Nadia burst out laughing. She wasn’t sure if that was a good idea either. “You should see your face. Don’t worry, I didn’t.”
Her friend chuckled and patted her on the shoulder. “You’ve been hanging around us guys for too long. Our toilet humor is rubbing off on you. You’re double-dosing between our team and the three old farts at your apartment with your dad.”
She grinned. “I’m glad you didn’t include my dad in the three old farts.”
“Is it my imagination or is Dugal not fond of me?” Kelso swerved the SUV into the Mediterranean restaurant’s parking lot.
Nadia didn’t answer and hopped out. Before slamming the door, she said, “Hold that thought. Get me a lamb gyro with extra tzatziki.”
After her much-needed stop at the ladies’ room, Nadia grabbed a basket and started grocery shopping while Kelso waited for their orders. With her unpredictable hours, it was best to run her errands with whatever sliver of time she could scramble. Among some of the diverse cuisine in Los Angeles, Persian food was something she and her dad were fond of. Her dad’s former girlfriend, Sara, was an Iranian widow. They were together for two years and Nadia was treated to the most delicious home-cooked meals. When they broke up because Sara had to return to Iran to take care of her ailing mother, Nadia cried. She wasn’t sure if it was partly because she was going to miss Sara’s cooking or her nurturing soul. However, the woman, bless her kind heart to the sixteen-year-old Nadia, made sure she and her dad were equipped to cook the food they loved from her.
She wondered if Stephen would have married again. He hadn’t been serious with another woman since then. He told Nadia that her mother was the greatest love of his life. She also wondered if her father wanted her to have a sort of mother figure growing up, especially during her adolescent years.
Putting a pack of dried limes, dried fenugreek, and a bottle of pomegranate paste in her basket, she headed over to the nuts section to weigh some walnuts for Stephen—and her—Fesenjan, a stew made with pomegranate molasses, and crushed walnuts. Saliva pooled under her tongue. She’d been craving the sourness of pomegranate recently.
Kelso signaled that he was done and stood aside so his big frame wouldn’t be in the way. Nadia walked toward one of the counters to pay. As she was adding a container of pastries, the store’s bell tinkled and for some reason her senses made her look in that direction.
Two men walked in. Caucasian. One was blond and the other had brown hair. The blond man was almost albino-like. Swedish maybe? The man’s neck was covered in ink. His gaze strayed to her briefly before looking up at the menu above the food counter.
Nadia’s eyes flew to Kelso who was already making his way toward her. The amiable detective was nowhere in sight, his face closed off, his jaw hardening. When he got to her side, he easily blocked her from the newcomer’s view.
“That’ll be forty-eight dollars and twenty cents.”
Her attention momentarily diverted back to the cashier, and she quickly settled her purchases. Normally, Kelso would offer to carry the bags, but not this time. He was making sure he could draw his gun quickly in case the suspicious strangers proved hostile. They exited the store, on alert for any lurkers.
It was a relief when they got into the vehicle and merged onto Beverly Boulevard.
“That was weird,” Nadia said. “You felt that creepy vibe too?”
“Yeah.” Kelso checked the rearview mirror. “I’ve been interviewing guys who fit their profile. Both men were wearing jackets, but I could see their tattoos peeking out on the back of their hands. And you saw their necks?”
“Yes. You think Russian Bratva?”
“Another guy I interviewed in relation to Brandt’s case revealed that the Kremlin, through the Russian Bratva, is working with the Argonayts on a special mission.”
Nadia’s blood chilled. They were elite hackers who targeted countries opposed to Russian policy. The Argonayts went after electrical grids, banking systems, and other services that were computerized for blackmail or ransom.
“That’s our worst nightmare. The rolling blackout last summer—”
Oncoming vehicle lights blinded her. A scream lodged in her throat as Kelso cursed and yanked their vehicle into a swerve. Their tires rolled over rumble strips and it veered one way and then another.
“Hang on!” Kelso yelled. All Nadia could do was hang on, her fingernails digging into the handle and the dashboard.
