Her Covert Protector (Rogue Protectors Book 4)

by Victoria Paige

  She shrugged and walked up his driveway toward the gate.

  “Don’t give me that attitude,” he snapped behind her.

  Nadia started counting to ten. Scratch that. With John, it was probably one hundred, but she was fed up with him not giving in an inch. She realized he would only give so much of himself to gain her cooperation. Nothing more, nothing less. And he would go with less if he could.

  “Nadia.” He strode past her and put his hand on the pedestrian door of the gate, stopping her from leaving.

  “Let me out, John.”

  “Not until you listen.”

  “What more can you say? You said yourself you don’t know when you’re coming back.”

  He stared at her for a beat. “Monday.”

  “Five days from now?” This was the first time he gave her a definite day when he’d show up.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you say you weren’t sure you’re coming back?”

  “Because what I gather from this op might lead me to another, but I’m passing the baton.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means I’m passing on what I find to another case officer.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I owe it to you.”

  The back of her eyes burned. “I don’t need scraps of your attention.” The sudden urge to cry hit her. Nadia fought it back with everything she had. She mastered the art of keeping her tears at bay in high school, not wanting to let the bullies win. She summoned that same strength now, and when she speared John with a glare, he flinched. “Let me out.”

  His jaw clenched hard.

  “Now!”

  He finally opened the smaller gate to let her through.

  Kelso had the lights on inside his car and she could see him nodding his head to music as well as tapping on the steering wheel with his palm. She opened the door, and he shot her a shit-eating grin that slowly faded, morphing into a thunderous expression before glowering over her shoulder. She got in and shut the door, staring ahead, not looking at John who was still standing by the gate.

  Kelso lowered the volume on Tim McGraw. “Do I need to kick the shit out of someone?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “No, but I do need you to take me to the gym to kick some heavy bags.”

  And imagine they were John Garrison.

  “Are you sure? Because it’s looking like that fucker did something shitty.”

  “Let’s just go, okay?”

  He revved up the engine of the Explorer. “You got it, nerd girl.”

  The clanging of the gates reached his ears. That was Hank Bristow picking him up for their flight to Ukraine, and John was running late. He’d bet the former SEAL was wondering why he wasn’t already waiting with his bags packed at the front door.

  A task as mundane as doing his own laundry kept him from being punctual. Most of his colleagues would just buy new clothes and dispose of their old ones, but John had a few he was attached to. His good luck charms, so to speak. Speaking of disposal, his trash needed to be collected and burned. The agency had a service for this. Spies didn’t leave their garbage to be collected on the curbside for any reason.

  He tossed his two duffels into the foyer just as Bristow walked in.

  “Those are ready to load,” he said brusquely.

  “Good morning to you, too, G,” Bristow said a bit too cheerfully.

  “I’m running late,” John went to the kitchen to yank out a trash bag and doubled back to take the steps two at a time to the second floor. His mind backtracked to verify that Nadia did collect her panties from the floor. On her mad dash to leave the house, she swiped them from the couch and stuffed them into her purse, making John all too aware that she wasn’t wearing underwear when she got into the SUV with Kelso. There was no evidence of their tryst in the house, except the scent of her left in his bedroom.

  “Are you okay?” the ginger-haired SEAL asked. “It’s so unlike you not to be waiting by the door. You’re always raring to go.”

  “I’m fine.” His mind was still cursing Nadia for taking up too much space in it. He entered his bedroom and headed to the bathroom and picked up the trash can.

  Then his quickly wolfed-down breakfast churned in his stomach.

  He dropped the waste bin as though it was a scorpion about to sting him with poison before peering at the object that seemed to be playing tricks on him.

  He blinked.

  Nope. Nothing changed.

  A torn condom.

  Motherfucker.

  How could he be so careless.

  He dumped the trash can with its contents into the black vinyl bag, then he fished out his phone and dialed Nadia. No answer.

  Fuming, he waited for the voice recording to come on.

