In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3)

by Hailey Turner

  Alexei looked out the SUV’s heavily shaded and polarized window at the skyscrapers looming over the horizon in the center of New Miami. Smaller residential high-rises encircled the business heart of the city while homes were carved out by the ultra-wealthy along the shores of New Miami’s beaches around resorts. During hurricane season, a system of manmade canals, flood barriers, and levees helped to control the tidal surge around the city.

  New Miami was a loud, colorful city that seemed to be in perpetual party mode during the long summer. Triple digit temperatures and risk of sun exposure didn’t stop its citizens from having a good time. Shade covered a good portion of the city’s pedestrian walkways and aerial bridges by way of polarized plas-glass canopies that darkened and lightened depending on the time of day, providing protection against the brutal midday sunlight. Locals and tourists alike enjoyed the beaches during the mornings and evenings, bracketing the famous anything-goes nightlife that drew the crowds.

  In the middle of the work week, on a Wednesday, many people were sequestered inside for both work and play at this hour. The streets were clogged with vehicles while aerial traffic zipped above in strictly marked lanes. The New Miami International Airport had been relocated to the northern outskirts of the city on a solid stretch of land over a century ago. Annabelle drove south along the raised coastal highway, the New Miami Bay glinting off to their right.

  Alexei drummed his fingers against his thigh when Annabelle finally pulled off the highway, taking the ramp down into the city streets and a residential neighborhood consisting of homes only the rich could afford. Beachside dwellings weren’t practical in this day and age, but that didn’t stop people from living there. Alexei didn’t see the appeal. The property taxes alone were enough to make him choke.

  “ETA five minutes,” Annabelle said, drawing Alexei out of his musings.

  “They have eyes on us?” he asked.

  “There’s a backdoor in the local CCTV grid and we’re monitoring activity on it,” Katie said over comms. “The security cameras being accessed are following your route.”

  “Have access to Antonovich’s system?”

  “Not yet, but we’re close.”

  Alexei grimaced. Going in blind always made things more difficult. He’d done more with less, but it always gave him a headache.

  “Remember, keep your powers hidden,” Katie said.

  “We know,” Alexei muttered as he leaned forward in his seat, peering out the front windshield. “Like mother hen.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  Trevor coughed to hide his laughter.

  “Was compliment.”

  “I’ll let you believe that,” Katie replied dryly.

  Alexei grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. He and Katie had grown close since he’d joined Alpha Team last summer. He liked women and men equally, and while Katie was strikingly beautiful, she was his second-in-command and firmly out of his league. Unlike his brother, Alexei wasn’t one to flout regulations when it came to relationships. He and Katie had remained friends without crossing the line into something more, even if at the beginning he wouldn’t have minded.

  But Alexei had her friendship, and that was more important than a quick fling. Katie was hands down one of the most competent people he’d ever had the privilege to meet and serve under. In hindsight, becoming friends rather than lovers was the better decision. Two secret relationships on the team would’ve just been asking for trouble.

  Besides, his tastes were trending more toward dark-haired men these days.

  “We’re here,” Annabelle announced as she turned the SUV off the street and into a gated drive, drawing Alexei out of his thoughts.

  “Good luck,” Katie said over the comms.

  “Oorah,” everyone muttered.

  Annabelle braked to a halt in front of the security gate, engine rumbling, as they waited for a guard on the other side to open the way for them. Alexei cased the area with a critical eye, picking out the enemy with ease, even the sniper they had as overwatch in a third-floor window who wasn’t bothering to hide his location.

  Not as good as Kilyusha, he thought to himself.

  Then again, no one was as skilled with a long-range rifle and as deft at hiding in plain sight than Kyle. His brother could make impossible shots look like child’s play. It really wasn’t fair to compare some two-bit, mafia wannabe shooter with a Strike Force-trained sniper, but Alexei did it anyway.

  Annabelle pulled into the long drive of the villa once the gate was fully opened, braking to a halt in front of the closed garage doors that probably held at least four expensive luxury cars. Antonovich seemed the type. She set the emergency brake and turned off the engine, but otherwise didn’t move. Alexei, Madison, and Trevor got out of the vehicle while Annabelle stayed behind the wheel. One of them needed to remain with the vehicle to ensure it wasn’t tampered with.

  Alexei squinted through the sunlight at the Spanish colonial-style villa before them, ignoring the sweat beading across his forehead from the heat. Arched windows facing the front yard dominated the three-story home. The yard itself was ringed with tall palm trees providing a minimum amount of shade. Antonovich had opted for grass over a more climate-friendly plant; his water bill was probably in the six figures. Alexei’s lip curled in disgust at the waste.

  He and Trevor walked around the front of the SUV to join Madison. The man coming down the stone walkway to greet them was tall and muscular, the black tank top he wore revealing sunburned shoulders and the tattooed image of a knife stabbing through his throat. Alexei’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses, knowing the camera built into the frames and lenses would be recording what he saw. Whether or not it would be transmitted back to base in a timely manner was debatable.

