Page 37 of Master Heimdall

“Out sick, sir,” came her prompt reply not seeming at all put out by the anger in my tone. Only Yula could be relied on to handle the types of calls that involved me losing my shit. “I want an extraction team of two at Grandview in fifteen minutes. Get a hold of Lincoln and make sure he gets this done now!”

“Is something wrong, sir? Is R-, er, Ms. Dodds in some sort of trouble?”

Damn, was everyone in the know but me? “Yes, both her and Brody, now get it done,” I roared unnecessarily.

“Yes, sir.”

She disconnected the call, and I swore, beating the steering wheel with one fist. Never had I felt so ineffectual as I did in that moment. Fear and anger warred for dominance inside me. If something happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. What if these guys took her and tortured her? I fought to keep the bile down. There was no time to throw up.

“I take it there is some bad news?”

“My team of two is being followed from the airport and Rose is the driver, damn it!”

“I thought she was your logistics manager.”

“She is, but everyone is sick, so I guess she made the executive decision to replace the sick driver with herself. Damn that woman! She could get herself killed.”

Jared didn’t respond. A smart move on his part. But I could feel his smirk from here and almost heard his thoughts saying I told you so.

I didn’t like putting such a heavy burden on Yula to ensure there was an extraction team on hand, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and it was a harsh reminder that the person who would normally handle the task was in a car being chased by bad guys with only Brody to protect her.

We’d served together and he was one of my best in the field. I was grateful she’d put him on the mission and he could be counted on to remain cool and get her and the ambassador to safety.

When we arrived at Grandview before them, I tapped on my app to see where Rose was. She was close and moving fast. Moments later, one of the company vehicles came screeching around the corner and came to a sudden stop. Thank god they’d made it. I took my first real breath since receiving Brody’s call.

He was out the door and hustling our client through the door to the safehouse, I nodded to him then turned my attention back to Rose, who glared at me from behind the windshield, but her glare didn’t fool me. She was also terrified and trying to fight the war inside the same as I was.

She took a few breaths before unbuckling her seat belt and getting out of the car. Her attempt to march over and give me a piece of her mind was ruined when her legs gave out.

“Is chivalry dead?” Jared asked under his breath.

“It is right now.” I ground my molars, the only sign of how I was feeling. The truth was, I wanted to race over and scoop her into my arms and tell her everything would be okay.

But what she’d done… this was exactly the reason why I was overprotective, because of all the things that could go wrong. I’d gotten rich from poking holes in security systems that failed, although that knowledge was small comfort to me right now.

She was angry and upset and a whole host of other emotions but I wasn’t going to give in and give her comfort until she’d realized the error of her ways and by the looks of it, we weren't even close to that place, yet.

She gained control of her muscles and seemed to tuck away her fear. Marching over to me and Jared, with her long ponytail swinging, and wearing her flats, she looked like a teenager.

“What the fuck, Rose? What the hell were you thinking adding yourself in on a mission, especially one rated high risk? You could have died from your foolish decision! If you want to be one of the guys, then you’ll take your punishment like one!”

I was yelling, and my body shaking with barely contained anger as she stood before me, glaring up at me like I didn’t have the right to be upset.

She was close enough to poke me and she did. “Listen, bosssss.” She lengthened and practically hissed the word boss and screwed up her face like she’d eaten something distasteful. “You don’t get to punish me. This was work, not private time, not dungeon time, work! And you wanted no one to know, in fact”–she looked at Jared—“I don’t remember your name right now, but shouldn’t you be using code, so he and the rest of your friends don’t get the wrong idea about us?” she said with a sneer.

“Sorry, scratch that, there is nothing for him to know as we aren’t anything. You made it perfectly clear that I was just an itch to scratch and with that done, you can go about your merry way and play until the day you die for all I care!”

She was shaking hard and I wondered if she was going into shock from her ordeal, but she wasn’t done railing at me, and I decided to let her finish her tirade before tossing her over my shoulder and taking her to the hospital to get checked out.

“You fucked off, remember? And left me hanging metaphorically and literally. If you don’t like me doing what it takes to keep G&H running in your absence, then you should try answering your damn phone!”

She reminded me of a spitting cat at the moment, hissing at me like she wanted to scratch my eyes out. She was right, about everything she accused me of, but it still didn’t justify her putting herself in danger.

“Don’t you dare try and justify your actions. If I can’t trust you to follow the rules when we are keeping things separate, how much more complicated would things be if we mixed the two?”

I could feel Jared’s energy beside me, and I knew he was telling me to stop the wrecking ball, but I was too far gone to share what I really wanted with her. Unshed tears threatened to spill down her flushed cheeks. She was upset, and I was handling this badly.

“Well, if you can’t trust me to be anything but a dirty secret, then I guess we’re over.” Rose turned away and hopped into the car and peeled down the alley, and out of sight around the corner. I got a sinking feeling in my gut that things would only get worse before they got better.

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