Rogue Officer: A Protector Romantic Suspense Standalone (Gone Rogue) Read online

  His hazel eyes are tired. We’ve been here six months, and from what little I’ve been able to pry out of the man, this assignment? It’s punishment for Austin going AWOL from some JSOC publicity tour because his sister needed him.

  I know he hates it here, but after my last post in Kuwait, this is a walk in the park. The CIA set me up in a sweet apartment in a secured building, the food is amazing—while being cheap as fuck—and Austin’s a good guy. Haunted in ways I don’t understand, but aren’t we all?

  Pulling out a map—an honest to God paper map—Austin spreads the damn thing across the desk and highlights a ten-kilometer route between our office and the Embassy. “See any pinch points?”

  I stare at him like he’s lost his marbles. “Yeah. Too many. Two of these streets are under construction, and I think I saw a new sidewalk market setting up on this corner this morning. We gotta find another way.” When Pritchard gives me the side eye, I add, “Sir.”

  “Well, this is the way the Ambassador’s staff insisted we go. Go convince them otherwise.”

  “Me? I’m not in charge. Wouldn’t this be better coming from you?“

  “The Ambassador is friends with my CO. Pretty sure she thinks I’m a fucking idiot.” Austin shakes his head, his shoulders slumping with his sigh. His commanding officer, Commander Ivan Clarke, was the one who sent him here, and one late night over a bucket of beers, he told me he didn’t expect to have a job when this assignment ended.

  “Fine. But make sure Nagan’s driving. If I can’t change her mind, we’ll need a beast behind the wheel.”

  “Back the fuck up!” From the front seat of the armored SUV, I twist around, hoping to whatever God is up there the rest of the caravan isn’t right up our asses. The Ambassador wouldn’t listen when I explained how dangerous this route was. She wanted to see the new school the United States government helped fund.

  Nagan wrenches the wheel to the left, but it’s no use. We’re boxed in. Abandoned vehicles line both sides of the narrow street and ahead of us? Nowhere to go.

  The map was wrong. The end of the street is now a bazaar with dozens of stalls and a suspicious lack of women and children milling about. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I grab the radio.

  “Pritchard! We’re blown. Get the Ambassador out of here!”

  I’m too late. His reply’s lost to the gunfire hitting the sides of the SUV. At least it’s bulletproof.

  To a point.

  One I don’t want to test. Pritchard, the Ambassador, her driver, and her teenage son are in the vehicle behind us, and two more of our guys bring up the rear.

  Another hour, and we would have been safe. She showed up unannounced five days ago, and we had to scramble to escort her to a dozen different meetings. We thought she was headed home today, but she changed her plans at the last minute and decided to leave tomorrow instead.

  Someone doesn’t want that to happen.

  Nagan slams into one of the abandoned cars, pushing it forward five feet, then throws the SUV in reverse and tries to repeat the maneuver with the car behind us.

  “We’re sitting ducks!” I snap as I grab a helmet from under the seat. Before I can buckle the strap, the windows in the SUV shatter, and my ears start to ring.

  “Bomb!” I can barely hear my own shout and swipe at my cheek, finding it sticky with blood. Craning my neck, I scan all around us.

  Fuck. The SUV carrying Pritchard, the Ambassador, and her son lies on its side, smoke pouring from the engine. “Fall back. We’ve got to get them out of there.”

  Nagan kicks the driver’s side door open and drops into a crouch with his Colt M4 at the ready. I sling my own rifle over my shoulder and pull the Sig Sauer p228 from my harness with a grunt.

  Bulletproof vests are heavy and cumbersome, but you spend enough time in a country where half the population wants you dead, you get used to moving in them.

  Pritchard crawls out of the SUV’s front windshield, blood staining his collar, then stretches out his arm. “Ms. Ambassador! Give me your hand.”

  “Austin! Where’s the kid?”

  “In the back!” he shouts.

  With Nagan laying down cover fire, I climb on top of the overturned SUV and pry the back passenger door open. The boy—he can’t be more than fifteen—peers up at me, wide-eyed and clearly in shock. A trickle of blood cuts a bright red swath across his arm. “Hand. Now!”

