Page 3 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

“I don’t give a fuck how much it costs. Just get it done.”

She nodded and walked away, leaving me with New Guy, who was still watching over Eva. “I think she’ll be fine. Although, her arm looks a little fucked up.”

“It’s been dislocated…several times.”

He glanced up at me sharply, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Not by me.”

He stood, walking over to me like he wanted to beat my ass. “Then how the fuck did she get injured like that?”

“Previous altercation with some not very good men.” I actually hadn’t been told that part of the story yet, but I assumed it was either when she got away from the drug operation, or sometime when she was on the run.

“Then why don’t you read me in? I think I have a right to know if I’m part of this.”

“Not even the rest of my team knows anything about this, and it’s going to stay that way until she tells me otherwise. Are we clear on that?”

He gritted his teeth, obviously not happy with me, but that was just the way shit went down with me. He could accept it or walk.

“What’s your name again?”

“Why?” he asked sarcastically. “Not liking New Guy?”

“It has a nice ring to it. Normally, I let New Guy stick around until I’m sure about how he’ll fit in.”

He glanced up from where he was kneeling again beside Eva. “And you think I will now?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the pain in the ass woman on the phone. “Rae seems to like you.”

He snorted. “She yelled at me the whole time. Told me if I didn’t know my ass from her tit, then we couldn’t work together.”

“What were you doing?”

“Driving the fucking vehicle,” he said, as if that was obvious.

“And you screwed that up?”

“The only thing I did was take a faster route. Had I gone the way she wanted, you’d be burning up in the middle of the field right now.”

Even with Eva lying on the ground and my head pounding, I could laugh at that. “She’s pissed you were right, but she’ll come around. She’ll respect you more because of it than if you had just listened and it had all gone wrong.”

In the distance, I saw two vehicles flying down the road to us. I almost reached for my gun, but something stopped me. And as they pulled closer, I knew why.

“Stay here with her. I have to go take care of something.”

“New Guy,” he responded.

I glanced back at him and nodded. “New Guy.”

I turned and ran for the vehicles that stopped further down the road. With my head still pounding, the last thing I needed was to be dealing with this shit, but I didn’t have much of a choice. As I got closer, Rafe stepped out, watching over my shoulder. “Looks like you found trouble.”

I stared at him, pissed that a man I knew so well could be so damn unconcerned about the situation we found ourselves in. “I could have used the help earlier.”

His eyes roamed over my face, taking in the blood and the head wound I knew I was sporting. “You’ll survive. Any wounded?”

“Just one. We’re waiting on medevac.”

“Look, this might not be the best time, but I need you to come with me.”

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