“Will I be able to call my Mama and sisters?” I ask. “I have not spoken to them since I left Penza.”
“Yes. But you’ll use an encrypted phone, and you’ll make sure you’re somewhere no one can overhear you.” He reaches for my hands and clasps them firmly until I meet his gaze. “This is serious, Sloane. Giving you a new name, a new identity? It’s illegal. I’m risking as much—if not more—than you are. If you have any doubts about this, tell me now. I’ll still help you get clean, and I’ll arrange for you to return to Russia in a way you won’t get in trouble with the authorities. But if you sign this, if we start with the surgeries and the classes, there’s no going back.”
Max—and my contract with the Ulstrum Agency—changed my life. I should be happy. When I came to this country, I feared I’d be dead before I turned thirty. My thirty-fifth birthday is in three weeks, and I have enough money in the bank to live a comfortable life after I retire. Even return to Russia to see Mama and my sisters.
Most days, I wouldn’t change a thing. But when I’m alone, when the pressure gets to be too much, I wish I could be free. Truly free. To bring Mama and my sisters here to visit, to do more than send them money and call once a month.
But if the world found out that Sloane Sanders used to be a heroin addict named Sophiana Lebdev who was forced to have sex with men against her will…I’d be deported immediately and I’d never work again.
Still, sometimes, I miss being just…Sophie.
Home. The little bungalow not far from the beach in San Diego was my gift to myself after eight years working my ass off—figuratively and literally—as a model. It was a dump when I bought it, but little by little, I’ve turned it into the perfect refuge.
Leaves rustle overhead as I fish out my keys. Five days in New York and three in Dallas. My body doesn’t know what time it is, just that it needs a cup of chamomile tea and my favorite blanket. Once I have those, I can call Mama.
A pile of mail waits just inside the door, and I scoop it up on the way to my bedroom. Despite my exhaustion, I can’t simply drop my garment bag on the chair and forget about it. When you come from nothing, even the smallest possession is too valuable to carelessly toss aside.
Folding the soft clothing I wear to shoots, I set each piece in the hamper. Everything else is dry clean only and goes into a bag to be picked up tomorrow.
After I brew a small pot of tea and turn on the gas fireplace, I prop my phone on my knee and try to reach Mama on FaceTime.
“Allo, Sophiana!” Mama smiles at me, early morning sunlight lending a glow to her face.
“Mama, English, please. And Sloane. Remember?” I say, cringing.
Her brows draw close, and judgement lends an edge to her voice. “You are alone. No one will know.”
“Mama, please. I’m tired. It was a long trip, and I have to go buy groceries early tomorrow morning. How are you? Did you get the money I sent last week?”
Her eyes dim, even over the poor video connection. “Yes, Sloane. Lana was so excited. She will tell you all about the books she bought.”
The tea cup rattles as I set it down. My fingers tremble, and I force my lip from between my teeth. “Mama. That money was to fix the car and get your medicine.”
“The car work fine.”
“There’s no heat! Tell me you at least got your blood pressure medicine.”
Mama stands with a groan, and the image on screen shifts wildly until all I can see are her old, worn-out slippers as she shuffles into another room.
“Mama, pick up the phone. Remember what I told you about FaceTime?” The swinging image threatens to make me sick, especially as tired as I am, but she doesn’t have far to go to reach the kitchen where she picks up a bottle of pills and shakes them.
“I am not stupid. Or helpless. You send money every month, and all we want is to see you. My Sophiana.” Her voice cracks, and she squints at the screen. “Are you saying something? Your lips are moving.”
Shit. I’m doing it again. Alternating pursing my lips with pressing them together, chewing on them. It’s so bad, I can taste blood.
Focus, Sloane. You can hold it together for the next ten minutes.
But can I?
“No, Mama. I’m sorry. My mouth is dry from the plane, that’s all. Is Lana up yet?” My sister won’t guilt me as much as Mama does. Since she was only three when I left, she doesn’t hate me for never coming home, and loves the gifts from the United States I send every few months. Especially the makeup.