  His comms had that blankness to them that only came from being electronically jammed. They’d lost signal the second the SUV crossed through the gated entrance. He only hoped Katie would hurry up and finish hacking her way into the villa’s security system. Alexei hated not having an overwatch in a situation like this.

  “Alexei Dvorkin?” the assassin-for-hire walking toward them asked. Unlike Antonovich’s voice, this man’s carried a hard scrape of a true Russian accent through his words.

  “<>” Alexei answered in Russian to make a point. “<>”

  The assassin smiled thinly and crossed his arms over his chest, planting his feet wide. “<>”

  “<>”

  “<>”

  At least Alexei knew Sean had put up a fight if his head wound was anything to go by. Alexei waved a lazy hand at Trevor and Madison. “They want weapons.”

  Silently, the pair handed over the guns they carried without argument. Alexei made a show of unholstering his sidearm and presenting it grip first to Antonovich’s guard dog. Their guns were biolocked; useless to the men and women scattered around the villa on guard duty. When the assassin waved forward a guard to pat them down, Alexei bared his teeth in a smile that stopped the guy in his tracks.

  “<>” Alexei stated flatly.

  Waving around their connection to the Pavluhkins and the Presnenskaya Bratva was the only sure way to keep Sean and the other two hostages alive right now. Alexei didn’t have much faith when it came to words and promises offered up by criminals. He’d seen their sort growing up in the Ukraine: power-hungry men and women beholden to state-sanctioned bratvas, some of which had metahumans in their ranks. His parents had never fallen for their lies and had taught Alexei how to spot them in order to stay safe. He knew just how much power the more dangerous bratvas wielded back in Russia and the generations that had evolved out here always wanted a piece of that notori
ety.

  The Russian-American gangs could play at being powerful, and maybe they were Stateside, but Antonovich had already shown his hand by wanting an introduction. His brigada was nothing compared to the bratvas back in Europe and Asia. Bargaining for an avenue of communication should’ve been beneath him, but some people preferred what they perceived as the easy way to wealth and power over the hard way.

  Alexei knew, better than most, that the bratva-backed terrorization he’d survived back in the Ukraine was done by people who preferred actions over words when dealing with the enemy.

  Alexei could outwait the motherfuckers every time.

  The tattooed assassin clenched his jaw, tendons standing out starkly in his neck. His next words sounded as if they were dragged out of him, which made Alexei think the order came from someone else, probably over comms. “<>”

  “Good,” Alexei said, switching to English so his team would know what was going on. “Now take us to him.”

  The guards moved into position, escorting them toward the front door of the villa. Alexei was aware of all the eyes on their little group, the attention making his skin crawl.

  Out of the heat and into the fire, Alexei thought.

  Or something like that. American phrases were the worst sometimes.

  3

  Bulletproof Your Soul

  The gaudiness of the interior hit them right in the face the moment they stepped inside. Rose-gold marble pillars stood on either side of the grand double-stairway that curved around a statue of a man holding a sword in a dramatic pose. A large, ridiculous, gold tree leaf covered the statue’s groin area. Alexei heard Madison cough discreetly to hide her laughter. The corner of his own mouth twitched a little but he kept his feelings off his face.

  The rest of the house wasn’t much better. Expensive area rugs laid over tiled floors muffled their footsteps as they walked through hallways. White walls were choked with expensive artwork, some by prominent artists, which told Alexei they were either forgeries or bought off the black market. He figured on the latter, considering each one was secured in an environmentally sealed plas-glass case against the hot and humid environment. The home’s environmentals worked hard to keep the place at a cooler temperature. Compared to outside, it was downright chilly in the villa.

  They took the stairs up to the second floor, sticking close together. They passed an empty den, several bedrooms, and two bathrooms on their walk down the long hallway. Alexei’s eyes roved over the area, making a mental note of exits and guards. The first thing they’d have to do upon leaving would be to get a gun. It looked like they would have to go the FPSG route. First Person Shooting Game was bastardized code among all branches of the military for if you found a weapon, it was yours. Most of the guards carried long guns that didn’t seem to be biolocked. That would make things easier when things went to hell.

  The tattooed assassin led them into a synthwood-paneled office that smelled heavily of cigars. The tobacco scent made Alexei’s nose twitch. Lung-scrubbers might exist in this day and age, but smoking was a habit he didn’t much care for. Too many bad memories of cruel people enjoying a smoke break for him to like any form of smoking.

  A large desk faced away from a set of plas-glass windows overlooking the bay. The guards escorting them took up position around the office, creating a cramped atmosphere. Madison and Trevor separated and drifted off to the side to stand near a couple of them. If the guards thought they were a threat without guns, they didn’t show it, which was fine by Alexei.

  He knew what his team was capable of.

  Christov Antonovich sat behind his desk, sucking at the end of a half-smoked Cuban cigar. As Alexei watched, he blew out a lungful of gray smoke that drifted between them, taking long seconds to disappear. He took the cigar out of his mouth and rubbed the smoldering end into an ashtray to put it out. The edge of the desktop glowed softly with minimized display windows, all information locked down. A bottle of good vodka and a pair of shot glasses resided close at hand on the desk.

  “So good of you to come down here to meet with me, Mr. Dvorkin,” Antonovich said.