  He doesn’t move. Shit.

  “Are you injured? Benson, answer me. Right fucking now!”

  That snaps him out of his fog. He loosens his seat belt and, with a wince, reaches his hands up to grasp mine.

  “As soon as you’re clear, you get to your mom’s side and stick there. Like glue, you understand?”

  “Uh huh.” He nods, and I maneuver him onto the side of the car. It only takes him thirty seconds to get to his mother, who’s hiding behind Pritchard as the man fires at a three-story building across from us.

  “Snipers!” he calls, and I take aim.

  “Go! I got this!” A flash of a scope in the bright sunlight focuses my gaze, and I pull the trigger, taking one of the snipers down with a single shot.

  In my periphery, I see the ambassador and her son, surrounded by her personal security detail, rushing down the sidewalk toward a local mosque.

  Nagan and I, along with the other two members of our team, Harrison and Levy, move towards Pritchard, scanning the buildings all around us for more threats.

  I’m the first one cross to Austin’s side of the street, just in time to see a bullet find its mark in his shoulder. But he barely stumbles and shifts his grip on his pistol.

  I turn, searching for the asshole who shot him. Movement to my left. I fire but miss. “Shit!” Something metallic sails in a wide arc from the building above me, landing less than fifty feet away.

  Fuck. Time slows to a crawl as I sprint in the opposite direction, but the blast is so close I can feel it in my chest. Searing pain snakes from ear to ear, and the world goes quiet except for a dull hum.

  Dizzy, I stumble toward Pritchard. He’s backed against a concrete block wall, firing at the snipers across the street, but the wall…something’s wrong. Another pipe bomb sails over the concrete, and I race for Austin, tackling him and driving my shoulder into his stomach.

  He flies back as the third bomb goes off, but I don’t see where. Something knocks me to the ground and drives the air from my lungs.

  I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The sky above me is marred by smoke and dust and when my diaphragm stops spasming and I suck in a breath, the coppery, sweet scent of blood is almost choking.

  Austin’s face swims in and out of focus. His lips are moving. Why can’t I hear him?

  “Pritchard,” I croak. “I can’t feel my arm. Shit. I can’t…there’s something wrong with my ears. It’s so quiet. Fuck. Am I dying? Don’t let me die, man.”

  Tears burn my eyes as Austin, his gray dress shirt soaked in blood, grabs for my left arm. Turning my head takes more effort than it should. I’m so tired.

  A chunk of concrete sails toward my feet, followed by another, and another. They’re bloody. Why are they bloody?

  Darkness creeps closer, and the silence terrifies me. “Tell my mom… Austin? Tell her… I’m sorry.”

  He grabs my shoulders, terror clouding his eyes, and I think he’s shouting at me. I can almost feel it. But I can’t fight any longer.

  The light fades away, and with it, the pain.

  My fingers are clenched so hard, they ache. It’s still quiet, only a dull hum somewhere in the background.

  Forcing my eyes open, I see nothing but muted beige walls.

  Hospital.

  I need to find Pritchard. But when I try to sit up, my left arm sends white hot pain racing all the way up my shoulder. I can’t hear the sound I make, but I’d guess it’s not that different from someone strangling a duck.

  The door flies open, and a man in blue scrubs races in. He rests a hand on my right arm and holds me dow
n until I can breathe again. “You…made your point. Not moving,” I manage.

  Every word I can’t hear raises my panic another dozen notches, but what sends me over the edge? Catching sight of my left arm.

  And the thick bandage wrapped from the top of my bicep to a few inches above where my elbow should be.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  The man hovering over me shimmers as I fight not to lose my shit completely. He picks up a small whiteboard and starts scribbling. I don’t want to read it, but I have to.

  “I’m Dr. Winster. Both your eardrums were perforated.”

  “My arm…”

  I don’t give a shit about my ears. Not when I’m missing half my left arm.

  The doctor erases the board and starts over as I force myself to breathe.

