His mother sighed in exasperation. “Typical.”
“You know how my job as a bank auditor is. I can’t just—”
“I’ve heard it all before, Sean,” she cut in. “Frankly, that excuse got old years ago. I need to go. One of my nurses is calling for me.”
His mother cut the line, the comms clicking off in his ear. Sean angrily chewed on the inside of his cheek for a few seconds, trying to ignore the twinge of guilt that always accompanied any conversation with his family. Lying to them had become habit years ago; that didn’t mean it was easy. Sean had pretended to drop out of college to shore up his background. His well-educated parents hadn’t much cared for that lie and his brothers hadn’t reacted any better when he left the band.
It was safe to say Sean’s relationship with his family was a mess, one that wouldn’t be fixed anytime soon.
“Bank auditor?” Alexei asked a minute or so later.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sean muttered.
“Family not know you MDF agent?”
“I thought you were going to feed me, not interrogate me?”
Alexei didn’t respond. Sean would feel bad about snapping at him if he wasn’t so tired and stressed out. He ignored Alexei, staring blankly out the window, not really seeing the streets of D.C. passing by, too lost in thought to pay attention. He only roused when Alexei pulled into the subterranean parking garage beneath Sean’s residential apartment building.
“You could’ve just dropped me off,” Sean said.
Alexei rolled his eyes. “Think I not make sure you make it up okay?”
Sean sighed, not in the mood to argue. He gave Alexei the code to open the gate and directed him to the guest parking spots. Luckily, one was open. They parked, and Sean kept his mouth shut when Alexei also got out of the car.
Alexei stuck close on the walk to the elevator and the ride up. Sean’s apartment was on a lower midlevel, a small one-bedroom with an open floor plan between the kitchen and living room. He’d bought new furniture last year when he’d changed up the layout of everything after years of the same old design. His brothers’ band posters took up pride of place over the couch, one being the cover of Atomic Grace’s first album and the other one a stage picture. Nestled between the two framed posters were holopics of his family, because despite the distance between Sean and them, he still loved them.
The apartment faced the street and the polarized windows were shaded dark against the early evening fading sunlight. He’d left them dark before leaving for New Miami yesterday.
“Computer, security check,” Sean called out as he moved farther into the apartment.
“Apartment is secured,” the attendant computer replied.
Alexei peered around curiously, taking everything in for only the second time. Sean watched as his gaze returned to the band posters time and time again. “Is family, da?”
Sean nodded after a moment. “My brothers. They play drums, bass, and sing in the band. Their best friend is the guitarist.”
Alexei slanted him a look. “You left.”
Sean opened his mouth, then closed it. That wasn’t what he expected to hear. “Yeah. A long time ago. You look that up in my records, or what?”
Alexei looked slightly guilty, though Sean couldn’t imagine why. Field teams were always granted access to the records of new team members. Alpha Team would’ve accessed his back in January.
“Knew before, when I see posters first time,” Alexei admitted. “Little sisters big fans.”
“Really?” Sean said with a faintly disbelieving look.
“Brothers not know about you? Like parents?”
Sean turned away, hiding how much that question bothered him. “No. They don’t need to know.”
“For CIA?”
“Yeah.”
Alexei muttered something under his breath that Sean couldn’t make out before heading for the kitchen. “Will make something for you.”
“I can feed myself,” Sean called over his shoulder as he headed into the bedroom.
“Kak budto.”
Sean ignored Alexei by letting the bedroom door slide shut behind him. He got out of his clothes with far more ease than he’d been able to earlier. His body didn’t hurt anymore, but a tiredness bordering on exhaustion was creeping through him, begging to be acknowledged. He dragged on a pair of sleeping pants and an old band T-shirt before wandering barefoot back into the living room.
Alexei had managed to make a sandwich with whatever was left over in Sean’s fridge. More cheese and meat than anything else, because his metabolism needed protein and fat right now.
Sean took the plate with a little nod. “Thanks.”