  Alexei tracked the assassin as the tattooed man placed himself to Antonovich’s right-hand side near the desk. “Where is Riley?”

  “Business first.”

  “He is my business.”

  Antonovich reached for the vodka bottle and poured out two generous shots. The traditional toast before business was familiar to Alexei, but he wasn’t in the mood to play along. When Antonovich offered Alexei the second shot glass, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared the man down. Annoyance flashed across Antonovich’s eyes before he set the shot glass aside when it became apparent Alexei wasn’t receptive to the offer.

  “This isn’t the way to do business, Mr. Dvorkin,” Antonovich warned.

  “You kidnap our CFO and think we play nice?” Alexei shot back.

  “It was an unfortunate misunderstanding. He got in the middle of a different problem.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You can believe what you like, but I’m a businessman at heart.”

  “You call me here for trade. Riley and other two for contact information. Where are they?”

  Antonovich gestured sharply at one of his guards, who spoke into his comms in a low voice. Alexei’s sharp hearing could just make out the order of “Bring them.”

  “Why don’t you take a seat?” Antonovich said, waving at one of the three leather chairs in front of the desk.

  Alexei ignored the offer. “Will stand.”

  “These negotiations will take a while.”

  Alexei raised an eyebrow. “You get number, I get what’s mine, da? Not take a while. Minutes.”

  “If you think I’m just going to let you walk out with my leverage without checking what you give me first, let me disabuse you of that notion. I don’t know what you’re used to, but we do things differently here in America.”

  Not for the first time did someone believe that just because Alexei had an accent, he wasn’t American. He played it up for show more often than not, lulling others into a false sense of security. He wasn’t sure how well that would work here if Antonovich thought he had the ear of a powerful Russian oligarch, but Alexei wasn’t in the mood to play nice.

  The sound of the office door sliding open behind them had Alexei turning around. The first thing Alexei noticed was Sean’s painful-looking black eye. He also had some bruising on the left side of his face near his temple that Alexei hadn’t noticed last night. The other two looked mostly unharmed, even if the woman’s makeup was an utter mess. Her husband had draped his suit jacket over her shoulders to provide her with a bit more coverage against prying eyes. Adrian and Chloe Wolcott looked far less put together than they had in the holopics Alexei viewed during the mission briefing last night.

  Mostly, he didn’t care about the Wolcotts. All of Alexei’s formidable attention was reserved for Sean’s bruised and swollen face, his one good eye squinting against the light. Madison moved to approach them, but one of the guards put himself in front of her, cutting her off. She rocked back on her heels, a cool, dangerous look to her gaze that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone. After a moment, Madison retook her position near the wall beside two other guards who eyed her a little warily.

  “The Pavluhkins’ contact information, Mr. Dvorkin,” Antonovich said. “Once I have it, then you and your clients can leave.”

  Alexei kept his back to Antonovich and his pet assassin, trusting in Trevor to watch his six. “Think I believe you let us walk out?”

  “I’m a businessman, Mr. Dvorkin. Closing a deal is what I do.”

  “With bullet to head, da?”

  “And probably dumped in the bay,” Sean said, speaking carefully around the swelling in his face. “They seem the type.”

  “You all right?” Alexei asked him.

  Sean shrugged one shoulder, his gaze flicking briefly toward Trevor and back again. “Been better.
”

  “Should learn to duck.”

  Sean’s mouth twitched as he rolled his eyes despite his wounds, acknowledging the warning. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

  Even without working comms, Alpha Team didn’t need to be told when to act. Madison swiftly grabbed the nearest guard’s assault rifle and yanked it out of his hands, flipping it around in half a second to ram the buttstock against the man’s unprotected face. The sound of bone crunching was drowned out by the shouts coming from Antonovich’s guards when they realized their guns weren’t firing.

  “Clear!” Trevor barked right before he grabbed a guard by the face and slammed him headfirst into the wall. The man slid down the floor, leaving a splotch of red on the wall.

  With his telekinesis holding tight to triggers and refusing to release them, Trevor had bought them some much-needed breathing room. Alexei threw himself at the two guards nearest Sean and the other two hostages, grabbing at the weapon the closest man held and wrenching it free before tossing it to Sean.

  “Keep hold,” he snapped.

  “Get everyone in here!” Antonovich frantically yelled as he dropped to the floor.

  Alexei only hoped Trevor had telekinetically secured the office door before he found himself in the middle of a two-on-one fight. He ducked the first punch and rammed his knee into the man’s gut before slamming his foot into the man’s knee. The man went down with a scream, clutching at his right knee, the joint bent in a sickeningly unnatural way. Alexei grabbed him by the hair and drove his knee into the man’s face. He stopped screaming after that.

  The second guard threw himself at Alexei, knife in hand and gun discarded once he realized it wouldn’t work. Alexei used the other man’s forward momentum to flip him over and around, slamming him to the ground. Dropping to one knee, Alexei punched him three times in the face in rapid succession. The man’s fingers went lax; Alexei easily pried the knife free, not thinking twice about stabbing it into the man’s chest. The blade grated against bone as blood bubbled up around the wound.