Alpha: Omega Part 10

By this time, the propellers were still and the door was opening, disgorging an exuberant Layla. "Did you see that? Holy s.h.i.t! I landed a plane, b.i.t.c.hes!"

Harris was next, a faint, amused smile on his face. "A plane which needs to be tied off so it doesn't float away, Miss Campari."

"Yes sir, right away sir!" Layla barked, with a sharp, dramatic salute. "And why is it whenever we get around other people you call me 'Miss Campari', but in private you'll call me by my first name? I don't get it."

Harris's face immediately wiped itself of expression. "I'll get the bags." And then he was back in the fuselage, out of sight.

Layla finished tying the rope around the dock pylon with a knot Harris had obviously shown her, and then straightened and stared after Harris. "Touchy little s.h.i.t, ain't he?"

"Wait, that wasn't your first landing, was it, Layla?" came a familiar voice.

A voice I hadn't heard in far, far too long.

"Cal?" My voice cracked.

"Yes, it was my first landing, Calvin," Layla asked, her voice a little too formal. "Why do you ask?"

He emerged from the plane, all six foot three of him, blond hair cut short and spiked stiff, mirrored aviator shades on his face, tank top revealing muscled arms, bright pink floral print board shorts. G.o.d, my little brother had grown up.

Cal took one glance at Layla, and thought better of whatever he'd been about to say. "Just...that it was great. Great job. Glad those lessons are paying off. Awesome."

She smirked at him. "Lessons? Oh, I haven't taken any real lessons. Harris has been teaching me."

"So...you don't actually have a pilot's license?" Cal asked, looking a little green.

"Pilot's license?" Layla laughed. "Buddy, I barely got my driver's license."

Harris emerged with a suitcase in each hand. "Don't worry, Mr. St. Claire. I was in control at all times. Miss Campari is a natural pilot, and very careful. I wouldn't have allowed her to touch the controls of my aircraft if I didn't have confidence in her. She just likes to tease you, it would seem."

"Yeah, well, Layla's been teasing me since I was fifteen. You'd think I'd be used to it by now." He turned back to me, and his expression brightened. He rushed over to me, wrapped me up in a bear hug, lifting me clear off the dock. "Jesus, Kyrie. It's so good to see you. I've missed you. I thought maybe you'd fallen off the face of the earth for good, this time."

"I have, for all intents and purposes." I slapped his shoulder. "Now put me down, you ogre."

He set me down, but kept a grip on my shoulders. "You owe me a s.h.i.tload of explanations."

I swallowed hard. "I know."

"I mean, I haven't seen you in, what, two years? You used to call me once in a while, at least, but then even that stopped. I mean, I get that you're busy and whatever, and that I'm just your little brother, but-"

"Cal," I snapped. "I said I know."

He eyed me, and I saw that under the smiles and the hugs, he was p.i.s.sed at me. I really did owe him a lot of explanations. "Sorry. I just-I woke up this morning and Layla was in my room, rifling through my magazines. It's been a weird day, needless to say."

"Your p.o.r.n, you mean?" Layla said, with heavy emphasis on the "p.o.r.n". She raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, for real. Who actually buys Juggs anymore? And where do you even get that s.h.i.t?" A glance at me. "You know your brother has, like, hundreds of p.o.r.no mags? Not just Juggs, but pretty much every other p.o.r.no mag there is. Hundreds of them. I'm not kidding."

I shook my head. "Jesus, Layla. I did not need to know that about my brother."

Cal scratched his forehead with his middle finger. "It's a collection, and it's not all mine. My roommate and I have both been collecting for years."

"Wow, so you both collect nudie mags?" Layla mimed male masturbation. "Do you whack off together too?"

"JESUS, LAYLA!" Cal and I shouted, simultaneously.

She shrugged and endeavored to look innocent. "It's an honest question."

I turned to him. "For real, though. Why do you collect p.o.r.n?"

He pushed past me. "I'm not having this conversation with you, either of you. It's not happening." He paused as he pa.s.sed Valentine. "Mr. Roth. Nice to meet you. I'm Cal."

