In the Ruins (Metahuman Files Book 2)

by Hailey Turner

  “Privacy blackout mode engaged,” the AI replied immediately.

  She stood in front of his desk, slim arms crossed over her chest, staring at him with the world’s most disapproving look on her face. Jamie was momentarily thrown back to the first time they’d ever met in the organized depths of an FOB, her field uniform still dusty from a morning patrol outside the wire. She’d looked at him then like she was now—the judgment in her eyes of having to deal with a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant with zero field experience never once translating to her face—because NCOs knew better than to showcase their true feelings surrounded by people with far more rank than she had.

  Katie had never once let him forget his place when it came down to the fight, and Jamie was thankful for that fact every day of his life.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Katie asked in a flat voice that revealed her anger.

  “I couldn’t say no,” Jamie said tiredly.

  “No is a word that I’m perfectly aware you can pronounce in at least five different languages. Why you didn’t use each one is beyond me.”

  “If it wasn’t us, it would be someone else.”

  “Then goddamn it, Jamie! Let it be someone else for once! This is crazy. This is—” Katie broke off, planting her hands on her hips as she stared up at the ceiling, as if some higher power would give her guidance. “Your father is running for president.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  “This could ruin him and your family.”

  “I know.”

  “Then if you fucking know, why are you doing this to them? To yourself?”

  “Because my life—my privileged, stupid life, Katie—shouldn’t be worth more than the hundreds of people who are being used as test subjects and killed by criminals who won’t stop even if I do,” Jamie snapped, unaccountably angry in the face of her disagreement. “Which means I can’t stop, Katie. You know that, at least, I thought you did.”

  “Jamie—” Katie broke off with a muttered curse before rubbing a hand over her face. When she looked at him again, the anger had bled out of her. “I know that. I do, Jamie. But my job has always been to look out for you. You’re too honorable by half, I get that, but sometimes it makes you do stupid shit.”

  “Please. Don’t hold back, Katie. Tell me how you really feel.”

  She pinned him with a look that had made him shut up in the field during his first deployment every time she turned it on him. Now was no different.

  “You altered the parameters of the mission where Kyle is concerned.”

  Jamie didn’t reply, because the truth of that decision was spelled out in their updated orders. He didn’t need to confirm what she already knew.

  “Why?” she pressed.

  “Because someone of my status always has a lover on their arm. Appearing without company would be at odds with my social position. Staying within the team for our needs will make it more believable than if we bring in another person,” he finally said.

  “That’s the answer you give to the director to cover your ass. Tell me why, Jamie.”

  The words wouldn’t come, not immediately. When they did, they felt like a confession, only he was giving it to the wrong person.

  “For once, I want to be able to touch him in public and not worry it’ll fuck up everything else. If I need a cover in order to do that, at least I’ll finally know what it’s like.”

  Katie’s mouth pulled downward, but the look in her blue eyes was kind, in a way that didn’t stem from pity. Jamie was glad for it, because he didn’t think he could handle her pity right now.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll make it work.”

  Not for the first time was Jamie glad Katie had been assigned to him all those years ago. He honestly didn’t know what his life would be like without her in it, but he knew he’d be worse off in all the ways that mattered.

  “Thank you,” Jamie said around the tightness in his throat.

  “You owe me for the stress this is going to cause me.”

  “I always owe you.”

  “Damn straight.”

  But she said it with a smile and Jamie couldn’t help but return it.

  5

  In Peace Prepare For War

  “Y’all, we’re startin’ our descent into Heathrow and I’m out of coffee. Someone bring me a refill,” Annabelle said over the comms system in the private jet.

  “Sorry, amiga. We drank it all!” Trevor yelled.

  Annabelle’s swearing could be heard through the open cockpit door behind them. Katie arched an eyebrow, but her attention never wavered from her laptop and the holographic images it projected into the air.

  “Haven’t heard that insult in a while. Trevor better watch his back,” Katie said.

