The Ex Assignment (Rogue Protectors Book 1) Read online

  “Your city, huh?” he couldn’t help the teasing that crept into his words. Years melted away, and in between anger, bitterness, and pain, the natural way they clicked was still there.

  She must have felt it too because she quickly released him. He turned to look at her, catching her wiping her fingers at the back of her gray pants.

  The way she dressed was new. Her whole demeanor was so alien to him, he had to recalibrate every way he would deal with this version of his ex-wife. But his top priority was getting to the bottom of the mystery with Theo.

  And judging from her reaction, she didn’t have the answers either.

  “If you’re backup for my brother’s security, there’s something you should know.” She switched to all business and he let it go for now. He needed to regain his bearings after seeing Theo and coming face-to-face with her, so he forced himself to focus as Gabby told him the gist of her father’s will.

  Before he could comment on it though, Theo’s voice rang out through the clearing. “Hey, sis, what are you doing over there? That man is crazy.”

  They both looked in Theo’s direction as the teen approached them. He had a swagger Declan never had at his age.

  “He’s got a mouth on him,” he observed.

  “Tell me about it,” she grumbled as she started toward Theo and he walked alongside her.

  “From his reaction, I gather he still thinks Peter Woodward is his father?”

  “Yes. It’s up to you how you want to break it to him. I want no part of it.”

  Declan stopped walking. Surprised how those words cut into him and his shields slammed up. He needed to be an observer first. He watched Gabby greet her brother, sensing no warmth coming from her, and Theo had the rascal attitude going. What the hell was going on?

  The pain of a thousand daggers pierced through the center of her chest as she turned away from Declan and turned to face her brother—who she knew now, without a doubt, had never been her brother. He was the lovechild of her ex-husband and Claudette.

  “What did he say to you?” Theo demanded. “Was he a dick to you?”

  A choked laugh escaped her lips. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Declan’s son, but never hers. Oh, god.

  “You look like you’re about to throw up or spit nails,” he observed. “And why can’t you look at me unless you’re lying…”

  Because it hurts to look at you.

  For a second, his words receded in a vacuum. All these years since Theo hit puberty, Gabby thought she’d imagined seeing a replica of her ex. She avoided dwelling on it because she refused to let the past haunt her anymore. The years had blurred Declan’s features in her mind and it was easy to make up her own reality. Her relationship with Theo depended on it, but now with Declan’s return, the ugly truth just smacked her in the face.

  “Still not looking at me,” her brother growled. “Should I kick him in the ass?”

  Her brother. She needed to think of Theo as her brother. This was the only way she could survive this farcical drama.

  She raised her gaze to meet his. “If there’s any ass-kicking to do, that’ll be my job.”

  “Huh.” Theo shifted in his stance and puffed out his chest. “I’m almost a foot taller than you.”

  “You exaggerate. And I can kick your ass as well.”

  The teenager’s eyes broke away from her and narrowed over her shoulder. Feeling Declan’s scrutiny burning down her back, she gathered the pieces of herself that lay scattered at her feet and turned to him, proud of the woman she’d become in his absence.

  “Theo’s riding with me,” Gabby informed them. “I know you’re his security, but I figured you guys want to touch base privately?”

  Declan shrugged, but Levi nodded.

  “We’ll follow your car,” his partner answered.

  Gabby’s attention returned to Theo, and her breath hitched. The teen was slightly pale beneath his tan and with his gaze boring into Declan, she had a feeling a big secret was about to be blown wide open.

  “Theo? You ready?”

  The younger man’s gaze wavered, jaw tightening as he gave a brief nod, before he walked ahead of them toward her car.

  Her sedan was rolling down Stone Canyon Road, Levi’s Escalade following behind her, and had just passed the Hotel Bel-Air when Theo spoke his first words since leaving Revenant Ranch.

  “What’s up with the new guy?”

