Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
August 8th, 2024
Leighton Watts
M y eyes flashed open.
4:30.
No…no, this was something else. I practically felt my cortisol levels spike with a fight-or-flight urgency. I sat up in bed, remembering I was at Beckett’s place, and I squinted in the dark. No way; it wasn’t time to get up. My alarm hadn’t gone off.
I grabbed my phone, and it flashed to life.
3:04.
There it is again. I heard a noise. Someone was on the other side of the door.
I scrambled out of bed and crossed the living room. Wait, that couldn’t be Beckett, could it? Unless he was drunk off his ass and didn’t know how to work the key. I scrubbed a quick hand over my face and peered through the peephole. Black hoodie, white male—white-ish…?
Whoever it was had a hard time opening the door, and I instantly reeled back. He didn’t belong here. He was trying to break in. Fuck me. Something was wrong.
A rush of adrenaline bolted me into action, and I hurried back to the living room, where I dug out my gun case. The one from Hillcroft, not my personal gun. No time to get dressed. If this turned into a confrontation, it was going to happen in boxer briefs. Would I have time to grab my phone? The sleep alcove was in direct line of fire from the entryway, and I couldn’t risk it.
I attached the mag to my gun and dropped low behind the kitchen bar, and I sucked in a breath. Was this part of training? It fucking couldn’t be. They knew some of us carried weapons. A few of us had been cleared early on.
The moment the door opened, a cold chill descended over me, and it felt like all my senses sharpened in the darkness. The man spoke in a hushed tone, and I identified it as German—with an accent. He had to be on the phone or something.
Steady.
I inhaled deeply through my nose and crouched between the two kitchen stools. Any second now, he’d appear.
I raised my gun and eased a finger over the trigger.
The guy stopped talking a fraction of a second before I saw him walk straight for the bed. My eyes widened. He lifted a gun, and it was as if I could predict the following scene to the point where nothing shocked me. His vision hadn’t adjusted to the darkness; he was mistaking dark-colored covers for a person, and he?—
I flinched as the sound of gunfire exploded in the tiny apartment. Two shots blasted through the air, and I automatically rose to my feet and aimed. I squeezed the trigger twice, one shot in each shoulder, and he went down with a scream.
A breath gusted out of me, and I ran forward and picked up his gun. Then I stared, wide-eyed, out into the bright hallway outside the front door. No one there. I blinked repeatedly and dropped my stare to the screamer.
I’d heard some of those swear words in Germany. I’d also heard that accent before. He was part Middle Eastern.
What the fuck do I do now?
I swallowed dryly and suddenly felt how hard my heart was pounding, faster than ever before, and I heard a rushing sound in my ears competing with the sharp ringing noise.
I left his gun on the kitchen bar, then flicked on the lights, and he tried to shield himself from me. Blood was splattered across the white floor, and the guy was drowning in his hoodie. It was way too big for his scrawny form.
“Who are you?” I heard myself croak. I had to clear my throat.
“You shot me, you f-fucking— You’re not Beckett!”
Good observation.
He could barely move his arms, so I deemed it safe to search his pockets. He protested in German and some other language, and when I slammed my foot down on his thigh to keep him from squirming away, he let out a pain-laden sob that made the strangest impact on me. I took a deep breath, feeling every bit of my lungs filling with air, and it was like breathing for the first time. Like walking into an AC-controlled room in the middle of a humid summer of triple-digit temps. Like one of those deeply satisfied yawns. Like that big breath you take once your heart’s slowed down after forty minutes on the treadmill.
I dug out a wallet and a phone and tossed both on the couch for now, followed by a lighter, an extra mag, and a passport.
“Put the gun down!” someone yelled outside the apartment.
I froze.
“That’s it. Slow and steady. Put the gun on the table. I think he’s one of the recruits.” That was a second voice. He sounded calmer. “State your name, recruit.”
I swallowed and let out a breath. “Leighton Watts, sir.” I slowly bent down to leave my gun on the coffee table, and then I straightened just as slowly. To show I was cooperating, I kept my hands visible for them. “I was assigned to stay here by my instructors.”
“And they are?”
Um. I flicked a glance at the bleeding fucker on the floor. “Should I say their names in front of this one?”
