The Ex Assignment (Rogue Protectors Book 1)

by Victoria Paige

  He was a quick draw—surprising her—reaching for his pistol and pointing it at her as he shoved Ortega’s sister behind him.

  Gabby had raised her gun at the same time he did. “Police! Let her go. Drop your weapon.”

  “Don’t come any closer,” he snarled as he backed away with Ariana.

  “Ariana,” Gabby said. “We just want to ask you questions. Tell your pit bull to stand down.”

  “You want to arrest my brother.”

  “You know what he did was wrong.”

  “He’s very sick.”

  “We know. And we’ll make sure he gets his treatments, but he must be taken off the streets.”

  She was shaking her head. “He’s not going to die in prison. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Ariana, the cartel is out there, my unit is holding them back.”

  The blare of the sirens echoed in the distance. “Hear that? You’re safe.” She inched closer. Slowly. She had instincts about the jumpiness of a person with a gun and Biker Man was as cool as ice.

  She swallowed. He could shoot her and not blink an eye.

  As for Ariana, she seemed to be relenting. This was a woman who went against her brother’s criminal lifestyle, but blood was blood. She thought she could save him.

  Gabby took another step forward. “I won’t repeat myself. Drop your weapon. We can work this out.”

  The biker’s eyes darkened, and his expression took on a look Gabby couldn’t decipher. When he stared past her shoulders and smirked, her blood ran cold.

  “Gabby!”

  Two shots rang out. She instinctively dropped to a knee, finger still on the trigger, gun pointed down. She must have blinked because Ariana and Biker Man disappeared and Declan was pulling her into his arms, his fingers securely clasping her wrist—the hand that held her weapon.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she yelled.

  He flinched. She must have screamed but she didn’t care. She surged to her feet, shoving away from him. Her head pounded with a thousand jackhammers. “I could have shot you!”

  “But you didn’t.” His face was calm, which infuriated her more.

  She gestured furiously to where Ariana and the biker had stood. “You let them get away.”

  “Gabby, where the fuck are you?” Kelso’s voice crackled through comms. “We’re about to go in.”

  At that moment, Delgado jogged up to them. “Let’s go, Woodward.” He looked at Declan. “Thanks, detective.”

  Detective? What. The. Fuck.

  Declan shot her a warning look, and it was then that she spotted the badge clipped to his belt. “Come on, your squad needs back-up.”

  The three of them converged with Kelso, Mitchell, and Chen at the corner of a Mediterranean-style villa surrounded by galvanized steel fencing. Black mold stained the exterior walls and the overgrowth of shrubs and leggy flower bushes indicated the landscaping hadn’t seen maintenance in a while. Crab grass had overtaken the front lawn. Some suits from Bravo unit showed up while two Valley PD cruisers blocked the street, and their patrol officers started securing the area. Judging from Kelso’s scowl, there was a new development.

  “What’s going on?” Gabby asked.

  “SWAT’s taking over,” Mitchell announced. He narrowed his eyes briefly at Declan before addressing the rest of Charlie and Bravo team. “They’ll be in charge of initial assault. We’ll do clean up. Make sure to tag every item, disk, or document we could use as evidence to nail his ass.”

  “Is our warrant solid?” Gabby asked the Cap.

  Mitchell nodded. “Standing arrest warrant from a month ago holds. I’m going to direct the patrol officers and set up a command post.” His gaze landed on Kelso. “This is not reflective on our division. We follow protocol so the sixth floor won’t have our asses when the op goes pear-shaped. Got it?”

  Ortega’s men didn’t put up much of a fight when SWAT swooped in. There was a brief exchange of automatic weapons, but the whole takedown was over in ten minutes.

  One would say it was anticlimactic, but the shock was seeing the elusive crime lord in a fragile state. Ortega wasn’t a tall man, probably five-ten. Gabby could picture the man he once was. Expensive silk pajamas hung loosely on a body ravaged by cancer. As the officers helped him up and cuffed him, he maintained an arrogant posture and exchanged a defiant look with Mitchell—his mouth firmly pressed in a straight line. State of the art medical equipment surrounded a hospital bed and a stash of vials and syringes lay on a hospital caddy.

