CHAPTER 5

Without a backward glance, Kira took the elevator down to the dazzling lobby with its understated elegance and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.

Walking with the sure stride of a woman who had places to be, Kira exited the building and waited less than a minute for the doorman to summon a cab for her.

Kira gave the driver an address that was practically on the other side of D.C. On a Tuesday morning before the start of rush hour traffic, it would still be an hour before she reached it. The clock on the dash said it was 7 in the morning as she got out of the cab.

She had less than an hour to change into her uniform, eat something, and suffer through her adoptive older brother’s worried pestering before they needed to get on the road.

Kira wasn’t surprised in the least when the door to their temporary apartment in a residence tower opened before she could even put her key in.

“Do you have a good time?” Staff Sergeant Xander Reese asked, his gray eyes full of concern rather than judgment.

“I had a fantastic time. Want me to tell you all about it?” Kira retorted.

“Please don’t. I just ate my breakfast.”

Xander held the door open and Kira slipped inside. The apartment was furnished, but it wasn’t theirs. They were renting it for the few days they were in town reporting to the brass in the Pentagon before taking a well-deserved leave from the military so long as nothing important came up.

They should have been done yesterday, but the email she’d received at the bar last night about today made Kira think they weren’t getting that leave after all.

“You look less happy than you usually do after your usual hunt,” Xander said.

"I’m fine. Just tired.”

Xander followed Kira into the kitchen. Kira ignored her brother and poured herself a mug of Gencaf, slurping at the bitter liquid.

Mass-produced original coffee beans become hard to grow after climate change made the delicate Coffee Belt inhospitable to the small tree. It was still grown in carefully monitored vertical greenhouses owned by a conglomerate of corporations, but its care and production were so expensive, making the end product prices astronomical.

The real stuff was a true luxury that most people on the planet would never taste. Gencaf was the bitter, synthetic alternative that everyone else drank for a caffeine fix.

Xander leaned against the counter and bore his gaze on Kira. “You sure about that?”

Kira heavily sighed and set down her mug. “No.”

At twenty-eight and twenty-nine respectively, Kira and Xander had a long history of figuring things out together. They’d met when Kira was only ten and Xander and his family had just arrived in Boston.

They’d become friends due to their outsider statuses, with Xander a refugee from Italy knowing little to no English, and Kira the only daughter of a known Irish Mob enforcer. They managed to stay friends despite their differences, with Kira spending time with Xander's family more and more to escape her own over the years until her presence there became permanent when she turned thirteen and her family was murdered in a retaliatory gang attack. Kira and Xander had snuck out of Kira’s home to go see a movie that night and returned to a smoldering floor in their apartment complex, a murdered family, and Xander’s parents frantically screaming her name on the street.

They’d taken Kira in because Xander wouldn’t leave her side. At the time, the Department of Children and Families couldn’t find any other family members willing to take Kira in, and group homes were overfull. Kira was adopted by Reese when she was fifteen, joined the Army with Xander after she finally became a legal adult under a Special Forces contract, and they haven’t looked back since.

Their skills had differed even if their commitment never had, despite everything they’d been through.

The one thing that would never change was they would always be there for each other.

“Did he hurt you?” Xander asked.

Kira turned to give him a flat look. “You’re going to ask that? Really?”

Xander shrugged. “It's a valid

question. You're going to answer or not?”

“Last night was fine. No…it was great. He was great. I just…I don’t ask for anything more than a night. You know why.”

“But you wanted to.”

Kira made a face. “Yeah.”

“You could maybe call the hotel and find out who he is?”

“He’s a civilian. And he’s rich. He took us to the goddamn Ritz-Carlton. I highly doubt they’d give me his contact information if I called them and asked for it.”

“We could do a background check on him if you think it’d be worth it.”

“That’s illegal and I don’t even know his last name.”

Xander gave him a pointed look. “Hasn’t stopped us before.”

Kira grabbed her mug and gulped down the rest of her gencaf. "I’m not going to the nearest base just to get access to a spy program.”

“Speaking of the base, better get ready. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day at the Pentagon.”

“Ugh, now you’ve done it. We’re screwed.”

“You were screwed. I stayed home and had a quiet night in.”

Kira elbowed Xander on her way out of the kitchen. “I thought you said you didn’t want any details?”

“I don’t, so don’t share. You scarred me for life in other ways. Let’s not add your sex life to that list.”

“What? My combat jacks don’t count?”

Xander pulled a horrified face. “You’re not supposed to remind me of that!”

Kira left the kitchen laughing, feeling a little lighter despite having the sinking feeling that something good had slipped through her fingers that morning...

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