CHAPTER 28
Jameson
Swiss Alps, Switzerland
Day Two Off Grid
The clearing behind the safe house looked harmless in daylight.
That was the first problem.
Morning light exposed the clearing more clearly than darkness had.
Frost covered the grass, and the air carried cold soil, pine, and woodsmoke from the chimney behind us.
Birds shifted in the branches. Water moved somewhere farther down the slope, loud enough to mask approaching footsteps if the wind changed.
Brynn stood six feet away from me in my sweatshirt, her boots laced badly, hair pulled into a knot that looked like it had survived an argument and lost.
She looked cold and irritated already.
“You’re staring,” she said.
I shifted my focus from the loose knot on her right boot to her face. “Your laces are uneven.”
She looked down and then back up at me. “That’s what you were staring at?”
“Yes.”
“Devastating. Never mind how my ass looks in these jeans,” she mumbled.
“You’ll roll an ankle if you run downhill with that much slack.”
Her mouth opened, then closed around whatever argument she’d been about to make.
She just bent and retied the boot with vigorous precision. “There. Are we all emotionally healed now?”
I checked the tree line again. “Not really.”
North slope clear. West approach clear. The road below stayed quiet, no engine noise, no tire displacement beyond my own tracks from the morning perimeter check. The wind moved through the pines and shifted the loose branches at the edge of the clearing. Nothing else.
Brynn followed my attention to the tree line. Her brain didn’t map threats the way mine did, but she mapped people with uncomfortable accuracy.
“You do that a lot,” she said.
“Check the perimeter?”
“No.” She folded her arms, but the edge in her voice had softened. “It’s more like your mind moves on, and the rest of you just stands there pretending it didn’t.”
“Habit.”
Her gaze held on mine for a second longer than I liked, like she knew there was more under the word and was deciding whether to dig for it.
She didn’t.
“Okay, first rule,” I said.
She sighed. “God. We’re still doing rules?”
“Yes.”
“I thought this was training,” she said.
“It is. Training is applied rules.”
She stared at me for a second. “I’m really starting to wonder how you ever got my clothes off in the first place.”
My gaze snapped to her with unsettling speed.
Her brows lifted. “...kidding. I think.”
“We’re not discussing that right now.”
“Because it compromises current security?” she asked.
“Because you’re deflecting.”
She looked away first, toward the trees. “Fine. First rule.”
I pointed toward the slope behind her. “If someone comes through those trees, where do you go?”
She turned and scanned the clearing.
Her eyes went to the house first. Just as I had expected.
Then she looked past it. The shed. The road. The drainage line. The trees bordering the creek.
Not expected.
“Not the house,” she said.
My brow lifted before I thought about it.
She noticed.
“What?” she asked.
“That was correct.”
Her brows lifted. “Try not to sound so shocked.”
“Why not the house?”
“Because it feels safe, which makes it stupid.” She nodded toward the windows. “If someone knows we’re here, they expect me to run there. Then I’m a sitting duck.”
I looked at her for half a second longer than I meant to.
Ah, Beckett. This had to be him.
“What?” she asked again.
“Beckett taught you that.”
“He taught me a lot of things while pretending he wasn’t teaching me things.
” She glanced back toward the drainage line.
“The ditch gets me out of sight. Trees give me cover. Creek noise might hide movement. Road is bad unless I’m already at a vehicle.
Shed is worse than the house because it only has one real exit. ”
Impressive.
Heat moved through me before I could sort it into anything useful.
Not because she’d surprised me. Because she’d surprised me well.
Brynn’s mouth curved. “Was that too many correct answers? Did I break the lesson?”
“No.”
Might have broken me, though.
“Your face says I broke the lesson,” she said.
“You complicated it.”
“That feels like praise,” she said.
“It was assessment.”
“Adjacent, then,” she said.
I drew a breath to answer.
Her smile vanished and her finger came up between us. “Wait a damn minute.”
I stopped.
Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know about Beckett?”
The clearing went very still.
Shit.
“I am acquainted with your brother.”
The color left her face. “What do you... Ughhhh, did he send you?”
“No.”
“Because I told him I was fine.” She turned away, then turned back like her body couldn’t decide which direction panic lived in. “When I was in San Diego, I told him I had everything handled.”