With a sigh, Mama calls for Lana. “You spoil her too much, you know.”
“You don’t let me do enough. I could move you to St. Petersburg, you know. Pay for an apartment there. Lana could get a job—a real job. Have friends. And you would live like a queen.”
Mama snorts. “We will not fight today, and you will not mention this again.” Lowering her voice, she pulls the phone closer. “You say nothing to Lana.”
“I know, Mama. I know.” Swiping at my eyes, I dash a tear away seconds before Mama hands the phone to Lana, and her smiling face takes over the screen.
“I got so many books!” Her joy fills my living room from halfway across the globe, and for a few minutes, nothing matters but her.
Chapter Four
Griff
Sitting at my desk at Langley, I rub my left shoulder. The prosthetic, despite being one of the lightest in the world, weighs me down in ways I can’t explain. My identity shouldn’t be tied to a hunk of metal and silicon, but when I look in the mirror without it, I don’t recognize myself.
Quit lying to yourself. You don’t recognize yourself with the damn thing either.
Recovery and rehab stole a solid thirty pounds from me, only ten of which supposedly came from my arm. Every day, I push myself harder in the gym, and every night, I fall into bed exhausted, sore, and frustrated as hell.
In my periphery, three other information officers enter the room, their voices nothing but unintelligible, soft background noise. I only spare them a quick glance. Last time I did a stint behind a desk, I considered them friends. Now?
Mason: “Thank God we don’t have to waste our time scanning all those intel reports from Moldova anymore. Never thought I’d be happy to have a grunt in our midst.”
Terry: “I can’t believe Hargrove hasn’t quit already. This is shit work.”
Oliver: “Cut the guy some slack. He lost everything.”
The text scrolling across the lenses is a blessing most days. Dax Holloway and the developers at his company, Second Sight, gave me the glasses without asking for anything in return. The software recognizes different voices, and my phone lets me assign each one a name. I can even tell the program to ignore certain voices completely.
Unfortunately, now I know exactly what the other officers think of me. I’d chuck the frames across the room, but Dax and his team have done so much for me, the guilt would eat me alive. Not to mention, Dax would kick my ass.
Tapping on the right temple, I send the text scrolling off the lenses so I can focus on the intel reports my senior SSO sent over this morning. I’m lucky. Unbelievably so. Most guys with my injuries would be out on their asses. But someone vouched for me—not that I know who—and Ollie gave me a six-month probationary assignment analyzing field reports. It’s shit work, and he knows it, but putting a guy out in the field who can’t hear anything but the deepest, loudest sounds and isn’t weapons certifiable?
No one at the CIA’s that dumb.
Except maybe Terry.
My phone flashes next to my keyboard, and I glance at the screen.
SMS: Pritchard
Son of a bitch. Austin remembered how to type.
I enter my unlock code to read the full message.
I’ll be in McClean tonight. Dinner?
That’s it? Dinner? After almost eight fucking months?
Go to hell. Clearly, you’re busy with your new life. I’m doing just fine without you.
My finger hovers over the Send button. If I ne
ver hear from him again, it’ll be too soon. Even if he did convince Dax to set me up with these sweet glasses and got me approved for the best damn prosthetic that isn’t even on the market yet. Fuck. How much of an asshole am I?
Answer? The biggest. Worse than Terry if I keep acting this way. So I delete the message and start over.
Fine. Be at my apartment at 6 pm. You bring the takeout. I have beer and tequila.
He responds with nothing more than a thumbs up emoji, and I swear under my breath. Tonight is going to be a disaster.
My arm aches by the time I make it home. It usually does, even though the docs say I healed perfectly. A textbook case. Hell, they took enough photos and videos of me—and my arm—to fill a dozen textbooks.
The myoelectric prosthesis, liner, and sleeve I wear over what’s left of my upper arm to keep the artificial limb in place aren’t uncomfortable. But after eight months, even though I can use my left hand to operate my computer and mouse—slowly—lift weights, and carry a bag of groceries, there are days I can’t still stand the damn thing.
