5. Adrian
FIVE
Iwoke up to the sound of a baby screaming. It was still pitch-black outside. I sat up, groggy, and came face-to-face with Layla Bailey. She had one of her sons in her arms. “Oh, shit,” she muttered. “I’m so sorry. He’s hungry; I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
I stood. “It’s no problem at all,” I said. “He’s just doing his thing—I’m the intruder here. I appreciate you for opening your home to us.” She smiled wanly and bounced the infant in her arms. He didn’t look any closer to calming down. I held out my hands. “Let me?”
She blinked. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t mind at all.” I might not have had a ton of experience with babies, but I could walk with one.
Layla put the baby in my arms. “This is Shawn,” she said. “He’s got colic, and we barely get to sleep.”
“Aww, buddy,” I said and bounced the baby gently. “If you make me a bottle, I’ll feed him.” We both heard another cry from down the hall. “And you can grab his brother.”
“You don’t mind?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. Once I’m up, I’m not going back down.”
Layla looked horrified. “I’m so sorry?—”
“Bottle,” I said, and the baby down the hall got even louder. “We can tag-team.”
In a daze, Layla did just that. “If you need anything at all, we’re just down here.”
“I’ll be fine.”
I walked with Shawn, and once he’d had a bottle, he settled into a fitful sleep. He’d start to fuss from time to time, and I’d get up and walk with him again. “Shh, buddy,” I murmured, patting at his bottom. “It’s a little early for all the fuss, yeah?”
“You’re good at that.”
Nataliya was standing at the mouth of the hallway. “How long have you been watching me?”
She shrugged. “Just a little while. Does it bother you?”
It didn’t. “Did you get any rest?”
Her shoulders bobbed once more. “Do single mothers ever really get any rest?” she asked. When Shawn got fussy, she crossed the room and held her arms out. I passed him over and she cradled him to her chest. A pretty smile flitted over her face. “I remember when Elias was this size. But I think he was only a month or two old at that point—he was born so big, and he just kept growing.”
The same Elias who looked like a strong wind could blow him away? “That’s a little hard to believe,” I said.
She winced. “It’s hard to remember him that way,” she conceded. “Until he was four or so and started getting muscle cramps for the first time, he was just like any other kid.” She sighed, soft and sad. “I would do anything to let him experience that again.”
The sun began to turn the clouds pink and orange; we had a good spot to watch the sunrise through the condo’s massive windows, and Nataliya settled onto the couch to watch it. Shawn settled against her shoulder, and she kept rubbing at his back, soothing him even as he slept. It was peaceful, sitting with her.
Not too long after, Drake brought Shawn’s brother—an identical match named Spencer—into the living room. “Thanks for helping Layla,” he said. “I told her to lie back down for a bit.”
“Sure,” I told him.
While Drake prepared Spencer’s breakfast, Nataliya handed Shawn to me, grabbed the log-in information she had decoded, and turned on the main computer monitor. “Do you work in technology now?” she asked Drake, who sat down beside me on the couch.
“Manufacturing, actually,” he said. At her look, he chuckled. “It’s a family business I’m trying to do some good with. Technology is just a hobby now.”
She looked at his system and whistled softly. “Impressive setup for a hobby.” She ran her hand over the keyboard, clearly envious.
“How long has it been since you’ve worked on a computer?” I asked. “I can’t imagine working as a waitress affords a lot of opportunity for anything tech-related.”
She looked at me, and there was a touch of…something in her eyes. Mischief, maybe. Defiance, definitely. “Do you want the legal answer or the honest one, Agent Pierce?”
“As far as the office knows, I’m on vacation.” I’d been saving up my paid leave for when it was finally time to go after Hayes—and when I heard those online whispers about Hayes’s men on Nataliya’s tail, I knew the time had come. “I’m not going to go call up the cyber division to turn you in during my ‘fishing trip,’” I said.
“I’ve done a few things,” she admitted. “You already know about one of them—creating a false identity so I could live under the radar. I appreciate you looking the other way for me.”
I was tempted to ask, but it was probably for the best that I didn’t. Nataliya had done whatever she needed to in order to survive. I wasn’t going to judge her for that. “Maybe once all this is settled, you’ll be able to get back to it.”
She clicked her teeth against her tongue and turned back to the computer monitor. “Maybe,” she mused. “I’ve got it up, and…”
Drake stood, taking Spencer with him. “Oh.”
“Neither of those sound good,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. I balanced Shawn on my shoulder and looked at the screen. “What, exactly, am I looking at?”
“Encrypted files,” Drake said.
Nataliya hummed. “A lot of them.”
My heart kicked against my ribs. We were actually getting somewhere. “Can you get them open?”
Nataliya looked at Drake. “Do you have de-encryption software on this thing?”
He nodded. “It’ll take a while, though.”
“I might be able to help with that?—”
They lapsed into quiet as she tapped at the keyboard, opening up windows with what looked like an alien language in rows. I had seen Drake do some coding before, but even after he explained things to me, it never got any less impossible to understand. While I was standing there, I heard a sound. Like an animal whimpering.
“You have a dog, Drake?” I asked. He shot me an incredulous look.
“In a house with infants? Where it could bark and wake them up? Seriously?”
I almost shrugged it off—but then I heard it again. Soft and pained. I set Shawn into a bouncer and followed that sound.