“He didn’t send me.”
“He absolutely would send someone,” she said, pointing at me again. “That is exactly the kind of controlling, overprotective, big brother bullshit he would do while pretending it wasn’t controlling, overprotective, big brother bullshit.”
“Beckett has no idea I’m here.”
She stared at me.
Then her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”
“Brynn.”
“Oh my God.” She spun halfway away from me, both hands going to the top of her head. “Does he know about last year?”
I knew what she meant.
“No.”
She turned back. “Oh my God, I’m dead. No.” A frantic little laugh broke out of her. “Scratch that. You’re dead.”
“You’re not dead.”
But very possibly she was right and I was dead if he ever found out.
“He doesn’t know about Geneva.”
She stopped pacing long enough to stare at me. “Do you know that, or are you doing that man thing where you say something confidently and hope it becomes true?”
“I’m not aware of this ‘man thing’ you’re referring to.”
She dragged both hands down her face.
I took one step toward her.
She paced another two steps.
“Brynn.”
She kept moving. “I need a minute because there are layers here. There are so many layers.”
I stepped in front of her before she could take the next turn. “Brynn.” I lifted my hands slowly enough for her to see the choice before I made it. “Can I touch you?”
Her eyes flicked to my hands, then my face, and she nodded once.
I put my hands on her shoulders.
She went still beneath my palms.
Good.
“Beckett doesn’t know about last year,” I said. “He didn’t know about Geneva then, and he doesn’t know about Geneva now. I didn’t even connect the two of you until I was trying to identify Threadbare,” I said.
Her eyes searched mine. “So he didn’t send you.”
“No.”
“And he doesn’t know I’m with you,” she said.
“No.”
Her eyes closed for half a second. “And he doesn’t know I slept with you.”
“No.”
The breath that left her shook at the edges, caught somewhere between relief and fresh horror.
“Okay,” she said.
I let my hands drop from her shoulders.
Her throat moved. “But then… how do you know him?”
“That’s classified,” I said. “Can we just go with work?”
“No,” she said.
“Didn’t think so.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of work?”
“The kind that isn’t mine to explain.”
That brought her up short. “You’re protecting him.”
“Yes.”
“From me?” she asked, a hint of hurt in her voice.
“No.” I held her stare. “For you.”
***
For the next four minutes, she avoided looking at me.
Approximately another thirty seconds if I counted the sleeve adjustment.
Then she decided irritation was safer than embarrassment, and training resumed.
Mostly.
She knew more than I expected.
Not enough to be safe. Not enough to survive a trained extraction team or a second attack like the apartment. But enough that I had to revise the first hour before we were halfway through it.
Beckett had taught her well, but she’d never had to act on any of it.
How to move toward cover instead of comfort. How to keep her weight forward. How to break a basic hold by turning through the weak point instead of fighting strength with strength. How to look for exits without making it obvious she was looking.
“Again,” I said.
Brynn blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “If I die out here, tell Beckett this was his fault.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“That’s your opinion,” she said. “It’s been hours. I’m tired, hungry, and starting to resent your entire instructional philosophy,” she muttered.
I looked at her more carefully.
She was right.
I should have stopped twenty minutes ago, but she’d kept up her end of the bargain, and it had started to feel like a challenge.
I had expected her to forget the bargain once the work became repetitive. Most people did.
But the more tired she got, the more investigative she became.
For every drill, she found a question.
For every correction, she found a way under my skin.
Sometimes it was tactical.
She shifted her stance and reset her weight. “Where do you keep a second gun if someone takes the first?”
Sometimes it was personal.
She glanced toward the tree line, then back at me. “Do you ever stop looking for the worst thing in the room?”
Sometimes it was neither.
Her mouth curved before she managed to hide it. “Do you know your face changes when you’re trying not to smile?”
That one didn’t receive an answer.
I stepped back before the space between us became something else. “Again.”
She blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
Then she laughed once, tired and breathless, and reached for my wrist. “You are impossible.”
“I’ve been told.”
Her fingers closed around my wrist.
This time, she didn’t pull backward.
She turned through the weak point, stepped in, and broke the hold cleanly.
Good.
Better than good.
She moved like someone learning what fear was for.
It changed the odds.