  “Gabby,” Nadia called her over to a room. She walked into a space full of boxes, but her eyes landed on a familiar laptop. It was scuffed, but she recognized the stickers on it from the different Revenant productions of the past two years including Hodgetown.

  “That could be Peter’s,” she whispered. “Why is it here?”

  “I’m going to dust it for latents,” Nadia said. “Then I’m gonna take it back to the lab and try to get into it.” She heard the other woman vaguely, but she was already looking around. There was a box that contained a bunch of memory sticks and backup drives.

  “Oh my God,” she choked, her mind trying to absorb this new information, misfiring like faulty wiring that couldn’t quite make the connection. It gave her an almighty pounding headache.

  “Gabby!” Nadia gasped.

  She had sagged into a column of boxes and would have fallen if the analyst hadn’t held her up.

  “Told you to go home,” Kelso growled, stalking into the room. “We got this, Woodward.”

  She pointed weakly to the laptop, unable to speak.

  Kelso stared blankly at the computer, then his brows shot to his hairline, eyes bugging out. “Oh, fuck.”

  12

  Declan glanced worriedly at Gabby. Her head was tilted against the headrest of the Explorer. He was back on the 405, heading home to Brentwood. After the SWAT team raid, and with Ortega in custody, GHD was able to take a breather to reassess, and all eyes landed on Declan who stuck out like a sore thumb. Mitchell ordered him back to the command post. At least he wasn’t kept at the outermost circle with the other spectators. Declan figured the captain didn’t want him disappearing just yet. As if he could, with his stubborn, concussed ex-wife knee deep, sorting through the evidence in Ortega’s latest safe house located behind the clinic.

  Seeing Gabby leaning on her partner like a crutch when they left Ortega’s hideaway was a kick in the gut. He hated seeing her hurt and protectiveness won out over the fury. Worry had coursed through him when he found out from Levi that she had left the house with her partner.

  And if that wasn’t enough, finding her in an alley in a standoff that challenged his loyalties pissed him the fuck off even more. He did what he had to do.

  “Is your head still hurting?” he asked. The paramedics at the scene gave her a painkiller shot that would give her relief quickly.

  “Not for the reasons you think.”

  He sighed. “I’m the reason.”

  “Why would you think you’re the reason?” Gabby retorted, opening her eyes and shooting him a glare. “Oh, let me guess,” she added sarcastically. “Was it because you impersonated a police officer?”

  “Your guys were outgunned, and if I didn’t step in there would have been casualties.”

  “You’re a smug sumbitch,” she slurred, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “What the hell was that scene in the alley? You’re lucky we got Ortega or I’d have Mitchell tear you a new one for letting Ariana get away. Maybe a night in lockup would do you good, seeing that you stuck your nose in a police operation.”

  She turned her head to look out the window and gave an effusive sigh. There was something else on her mind. And he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that his ex-wife was a cop. It was her job and danger was a part of it, but he couldn’t help that old feeling of protectiveness that he’d always felt toward her. Even when they first separated, it was only his hurt and anger that kept him away, but without that
between them now… Hell. As if the attack on her car and subsequent concussion wasn’t bad enough. Now, seeing her in a hostile situation, seeing her going after a suspect with a gun, had pushed him into unknown territory. He was thankful the SWAT team did the assault, otherwise he wouldn’t know what he would’ve done. He sure as fuck wouldn’t be standing by the sidelines. He wasn’t confident enough in the men around her to have her back.

  He wasn’t prepared to address that problem.

  “There’s going to be an investigation,” she said finally. “When field investigators review the case, and with the op probably uploaded to YouTube by now with your mug all over it, shit’s going to hit the fan.”

  “I’ll think of something,” he muttered. Garrison would shit a brick that he used his fake badge for the unintended purpose, but what did he expect when he put Declan in close proximity to Gabby. His ex-wife who never lost the power to twist him up inside, and he would damn the consequences to keep her safe.

