As we made our way to the open front door, Mr. Hansen shook hands with the rest of the team and introducedhimself.
“The final member of my team will be here shortly. Can you tell your security to let her through?” Iasked.
Tatum was one of the most important members of our team. She was twelve years old, hadn’t yet gotten her period, which would signal maturity, and was our waker. She slept during the day and worked full time for me at night. Her parents homeschooled her, and she did her homework while we slept. Because the ghouls weren’t a threat to her yet, she could sleep in peace, but that peace would come crashing down the day she got herperiod.
Other than paying her handsomely, her parents had also requested I train her, so when she reached maturity she could fend for herself. I’d also reserved a spot for her at the local cadet academy when she got her period, and they would let her attend. The age of minimum admittance to get into the academy got younger and younger each year. In my day, you couldn’t enter until you were fourteen. It clashed with our need to protect their innocence, but also the need to teach them how to stayalive.
Mr. Hansen pressed a finger to a listening device in his ear. “Miss Tatum Wallace will be coming along shortly. Be sure to let her and her mother right onthrough.”
I chuckled. Of course, he knew her first and last name. Former MI6, I would expect nothingless.
As we stepped into the foyer, I took stock of my surroundings. The home was large with a tiled entryway that led to a wide open staircase, but the moldings looked dirty and the wooden entry table was covered in a layer of thick dust. A common side effect of constantly losing staff to the Dream Wars. He’d probably just stopped hiring a cleaning lady. It was hard to see people you worked with on a daily basis keepdying.
“This way.” The butler ushered us up the staircase and to the left, where I assumed the master bedroomwas.
As we traversed a large hallway, I began to hear low voicestalking.
“We’re here,” Mr. Hansen said in his earpiece before I could make out any of thewords.
At that, Damien Striker walked out of the master bedroom. His dirty blonde hair was slicked back and wet, telling me he must have recently showered. A scruffy beard dotted his jaw, and he stared at me with piercing blue eyes. He wore a Kevlar tank top, which showed off his impressive muscles but also showcased a gnarly looking shoulder wound. It was hastily stitched back together, so rough it looked like Tatum had done it. His outfit was topped off with loose green military cargoes and two high-powered weapons, one on each hip. Dark bags shone under his eyes, and he held a stim canister in his hand. Even with all of this, he was devastatingly handsome. I didn’t meet many handsome twenty-four-year-old billionaires in my dailyroutine.
“Thank God. I was just about to have to take another one of these.” He chucked the stim can on the floor, full and unused. I wasn’t surprised, knowing he hadn’t stayed awake for four days without stims. I just hoped he only used them when needed, like we all did. The last thing I needed was a trigger-happy stim junkie on myhands.
I extended my hand, going into professional mode. “Commander KitSteele.”
He wrapped his large hand around mine and shook it with a firm grip. He didn’t try to treat me like I would break, and for that he earned one point of respect fromme.
“Damien Striker.” His eyes roamed over my blue hair and then quickly did a full body scan. He was probably wondering if he’d made a good decision to hire a twenty-year-old with blue hair for a hundred grand a week to protect hislife.
I swiftly introduced my team, but from the way he nodded as I rattled off the names, I realized he’d already known all their info. This guy studied our files as much as we’d studiedhis.
“Let me look at that shoulder,” Ronnie said, setting her medic bagdown.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’d rather just get some rest.” He waved heroff.
A tough guy,huh?
Ronnie ate tough guys forbreakfast.
“Oh, it wasn’t really a question. No one goes into the Dream Wars without my medicalapproval.”
Ouch.I tried to hold on to my professional façade, but a slight smile tugged at mylips.
Damien groaned and acquiesced, cutting me a glare. He’d noticed mysmile.
I could already see I was going to have problems with this guy. I was in charge, second was Ronnie, and after that was the rest of my team, including Tatum. If he thought that because he’d bought our services, he’d bought the right to call the shots, he was sorelymistaken.
“Let’s set up.” I started to walk into the expansive mastersuite.
“Hang on a second.” Damien grabbed my upperarm.
I didn’t like beinggrabbed.
When I met his eyes, they were so tired and full of exhaustion that I forgave him this small infraction. Just thisonce.
He let go of my arm and spoke in a small voice. “I need to tell you something about my littlebrother.”
Oh shit.This happened all the time. They kept something out of the files and dropped the bomb on you right before you were about to sleep. I only agreed to jobs because I had the client fill out a heavily detailed file to give me all the information I needed. If the brother was a stim junkie, or severely injured, I wasn’t doing it. I would walk out rightnow.