  “There will be more coffee at the house. Annabelle can have some while we get settled,” Jamie said as he swiped to the next page of the report on his tablet.

  “I’d ask if you could afford the stuff, but this is you we’re talking about. Did you already call ahead and have the place stocked?”

  “My mother did. A cleaning crew went through it yesterday from top to bottom and the food delivery service should have arrived this morning.”

  “And security?”

  “The UMG sent a couple of agents to handle it.”

  Katie hummed wordlessly as she fixed something in the code she was working on which altered the depth of the webpage’s background. Sean might be excellent at building identities, but whoever he’d tapped to create their fake company’s website had shit taste according to Katie. She’d been upgrading it for the past two days with an eye to security options the Pavluhkins might possibly prefer after several suggestions from Alexei.

  “Does this mean we’re going to be eating with platinum flatware again?” Katie asked.

  Jamie rolled his eyes. “That was one time.”

  “That was three times. The gold flatware happened only once and I was afraid to use every single piece of cutlery surrounding my dinner plates.”

  “If I promise you everything at the house will be normal, will you believe me?”

  “Not for a goddamn second. This is your mother we’re talking about.”

  “I’d prefer we didn’t unless there’s alcohol involved.”

  An ice bucket sat on the side table connected to the leather couch Katie was sprawled on. The bottle of Don Pérignon it used to hold had been emptied within ten minutes of takeoff. Currently, it contained several different bottles of beer resting in half-melted ice. She grabbed one without looking, tossing it to Jamie.

  Jamie caught the bottle one-handed, making a face at her. “I’m still not discussing my mother.”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” Katie retorted, rolling her eyes. “But while we’re on the subject of your family, you need to tell them to back off about what we’re doing out here. They’re driving you up the wall, which is driving me up the wall.”

  Jamie pried the bottle cap off and tossed the bit of metal back into the ice bucket. It hit with a tiny splash. He drank down half the bottle in several large gulps before responding with “I can’t not take their calls. Things would be worse if I completely ignored them.”

  “They’re making you worse, Jaime. I’m having flashbacks, and not in a good way. It’s like our first year together in the Marines all over again, and that was a hellish first year, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I haven’t. But it’s one mission, Katie. We can handle it.”

  “It’s never just one mission and you know it.”

  Jamie sighed and rubbed at his eyes hard enough he saw spots. “When this is over and done with, I’ll let you punch me, all right? It’ll be just like old times.”

  “I’d rather it wasn’t.”

  “Tough shit. We have our orders and mine is to be a complete fucking bastard for the foreseeable future.”

  “Then I’m definitely punching you when this is over.”

  “I look forward to your love tap,” Jamie said wi
th feeling.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. Portraying the rich, arrogant asshole the MDF needed him to be was going to drive him crazy. That wasn’t who he was, not anymore. Jamie needed Katie to knock him back down to the ground when the trappings of his life became too much, too real, too cutting. He privately thought it might be easier this time around, if only because Kyle would be with him.

  Jamie’s gaze drifted away from Katie to search out his lover in the group of people scattered through the private jet. Kyle was playing a first-person shooting game with Alexei on the other side of the lounge area. With anyone else it wouldn’t be a fair fight. With Alexei, it was pretty much even, only because the older man had no qualms about shoving his hand in Kyle’s face to make him miss.

  “Foul!” Kyle yelled as his soldier took a hit that looked fatal in the projected holograms of the game. “I call foul!”

  “Is not my fault you bad shot,” Alexei said with a straight face.

  Kyle tossed his controller at Donovan and lunged for his brother, the pair of them getting into a wrestling match on the couch while Madison stole Alexei’s controller and challenged Donovan to a round.

  “All y’all better quit messin’ around back there and buckle up. We’re landin’ in ten,” Annabelle said testily over the comms, apparently still mad that all the coffee was gone.