He didn’t answer. Not me, anyway. Instead, he spoke to the other man—possibly one more. I couldn’t be sure. There were a lot of voices, and I couldn’t capture everything that was said. But the police were on their way, medics were on standby— Okay, now we definitely had more people joining the party. Something about the garage being searched. Someone took the shooter’s belongings, and I only caught sight of a flash of him in my periphery.
“Leighton, stand down. He’s with me. Get the fuck outta my way, Billings.” Oh, thank fuck, it was Beckett.
“What makes you think you can just come in here and take over?” someone demanded.
“Because it’s my apartment and my fucking recruit,” Beckett snapped.
I shivered and lowered my arms, then cautiously glanced over my shoulder.
He came over to me, such an immense presence among the others—even more immense than the relief I felt.
Aside from a quick glance at the crying shooter, Beckett focused solely on me, and he cupped my face in his hands and leveled me with a serious look.
“You okay?”
I nodded dumbly. “Yessir.”
He nodded once too. “We’re gonna get you and the other recruits back to Hillcroft, all right? I’ll be there in a moment. In the meantime, Coach will come talk to you.”
“Okay.”
With another firm nod, he took a step back and looked down at the shooter. More than that, he bent over and straightened the guy’s hoodie, as if to see where I’d shot him.
A beat later, he straightened and smirked faintly at me. “You’re one hell of a shot, kid. You just provided us with someone to interrogate.”
I smiled involuntarily. I couldn’t help it, but that felt really good to hear.
* * *
They were expecting me to freak out, right? In the last hour, I’d been left alone for a single bathroom break, and that was all. The other recruits were being babysat by Operator Payne in a break room somewhere, while Coach and Operator Rose were with me in the sea of vending machines. The way they looked at me, gauging my mood, pushing too gently for answers… It just didn’t sit right with me. I was fine.
After I was done relaying everything that’d happened, second by second, Coach left to go talk to someone, but not before making sure Operator Rose stayed.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rose assured.
I reached for the bag of chips on the table. A pair of sweats, a hoodie, and vending machine snacks had been waiting for me upon my arrival, and I was kind of hungry. I was sort of itching to wear my own clothes too, but I hadn’t been allowed to touch anything in the apartment, except grab a pair of shoes in the entryway. Operator Billings, or whatever his name was, had also given me my phone and my ID card.
Rose eyed me from the other side of the table.
I felt the need to break the ice a little. “So…some soldiers know how to work a boomstick.”
His mouth twitched, and he picked up his coffee cup. He’d been guzzling it since he and his hubby had come in.
“I’m not gonna flip my shit,” I felt the need to say. “I didn’t kill him or anything.”
Last I’d heard, the shooter was being questioned in the med bay on the third floor.
How PMC agencies kept the authorities away was a mystery to me. It wasn’t like Hillcroft had their own jurisdiction, right?
“You don’t have to kill someone to find a situation traumatic, son,” Rose replied.
Maybe not, but… “Considering he left two bullet holes in Beckett’s pillow, he should be glad I didn’t aim for his head.” Which finally gave me a good opening to ask some questions of my own. “On that note, is Beckett in danger? Is this related to his brother’s murder?”
Beckett hadn’t told me a whole lot, but Tanner had heard rumors from his big brother, who was a junior operator here.
Operator Rose cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. “It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that Beckett was the target. What this means is not my story to share. But it’s possible Beckett will. You’re kind of involved now.”
I hoped he did share. I wanted to know. I wanted to…fuck it, I didn’t know, maybe help in some way? Or was that laughable? After all, I was just a recruit at the very beginning of my training.
I opened my mouth to press for more answers, but the door opened again, and Beckett finally showed up.
Man, he looked tired. And grim. And still hot as fuck.
“How’re you holdin’ up, kid?” he asked.
“I’m okay.” I threw a couple chips into my mouth. “I kinda regret not picking up German in Germany, though. I would’ve been able to help out more since the fucker was on the phone when he entered.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve given us plenty,” he said. “Your choice now. Do you wanna get some sleep or talk to a counselor? Doc’s not available, but we have?—”
“I wanna sleep.” I sure as fuck didn’t wanna talk to a shrink at…whatever time it was. Somewhere between four and five. “Or order pizza. Or both. Also, I’m not a kid, you know.”
He let out a chuckle through his nose and nodded at the door. “Fair enough, pup. Come with me. We can get you a pizza on the way. You’ve earned it.”
Pup? I guessed that was…an improvement?
