her computer, her coffee pot and her Rhodesian Ridgeback--and one true love--Jade.
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