  He nearly blurted out, “Call me.” But knew that terse message would get him nowhere and he wasn’t risking it. Anything longer than that would defeat his spy craft protocol. Voice analysis software was so advanced now, John was careful not to have any sample of his own on an unvetted agency phone. Even then, he was always brief. In that way, he was still old school. He didn’t want his voice to be manipulated to make false recordings. He typed in a text instead.

  He erased, typed back, and erased it again before he settled on: “Answer your phone next time I call.”

  Then he let out an extended breath and added, “Please.”

  “Garrison, chop-chop, man, I was cutting it close, picking you up because you’re always ready. Our pilot is already texting asking where the hell we are.”

  They were flying in a transport plane with crates of wine from Northern California.

  “Fuck this.” John stuffed his phone back in his pocket and hurried out of the room. He’d try her again when he got to the airfield and had a chance to be alone.

  He walked past Bristow, who still hadn’t loaded up the SUV, and headed into the mudroom to deposit the trash. Then he made a call to the cleaner to come in to do a sweep and incinerate.

  “Let’s go.” He grabbed his bags and stalked out the still-open door. Bristow locked up behind him, not saying anything, but he could feel the SEAL’s eyes boring into his back.

  When they got into the vehicle, the ginger-haired operator said, “Are you sure you’re up for this trip?”

  “We’re not running an op. We’re just gathering intel. Maybe negotiating a deal.”

  Bristow revved up the Escalade and backed up the driveway. “You’re unfocused.”

  “Got a lot on my mind.”

  “Hmm … try again,” Bristow said.

  “It’s personal and it’s none of your business.”

  “It may be personal, but it’s my business when your head is not in the game.”

  “Those are my words.” Garrison glared at Bristow.

  The SEAL was focused on traffic. “Exactly. So practice what you preach.”

  Scathing words backed up his throat. He was taking out his irritation at Nadia on his crew. It was not his style to let personal shit affect the way he handled his team. Nadia was occupying more compartments in his mind faster than he could create them. That broken condom only accelerated this dilemma.

  His phone rang. John almost felt relief, but when he saw who was calling, he wasn’t sure whether to pick up. He probably wouldn’t be able to talk to her for another week and … shit … he forgot.

  Swiping the screen, he said, “Ma, Happy Birthday. And I haven’t forgotten.”

  A sigh came over the phone as Bristow cast a brief glance at him. The SEAL knew about Fiona Mason. John’s mother was a happily retired schoolteacher who spent her days going through every single series on Primeflix or attending cardio classes at the local gym.

  “I’m sixty-seven, Jacob. I’m too old to hold a grudge against my son if he forgot my birthday, especially with your job as embassy liaison. Travel can mess up your time clock.”

  “It does.”

  “So what adventures have you been on lately?”

  He thought b
ack to Mexico but decided not to revisit that mission at the moment.

  “Rio.” John gave his mother a brief made-up story about having to negotiate with the Brazilian ambassador regarding the preservation of the Amazon.

  “They have pretty beaches and even prettier women.”

  He sighed, knowing where his mother was going with this.

  “I haven’t given up yet, you know?” she continued. “You’re forty-two. The instructor in my Zumba class—”

  “Christ, Ma—”

  “Just saying, son, you’re not getting any younger. The last time I saw you was two years ago, and you were starting to turn gray.”

  That was the time he returned from Yemen when he had a slight existential crisis because he nearly lost his head to a terrorist’s machete.

  “I want some grandbabies to dote on,” she said. This line of their conversation was nothing new but served as a reminder of the broken condom. John got lightheaded if not a bit nauseous. His mother’s voice faded and in and out of his hearing like a bad reception.

  “I don’t know where your dad—God bless his soul—and I turned you off on marriage—”

  “You and Dad did nothing wrong,” he managed to bite out.