“Adrenaline makes me hungry.” I crammed a few more chips into my mouth before I stood up. “What’s open at this hour, old mutt?”
He didn’t take the bait. “Not much. But I know my way around the frozen food section in the kitchen behind the cafeteria,” he replied. Then he turned to Rose. “Go home and get some rest, man. Take tomorrow off. There won’t be any regular classes anyway.”
I was curious about that. I’d heard the term “lockdown protocol” at least three times tonight, and I didn’t know exactly what that entailed, aside from not letting people in and out without safety procedures. For instance, nobody was going back to Lincoln Towers. Coach had told me all the recruits were heading to the operators’ dorms. They were on the same floor as our water-damaged ones, but evidently farther away.
Everyone was gonna see Doc tomorrow, too, for an eval. Go me; I wasn’t the only one with an appointment anymore.
After Rose and Beckett had wrapped up, I followed the latter toward the elevators, and I glanced around to see if I spotted any of the other recruits.
“So what’s tomorrow gonna look like?” I asked.
“You’ll get to study on your own while Coach and I set up a new structure for the rest of the week,” he answered, swiping his card. Not tapping it.
I nodded in acknowledgment. “Why is the lobby floor called both the ground floor and the first floor?”
“Technically, the lobby is the ground floor, and the area behind closed doors—the schoolhouse, the cafeteria—is the first floor. I don’t know why. We use them interchangeably.”
Huh. “It says first floor on the directory by the elevators in the lobby.”
“Maybe they got charged by the letter when they made those.”
I let out a laugh. That was funny.
Beckett cocked his head at me, clearly in observation mode.
“What?” I asked.
The doors opened again, and he gestured for me to go first. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh before.”
Oh.
I shrugged, unsure of what to say.
Actually, when my stomach snarled, I knew exactly what. “Why do you have a frozen food section?”
“Because sometimes, operators are jet-lagged, return from assignments in the middle of the night, or work the graveyard shift.”
That made sense.
We entered the dark cafeteria, and Beckett led the way behind the counters and into the kitchen. He flicked on the lights, and everything was pristine. Like a restaurant kitchen, with long metal countertops, a washing station, and walk-in fridge and freezer. Scratch that, there was a second fridge and freezer down a narrow hallway.
“Pick your poison. I’ll turn on the oven,” he said, opening the door to the freezer. “Don’t worry, you can open the door from the inside.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me.
I walked in, impressed by the selection. They had a small fucking grocery store here. All the good brands too. Pizza, lean meals, taquitos, fucking Hot Pockets, nuggets, waffles, and tons of other stuff.
I grabbed a cheese pizza with Italian sausage and peppers and nodded to myself. Yeah, this was what I wanted. With the cheese crust too? Sign me the fuck up.
When I walked out again, Beckett was across the kitchen and talking to someone on the phone.
“Fuck it, I’m not gonna dwell on it,” he was saying. “If they can’t handle what happened tonight, they don’t belong here.”
I tilted my head.
“Sounds good. Talk then.” He ended the call and ran a hand through his hair. “Looks like we have our first two dropouts for this year.”
“Who?” Why would anyone drop out this early? Nothing had fucking happened.
“Douglas Fuller and Jasper Davies,” he replied. “They said they might reapply next year, but you know who won’t get selected?”
I smirked. “Douglas Fuller and Jasper Davies?”
He inclined his head and tapped the counter he stood by. “Let’s see what you picked.”
I handed him the pizza and watched him unbox it, and it just occurred to me now that the last thing he probably wanted was to babysit me. He must have a million things on his mind, because shit had sure happened to him . He’d discovered he had a target on his back for some reason.
“Do you know who came after you?” I asked quietly. “Is it about your brother?”
He furrowed his brow and flicked me a brief glance.
I figured it was best to elaborate. “Tanner may have mentioned it’s still an active case and that the guys who killed your brother were never caught.”
He sighed and placed the pizza in the oven. “And Tanner probably heard it from Finnian, who heard it from someone else.”
I shrugged. I wouldn’t know.
What I had learned, however, was that Hillcroft was at the top of the secrecy game only when it mattered. Assignments and such—impossible to get info on if you didn’t have clearance. Same with names and sensitive information. But in the super-short time I’d been here, every visit to the cafeteria, I’d overheard operators, both senior and junior, discuss rumors, coworkers, and well-known events.
