“You’re going to be impressed with our target ranges,” he says. “I know how much you love your guns.”
“I don’t think you can make fun of me anymore about my gun love, considering I just found out how hot you are for planes.”
We reach a pair of wide metal doors with yet another security keypad.
“This is the war room.” Gray is about to scan his thumb, then stops. “Listen, just…be prepared.”
A frown touches my lips. “For what?”
“Ah…” He closes his mouth. Then opens it. Then lets out a breath. “Fuck it. You’ll see,” he says, and scans his thumbprint.
Beyond the doors is a vast room lit by harsh fluorescent bulbs, with a long table in the center. The ceiling is a grid of pipes and vents, the floor a polished dark tile that echoes with the sound of our footsteps. Holoscreens line the walls, as well as some Old Era monitors, the kind that require electrical plugs. Backup system, maybe.
There’s another holoscreen in the center of the table. Two women sit in front of it, peering at the green-white particles that project an image I can’t make out. I catch a flash of red hair, and then my gaze locks on a familiar face. Big eyes, sensual mouth, narrow chin. Adrienne has an assortment of features that comes together to create a face that’s not quite beautiful but is certainly striking.
Next to Adrienne is an older woman with pale skin and short blond hair streaked with silver. At the head of the table, two men stand with their backs to us. One of them, a young man in his latetwenties with a tawny complexion and cropped hair, glances over when we enter.
The second man turns at our footsteps, and shock slams into me.
For a second, I can’t breathe. Lungs seizing. Throat squeezed shut. I’m rooted in place, wholly stunned by what I’m seeing.
It’s Uncle Jim.
Chapter 2
The last time I saw Uncle Jim, he was on an execution platform, bullet holes tearing into his chest, blood spilling all over the wooden floor. I heard his voice in my head.Goodbye, little bird.I felt his energy leave me as he drew his last breath. As he died.
He fuckingdied.
Now he’s standing in front of me. No bullet wounds. No blood. His shoulders are held high. He looks unharmed and unchanged, except that his dirty-blond hair is shorter, and grayer around the temples, as if he’s aged a decade in the six months since he was shot.
To my utter humiliation, tears obscure my vision. I blink rapidly, trying to stave them off, but it’s too late. Two rivulets course down my cheeks, and suddenly I’m stumbling toward him like one of the wobbly calves on our ranch learning to walk for the first time.
I’m three feet from him when our gazes lock, and a chill sweeps through me, freezing me in my tracks.
“You’re not Jim,” I accuse.
While his brown eyes are identical to Uncle Jim’s, down to the gold flecks around the pupils, this isn’t the man who loved and protected me for the past fifteen years.
“No,” he says gruffly, and damned if his voice isn’t the same, too. How is this possible? “I’m Julian’s brother. Kallister.”
My breath remains stuck in my throat, lungs screaming for the oxygen I’m depriving them of. I force myself to suck in a deep breath, trying to regulate my heartbeat.
I knew Uncle Jim had a brother, but he spoke of him so infrequently, basically never, and he sure as hellfuck hadn’t told me they were twins.Identicaltwins. If they were standing side by side with their eyes closed, I genuinely wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
The eyes, though. This man has hard, calculating eyes. Jim was a hard man, yes, but when he looked at me, his eyes were always soft.
“You look exactly like him.” My voice shakes, so I clear my throat before speaking again. “Sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Kallister.” He extends his hand.
I stare at it for a moment. There’s no dirt under his fingernails. No little nicks and cuts from mending fences and herding cattle. Uncle Jim had rancher’s hands. These ones are neat and tidy, as if he hasn’t performed much manual labor in his life.
Remembering my manners, I lean in to grasp his wrist in greeting. “You’re part of this council?”
I glance around the room. Adrienne and the other woman are observing us without trying to hide it. Gray, meanwhile, has joined the younger man and they’re chuckling about something.
“I serve on the Authority, yes.” He’s studying me as intently as I’m studying him. “The five of us are responsible for making every operational decision at the Dagger.”