Austin’s leaning against the wall next to my door with a pizza box in his hands when I get off the elevator. Tapping the right side of my glasses, I clear my throat. Most days, I don’t talk to a lot of people. My idiot coworkers seem to think since I can’t hear, I can’t speak either.
“Austin.”
“Griff.”
His hazel eyes hold an odd mix of pain and…peace. “Well, come on in. That pizza better not be cold.”
Unknown: “I’m not that much of an asshole.”
Guess I should program Austin’s voice into the speech-to-text software. Assuming this dinner doesn’t go south in a hurry.
“So Dax told you about the glasses?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. “Since, in your words, you’re ‘not that much of an asshole.’”
“Mick and I went to Boston last weekend. He filled me in.”
Dropping my keys onto the counter, I turn and stare at the man I almost died for. “Mick? Dax said you’d met someone in Mexico. He didn’t say it was a dude.”
Austin rolls his eyes, sets the pizza down, and pulls a pen from the inside pocket of his leather jacket to scribble on the box top. M-i-k-a-y-l-a. Mik.
Oh. With a sigh, I reach for my phone. “Get the beers out of the fridge. I need a minute to program this damn software. And you better have a picture of Mik.”
The corners of Austin’s lips twitch into a half smile as he heads to the kitchen. The man’s gone and fallen in love. Wasn’t sure he had it in him. This should be good. I need some good. Or…at least some normal.
Thank God for the invention of text messaging and swipe keyboards. Programming Austin’s voiceprint and the proper spelling of Mik’s name would be a lot harder if I weren’t already an expert at typing one-handed.
A beer bottle thunks down on the table, the sound faint, but enough that I look up when Austin takes his seat across from me.
What the hell do I say to him now?
He looks as uncertain as I feel, and we pull slices from the box, stare at them, and start in on the beer. I can’t—or won’t—do this conversation watching Austin’s words scroll across my lenses, so I take the glasses off, fold them carefully next to me, and lift my gaze.
“You disappeared on me, man. For eight fucking months.”
“I know.” He doesn’t look me in the eyes when he continues, “I thought I was helping. Keeping all of my bullshit far away from anyone it could hurt.”
“Did you ever think maybe the rest of us had bullshit we were dealing with too?” The pizza tastes like cardboard, but I haven’t eaten much today—or any day since the attack, so I down half a piece in two bites while I wait for Austin to get his head out of his ass and say something.
“I wasn’t going to be any help to anyone. Not as low as I was.”
My right hand curls into a fist, and I slam it down on the table before I realize what I’m doing. “As low as you were? I lost my goddamn arm, asshole. Most of my hearing. Want to know how I spend my days now? Chained to a desk while the other officers talk behind my back about how helpless I am.”
Focusing on the bottle of beer, I raise my left arm and close the fingers around the neck. Austin watches, his shoulders relaxing when I manage a long swig.
“I’m not fucking helpless.”
“Never said you were.” He runs a hand through his hair, wincing slightly. “I screwed up. Epically. And I’m sorry.”
Nodding, I kill the rest of the slice of pizza, then look up to find him staring at me.
“Well?”
“What? If you said something while I wasn’t watching you…I missed it. And that’s a shitty thing to do.” This whole dinner was a mistake. Apology or not, there’s too much distance between us.
“It’s your turn,” he says.
I almost choke on my sip of beer. “My turn?”
“To apologize.”
He’s serious. Staring right at me with an I’m the boss and don’t you forget it look.
“Why the hell would I do that?”
Austin pulls out his phone, scrolls for a moment, and slides the device across the table. My last email to him glows on the screen.
I owe you an apology.
Son of a bitch.
“You’re seriously going to hassle me about that?” Sending the phone back to him with a little more force than necessary, I shake my head. “Fine. I’m sorry I went off on you after you left me to deal with all this shit on my own. Happy now?”
Sadness lingers in his eyes. “I made a fuck-ton of mistakes this past year. Ignored Trevor, Dani, everyone at Second Sight and Hidden Agenda—”
I’m not sure I hear him correctly and hold up my hand while I steal a quick glance at my phone to check the transcript. “Hidden Agenda?”