Alexei lifted his hand to Sean’s face, and this time, Sean didn’t jerk away from his gentle fingers. Alexei’s thumb glided over the healed bones in his right cheek, resting for a few seconds against his temple, before pulling away.
“Teach you to duck,” Alexei finally said.
Sean couldn’t help but roll his eyes and take a step back to hide the shiver that slipped down his spine from Alexei’s touch. “Not this again.”
Alexei tapped the side of the plate before stepping around him. “Eat. I come get you in morning.”
“I can drive,” Sean protested as Alexei headed for the door.
“Tell Gracie if you do.”
That was pretty underhanded and Sean couldn’t even be mad. “Fine.”
Alexei smirked at him and waved goodbye, obviously pleased with his win. The door slid shut behind him and Sean looked down at the sandwich on his plate, his stomach growling.
He’d eat, then sleep off the last twenty-four hours before waking up to deal with their current mess all over again. Sometimes his life was just a never-ending shit-storm of stress, but it was the quiet breaks in between, like now, that kept him from going crazy.
It helped, for once, that he didn’t have to end a mission alone.
5
Throw the Dice Away
Alexei looked up from his tablet and the report on Adrian Wolcott he was reading. He watched as Sean sat down in the seat across from him. The private jet was the same one they’d taken to New Miami to extract him last week. At least this time the agent was in better condition. Sean didn’t have a completely forgettable face—his job would probably be easier if he did. He was nice to look at though, which Alexei had done a lot of over the past five days as they prepped for their mission to Las Vegas, not to mention the last few months.
A sharp jawline and straight nose that gave no hint of the multiple times it’d probably been broken were the first features to catch the eye. Sean’s brown hair was newly shaved along the sides, the top still a little long and messy, not bound by field regulations to keep it short so it would fit under a helmet. His brown-eyed gaze was heavy and direct, a weight to it that could shift in an instant to portray whatever persona the mission required.
Sean used his entire body to become someone else, a trick that made Alexei just a little uncomfortable. It reminded him too much of Cora Everly’s shapeshifting ability, just without the physical morph. That personal dislike wouldn’t interfere with his desire to watch Sean’s six, because apparently, the agent was shit about taking care of himself in the field when he was running solo. Besides, Katie had vouched for Sean’s loyalty and Jamie trusted him. That was enough for Alexei, despite Sean’s background.
“You ready for this?” Sean asked.
Alexei shrugged. “Not different from London. Will be fine.”
“Right,” Sean said dubiously. “I know you’re capable of getting behind enemy lines and taking out a target, but this is a little different. If things get dicey, I need you to follow my lead. This isn’t like the direct fieldwork you’re used to.”
“Think I not make others believe my cover?”
“I have no doubt you can pull off irritated bastard,” Sean said with a faint smile that Alexei could grudgingly admit took the sting out of the words, just a little. “But that attitude won’t get
us far as often as you think it will.”
“Am supposed to be businessman, da? Attitude is fine.”
“I’m not questioning your attitude. I’m asking you to trust me when we’re in the middle of the op and to follow my lead, even if you don’t like what’s going on.”
Alexei studied him, unsurprised when Sean never broke his gaze. “You still handler.”
“In a way, yes.”
“You know better than us what acting like this needs. Not argue with you.” Alexei paused, before admitting, “Not argue much.”
Sean leaned back in his seat. “I can work with that.”
“Can you? You have us in field now. Is different from old job.”
“By a lot, but that doesn’t change how I approach the mission.”
Alexei eyed him curiously. “How?”
“I was a NOC when with the CIA doing deep cover work,” Sean said. “Non-official cover, no guarantee the United States would admit I was one of theirs if I were caught and found out.”
Alexei rolled his eyes, his opinion of the CIA tanking even more with that explanation. “You shit at ducking. No wonder where you get bad habit from.”
The look Sean shot him was a mix of exasperation and humor. It made him look a little younger, a little less stern. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“So smart for spy,” Alexei drawled.