"Nice to meet you, Cal. Just call me Roth." He shook Cal's hand. "Welcome. Your room is the second on the right after you pa.s.s through the kitchen. Make yourself at home; grab a beer from the fridge on your way. I know you have a lot of questions, and I promise you we'll answer as many as we can without risking your safety. In the meantime, why don't you collect your bags from Harris? He's not a butler, so he won't be carrying your bags for you."

Cal stalked back to Harris, grabbed his suitcases. "Thanks for the flight, Harris."

"It was my pleasure, Mr. St. Claire. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, most of that was Layla."

"Even the jet?"

Harris nodded. "I did the takeoff and landing, but Layla did the level flying."

"Well...d.a.m.n. I never noticed." He glanced at Layla. "You didn't kill us, so nice flying, I guess."

She shoved his shoulder. "Go get a beer and decompress, jacka.s.s. You wouldn't be here if we didn't love you."

"I know. Like I said, it's just been a weird day."

Layla laughed. "Dude, you have no f.u.c.king clue what a weird day even is. Wake up on a boat in the South China Sea and go to bed in the Indian Ocean, and then we can talk."

He just shook his head and made his way up to the house. I heard a distant "holy s.h.i.t" as he made his way through the kitchen and saw the courtyard beyond.

"You shouldn't push his b.u.t.tons, Layla," I said.

She just eyed me. "Have you met me? That's what I do. b.u.t.tons are meant to be pushed, and it's so easy, with him. Seriously, though, Kyrie. You should have seen all the p.o.r.n. It was a truly awe-inspiring collection, I will say that much."

"Juggs? For real?" I asked.

"Juggs. For real. And Penthouse, Hustler, Playboy...if it had naked women in it, he had every single extant copy of it."

I shook my head. "I don't know, Layla. He's a guy. Guys do weird things."

Layla turned to Harris. "Do you collect p.o.r.n?"

He just stared at her from behind his sungla.s.ses. "The only thing I've ever collected is scars, Miss Campari. And the memories that go with them."

"Well s.h.i.t, Harris," Layla said, "way to just take the fun right out of the conversation. Also, that was the most bada.s.s comeback I've ever heard."

"I aim to please, Miss Campari."

She stared at him. "I swear to G.o.d, you call me that just because you know it irritates me."

"b.u.t.tons are meant to be pushed," Harris said.

"I feel like maybe you understand me on a spiritual level, Harry."

"And I feel like maybe I heard a slight flutter in one of the engines, and if you fly prop planes, you should have a basic understanding of how to fix them."

"I better not get any grease under my fingernails."

"Haven't you heard? Engine grease is the newest thing in beauty care."

"Wait? Was that a joke?" Layla laughed. "You'd better be careful, Harry, or I might start thinking you're a human after all."

"As opposed to what, exactly?"

"Um. A Terminator?"

Harris actually laughed, a smile cracking his features. And even with the black Oakleys hiding his eyes, his features were transformed by the smile. "You haven't met Thresh yet. He's a real-life Terminator."

And then, to my intense surprise, Harris helped Layla climb up onto the wing, showed her how to open the cowl over the engine, and pointed at various parts of the engine with a wrench, explaining while Layla watched and listened carefully, asking questions every now and then.

Layla, working on an airplane engine?

Would wonders never cease?

It was well past midnight. We had a bonfire going on the beach, lighting up a circle of sand and dimming some of the stars directly overhead. Beyond the firelight, however, the night was huge and dark, the moon new, a black circle visible only by its absence, stars scattered overhead in countless millions, a glittering, winking, twinkling, scintillating fall of silver light arcing from horizon to horizon and down to the edge of the sea.

I was drunk.

Valentine was drunk, and I was on his lap, wrapped up in his arms.

Harris was...well, not drunk, but loose. Telling stories, laughing at jokes, sungla.s.ses gone, wearing black board shorts and a white short-sleeve b.u.t.ton-down, unb.u.t.toned to show a hard, lean, well-muscled torso with a scattering of dark hair. He had a beer in one hand and a long stick in the other with which he ceaselessly poked at the fire, stirring it, moving the logs around, turning them, prodding the coals.