  “Oh, you’ll think of something,” she groused.

  He should be irritated, but he was amused. Gabby had turned into quite a spitfire. He liked it and, oddly, his dick did too.

  Down boy.

  “What the hell are you finding so funny?”

  “You’ve got quite a mouth on you.” He looked up the 405 and was thankful the traffic was moving. He couldn’t wait to get Gabby home and have it out with her. Then he remembered Claudette. He shifted in his seat and he fished out his phone, and thumbed Levi’s number.

  “That’s illegal,” Gabby grumbled.

  “It’s an emergency,” he deadpanned.

  He imagined her rolling her eyes at him.

  On the third ring, Levi answered.

  “Claudette get there?”

  “Nope.”

  Figured. “Dammit.” She probably skipped town. “Did you get a hold of G?”

  “No answer,” Levi replied. “You have an update for him?”

  “Yeah. Need to run something by him.”

  “Did you fuck up, Roarke?”

  What? Did this guy have ESP? “Gabby and I will be there in …” He checked the stream of traffic again. “Half an hour.”

  He tossed the phone into the console between them and glanced over to Gabby, noting the disapproval on her face.

  “What?” A grin threatened the corners of his mouth. “Still annoyed I used my phone while driving?”

  “Who’s G?”

  “A contact.”

  “What did you fuck up?”

  “I didn’t.” If he had to do it all over again, he would do the same thing—use his fake badge to get to her.

  At the moment, he was confused by what he was feeling. Was it concern for someone who used to be the most important person in his life, or did it go deeper? Did he still love her? Declan couldn’t allow himself to be that vulnerable again. He wasn’t even that same person, one who loved with everything he had.

  After he maneuvered the SUV to the center lane to coast back to Brentwood, he noted that Gabby didn’t respond, that she was watching the LA scenery pass her by.

  “Why didn’t you ever leave?” he asked.

  “What?”

  Declan fell silent, surprising himself that he asked the question. What was the point? “Forget it.”

  He could feel her gaze burn the side of his face. Scowling at the traffic, he bit out, “What?”

  “Were you asking me why I never left LA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this small talk? Or are you really interested to know why.”

  “What’s the difference? We’ve got thirty minutes to kill anyway.”

  “Or we could spend thirty minutes in blessed silence,” she said. “If there’s any talking to be done, we need to figure out how to explain your presence at the scene. I just don’t have it in me right now.”

  He glanced at her with concern. “Are you feeling all right? Head hurt?”

  “It’s a dull throb. It’s really better, but with the adrenaline crash …” Her hand reached for the tuner on the dashboard. “You mind if I find something on the radio?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The strains of Coldplay came over the speakers and Declan swallowed a groan. Maybe silence was indeed better. He gave his attention to the 405 on the way back to the house. It wasn’t rush hour yet and traffic was moving at a steady pace, not the regular four miles per hour. The next time he looked at Gabby, her eyes were closed, her hands laying loosely on her lap.

  He had a strong urge to reach over the console and take her hand in his. Like they used to when they’d been married, back in happier times. Declan would drive with his left hand on the steering wheel, their linked fingers settling on her lap or on his chest as he kissed the back of her fingers.

  They’d been young.

  They’d been in love.

  And now?

  They were different people, with different paths in life. He snorted a self-deprecating chuckle. He was rudderless. Sure he had money. Enough to keep him comfortable for the rest of his life, but he needed the rush of a high-risk mission to feel alive.

  Until now.

  The whole situation with Gabby and Theo was fucked up at best, but he didn’t feel the need to be elsewhere. The thrumming energy that made him want to crawl out of his skin was a memory. LA wasn’t his home anymore. He took a deep breath, and for the umpteenth time on the drive, glanced over at the woman beside him. So why did it feel like he’d come home?

  Gabby kept her eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep when Declan gently nudged her to let her know they were almost to Brentwood. It wasn’t her intention to fall asleep. Was her mouth open? Did she drool? Had she snored?