  “Tourniquet above your elbow stopped you from bleeding out, but your arm was crushed, and with no blood flow, we couldn’t save it. I’m sorry.”

  I’m fucked. Completely and utterly fucked.

  “Surgery went well. You’re a good candidate for a prosthetic.”

  At the moment, a prosthetic is the least of my concerns. “I can feel my hand. And it hurts like a motherfucker.”

  “Typical. Phantom pain. The specialist will come see you in a couple of hours. He’ll give you some tricks to try to manage it.”

  “And my hearing? How long?”

  Winster writes slower than a turtle, but at least his handwriting is legible. His eyes darken, and a furrow deepens between his brows. “Not just your eardrums. I’m sorry, Griffin. The hearing loss may be permanent.”

  If I had anything to throw, I’d lob it hard enough to punch a hole in the wall. Winster rests his hand on my right shoulder for a long moment, but I can’t meet his gaze. Don’t want to.

  What the hell am I supposed to do now?

  The haze from the painkillers is pissing me off. All I want to do is sleep, but no one will tell me a damn thing about Pritchard, the rest of our team, or the Ambassador and her kid.

  In the few hours I’ve been awake, I’ve at least pieced together a rough timeline. The attack occurred at 1600. I was in surgery until 0400, and the clock on the wall currently reads 14:30.

  It’s been almost twenty-four hours, and the medical staff is losing their patience with me. At least that’s better than their looks of pity at the guy who used to be a capable CIA operations agent but now, will be lucky to ride a desk for the rest of his life.

  I had a job to do, and I failed. My emotions swing between anger and depression—proving I’m well on my way through the stages of grief. Denial only lasted as long as it took me to very gingerly touch the bandaged stump of my left arm. And bargaining? No amount of that is going to regrow the limb.

  With nothing else to do, I’ve been trying to write down every detail of the attack. The CIA and JSOC will want to debrief me soon, and I need to unscramble my thoughts before they do. I’d stop fighting to stay awake, but the nurse comes in on the half hour to check my vitals. If he won’t answer my questions this time, I have what I hope is a very effective threat all queued up and ready to go.

  Who am I kidding? Hours ago, when they got me vertical so I could take a piss, my equilibrium was so shot to hell I only managed two steps before crashing into the tech helping me. I can’t fight a mouse in my current condition.

  The light shifts as the door opens, and I drop the pen onto the notebook in my lap.

  Oh, fuck.

  The man being pushed toward me in a wheelchair looks nothing like Major General Austin Pritchard. He’s aged a decade in under a day. Then again, no one’s let me anywhere near a mirror. For all I know, I look worse.

  “Pritchard.”

  His right arm is held tight to his body in a sling, and he struggles to sit up straight as he meets my gaze. The pity in his eyes is like a knife to my chest, and neither of us says a word until he nods at the aide behind him, and the man leaves us alone.

  “Assuming they told you I can’t hear shit?”

  He pulls a cell phone from the pocket of the thin hospital robe, taps the screen a couple of times, and then turns it towards me as he angles his head towards his right shoulder.

  Speech-to-text is shit, but best I can do. Shot three times. Threatened to crawl in here if nurse didn’t help.

  I huff out what might be a laugh. “You would have done it, too.”

  Damn straight.

  What the hell do you say to the man whose life you just saved? Who probably feels like he’s the reason you only have half your arm?

  “I’d do it again. Even knowing what would happen. That’s the job.”

  From the way his chest stutters with each breath and his eyes water, that was exactly the wrong response, even if it was the truth.

  “They won’t tell me anything. Did the ambassador make it out?” Distraction. Ignore the big issues. Like not being able to hear. That’ll work, right?

  Austin nods, then starts speaking into his phone. After a minute, he shows me the screen again.

  She and her son are fine. But Nagan, Harrison, and Levy didn’t make it. We killed three of them, but two of the duckers got away.

  “Who sold us out?” I try to sit up straighter, but the room tilts on its axis, and I collapse with a groan.

  Austin scoots forward in the wheelchair, pain tightening lines around his eyes as he touches my shoulder. “Take it easy.”