  It wasn’t his parents. John had a solid middle-class, Midwest upbringing. Star quarterback in high school, on a scholarship to college before he dropped out in his second year and joined the Army. When September eleventh happened, he’d been invited to try out for the Delta Force. He got in, but his idealism slowly drained out of him. Being Delta puts you in contact with the dregs of society. You see all that shit you can’t talk to anyone about or question. The classified shit that gets shoveled internally until it poisoned everything you’d once seen through rose-colored lenses. War and its horrors, the deals made with genocidal maniacs to preserve the greater good, had a way of stripping away the once-noble reasons for becoming a soldier.

  “Well, we must have. I’d hate to see you waste good Irish stock. Your uncle’s daughters married all these weak-jawed Wall Street types who probably don’t know how to ride a bull or run their ranch.”

  John had to chuckle at this. “I don’t think cousin Nessa would like to live on the ranch and neither did I for that matter.”

  “But you became a soldier. You did me and your dad proud.”

  But he wasn’t that young man anymore. In fact, John wasn’t sure who he was except a weapon for the agency. “Listen, I got to go.”

  “Where are you off to this time?”

  “Romania.”

  “Lots of pretty girls there too.”

  “Goodbye, Ma.”

  “Take care, Jacob.”

  He ended the call.

  “Man, you almost sound human talking to your mother,” Bristow deadpanned.

  “Yeah, almost.”

  The SEAL gave a brief chuckle. “So, is Mrs. Mason still trying to marry you off?”

  “To her Zumba instructor this time, apparently.”

  “I don’t know how you managed to keep her in the dark with what you do all these years.”

  “She’s learned not to expect me on holidays.”

  “How long since you’ve seen her?”

  “Two years.”

  “Christ, G, don’t you ever get tired of the job?” They arrived at the bottom of Hollywood Hills and made the turn onto Sunset Boulevard.

  “What’s the matter? You want it?”

  Bristow shot him a flash of teeth before shaking his head. “Nah, I like this freelance shit too much. If I get tired of your spooky ass, I’ll find another boss.”

  That spooky ass comment reminded him of Nadia, whom he suspected picked up the term from Bristow. The familiar connections started an unease roiling through his stomach again.

  When he started this gig in LA on the trail of the bioweapon, his friend Kade Spear who owned a security company, floated the idea of possibly reuniting Gabby and Declan. Spear’s intentions were honorable, while John’s wasn’t entirely benevolent. He figured if he rolled the dice and had a connection inside the LAPD, that would smooth the way for running counterterrorism operations in the city. Nadia was a surprise. He didn’t know who she was until he’d gone through the files of everyone in Gabriel Woodward’s orbit.

  It also didn’t escape him that in the less than two years since the operation began, his operatives and assets kept falling like flies.

  Falling into the marriage trap.

  Declan and Gabby.

  Migs and Ariana.

  Antonio wasn’t technically an asset. The man had a heart of ice, and yet it melted for Charly. He knew they were getting married in a few weeks.

  John started to sweat. He needed time to think.

  It was time to get the fuck away from Los Angeles.

  Hours later, he and Bristow landed in the private hangar of Kiev businessman Ilya Kravets who was an importer of American goods. There was a limo waiting for them, the usual front, a luxury welcome wagon for business associates. As John and Bristow alighted from the aircraft, the door to the vehicle opened, and Ilya alighted.

  His suit was disheveled, and his face was covered in bruises.

  “Fuck.” Bristow dropped his backpack, drawing his gun, head on a swivel.

  John did the same.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” John growled at the businessman.

  Ilya gave a resigned smile. “The Order found out.”

  Three black SUVs converged around them and armed men stepped out.

  A gun clicked behind them. Their pilot had turned on Ilya.

  Fuck.

  It was a trap.

  6

  The merry old men of SkyeLark apartments (MoMoS) were at it again. She groaned and dragged a pillow over her head to muffle the noise. It was Sunday and probably close to noon, but she’d stayed up into the early hours of the morning with Stephen, binge-watching Hodgetown’s fourth season. The Locke Demon featured widely again in the season finale and its fate, as well as that of Billy Mayhem, was unknown. They both fell through the veil into the monster dimension with the biggest baddie of all awaiting them. Nadia was tempted to have Gabby badger Theo regarding spoilers for next season.