  “Better wake up, Angel, unless you want me to carry you.”

  One eye popped open. “Not happening.”

  His chuckle was at the same time annoying as it was endearing. That brief amusement letting her know that he was on to her tricks of avoidance.

  “You haven’t changed, have you?” His voice was light.

  “Not sure what you mean.”

  “You know.”

  She caught him shooting her a quick glance from the corner of her eye. There was a sharp twist in her heart, a tweak of a memory, and she couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  “For all your acting skills, you still can’t fake being asleep.” His voice lowered. “At least not with me.”

  A sensation pulled low in her belly. A feeling she hadn’t felt in a long time. The last time she felt it was when she first laid eyes on Declan. It had nothing to do with lust or love, but more of anticipation, a yearning for something just within her reach.

  Sleep had addled her brain.

  “You sound very confident.” She straightened in her seat and faked a yawn.

  “Gabby, Gabby,” he chided. “We may have spent seventeen years apart, but you can’t deny that it’s still there.”

  What the hell did he mean? Her heart quickened its pace, and she forced a smile. “Care to enlighten me?”

  “Chemistry.”

  Unbidden disappointment settled like a barrel on her chest. The last thing she expected was for Declan to declare undying love, but something deep inside her wondered if he still cared. That she thought about the idea infuriated her. “We’re not young and stupid any longer, Dec. Chemistry can only get us so far, right?”

  He didn’t respond.

  The silence that fell between them was thick with not quite anger, not quite annoyance, but it was uncomfortable enough for her to want to escape from the SUV. The moment he pulled the Explorer in front of the house, she flung the door open before he switched off the engine and ignored her name growled out in irritation.

  Several cars were parked in the motor court. Among them was a silver Mercedes SL500 she’d recognize anywhere.

  Nick was here.

  The man in question strode out of the residence’s double-doors. Theo followed him with Levi a step behind.

 
“Were you there?” Nick’s usually slicked back blond hair was mussed as though he’d raked his fingers repeatedly through it. “That raid. Christ almighty. Ortega was your case, wasn’t it?”

  “SWAT did the heavy lifting,” she said.

  When Nick reached her, he pulled her immediately into a hug. “I was so worried,” he muttered near her ear. His body stiffened right before they pulled apart. She glanced up to see Nick looking over her shoulder, his mouth flattening.

  Having her two ex-husbands within striking distance of each other wasn’t how she envisioned ending her day. Nick kept his left arm around her waist as she turned to Theo who stopped short of any physical contact.

  Her brother’s relaxed posture with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops belied the intense concern in his eyes. “You okay, sis?”

  “What possessed you to go into work today?” Nick burst out before she could answer her brother. “You’re concussed. I thought you were on leave.”

  “Hey, back off,” Theo told ex-husband number two. “Give her a break, would you, man?”

  Gabby pulled away from Nick, crossing her arms over her chest, keeping her temper in check, and just stared at him.

  Nick hung his head. “Sorry. Out of line.”

  “Glad we have that clear. You’re forgetting I’m not your wife anymore and I’m just doing my damned job.”

  She pushed past them to get into the house. Levi and Declan had gone off to the other side of the motor court to discuss something private.

  Gabby’s blood boiled. Declan was hiding something. She didn’t want to open the can of worms regarding why he was at the clinic the same time her team was. So she avoided the topic. As drained as she was right now, she didn’t have the mental, physical, or emotional capacity to get into a discussion with him about it. It had something to do with Claudette. The clinic was a common ground for the two women. They both had their babies born there; the difference was Gabby’s didn’t survive. Was Declan still insisting there was a baby swap and went to investigate?

  She forced herself to wave at the teenagers huddled in the living room. They watched her walk by as if she was a performer in a high-wire act. The raid in Van Nuys was playing on the television flashing a picture of Ortega. He was rarely seen in public this past year. Their profiler said it was his way of perpetuating his myth, especially after the fentanyl attack.