  At least that’s what I think he says. My lip-reading skills were never more than passable. Someone needs to get me a tablet so I can practice. Finally, a use for YouTube.

  “Easy? Since when is sitting up not ‘taking it easy’? I can’t even get myself out of this fucking bed.”

  Austin closes his eyes and presses his lips together. His right cheek is black and blue, and bandages peek out from under the hospital gown at his shoulder. Retrieving his phone, he returns to dictating.

  JSOC is sending a special investigations team. Working theory is someone in the ambassador’s office, but hell if I know. Or care. I’m out. Retirement paperwork pushed through. Not my choice.

  He pauses for a long moment, tugging at the neck of his hospital gown. A hint of red seeps through his bandages.

  “Austin, for fuck’s sake. You saved her life.”

  This man who spent his entire career in the armed forces, who worked his way up through the ranks of the Air Force, who has been, by all reports, one of the best commanders JSOC has ever seen, was just fired?

  I failed. Everyone. Especially you.

  Looking over his shoulder at the door, he says something—I think. My hearing isn’t completely gone. The occasional low-pitched rumble breaks through the silence, and Austin’s voice is deep. The guy who wheeled him in returns, and before I can think of anything to say in response, he’s gone.

  Six Months Later

  “Again.”

  JoAnn, the rehab tech, sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. The coffee cup lies on its side. Thank God she didn’t fill it with anything.

  “This is useless,” I mutter, glaring at the silicone and metal fingers of my prosthetic.

  With a massive eye roll, JoAnn reaches out and pokes the thumb with her pen. The sensation is fucking weird.

  Pritchard, the bastard, disappeared not long after they transferred me to a hospital in McClean, Virginia, saying he had to “find himself.” But he called in a bunch of favors, and after a twelve-hour surgery to rewire the nerves in my upper arm, I have weekly appointments at Johns Hopkins for follow ups and to learn how to use one of the most advanced prosthetics in the world.

  The average guy doesn’t have a chance in hell at a limb like this one. But Austin’s connected. Big time. So are his friends, apparently.

  The surgery was a game changer. My phantom pain all but disappeared, and like some kind of fucking miracle, after a month, the doc could touch a spot on the inside of my upper arm and I’d feel it in my non-existent index finger.

  “Less than fifty people in the country have the oppor
tunity you have, Griffin. Don’t take it for granted!” From her expression, she’s pretty steamed. My lip-reading skills are impressive after six months of practice, but she reinforces her words by writing them down. Along with five exclamation points.

  “Don’t you think I’m trying? But what’s the point? Nothing’s going to get me out in the field again.”

  “You want…your problem?”

  She’s agitated now, and that makes it harder for me to understand her. “Slow down a little, okay?”

  Her eyes soften, and she takes a deep breath. “Sorry. Your problem is that your whole identity is tied to your job. You’re more than that. It’s time you accepted it.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.” Pushing back from the table, I stand and reach for the coffee cup. Anger helps me focus, and the mechanical fingers wrap around the handle. It wobbles a little in my grip, but I manage to set it to rights and release it. “Happy now?”

  I don’t wait around to see her response. One advantage of being “profoundly hard of hearing”? I don’t have to listen to anyone’s bullshit. And once I get home, I can unstrap this monstrosity and send Austin yet another email he won’t answer.

  Chapter Two

  Griff

  The woman behind the desk flicks her gaze to me briefly, a phone pressed to her ear. Covering the receiver with her hand, she says something, but I can’t see her lips clearly.

  Great. This is going swimmingly.

  “I read lips, ma’am. If you were talking to me, I couldn’t understand you.”

  Cheeks flushed, the woman says something else into the phone, then sets the receiver down and meets my gaze. “I’m so sorry. You must be Griffin Hargrove. Dax is expecting you. Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “No. Thanks.” I have no fucking clue what I’m doing here. Austin’s ignored every single one of my emails over the past seven months, yet he gave my contact info to this guy—Dax Holloway—in Boston and told him to get in touch with me.