It was Elias. He was stretched out on the guest bed; his face was a rictus of agony. It looked like he was being stretched out by an invisible rope. Adrenaline spiked through my veins, and I went on high alert. I crossed the room and dropped to my knee. “Elias? Bud, you okay?” I asked. My first instinct was to reach out and touch him, but I thought better of it.His condition might include heightened sensitivity. For all I knew, touch would hurt him even more.
He tried to shake his head and grimaced. “M—Ma?—”
Of course, he wanted his mother. “Hang on just one second, okay? I’ll get her.” I turned and rushed back down the hall. “Nataliya.”
“Huh?” She didn’t look away from the screen, pointing something out to Drake, who nodded without her saying a word.
“Nataliya.”
She turned this time, annoyed. “Wha—?” When she realized I was standing near the hallway, she instantly knew what was going on. “Give me a moment,” she muttered to Drake before she got up and all but bolted past me.
I followed after her. Just in case she needs something, I reasoned. She looked tense and anxious as she reached for the door, but her whole countenance changed once she opened it. Her shoulders unbunched. Her lips curved into a comforting smile. She looked calm and in control.
“Sakharok?” she said. “It’s okay. We’ve been through this before, yes? We can get through it again.” She looked around on the floor and then at me. “Could you get my bag? I think I left it in the living room.”
I nodded and turned on my heel, crossing the apartment as swiftly as I could. I heard Drake ask a question, but I didn’t take the time to answer. I didn’t want the kid to have to spend one more second in agony if he didn’t have to.
Scooping up the bag, I stopped in the kitchen to grab a bottle of water before returning to Nataliya and Elias in the guest room. She was sitting beside him, humming softly and petting his hair.
“Thank you,” she said as I handed her what I’d brought. “Can you help me sit him up?” I nodded, and together, we slowly got him moved into a seated position. Elias leaned back against me, a dead weight against my chest. Nataliya apologized as she dug through her bag for his medication.
“It’s fine,” I assured her. “I don’t mind.”
Her hazel eyes caught mine for just a second, and my stomach flipped over. She truly was a beauty, and the way she treated her son just made that beauty shine. It let me see the real her, under the wary defensiveness she usually showed me. Not that it mattered that I found her attractive or not. This was a mission. There was a goal…and getting caught up on a pretty face wasn’t a part of it.
Nataliya helped Elias to take two pills: one I knew had to be a pain pill because it had come from the same orange bottle from before. The other came from a red bottle. “What’s that?”
“A muscle relaxer,” she said. “It’s only meant for emergencies.” Once he’d swallowed the two pills, she and I laid him back down. “I’m going to stay with him,” she said. “Tell Drake for me? Have him keep an eye on our program?”
I nodded. “Sure. How long is he usually like this?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Sometimes it’s only a few hours, sometimes it’s a few days.”
“Well…when he’s okay to travel again, I’ll take you to meet Dr. Mayfield, okay? She’s shacked up with my buddy Owen in Alabama.”
“Okay. Thank you.” Her tone was flat, a little sad, and I watched her curl her body around her son, as if she could protect him from everything, even the disease wracking his muscles.
I left the room with a knot in my gut. Not being able to help, to truly help, always left me with a stomachache—a feeling of guilt that went all the way back to my childhood.
“Nataliya’s going to stay with Elias for a bit,” I said as I came back to the living room. “He’s not feeling well. She asked you to keep an eye on the program for her.”
Drake nodded. “It needs a couple of hours to run anyway.” Layla came into the room, and his face changed—his eyes lit up, and he automatically reached for her, for their children. She handed baby Spencer to him. “Hey, bub,” he murmured to the baby, who offered him a gummy smile.
The little scene was so…sweet. Domestic in a way I didn’t picture Drake ever being. “Is it weird?” I asked, not able to help myself. “Having a family?”
Both he and Layla laughed. “Beyond weird,” she said, and he agreed.
“But an amazing kind of weird,” Drake said, looking up at her.
She bent and left a smacking kiss on his lips. “Cheesy,” she said but kissed him again all the same. “By the way, Spence needs his diaper changed.”
“You—!”
She danced away with Shawn, giggling all the while, and I laughed. Drake turned on me. “You just wait, man. One day, this will be you.”
“Nah, I’m not built for family life.” I’d done my share of dating over the years, but it never got serious. Being a SEAL came first for me, and I never felt right about asking someone to commit to me when I knew I couldn’t commit fully in return. And in the time since leaving the Navy, getting justice for Cuddy and Roger had been driving me. Romance had dropped off my radar completely.
Drake shrugged. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You think I didn’t notice the way you were looking at Nataliya? C’mon, man, I know how you look when you’re interested. And you’re definitely interested.”
“There’s nothing there,” I insisted. “This is a mission—nothing more.” Fraternizing didn’t belong in life-or-death situations.
Drake narrowed his eyes at me. “So, you don’t think she’s attractive? Like at all?”
“No!” At his look, I sighed. “I mean, yeah, objectively, she’s gorgeous, but she doesn’t trust me as far as she can throw me. There’s no chance of anything happening between us. It’s a mission, nothing more.”
Drake stared at me for a long moment. “Sure, man,” he finally said, not convinced at all.