Nadia glanced behind them. “They’re following us.”
“I know,” Kelso gritted. “Those men in the store—fuck!”
Something rammed the front of their vehicle. The seatbelt bit across her body, sending excruciating pain in its wake. Screeching tires and metal scraping over metal shrieked in her ears.
Her head hurt.
Her spine hurt.
Nadia struggled to shake the cobwebs from her head and tried to reach for her backpack. Her gun.
“Get out of here,” he told her. “Move!”
Her hand closed on the handle, but her door was yanked open, and she was hauled bodily from the vehicle.
“Nadia!” Kelso roared.
Gunshots exploded around her as her assailant dragged her to a waiting car. She scratched and kicked.
“Do you have her backpack?” A voice shouted.
“Tak.” Another answered.
Ukrainian?
She stomped on her assailant’s foot and rammed her elbow into him. The masked man let go of her, and she tried to scramble away. “Kelso!”
Fingers dug into her scalp, almost ripping her hair out while the force of it shoved her against the side of a black SUV. That jolt of agony stole the breath from her lungs, the strength from her legs. Giving in to gravity, she crashed to the ground.
The spray of lead escalated around her. Oh my God, Kelso was alone!
“Get up!”
A boot hit her thigh. Nadia tried to lever up, bracing for a second kick but it never came.
A body dropped in front of her.
It was her assailant’s.
“Kelso!” she croaked, trying to push up.
But it wasn’t Kelso who gathered her into his arms.
It definitely wasn’t Kelso who gave her a searing kiss that ended quickly.
It was a kiss Nadia would’ve recognized anywhere.
Sounds buzzed around her.
The face was shadowed but there was no mistaking that imposing profile.
Garrison.
9
“Are you all right?” John demanded.
A gentle shake snapped her out of her stupor. She couldn’t believe he was standing right in front of her. Her gaze jerked to Bristow and Levi. They were checking the downed hostiles, but her eyes were searching for someone else.
“I’m fine,” she wheezed. Her body shuddered from the adrenaline withdrawal. “Kelso?”
“Here,” a voice said from the side and she was yanked from John’s arms and engulfed in a Kelso-sized bear hug. “I’m so sorry, Powell. That was my fault.”
Nadia leaned away. “How was it your fault?”
“We’ll do a post-mortem later,” Garrison interjected, grabbing Nadia back from Kelso.
She was too outraged to react. The man probably saved their lives, but she could still be annoyed with him, right?
“Bristow, how long before the cops get here?” John asked.
“Six minutes.”
Garrison glanced at Kelso. “You got this?”
“What the fuck?” The detective scowled. “How am I supposed to cover up this shit? I don’t know who was after us.”
Yes, John, what the fuck?
Levi approached their group and crouched beside the man who had dragged Nadia out of the car. He lifted the mask over his face and took a picture. “We have confirmation on Maxim Vovk.”
“Vovk?” Nadia cocked her head at John in disbelief. They had killed a member of the Odessa Order, the ruling committee of the Ukrainian Brotherhood.
“We’re trying
to flush out his brother, Dmitry,” John answered. “Killing Maxim wasn’t the plan, but it seems we’ve just moved up our schedule.”
“What do you mean?” Kelso asked.
“We’ll discuss later.” Garrison clasped her arm to lead her away, but Nadia refused to budge.
“Hold on. Hold on. What the hell, John?” She wrenched her arm from his grip. “I have a scene to process.”
“Bristow needs to look you over.” Garrison crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s something more important to discuss.”
And here she was trying to act mature and not think about his broken promise, but she ended up sneering. “If you’re talking about your no-show that Monday, don’t sweat it. And an EMT can look me over.” She straightened her spine with self-righteous anger and walked away from him. “I feel fine.” In reality, it felt like she’d gone ten rounds with a gorilla, but any second longer in his company and the carefully constructed fortress around her emotions was going to crumble. John was a sledgehammer when it came to her resolve.