  Trevor separated Kyle and Alexei with the help of his telekinesis, pulling them apart without lifting a finger from where he sat at one of the window seats. “I’m calling this one a draw.”

  “Fine,” Kyle said mulishly. “I won.”

  “Did not,” Alexei retorted.

  “That’s not a draw,” Trevor said.

  Jamie biolocked his tablet and tucked it into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Game over for everyone. Let’s get ready.”

  Everyone immediately obeyed his order, even Sean. The agent had kept to himself for most of the flight over, taking up a small table between two window seats at the far end of the lounge area. His presence wasn’t exactly welcome, but he didn’t seem to care about the cool distance the team was treating him with. Alpha Team had a long history of being antagonistic toward outsiders. Only Kyle and Alexei had ever managed to break through the team’s defensive walls. The team would work with Sean, they just wouldn’t like it.

  Jamie got up from the couch, rolling his shoulders a little to get the dark gray suit jacket he wore to fall correctly before buttoning it up. He grabbed the champagne bucket and was about to take it to the small kitchen beyond the lounge to empty it out when Madison popped up beside him.

  “Nuh-uh, boss,” she said, taking the bucket out of his hands. “Cleaning up after yourself isn’t in character. We’re the ones looking after you, remember?”

  Jamie bit back a sigh. “Fine. Have at it.”

  Everyone’s cover identities for this mission were grounded in their real ones. It left them all more than a little on edge knowing they couldn’t resort to code names. Under the trappings of this mission, they were supposed to be human, not metahumans. Which meant the only weapons they were supposed to have was the gear stowed in the cargo hold of the jet. The UMG had pre-cleared every last one, right down to the ammo. On one hand, Jamie was glad he’d made the team train without their powers over the last few months. On the other, sometimes he hated the fact nearly all his just in case plans were almost always needed.

  That being said, Jamie could grudgingly admit Sean’s detailed cover identities for the team passed Jamie’s notoriously high threshold level for good work. Each cover took into account each person’s strengths and weaknesses, making it easier to pretend to be someone else when that someone was a colder, more ruthless version of themselves.

  Katie, as founder and CEO of Root Source, Inc. could rely on her background as a sergeant and second-in-command to be the cool, demanding businesswoman her role required. Alexei, as her business partner and COO, made sure what she wanted got done, even if it required a few threats here and there. Sean had plied deep into Alexei’s childhood background as a refugee, playing up aspects of his years in the Ukraine to hint that his family hadn’t been quite on the up and up as their generational refugee asylum request indicated. There was nothing like the possibility of criminal undertakings within a business to make someone of the same ilk sit up and take notice.

  With Jamie bankrolling the whole operation, and on the outs with his family, he’d turned to his team for support they gladly gave him. He’d hired Donovan, Trevor, Annabelle, and Madison as his personal security after they left the Marines, which gave them an excuse to stick close and be armed. Kyle’s role was the one Jamie had told the director, in no uncertain terms, needed to change. Nazari may have been initially reluctant to grant Jamie’s request to change Kyle’s role from personal security to just personal, but Jamie had made a compelling argument.

  Surprisingly, Sean had backed him up, because one less person to bring into the mission was one less detail they all had to account for. Sean had amended their service records to include an investigation into an inappropriate relationship charge between officer and subordinate that didn’t pan out due to lack of evidence. Pretending to be together for the sake of a mission while hiding the fact that yes, actually, they were together, was bound to backfire spectacularly in some way, no matter how careful they were. The team would watch out for them because they already knew about Jamie’s and Kyle’s relationship, but Sean wasn’t part of the team. He didn’t know, and couldn’t know.

  It was a risk, but it was one Jamie was willing to take. As much as he loved the time in bed he shared with Kyle, Jamie had come to the realization months ago that he wanted to do more. He wanted to take the other man out to a dinner that was just for them, and not hidden beneath the team’s weekly get-togethers. He wanted to take leave with Kyle and fly him to cities the younger man had always wanted to visit, but knew he never could, not as a poor kid growing up in an abusive household. Jamie wanted to just be with Kyle, in private and in public, with no fear that word of their relationship would get back to their superiors if they were seen kissing each other outside the walls of their home.