“Dax has a brother. Well, no. They’re not related. But the two of them…they’re family. Ryker runs Hidden Agenda, a Kandahar firm out in Seattle,” Austin explains.
Kandahar? What the hell? I’m tired of lipreading—it’s like trying to make sense of a textbook you’re staring at through a window screen—so I don the glasses and realize he’s talking about a K&R—kidnap and ransom—firm. Dax’s team really did program this software with everything I needed to know.
“Do I rate a spot on that list?” I ask.
“Fuck. Of course you do.” Austin pushes to his feet and heads for the sliding glass door leading out to my balcony. “Those glasses have a hell of a range, right?”
“I can still see what you’re saying. Go on.” If the man needs his space, I’ll give it to him. Even though I want to grab him and shake free whatever he’s struggling to admit.
“When I came back from Mexico with Mik, I needed help. She almost died down there, Griff.” His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, and though I can’t hear the anguish in his voice, it’s in his body language. The jerky movement of his back as he struggles to keep his breathing measured. “I love her.” Turning, he meets my gaze. “She’s my everything, and a group of asshole poachers threw her off a mountain.”
“Fuck. Austin, I didn’t know…” Carefully gathering up both beers, I meet him at the door, and he accepts his bottle, then downs the whole thing in three gulps. The man’s in pain, and right now, it doesn’t matter that I am too.
“Because I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone until I had no choice. Until they blew up her trailer in Mexico, almost killed her grad students, and tried to murder both of us. I called Trev, and he told Dax, and when we got back to Edgewater, Dax gave me one of his guys on 24x7 surveillance. And they still came after Mik at the Smithsonian. If she wasn’t the smartest woman I’ve ever met—she would have died with me twenty feet away from her.”
His eyes shimmer, like he’s barely keeping it together, and I sling my good arm around his shoulders. “We’re going to need more beer. And I hope you told Mik you weren’t driving home tonight.”
The gratitude in his eyes makes me think perhaps
, I’m not a total fuck-up. Even if I can’t hear, can’t shoot, can’t do my job the way I used to, I’m alive, and maybe I matter to someone.
A little after 10:00 p.m., I remove my prosthetic arm and sink into my recliner with Austin across from me. He tries not to stare at the end of my stump poking out from the sleeve of my Polo shirt, but after a few minutes, I lean forward. “My eyes are up here, asshole.”
“I didn’t mean…fuck.”
Holding a straight face for even thirty seconds is damn near impossible, and I burst out laughing. A couple of seconds later, Austin joins in, though his expression is strained.
“You can look, man.” Tugging my sleeve higher, I flex the remaining muscles. “Cutting edge shit you hooked me up with. I can even feel what I’m touching. Kind of. Hot, cold, hard, soft. That sort of thing.”
“The Army, Navy, and Air Force all had an…uh…hand in the development of that tech,” Austin says. “Made sense you should get the first commercially available model.”
It takes me a minute to process his words. “The first…? Austin—”
He shrugs. “I couldn’t help you through whatever shit you were dealing with. Turning you into the bionic man seemed like the next best thing.”
His grin eases the lines of strain around his eyes. This might be the first time I’ve ever seen the guy truly relaxed.
Who am I kidding? Even relaxed, he hasn’t taken off his shoes or loosened the top button on his Henley. “You do realize you’re a civilian now, right?” I ask. “Has your back even touched the couch?”
“Once.” Austin chuckles and drapes his arm over the rear cushion. “Twice, now. I’m not…good at relaxing.”
“No shit. I thought I was bad.”
“You were.” His gaze shifts, focusing on his boots, and I sit up a little straighter. “I heard a little about it.”
“From who?” I’m doing my best to sound as angry as I feel, but I have no fucking clue if I’m pulling it off. “You mean to tell me you checked up on me but couldn’t be bothered to actually contact me?”
Rogue Officer: A Protector Romantic Suspense Standalone (Gone Rogue) Page 4