“Dammit, Nadia—”
“Four minutes, Garrison.” Bristow reminded, while John’s crew headed for their Escalade.
Kelso glanced from Nadia to him and smirked. “Just so you know, there’ll be no kidnapping on my watch.”
“Fuck it,” John clipped and captured her arm, ushering her behind their assailant’s SUV and out of earshot from the rest of the men.
Nadia had had it with this overbearing man. “If you don’t want to be singing in falsetto, let go of my arm.”
John positioned her against the side of the vehicle, his fingers clasping her shoulders. Something in the way he was assessing her made her nervous.
“Are these men after my dad?” she asked.
His eyes seemed surprised by her question, after which they softened to a degree and lessened Nadia’s anxiety.
“No.”
“Then what’s so important it couldn’t wait?” Her irritation returned.
His fingers tightened on her shoulders as if he was expecting her to bolt.
“You could be pregnant.”
Those words were so absurd she thought she misheard him. She exhaled the breath that went stale in her lungs. “Ha. ha. You almost got me.” She shoved him aside to move past him, but he was persistent and caught her arm again.
“Broken condom.”
Those two words sent Nadia’s mind cartwheeling back to how consistent she was with her birth control pill. One that needed to be taken as much as possible at the same time of the day. Her ears started buzzing.
Shit!
“G, three minutes,” Bristow hollered.
“A minute!” the man before her yelled back.
All Nadia could say was “Shit.”
John’s face was impassive. “Let’s go.” His voice was firm and in her spiraling panicked state, she followed his lead without question. Her brain processing. Her body processing. She was due for her period any day now. Her mind calculated. Two days from now. She wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be pregnant.
Before she knew it, she was bundled into the back of the SUV with John getting in beside her.
A choking feeling gripped her throat.
Fear.
John shouldn’t have broken the news that way to her, but he couldn’t keep it from her a second longer. She deserved to know. Nadia looked like she was going to throw up. Nothing wrong with her reaction given his own response to condom-gate. He had two weeks to process the possibility of becoming a father, especially since he spent majority of those days locked in a dank dungeon. Now he had to help Nadia get through her shock, so they could prepare for either outcome.
“Do we need to take you to a hospital?” he asked. “Did you hit your head?”
“No. I’m fine. Just got tossed a bit.”
“I can give you a once-over when we get to Garrison’s house,” Bristow interjected from the passenger seat. Levi was driving. “I have my med-kit in the back.”
“I said I was fine,” she snapped.
“Whoa. Chill there, Powell,” Levi said.
She was anxious, John assessed. He reached out and took her hand in his. Nadia resisted, but he held fast, giving her hand a squeeze, letting her know she wasn’t facing this alone. She cocked her head at his gesture. Yeah, he wasn’t sure where that came from either.
She asked, “What in the world did Maxim Vovk want with me? Does this have something to do with one of our cases?”
“Kenneth Huxley.”
“Shit,” Nadia said, looking out the window. “So that’s what it was.”
“Were you guys able to secure the Crown-Key?” John asked.
“What? You don’t know?” she retorted.
“We’ve been out of the loop, but we’re back now,” he answered mildly, ignoring her sarcasm.
“I need to talk to Gabby and Kelso before I release any info.”
“Of course.”
“If they’d planned to grab me and failed, would Dad be in danger?”
“I’ve messaged Declan,” Bristow said. “He communicated with Gabby to send a patrol over to your apartment. She’s heading there right now to tell your dad that you’re okay, before she joins Kelso to clean up the mess we left them.”
John tried not to let this close-knit circle give him claustrophobia. Staying in that dungeon was more familiar than this weird family vibe he seemed to have formed in LA. A muscle twitched beneath his right eye, and he let go of Nadia’s hand. He could feel her studying him. This situation between them was begging for a discussion, and he couldn’t wait to get her alone.
The second they arrived at his house, he asked Bristow to give her a look-over. Nadia didn’t balk this time and let the former SEAL make sure she was okay. John paced behind the two while the other man gave Nadia a checkup.