  If this was the only way Jamie could be with Kyle in public right now, then he would take it. It was a role both were willing to play even if it meant they’d have to bury their wistful dreams of what if when the mission was over and they resumed their regular lives again.

  Playing the part meant snagging Kyle by the hand when the other man was all set to grab his personal bag with his handgun from the storage compartment in the back. “Someone else will get it,” Jamie told him.

  “I can carry my own stuff,” Kyle snapped.

  “You can, but you won’t. Not while you’re with me. I pay other people to handle the logistics of my life so that I don’t have to lift a finger, remember?”

  Jamie squeezed Kyle’s hand gently to make a point. Kyle’s sharp-eyed gaze dropped down to their linked hands as the rest of the team moved around them, pointedly ignoring them. Jamie pulled Kyle close, leaning down a little to whisper into his ear.

  “Just be yourself and you’ll do fine,” Jamie said in a low voice.

  “You say that like it’s supposed to be easy. Pretty sure someone of your status wouldn’t look twice at a guy like me,” Kyle muttered.

  “You’d be surprised at what people of my status want.”

  “So I’m what? Your dirty little secret you’re finally airing out?”

  “To everyone else, yes. Not to me. Now let’s get out of here.”

  Annabelle had taxied the jet to Heathrow’s Terminal 6, a private terminal for well-heeled travelers who preferred discretion over a crowd. The weather in England was partly sunny at 1010 on that Saturday morning when Jamie descended the jet’s stairway, Kyle trailing after him. Jamie wasn’t surprised at all by the welcoming committee arrayed around their designated arrivals gate.

  Three black luxury SUVs with tinted windows were parked on the tarmac nearby, their trunks open, the two drivers who doubled
as UMG agents moving to help the ground crew unload the jet’s cargo hold. A Customs officer stood off to the side, ready to sign off on their passports, the cold wind ruffling the collar of his uniform. Jamie ignored them all in favor of the man standing at ease at the bottom of the stairs in a bespoke suit that rivaled Jamie’s in cost, a familiar smirk on his face.

  “Bloody hell. It’s been too long since we last saw each other,” Liam said in greeting.

  Liam’s dark blond hair was trimmed fashionably short and styled in a casual way that didn’t immediately scream military. The scruff on his face helped with that. He had his mother’s hazel eyes and his father’s height, while his faintly tanned skin was due more to genetics and a great-great-half-Spanish grandmother than from lounging around on a yacht in the sun somewhere. He matched Jamie in age and breadth of body, if not in height, and his voice was pure upper class London all the way, though Jamie knew Liam could sound like a drunk hooligan with a Cockney accent when the job called for it.

  Jamie pulled Liam into a brief, back-pounding hug, the kind of hug you gave a fellow soldier and not a prince. “You didn’t have to meet me all the way out here. I know how much you hate London traffic.”

  “Couldn’t let you get lost on the way in, yeah?”

  “Donovan would take offense to that.”

  “Always like taking the piss out of that one.”

  “Of course you do,” Jamie replied as he turned to press his left hand against the Custom officer’s proffered security tablet.

  “How long is your stay this time?”

  “Depends. You know me. Work hard, play hard.”

  Liam’s gaze moved from Jamie to Kyle, who stood next to Jamie with an uncanny stillness Jamie had long ago gotten used to. “Tastes haven’t changed much. Who’s the fellow?”

  “Mine,” Jamie said with a lazy, possessive smile, because he could. Because it was expected of him out in the public like this, where anyone could see.

  Liam raised an eyebrow, questions in his gaze he knew better than to ask in front of an audience. “Right, then. Let’s get you lot sorted and get going. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a drink in hand when we chat.”