  His question snapped her out of her rough trip down memory lane. A trip she wasn’t prepared to take. And she fumed at the nostalgia her thoughts evoked. Because wasn’t nostalgia a person’s unwillingness to let go of the past? How dare Declan show up here in Los Angeles and send her world in a tailspin.

  Switching to the logic of her cop’s brain, she evaluated the events that led up to her ex-husband showing up. The timing wasn’t a coincidence. It was as if chess pieces were being moved into place. Peter’s suspicious death. Claudette was in town. Now Declan showing up? Not to mention the odd warning in the will.

  “I knew him from way back.”

  “He’s … not ugly. Was he from your acting days?”

  “You can say that.”

  “What? Was he bad at it?”

  “Oh, he’s good.” So good that he fooled her into believing love conquered all.

  “Then what?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Though Gabby hadn’t spent enough time with Theo to know his every quirk, it didn’t take long to figure out that he could be persistently annoying.

  “He realized he preferred to serve his country.”

  Theo fell silent. Gabby glanced at him and realized his face was contorting from the effort to maintain a straight face.

  He exploded laughing. “That’s so cheesy.”

  “What’s cheesy about wanting to serve your country?”

  “It’s the way you made it sound. Can’t you just say he wanted to join the Army? He’s Army, right? Levi said so.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the way I said it.”

  “Be all you can be, huh?”

  Gabby bit her tongue. It wasn’t her place to teach patriotism to this kid. Declan would do it soon enough, if he chose to be a dad.

  A dad. At least one of them got their dream, even if it was seventeen years late. They’d talked about having a family right before they eloped to Vegas. Yes, they’d been that cliché. They’d been so in love. She’d just turned eighteen, ready to defy her dad and commit career suicide. Declan was barely a man, a boy of nineteen, and yet he carried a responsibility no one his age should have borne. The odds were stacked against them and they’d been too arrogant to think that they had enough love between them to survive.

  But life turned on a dime, didn’t it? And when it turned, there was a fifty percent chance you’d lose.

  And Gabby lost it all.

  She tried to shake off the shiver that went through her, annoyed how the past easily returned to haunt her. She lost the baby because of a brutal mugging.

  Did Declan think she staged the mugging, too?

  It was one of the darkest days of her existence, and yet the only thing she could remember was the agony of a life being ripped away from her.

  Somehow the reminder of that crime prickled her consciousness and she checked the rearview mirror just in time to see a motorcycle run parallel with Levi's Escalade before overtaking it. Alertness pushed the past out of her mind, and defensive instincts kicked into high gear. She glanced over at Theo to make sure he was buckled in.

  “What?” her brother quirked a brow.

  A screeching sound screamed behind them, just as a blur of black shot past her.

  “Watch out!” Theo screamed.

  Gunfire sprayed their vehicle and their tires blew.

  “Hang on!” Gabby yelled.

  Her car fishtailed and swerved as she tried to regain control. Wheels grated against concrete, and she gritted her teeth. She almost had it under
control when a van barreled out of nowhere and rammed the front of their vehicle. Her world spun and flashed into frames of muddled color.

  They smashed into something unyielding. Excruciating pain slammed into her and a line of fire burned across her shoulder and chest before her breath was stolen.

  Gabby struggled to stay conscious. “Theo, are you all right?” A groan sounded beside her, but her attention refocused on the masked men who got out of the van.

  Her fingers frantically searched for her Glock, closing over its grip, but her vision dimmed.

  Before the darkness swallowed her, she heard fireworks.

  4

  “Get that needle away from me, Bristow.”

  He watched the ginger-haired nurse attend to Gabby who was turning out to be a grumpy patient. As for Declan, he was only now recovering from the adrenaline high and terror that seized him when he witnessed the attack on her and Theo.

  Thank fucking Christ, Levi managed some Fast and Furious maneuvers to get around the garbage truck that tried to stop them from following Gabby’s car. This enabled them to head off the masked assailants who attacked her vehicle. Declan flexed his jaw, but kept his arms folded across his chest to keep from touching his ex-wife and checking for himself that she was indeed all right.