Levi joined them, tucking his phone in his pocket. “That was Kelso. He said we need to get on the same page, same line, and same fucking word before this blows up in their faces.”
“I agree,” Nadia said.
“So much for saving your asses.” Bristow shined a light on Nadia’s eyes before he strapped on the blood pressure cuff and oxygen meter.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful, and I’m pretty sure Kelso is too,” she said. “But if there was any way you all could have given us a heads up that this was going to happen, then we wouldn’t have been in that situation.”
Bristow glanced at John, and he gave the SEAL the go-ahead nod to disclose their information. “We’ve recovered intel in Kiev. Maxim had been in the U.S. for a week, so someone else took the hit on Huxley.”
“Our gut tells us it’s Morris,” Nadia said, cutting her glance to John. “You had a run-in with him at the party.”
“Why it took them this long to make a move …” He stopped his pacing and gave her a penetrating stare. “I think you have the answer.”
“Where were you all this time?”
“Unavailable,” John said. “I’d like to repeat the story only once, so let’s wait until the detectives want that debrief.”
“Depends who’s debriefing whom,” Levi muttered.
“Good point.” With Maxim dead, big brother was unpredictable. CTTF was going to be in its crosshairs, so John was making sure they had what they needed to bring Dmitry Vovk down. Also known as the Gray Wolf of Odessa because of the color of his hair and eyes, it was common knowledge he doted on his brother. John would be a hypocrite if he said he didn’t want him to feel the pain he had when Vovk wiped out an entire special forces team under John’s command. Thirteen years was a long time to plan Vovk’s demise.
Nadia was a complication to his focus on the capture of the elusive crime boss.
Either she was pregnant or not. But by the way her already pale face turned bloodless when he mentioned the broken condom, she wasn’t confident about her birth control either. John had used his resources to check her medical records on the flight back from Kiev. She was on the progesterone pill which w
as pickier than the combination one and had to be taken more consistently. He’d done his research. He’d obsessed every bit with the possibility that she could be pregnant and … he wasn’t as horrified as he initially reacted.
The only thing he hated about this whole scenario was how it preempted his plans in figuring out this ‘thing’ between them. John was always one step ahead, but fate had its sassy ways of messing with the best-laid plans. It had a way of making him wonder if he’d run out of his nine-lives when he didn’t give a fuck before. But the other side of the scale was luck. And Lady Luck certainly pulled through when Kade and the rest of the team rescued their asses from certain execution, not to mention that cache of information recovered from the house where Bristow and Garrison were held was instrumental in stopping Maxim from taking Nadia.
“What time is the debrief?” John asked.
“Eight a.m. We left a lot of paperwork for them with four dead hostiles, and they’re one tech down.” Levi looked pointedly at Nadia. “But, since Nadia appears to be the target, Kelso appreciates us keeping her safe and said they’d deal.”
“You’re good to go,” Bristow told her. “Take it easy for the rest of the night. Maybe a Tylenol or two if you’re in pain.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been more sore after workouts with Kelso.”
“You’re a trooper,” John said.
Bristow cast him an amused glance.
Nadia arched a brow. “Is that … is that … a compliment?”
“Don’t be a smartass,” John shot back and walked over and took her hand, drawing her in. He searched her face. “You really okay?”
“Yes, I am.” Nadia’s face was starting to get back some color, and she tipped her head to their audience. “I think we’re embarrassing the guys.”
Judging by her heightened color, he figured she was the one getting embarrassed.
He faced the men. Bristow had a shit-eating grin, while Levi was staring at his boots, a smile playing on his lips.
“That’s why he was so distracted.” The ginger-haired SEAL directed his statement at Nadia.
She raised a skeptical brow. “He was?”
“Enough. Go home. Get some rest,” John ordered. “Be here at oh-seven-thirty.”
Her Covert Protector (Rogue Protectors Book 4) Page 9
