Her Covert Protector by Victoria Paige

5

John caughtup with her before she reached the door. Nadia was glad he put on some clothes at least. As if her walk of shame to Kelso’s car wasn’t embarrassing enough. And Nadia had to ask herself. Why did she keep doing this to herself?

He grabbed her arm. She looked to the spot where he held her before flicking her glare to his face. The tick below his eye appeared, and he dropped his hold on her. “We’ll talk when I get back.”

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 clangingof 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 back 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.