The bedroom itself was easily bigger than the one in their old condo, the southeastern corner space bound on three sides by plas-glass window walls. The en suite bathroom contained a separate shower and bathtub, one that looked more than big enough to fit them both comfortably. The walk-in closet could have doubled as a guest room, but it was the balcony with its infinity pool and garden patio facing east with an expansive view of the Washington, D.C. megacity that held Kyle’s attention.
He could see them here, in this place, waking up to dawn’s early light spilling into the room. Hosting get-togethers downstairs with the people they considered family. Filling this place with the blend of their lives.
Making a home together.
Kyle turned around, seeing that Jamie wasn’t focused on the room, but on him. Kyle walked right up to Jamie, feeling those strong arms wrap around him, providing a sense of security and comfort he never wanted to lose.
“You’re the best damn thing to ever happen to me,” Kyle said in a low voice. “And I’d follow you through hell and back to be with you.”
Jamie touched his face, tipping Kyle’s head back. “You already did.”
Kyle met him halfway for a kiss that left him breathless in the best way possible.
23
New Horizons
Early May in Washington,D.C., was more like summer than spring. The oppressive heat weighed on everyone, especially the construction workers overseeing the rebuilding sites from the attack in April. Even with robots to help speed the process along, the construction still needed a human hand for guidance. Some of the destroyed buildings had been historical monuments, and there were no easy replacements for those.
The scars on the megacity and the nation’s psyche would be a long time healing. The attack by the Sons of Adam, commanded by one of the military’s own and kept hidden with the help of a high-ranking rogue CIA officer—his strings being pulled by a foreign metahuman—had cut deep. No one liked to believe their neighbor could do such a thing, but the truth rang hollow in the aftermath. Here were fellow citizens attacking their own nation, and for many people, the betrayal was difficult to reconcile.
The media had latched onto Stanislav Pavluhkin’s role in the attack as proof of Russian interference in the United States’ sovereign affairs. While that made a great headline, it wasn’t the whole story.
Russia was, of course, denying they had anything to do with the attack. Whether or not that was true, Jamie couldn’t say. He knew the Pavluhkins had fallen out of favor with the Kremlin; that Stanislav was dead and his father, Yakov, had been taken into custody by the GRU. Intelligence reports indicated thePresnenskaya Bratvawas fracturing amidst internal fighting for new leadership, but he doubted they’d be as effective without the Pavluhkins’ money and status to shore them up.
All of that meant little to the rest of the world watching the fallout. What little good had come from the attack could be found in the reports of other countries taking the warning of illegal Splice labs to heart and doing their own digging within their borders. Jamie doubted renewed vigil would eradicate the terrible experiments on innocent people completely, but it was a start. Metahumans were a commodity most governments owned and others coveted. The supply and demand would always be unequal, and there would always be people trying to even it out, no matter the cost.
The CIA had come under fire by Congress for failing to uncover Carter Bennett’s treachery. CIA Director Ryan Sutton had resigned, along with half a dozen other officers, and the remaining top people in the agency had undergone thorough telepathic scans by order of the president. Some interesting information had been uncovered amongst those loyal to Bennett, but most had been in the clear regarding their loyalty.
With the top position vacant, President Rodriguez had wanted to appoint MDF Deputy Director Ranisha Stirling to the CIA Director position. She’d declined, on the grounds that the MDF needed her more at the moment with all the personnel shuffling and reorganization going on to fill vacancies. Someone else had eventually been appointed and confirmed by Congress, a flag-ranked officer formally working out of SOCOM who Jamie hoped could clean up the mess and morale in Langley. The woman was a Marine, so he knew in time it would happen.
Bennett was still on the run. With his wealth of experience in espionage and multiple off-shore accounts the government was still unearthing, Jamie didn’t see him being apprehended anytime soon. Jamie doubted the government would beat Bennett to all his money. They’d done their best to take away some of the safe harbors he could have had—thePresnenskaya Bratvaand the Reborn IRA being two of them—but that wasn’t to say he didn’t have other contacts out there in the world waiting to take him in.
But Bennett wasn’t Jamie’s problem. Not anymore.
A lot of things weren’t.
“I’ve been instructed by the president to ask you to reconsider,” Nazari said from the seat beside him in the SUV they were both riding in.
Jamie looked away from the window and the streets they passed by to meet the director’s gaze. “I’ve made my decision, sir.”
“Which is what I told him. He still requested I ask.”
Jamie nodded slowly, settling his hands on his knees. “It’s only temporary.”
“So you say,” Nazari said with a wry smile. “I know how these things go, Callahan.”
Jamie didn’t. Not anymore.
His entire adult life had been lived within the structure of the military in one way or another. Leaving it, even temporarily, left Jamie feeling nervous in a way he hadn’t in years. No longer would he be bound by duty to the MDF, sent on missions to protect his nation and others, leading a team of the best people he had ever had the privilege to work with. The absence of that life wasn’t something he wanted to experience alone.
Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to.
The members of Alpha Team as a whole were transitioning into the MDF Reserves, with the implicit agreement that unless the emergency wasabsolutely dire, the MDF wouldn’t call them into the field for at least a year. They’d given years of their lives serving their country. It was time they lived for themselves.
That meant hanging up their uniforms at least for a little while. It meant stepping away from active duty, though Jamie doubted they’d be able to keep away from the MDF for very long.
Katie was going to spend time with Matthew when the other man was available. When he wasn’t, she would be training those MDF metahumans with psionic powers on how to merge their power. She’d done it under duress with Mercedes during the attack, using their combined power to break through the enemy telepath’s defenses. Without her efforts, Jamie knew Kyle might not have survived. It was something the MDF wanted to replicate, and Katie made a good instructor.