Cal was on the sand beside Valentine and me, and he too was drunk, and G.o.d, he was hysterical. He was, honestly, the life of our little party, making us all laugh with stories of his and his friends' ridiculous antics as wild college boys cut loose on unsuspecting Chicago. It struck me how little I knew about Cal, about the twenty-one-year-old man he was now. He'd been so young when Dad was killed, and I'd been responsible for him. I took care of him, made his lunches and got him to school and made sure he did his homework, made him dinner when he got home, made sure he had clean clothes. Gave him money when I had some to spare. Dropped him off at the mall with friends, sniffed his breath for pot and alcohol when he got home. But then he graduated at seventeen and got a scholarship to Columbia College, and I'd made sure to keep tabs on him. I'd paid for the tuition his scholarship didn't cover, and we got together for Christmas and Thanksgiving, visited Mom together.

At least until everything with Valentine happened. And then I'd sort of, as Cal had insinuated, fallen off the face of the earth. Valentine had made sure both Cal and Mom were taken care of, financially, and I'd sent an email to Cal explaining that I'd started dating a guy who was "well off", as I'd put it. Just to throw him off the scent, I guess. I mean, how do you explain a man like Valentine Roth to a nineteen-year-old kid? And, since then, I'd called Cal every once in a while.

Mom? Not so much. Mom didn't talk on the phone. Didn't send or receive letters or email. I'm not sure Mom ever even noticed that I'd stopped visiting. I still felt guilty, though. But...I couldn't exactly visit her, for her own sake. If I showed up at her hospice, it would have given Vitaly a bullseye to aim for. Harris had people checking in on her, making sure no one bothered her. But that was about all I could do.

I tuned back in to the story Cal was telling that involved his roommate, a two-hundred-pound potbelly pig, and the last day of cla.s.ses at Columbia last year.

"...And I swear to G.o.d, that pig was faster than a d.a.m.n cheetah! You should have seen the security guard trying to catch it! Funniest thing I've ever f.u.c.king seen."

Layla was-I wasn't really sure what she was. She was drinking, but slowly, and I would guess that she'd nursed one drink all night. She was laughing at the stories, but there was something subdued about her. But the thing I noticed most was that she was watching Harris's every move. Hanging onto his every word. It was weird. Beyond weird. She had very little to say, occasionally offering a comment or cracking a joke, but she was mostly quiet-which was entirely unlike her. At any party, any gathering of people where alcohol was involved, Layla was usually in the thick of it, driving the energy, and typically getting, as she puts it, naked-wasted.

I tried to keep up with Cal's story, which had morphed from something about the pig prank to an adventure he and his roommate had experienced involving a misplaced bag of pot and an undercover narc. It sounded like the kind of story that was funny now, but wasn't all that funny while it was happening.

Okay, maybe I was nodding off. I tuned into every fifth word, smiling lazily against Roth's chest. Layla was sitting in the sand right beside Harris; both of them back in the shadows away from the fire. Just their faces were visible, turned toward each other. Harris was saying something I couldn't hear, and Layla was nodding and smiling. And s.h.i.t, that smile? It was...I had to search for a word. Intimate. Private.

My heart melted. G.o.d, if Layla and Harris ended up together, things would be just about perfect.

But then something truly odd happened. A patch of shadows near the waterline detached itself from the shifting glint of the ocean and the gleam of starlight and the darkness of night, resolved itself into the shape of a man. Alexei. Tall and broad, hard and lean, a wicked, gnarled scar running down his face from forehead to his chin. He was dressed in shades of gray and black: BDU pants tucked into calf-high combat boots, a short-sleeve gray shirt with a black bulletproof vest, a gray ball cap on his head decorated with a black patch that had "A1S" embroidered in scarlet letters. He had a compact a.s.sault rifle hanging barrel-down across his chest, the strap clipped to his vest rather than hanging over his shoulder. He had a pistol at his side, a knife handle in a sheath on his vest, and several other accouterments on his belt I couldn't identify.