If it were Kyle he was teasing, Alexei would’ve had to dodge a playful punch. Sean just sighed in exasperation, but the hint of a smile twitching at his lips told Alexei he wasn’t as pissed as he pretended to be.
“I know I don’t need to tell you the mission comes first.” Sean paused, chewing on his bottom lip. “Look, there’s a pretty strong chance the Wolcotts think we’re more than business associates. I know you hated when Jansen thought we were fucking back in January, but that might be impossible to get around this time. I get I’m not your type, but you may have to pretend I am for this mission.”
“Not know my type,” Alexei scoffed, irritated for some reason about Sean’s quick dismissal of himself from the running in Alexei’s non-existent love life.
Sean shrugged, not quite meeting his gaze. “You don’t like spies.”
Which was true, in a sense, but Sean had been officially seconded to Alpha Team for the missions involving Root Source, Inc. and the Pavluhkins. Alexei wasn’t going to ignore the agent’s placement on the team for something Sean couldn’t change.
“Not mind you,” Alexei replied slowly. “For mission or not.”
A hint of surprise flashed across Sean’s eyes. “Okay?”
“Am fine to pretend. You think Wolcott talk with Jansen and he mention London?”
Any calls by the team with the Wolcotts were recorded and saved to the mission files. The entire team had listened to the handful of calls that had happened over the past five days, from Sean’s initial request to visit, to Katie’s long conversation about her business while supposedly overseas. Buried in all those words was the casual mention of one Nikolaas Jansen, whom Katie had affirmed their working relationship with.
It was a safe bet that either Adrian or Declan had reached out to Jansen to verify their credentials. No one knew what Jansen may have told the brothers, or if they were walking into a trap. Stanislav Pavluhkin’s precognition power wasn’t something they could overlook, nor was it something they could easily fight. Being unpredictable could only help so much. No one knew where the line was between Stanislav’s sight and his blindness to the future.
Twenty-four hours, if that timeframe held, was still enough to ruin lives, to say nothing of a mission.
“Adrian Wolcott isn’t the kind of man to blindly believe in someone. He’ll have done his background on us, same as we did on him, even before the mess in New Miami. There’s a very high probability he’s been in contact with Jansen after last week. We need to be prepared for that,” Sean said.
“So we act like Jamie and Kyle?”
Sean hesitated a moment before nodding. “Yes.”
Alexei didn’t believe for a second he and Sean could duplicate how Jamie and Kyle had acted during London. He tipped his head to the side, eyes narrowing in thought, before a smile curled his mouth. “Could call names.”
“What?” Sean asked, frowning a little in confusion.
“Use small name,” Alexei said, lifting his hand to hold his thumb and forefinger close together. “Can call you sakharok.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Pryanichek?”
Sean shook his head, staring at him. “Do you mean pet names? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Kotyonok,” Alexei decided, liking the way Sean bristled like a baby kitten.
“No,” Sean replied firmly.
Alexei smirked. “Kotyonok.”
“It’s like you’re five. No wonder why Kyle puts you in a headlock.”
“Kilyusha wish he could.”
Alexei couldn’t tell if Sean was relieved or not with his reaction to needing to fake a relationship. It was difficult to tell how Sean truly felt. His poker face was just that good when he wanted it to be. Alexei had a feeling Sean could fake interest in him in an instant, but it would take a little more effort on Alexei’s part to make it believable.
Unlike Kyle, who’d gone through a ridiculous number of one-night stands before falling into Jamie’s bed and never leaving it, Alexei didn’t much care for sex with a stranger. That’s not to say he’d never picked up someone at a club or bar for a night of fun, but it wasn’t his preference.
Alexei was the sort of man who liked to feel a connection beyond the physical with the men and women he partnered up with. Lust was all well and good, but Alexei always ended up wanting more, knowing that he couldn’t risk it. It used to be because of his position with Strike Force, then keeping the fact he was a metahuman a secret. Now it was his role as an MDF field operative that was the obstacle.
Sean knew more about him than anyone else he’d been with over the years, mostly because he knew what Alexei did for a living. There was an inherent level of trust in that revelation which Alexei couldn’t ignore.