  “Tsk. Tsk. Always trying to be tough, our Detective Hottie.” Bristow didn’t look like he belonged to the Bellevue emergency room. But with sleeve tattoos and longish red hair held back by a leather tie, he reminded him more of a cage fighter than a nurse.

  “I take it she’s a regular visitor,” Declan asked.

  “Oh, we reserve emergency room five for her every Friday,” Bristow continued, still holding up a needle. “We were worried we’d have to look for her in the morgue—”

  “Jesus,” Declan muttered. Not something he needed to hear.

  “You have to get used to their morbid humor.” Gabby glared at the nurse. “I’m serious, Bristow. No shots. I hate how they make me feel after. Throw some pills at me.”

  Bristow lowered the needle. “Fine. I’ll get the doc to write you a script. No running around chasing bad guys, lady. The only thing you’re gonna be doing is finding out if that dagger is gonna kill the Qadonac monster and stop the virus from spreading.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Gabby demanded.

  What she said, Declan thought.

  The nurse rolled his eyes. “Don’t you watch your brother’s show?”

  “Do I look like I have the time?”

  The other man grinned at Declan. “Well, Detective Hottie, looks like you’ll have plenty of time now.”

  “Bite me.”

  “Is she always this testy?” Declan asked.

  “Yup. Always. With her weekly visits, I’m used to her orneriness. I’m the only nurse who can tolerate her.”

  “Guys. I’m right here,” Gabby huffed indignantly. “And just for the record. I’m not here every week and the nurses love me.”

  Bristow grinned and slid back on the stool and stood. “Hang tight, Detective. I’ll get the doc.”

  “I’m outta here,” Gabby grumbled after the nurse closed the door. She swung her legs off the bed, but Declan blocked her.

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Get out of the way, Dec.”

  For the first time since they’d seen each other again, it was just the two of them in an enclosed area. Awareness thickened the air between them. Dragging oxygen into his lungs seemed to be his issue today. Maybe he needed a doctor to look at him too.

  Gabby was finding the floor interesting, so he was staring at the top of her head. He braced both his hands on either side of her hips and—he’d probably call himself all kinds of stupid later—pinned her body to the bed. Her frame stiffened against him and when she tipped up her chin to look at him, he found himself sucked into the depths of her thick-lashed brown eyes. The oddest compulsion to kiss her seized him.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Fuck if I know,” he muttered. “You need to be cleared by the doctor.”

  He lost her eyes when she stared at his shoulder, her throat bobbing. “Any news on Theo?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Why aren’t you with him?”

  His jaw clenched. “Because, I don’t know how, Gabby. He’s better off with who he’s familiar with right now … who he trusts, and that person is Levi.”

  He shouldn’t feel a stab of pain in his chest. He barely knew the kid and he didn’t quite know what to do with Gabby, and yet his instincts were screaming at him to keep her safe. Fuck if that didn’t make him an idiot, but the attack had shaken him. And he wasn’t easily shaken. The only way to restore his balance would be to take control of the situation.

  “This is what’s gonna happen,” he told her. “You’re—”

  “Oh, hell no!” She shoved him with the palm of her hands, but he didn’t budge. Her face flinched in pain.

  He stepped back and caught her biceps. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Getting away from you,” she snarled.

  “What’s going on here?” A voice spoke from the doorway.

  They both turned to the newcomers.

  One was an older man in a cop’s uniform. The other man was wearing a suit.

  He released Gabby and introduced himself. “Declan Roarke. I work with Levi James, Theo Cole’s security.”

  “Frank Mitchell,” the black guy said, shaking Declan’s outstretched hand. “I’m Gabby’s boss.” He nodded to the dark-haired man beside him. “Kelso here is Gabby’s partner. We have you and Mr. James to thank for chasing off their attackers. Doesn’t explain why you have your hands on my detective,” Mitchell said in a no-nonsense tone. “I can book you right now for assaulting a police officer.”