He stopped in the shadows well outside the circle of the firelight, crouched near Harris and murmured in low tones in what sounded like it may have been Russian. Harris nodded twice, muttered something back, and then stood up, setting his half-consumed beer bottle in the sand.

"Harris." It was a statement from Roth, low, a command.

"Possible perimeter breach," Harris said as he vanished into the shadows, reaching behind his back and producing a black handgun, checking the clip, and returning it. "Probably nothing, but I'm going to check it out anyway."

"Should we stay here?" Roth asked.

"No. Alexei will escort you to your rooms." Harris glanced at Layla. "There's nothing to worry about. Just being cautious."

"I'll trust you on this, Harris," Roth said. "It goes without saying that I want you or Alexei to inform me the moment you have discovered the exact nature of the breach."

Then Roth stood up without letting go of me, an arm under my legs and the other around my shoulders, taking the lead behind Alexei, who moved in a swift, silent prowl across the sand toward the staircase leading up to the house. His weapon was held low, barrel still down, but his head was constantly swiveling from side to side, and every few steps he would pivot and walk backward, checking our rear and making sure we were all together.

We stopped at Cal's room first and Alexei entered the room alone, ensuring that it was secure. When he was satisfied, he allowed Cal to enter with instructions not to leave, informing him that a security detail would be patrolling the area.

Next we stopped at Layla's room and Alexei repeated the protocol, this time taking time to ensure that Layla had everything she needed.

Just as she was about to close the door to her room, Layla looked at me questioningly, not saying a word. I could tell she was a little unnerved.

Seeing the expression on her face, Roth said, "Layla, please don't worry. It's better to be safe than to take chances. Harris has us covered. There will be a security detail right outside your door."

Layla just nodded, not looking convinced, and we continued through the house. Alexei preceded Roth and I into our room, sweeping the bedroom and the bathroom before leaving.

My heart was pounding. "You think there's anyone out there?" I asked. "For real?"

Roth shook his head. "No. If Alexei thought there was a real danger, we would have been taken to the ship, rather than to the house. There's a Zodiac on sh.o.r.e at all times, ready to take us to the Eliza in the event of an emergency. As Harris said, they're just being cautious."

"What did Harris mean by perimeter breach?"

"There are hidden motion detectors running around the perimeter of the property, including along the water line. There are also buoys in the water out about five hundred yards, with line-of-sight lasers connecting them to the sh.o.r.e, so if anyone approaches from the sea, we'll be alerted. The crew on the Eliza has the radar active at all times as well. Plus, there's another motion-sensor perimeter immediately around the house itself. So, to answer your question, a perimeter breach could be a fishing boat that wandered into our waters. The ocean-side crew would hail them and send them on their way. Or it could be some animal in the forest that set off the motion detectors. There's nothing to worry about, sweetheart."

"I had no idea there were so many different security features in place."

Roth laughed. "You think I'd bring you ash.o.r.e anywhere on the planet without making sure it was as safe as humanly possible? When we went ash.o.r.e on St. Thomas, Harris's men were there an hour ahead of us, sweeping everything. They poked into every building, every rooftop, every bathroom and rental counter. They were there when we landed, sweeping ahead of us, and they followed behind us. There was a sniper in place following our every move, as well. Up on a rooftop somewhere, I guess."

"A sniper?"

Roth nodded. "Andrei, I think his name is. Alexei's cousin. There's Sasha out there somewhere too, who is Alexei's brother. I guess when Harris and company stormed the island to get you out, Andrei's brother-Alexei's cousin-was killed. So they all three signed on with Harris, for a chance to get even with the Karahalios clan. Good men to have on our side, but really, really scary f.u.c.kers. Men I would not want to have as enemies. Ex-Spetsnaz, I guess."

"Spetz-what?" I asked. I'd heard of it, but I was fuzzy enough to not be able to remember.

"Russian special forces. Like the Navy SEALs."

"I'm glad they're out there, then."