It’s for the mission, Alexei thought to himself as he let his gaze linger on Sean’s face. Someone needs to watch his six.
“All right, boys and girls. Landin’ in five,” Annabelle said over the public comms. “I got the biodome in my sight and we’re cleared to approach.”
Alexei looked out the polarized, double-paned window, squinting down at the barren ground below. Summer meant grass withered to a dangerous dryness through much of the central United States. Desertification had crept outward from the Southwest over the decades, leaving the land barren-looking across huge areas not covered in the solar panel fields that helped power the country’s energy grid. The highways spanning America were lonely roads linking megacities together through extreme weather.
Farms had long ago moved north, close to the border America shared with Canada. The green zone found there was the agricultural sweet spot now, with vertical farms interwoven between megacities and the smaller satellite cities scattered in between. In the lower half of the country, small towns struggled to survive, stubbornly clinging to a dying way of life, with few megacities to be found, especially in the desert.
Las Vegas was a rare, thriving outlier.
Annabelle banked the jet in a wide curve, one wing dipping down toward the ground. The massive, opaque biodome that encapsulated the entirety of Las Vegas glimmered softly in the midday sun. Nanoscreens covered each panel making up the biodome in a protective layer, capable of eliminating the glare from sunlight and making it easier on the eyes.
Long ago, Las Vegas had voted to remain where it was rather than succumb to climate change and abandon the city for a new location. The West hadn’t been wild for generations by that point, but the stubborn mentality of its inhabitants had yet to die off.
Back then Sin City, as it was colloquially still known, invested more than a billion d
ollars into building the citywide biodome, the effort spearheaded by all the casinos that dominated the megacity’s skyline. The idea was borrowed from Dubai in the UAE, a desert city still surviving beneath its own impressive biodome long after climate change had forced millions to abandon the countries they once called home.
Like Dubai, Las Vegas was an oasis in the desert, a place for the high-rolling ultra-wealthy to indulge in any number of expensive escapes. Las Vegas provided something for everyone, no matter the background they came from, a form of escapism found nowhere else in the world. The technology keeping the city survivable in desert heat also shielded its citizens from the dangerous sunlight, providing perpetual shade outside the neon lights found within the casinos. The environmentals running the biodome were some of the best in the world; they had to be to survive the oppressive, choking heat of the Mojave Desert.
“Still have time for mile-high club,” Alexei said off-handedly.
“What?” Sean practically hissed in a low voice.
Alexei smirked, looking over at him. He was surprised to see a faint blush warming Sean’s cheeks, surprised to realize he liked how it made Sean look. Whether from anger or embarrassment, it was hard to tell, considering the half-hearted glare Sean was giving him.
“Maybe half-mile club. Good for cover, da?”
Sean palmed his face and shook his head, unable to completely hide his smile. “You’re ridiculous.”
Some of the tension had eased in Sean’s shoulders, and Alexei was glad for that. “Be okay, Sean.”
Sean lifted his head, brown eyes searching Alexei’s, before he finally nodded. “Yeah.”
They both had to believe that, because there was no turning back now.
Las Vegas International Airport was located outside the megacity limits and the imposing, heavy-duty wall of the biodome. It ran exclusively on solar power, hooked into the megacity’s electrical grid. The airport connected to Las Vegas via an underground tunnel to save the tourists and locals alike from the desert’s brutal sunlight.
Alexei felt the descent in his ears and stomach, body automatically adjusting to their return to earth. It didn’t take long for Annabelle to taxi to their gate after landing. Once the jet was hooked into the jetway, and Madison had unlocked the jet door, everyone gathered up their belongings. Most of their luggage would be handled by the ground crew and picked up in baggage claim. Sean wasn’t carrying anything other than his tablet, while Alexei settled for a weapon or three hidden amongst his person. Annabelle conferred briefly with her co-pilot, an MDF agent flying with them, who would handle the jet from here on out.
In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3) Page 9