  “Are you all right, Gabby?” Kelso shot him a glare before moving to her side. “Heard from Bristow you’ve rattled your noggin’ real good.”

  “I’ve got a hard head.”

  “That you do.” Kelso grinned faintly. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks. Always so flattering there, pal.”

  “That’s why you love me.” Gabby’s partner shot Declan a look, one that was staking a claim. A familiar possessiveness locked Declan’s muscles, and he had to remind himself that things were different between him and Gabby now. He had no right to feel jealous.

  But fuck that, was she dating her partner?

  “Knock it off you two,” Mitchell said, eyeballing Declan. “Well?”

  “She wanted to leave and I stopped her. Nurse told her to wait.”

  “There are one too many people in this room,” a new voice joined the conversation.

  When Mitchell moved from the doorway, a man in a white coat and with a stethoscope around his neck strode into the room. By the way he greeted them, the doctor clearly knew Mitchell, Kelso, and Gabby

  After introducing himself to Declan, the doctor said, “I’ll have to ask one of you to leave and it’ll have to be you.”

  Declan clenched his fists. He could stand here and argue, but the sooner Gabby got examined by a doctor, the better. “I’ll wait outside.”

  “Can you check on Theo?” Gabby asked after him.

  That he could do. He nodded and left the room.

  Declan headed to emergency room two to see Theo but paused when he saw Levi talking to a man he recognized as Nick Carter, Peter’s right-hand man, and from the dossier—Theo’s manager. He was also the man who played a huge role in breaking up his marriage. Now all they needed was Claudette to show up to complete this fucking circus. Anger boiled close to the surface and an image of Congressman Tomlin with a bloody nose flashed through his head, but instead of Tomlin, it was Carter on that floor bleeding.

  He couldn’t afford to lose his shit now when he had so many questions. And getting locked up in jail wouldn’t get him any answers.

  Like how the fuck did Theo become Peter and Claudette’s son … unless.

  No. It was
impossible. Peter wouldn’t be that cruel and Gabby wouldn’t have been complicit. There was no trace of a mother’s love in her eyes when she regarded Theo. Their interactions hinted more like he was a thorn in her side, and for some reason that made Declan want to lock them all up in a room and have it out.

  A sound of a closing door clicked down the hallway and he locked eyes with the doctor who had told him to leave. Declan waited for the man to reach him.

  “She’s been ordered to take it easy for a week.”

  “I’ll make sure she does.”

  “You think you’ll succeed where Captain Mitchell didn’t?”

  Declan’s mouth thinned.

  “I know a spec ops guy when I see one,” the other man said. “I was an army medic with the Joint Special operations … oh, a decade ago.”

  At this, his brow raised.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, but that girl has been through a lot. She needs someone to look after her, even stand up to her and tell her not to kill herself doing this job.” His eyes peered into his. “There’s more story between you two. Tension was thick.” He huffed a laugh. “Give it a week, okay?”

  “A week?”

  “Before you have sex.”

  “Jesus. You always this crass with your patients, Doc?”

  “I’m a physician. Sex is a clinical act to me.” He paused. “When talking to my patients.”

  “Noted,” he muttered.

  “One more thing. I told the captain and Kelso, but someone needs to stay with her tonight.”

  “Wake her up every hour?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “She’s got me.”

  “That’s what I thought.” The doctor gave him a brief smile before walking away.

  Gabby’s door opened again. This time it was Gabby’s partner who emerged. He and Declan exchanged a look across the hallway. He didn’t care who she fucked now but he winced at the thought. He tried another track in his brain … that his concern for her was related to Theo. That was all there was to it.

  But his gut called him a liar and he’d gone and gotten pissed at himself all over again.

  “Kelso sees he’s got competition.” Bristow appeared by his side, and both of them started for Gabby’s room.