Page 12 of Soldier, Tailor, Spy

She went quiet when he growled. Literally growled at her. “What the fuck, Ginger?” He exploded. His booming voice caused her ears to ache. “Do you know what that piece of shit said to his killer?”

“Don’t use your tough guy tone on me, Jake O’Malley!” Anger surged through her again. She was so damn mad at Oscar. Then the prick died, and she couldn’t expel the anger she was feeling toward him at anyone. Instead, she’d had to keep it bottled up while the pressure continued to build. At some point, she was going to explode, like a shaken bottle of soda when you finally opened it. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Jake the truth. She knew exactly what Oscar said, but giving voice to his words made for a graver situation. He tried to sell them. All of them. “No, I don’t know. I was too busy trying to shield my kids from the assholes who were pointing guns at us.” The lie was bitter rolling off her tongue.

He snarled, then raised his arm and punched the metal above her head. She wasn’t scared of him. Never had been. He had a temper, and he often shot off his mouth without thinking, but he’d rarely yelled at her, and he’d never laid a hand on her in anger. And she knew he’d never hurt her or her children. “Mother fucker. If he wasn’t already dead—”

She laughed. “Trust me, you’d have to get in line.”

“Bull fucking shit, Ginger. I’d be first in line,” he hissed through his clenched teeth.Dramatic much? “Seems like we’re going to be having an in-depth conversation about this later.”

She huffed and gave his wide chest a hearty shove to move him back. “I haven’t been hiding anything from you, Jake O’Malley. You were unconscious for four days, and I’ve been dealing with all the shit Oscar brought to my door. This is the first we’ve seen each other since the night it happened.”

“Still arguing, I see. Shit never changes between the two of you, does it?” Asher remarked from the open doors.

In the past, their arguing was foreplay. Wind Jake up, and he could go for hours and she wasn’t talking about the arguing. Jesus, she was fucked in the head. Her husband was dead less than four days, and she was already thinking of her ex-husband and how he was in bed. Guilt again flowed through her. Just another reason to be pissed off at Oscar and the situation he’d put her in.Bastard.

“Not now, Asher.” Jake clearly didn’t care who saw them hashing out their dirty laundry. Ginger wasn’t having any of it, and while he was distracted with Asher, she slipped past him and hurried down the long corridor, not sure where she was going.

No surprise, he called out in warning, “We’re not done, Ginger.”

Feeling sassy, she retorted, “We were done about seven years ago, Jake.”

He was such a moody asshole. She didn’t have time to deal with him right now. Or, at least, when he was like this. When he calmed his ass down, maybe she’d confide in him. A quick look back at him, and she could see the muscle in his jaw tick and the vein in his forehead throb. She should feel sorry for him. No doubt his blood pressure was through the roof. Add in everything his body had gone through... She should take pity on him and attempt to calm him down.

Asher had Jake by the forearm and was saying something to her ex. Even straining, Ginger couldn’t make out a word of it. Whatever Asher said, though, seemed to work. Jake’s face relaxed, but his massive body took a little longer.

“Yeah,” Jake said, while those amber eyes of his watched her intently.

Asher stepped away from Jake and strode over to where she stood, trying to figure out where to go next. “I brought you up here, against my better judgment, so you could see to the asshole we have stewing in integration.” Asher’s expression was stern. “If you two can’t be civil to each other, I’ll send you back to your assigned apartments.”

“I neither work nor report to you, Commander Rainer,” she said tartly, refusing to bow down to either of the men standing in front of her.

Asher snorted, then lowered his voice. “That may be true, but as long as you’re a guest on my base, you’ll do what I say when I say it. Am I clear?”

Ugh… Why was every member of R.O.O.T. a schmuck? Why did they think they could get away with threatening people? She was positive it was a requirement. What sucked more, she was stuck there thanks to the danger Oscar brought to her door.

She wasn’t like those too stupid to live heroines she enjoyed reading about in her romance books. She would not demand to leave Asher’s protection, putting her family’s life at risk, but damn it, she also wasn’t his subordinate, nor was she his employee. “I’m sick and tired of all this cloak and dagger bullshit.”

Asher shrugged. “This cloak and dagger bullshit is saving you and your kids’ asses, Ginger.”

He had a point. Not that she’d tell him that.

“Now, if you’re done riding my ass for something neither one of us can control, can we get on with the issue at hand? I’ve got more than one op going on, that requires my attention.” Asher turned to the person sitting at the desk, who was quietly typing away on his keyboard, attempting to ignore the surrounding chaos. “Open it up.”

One minute the large window was black, and the next it was clear, and bright light from the room filled the area where they stood.

A body… a man, lay on the bed. Arms over his head, and if they’d been anywhere else, Ginger would think he was relaxed. He looked to be sleeping, but that could be an illusion, too. A bandage covered his right upper arm. Blood had seeped through and he was sporting a couple of butterfly stitches across his forehead.

He also looked vaguely familiar.

“Wake his ass up,” Jake ordered.

The door to the cell was flung open. Two burly men dressed in BDUs filled the room. They went over to the bed and forcefully got the man from the bed, while another guy brought in a metal chair. He got to work clipping the chair to restraints on the floor, facing the large window.

Ginger gulped, not too sure if she was prepared for what was about to go down.

The two guys dropped the man in the chair and strapped him in. He wasn’t going anywhere. She kept her gaze locked on the prisoner, flipping through her memories, trying to place him.

Just as quickly as the men appeared in the room, they moved out, closing the heavy door behind them as the electronic lock engaged. Ginger expected a dark room. The bright light shining on the guy, along with instruments of torture spread out on a cart beside him to be used to get the man to speak, seemed very civilized.

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