  Thinking of Gabby reminded her of the Thomas Brandt case. The medical examiner ruled out suicide. No surprise there. The chat room that could’ve been their lead into Brandt’s shady dealings and that might have eventually led them to his killers was shut down.

  The Feds had taken an interest in the case and had been around their CTTF office. It was the last time she was letting them into her crime lab. The Fed team wouldn’t stop touching her drones and her other toys, questioning how she got them. She did relish telling them that they didn’t have the clearance because she was a beta tester for a company that did business for the DoD.

  It was partially true. They didn’t have to know most of them were bribes from John.

  Each time he asked her to do an op, he brought her a new CIA gadget. These devices were designed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and were never commercialized.

  Son of a bitch. She always thought it was a bribe, but what if he was wooing her the only way he knew would get to her. That was how she’d fallen for the bastard. He didn’t do it with roses, or dinners, or movie dates. It didn’t fit into his agenda or his lifestyle. So he gave her things that would make her happy.

  But Nadia was finding out it wasn’t enough.

  John Garrison was too dangerous for her heart. He represented risk, excitement, and authority. And Nadia found nothing sexier than a bossy man. Unfortunately, what made him attractive also made him an unappealing prospect as the man in her life.

  He didn’t represent stability.

  Every interaction she’d had with him ended in chaos.

  Ugh. Why is he in her thoughts again?

  Thankfully, the Hodgetown series and her job kept her occupied, but thoughts of the man had a way of sneaking back in like a bad habit. They’d had sex twice—well multiple times on each o
ccasion. Nadia kept telling herself the first time was due to her relief that he was alive but would cop to the second time being solely about lust.

  She had no excuse for it to happen a third time.

  “Don’t touch my fucking grill.” A voice boomed from the outside. That would be Dugal Cameron. Nadia’s apartment was between his and her dad’s. One of Dugal’s sons owned the complex—a stuntman who was in demand in action films.

  “I was checking if it’s ready. I’m starving,” Clyde said.

  “We’ll wait for Nadia to get up …” The rest of his sentence was muffled as if he remembered he was loud and was going to wake her up. Her dad mumbled an intelligible response.

  Nadia sighed. Looked like she needed to make an appearance with the MoMoS as she fondly called them. She didn’t turn up at their Wednesday night poker because of John’s idea to crash Ken’s party—

  Ugh. Again, with John intruding into her thoughts.

  Tossing the pillow aside, she jumped out of bed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up, putting on matching velour sweats and her platform step-in sneakers before she heard a light knock on her bedroom door.

  She opened it to her smiling father.

  “You heard Dugal, I presume.”

  A pained smile formed on her lips. “Yes.”

  “Sorry, sonyashnyk, but they missed you. Besides, Dugal’s son is visiting.”

  “Please tell me this is not another matchmaking attempt.”

  They walked through her kitchen and Nadia pushed open the back door. Briefly blinded by the sun, she paused to slide on her shades.

  “There’s our sunflower,” Clyde beamed, while rocking his stocky form in one of those outdoor deck recliners. Dugal strode to the grill to fire it up. “It’s about time, lass. The natives are hungry.”

  “You all didn’t have to wait for me. I wanted to sleep in.”

  “You can go back to sleep after I put some food in ye.” Dugal was the biggest and most fit among the MoMoS. At sixty-two, he was over six feet, his head was shaved, and he sported a salt-and-pepper beard. He owned a butcher shop—Cameron and Sons Butcher—and had forearms that were twice as thick as hers. Maybe more. Besides the stuntman, he had two other sons who worked on and off in the Hollywood circuit when tough-looking Scotsmen who rocked a kilt were needed. Most of the time, they helped their dad out in the shop. “Did you eat that goulash I sent over?”