I guessed it was the result of a field in which operators were trained to seek intel as much as they were trained to keep secrets. The line between gossiping and keeping themselves informed was extremely thin, and they were dancing all over it.
“The motherfucker who broke in to my place tonight works for a Karl Hahn—his organization. One of his goons had my brother killed,” Beckett confirmed. “It was just another henchman. My brother’s death wasn’t some elaborate hit. He got in the way.”
Man, that sucked. “I’m sorry. Whatever I can do to help, count me in. But I guess there isn’t much I can say that the passport won’t reveal. I did hear he spoke German with an accent…”
He nodded absently. “Right. He was born in Stuttgart—mother’s German, dad’s Iraqi.”
Yeah, okay. So I really had nothing useful to add to that investigation.
I frowned and leaned back against one of the counters. What else could I do to help? If they knew where Beckett lived, was his family safe? Did anyone need protection?
“What about your family?” I wondered. “Do they need to be watched? I can volunteer when I’m not studying.”
He mirrored my stance and leaned back against the counter, and he smiled faintly and folded his arms over his chest loosely. “Don’t be in such a rush to work in the field, Leighton. Your training has just begun.”
He was right, obviously. I should just be grateful he didn’t point out I’d be a horrible security guard without proper training. Good aim wasn’t everything.
I blew out a breath and felt the need to confess something. “Judging by how Coach and Operator Rose behaved earlier—like they were waiting for me to fall apart—maybe there’s something wrong with me. What happened tonight just made me feel good. I felt like I finally did something that mattered.”
He hummed. “I did notice your mood has improved.”
Well, yeah!
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, pushing away from the counter again. “My sister will, in fact, have protection from now on. So will my mother. It’s primarily a precaution, because we don’t believe the Hahns know too much about my background. Evidence points to them striking at the first lead. Somehow, they figured out my name and address, and they sent someone to take care of me. Had they known that building is usually packed with operators, they would’ve sent an entire crew. They would’ve put more thought into the gig. Instead, they sent one skinny little dick who’s currently crying his eyes out for his mother upstairs.”
I snorted in amusement.
“But that doesn’t mean shit’s safe,” he went on. “Even though my identity isn’t a secret, I’m not easily found, so they must’ve done part of their homework right. So…while we investigate how they could’ve tracked me down, Hillcroft will be my residence. More than that, I’ll be bringing in my niece. And if you wanna help me and get a taste of the shit we put junior operators through, you’re welcome to be her escort around Hillcroft a couple hours every day.”
Whoa, really? I bet most guys would balk at being a babysitter, but not me. It was a foot in the door, a way to show my superiors I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I’d always get exciting assignments. Whether I was escorting a diplomat through a combat zone or I was babysitting Operator Beckett’s niece during an unsafe time didn’t matter much to me.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Eight,” he answered. Damn, that was young. “Vince—my brother—brought her around plenty before he died. She knows her way around and loves Danny and Em. They’ll likely watch her when you’re busy studying. And she’ll be with me the rest of the time, of course.”
“What about her mom?”
He let out a breath. “She died giving birth to her.”
Fuck. So the girl didn’t have any parents left at all.
“That’s rough. But, so…like, she’s yours now?”
He weighed his response. “I’m her guardian, yeah. I have custody. Which is fucked up. My sister is a wonderful mother to five boys. But Vince thought it was a good idea for the baby Beckett to shoulder the responsibility of an actual child, when I can’t keep a cactus alive.”
I exhaled a laugh. “Baby Beckett. I’mma call you that from now on.”
“I fucking dare you.”
I grinned at him.
His eyes were incredible when they had amusement mingling with the blue and green.
“I’ll watch her,” I said. “What’s her name?”
His gaze softened a little bit. “Alex. And I appreciate it. Your training comes first, so if it becomes too much for you at any time, you gotta tell me right away. That’s an order—and a test.”
“Noted.” Good job adding that last part. He probably knew I wouldn’t push myself as much now. I was here for top scores on whatever test they threw at me, because this wasn’t the Army, where it was better to be average. Here, excelling meant my work would be easier in the field.
“I’ll get you a dorm room adjacent to mine,” he said. “We’re starting to feel bad about moving y’all around so much, so the next bed all recruits get will be theirs for the whole year. On the flip side, the operators’ dorms are nicer. Some of you won’t even have to share.”
Totally worth having moved around a bunch first, in other words.
* * *