Desert Exposure

by Zoë Normandie

  “Would they have had to?” Olivia pressed. “Can’t you ignore orders that are illegal?”

  Ryder laughed, a hollow and empty sound. “Thinking for yourself—that’s not how the military is built. The rules are black-and-white, but situations are gray. It’s a fine line between insubordination and disregarding orders you perceive to be illegal. At the height of combat, it’s hard to make that call.”

  Olivia stared at him, trying to process what she heard. It very clearly seemed wrong to her, and she didn’t doubt that other people would feel the same.

  “When I worked with the snake in Afghanistan, we did the same work: we rounded up the enemies, and the cleanup crew would ship them off to prison. And then there was a prison break. And another one. Countless ones. We’d end up fighting the same guys again and again. They were killing American soldiers. Our allied soldiers.”

  “Isn’t what you did illegal?” she asked quietly. “You shot unarmed and tied-up people. You shot people who were running away from you.”

  His expression grew haunted. She saw a side of him then that she’d never seen before. He was tormented. Tortured.

  “You didn’t think it was right?” she asked, grasping at straws.

  Closing his eyes for a moment, Ryder breathed in raggedly. “No.”

  Olivia closed her notebook, unable to continue. She felt her stomach flip, her nausea rising. It was worse than she thought.

  “That’s not all,” he added, his body remaining still as ice.

  His eyes flipped open, and that same haunted feeling bled into her. That cold energy took hold in her chest, and she found herself sucking back air to survive.

  What an unbelievable burden for one man to carry.

  “Once we shoot, we have to make sure they are dead,” Ryder grumbled. “But Fuller—he’s taken it too far.”

  Olivia watched him, clutching her notebook. She couldn’t fathom what this man had gone through, and continued to go through.

  Please don’t say anything worse. Please.

  “Blackshot went around and made sure. He took out his knife and stabbed all of the corpses.” Ryder was struggling to keep his emotions down. “I told him not to, but I had to deal with my men. The guy has become despondent—and I know it’s the drugs.”

  “The drugs?” she asked, though after what she’d seen, the news didn’t shock her.

  “Some of the guys—a small few—are struggling with addictions. I see it. I know Fuller sees it.” His voice was wary. “But the thing is, I don’t see him doing anything about it.”

  The air in the room grew thick. The mention of Fuller sent visceral hatred through Olivia’s body.

  “What the hell are you supposed to do with that?” The master chief questioned with self-deprecating sarcasm.

  Unwillingly, her demeanor changed. She was obviously shocked. Her body became awkward and insecure. She fiddled uncomfortably with her hands. Things were bad. Much worse than she’d thought.

  “So the commander ordered… unlawful killings?” she asked quietly.

  He nodded.

  “Multiple times?” She cleared her throat.

  “Yes. I’ve seen Fuller do it all—putting one in a guy who’s already dead, or a guy who’s injured. Fuck. He’s way too hands-on for an executive. And Blackshot didn’t used to be like that, but the fucking snake has brainwashed him.”

  “But it’s illegal… or unlawful.” Olivia put her notebook on the desk beside her.

  “There are lots of other stories, but that’s one of the worst. Cover-ups lead to more fucked-up shit and more cover-ups. Now I don’t even know how to fix any of it.”

  “But you want to fix it?” She took off her glasses and put them on the desk.

  “I can’t do it alone.”

  Putting her head into her hands, she gently rubbed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. What the fuck. All she wanted to do was help him—but how could she? Here was someone that she cared deeply about, and he was hurtling himself down a very dangerous path.

  “Ryder, I can’t give you legal immunity.” Olivia leaned forward, worry washing out her voice. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m just a consultant.”

  He shook his head knowingly. “I don’t want to be protected by you, Olivia. I want you to take my words and run with them. Get them where they need to be. I’m fucked either way. There’s no hope left for me, but there are a lot of decent guys wrapped up in this that shouldn’t be.”

  The words rang through her mind. I don’t want to be protected.

  As she allowed the statement to sink in, he added quickly, “There are only two men, aside from myself, who are culpable.”

  “Fuller and Blackshot.”

  He nodded. “My immediate boss and my immediate subordinate.”

  “So the top three ranking sailors on this compound? This is fucking heavy.” She shook her head. “To think they sent me here for a cultural review.”

  “Fitting, isn’t it?” His dark eyes watched her, and empathized. “And that’s why Fuller will do anything necessary to cover this up. If you are part of this, you need to accept the dangers.”

  “I know. You warned me,” she said quietly.

  “I need this to get into the right hands. Someone needs to know.”

  Olivia played with the broken teacup at her feet, a reminder of what she had done to complicate Ryder’s already complicated situation.

  I can’t let him do this to himself.

  “Ryder, I can’t let you fuck yourself over,” she breathed out, still watching the broken cup at her feet. “I understand why you want me to do this report, but I can’t watch you martyr yourself.”

  “You can, and you will,” he said in a tone of full master-chief authority. “I’m not asking you, Olivia. I’m telling you. And you promised.”

  Promised.

  A silence engulfed the small supply room, and she knew she couldn’t break the commitment she’d made.

  Olivia closed her eyes, caught between a rock and a hard place. “If you are that damned determined to die on this hill, then we’ve got to make sure your word sticks.” She exhaled deeply. “And I can’t write this report if we are…”

  “Fucking.”

  Her eyes snapped open and she looked at him hard: this haunted man determined to save his men by the skin of his own neck.

  “No more. This can’t happen again. Can you promise me that?” she asked. “My report will be thrown out if anyone suspects there’s something between us, and where would that leave you?”

  Ryder leaned forward. “For now, we can stop. While we are on this base, working on this. But don’t forget that you are mine, and one day you’ll be going home. Then, I can promise I won’t stay away.”

  As the words rolled out of his mouth, Olivia realized that she would never stop wanting him—and that would make it all the more painful when she had to let him go.

  22

  Furious rain beat down on the tiny window in Olivia’s bunk. The storm had finally come to Northern Mali. It matched her mood. She was low. A part of her felt so different than before. That sex was damn good, but sex had also never made her feel so awful—she felt like she’d dishonored a hero.

  I don’t want to be protected. His voice rang through her mind.

  Everywhere, everything reminded her of the bittersweet memory. It didn’t help that she wore his T-shirt to bed, making everything in her room smell like him. Even thinking of him sent her into arousal.

  She looked at the clock. Time to go meet her trainer. It was going to be hard to face anyone on base. She’d stopped wanting to be there. She wanted to stuff Ryder onto a plane and bring him home, so they could deal with Fuller and Blackshot and the bombshell testimony in a place where there were rules. But she had to move forward. She had to persevere. She had to be the resilient woman he thought she was.

  At least some exercise would help burn off the deep anxiety she was experiencing.

  In a perfect world, she would have woken up nak
ed with him. But she hadn’t. And lying there only reminded her of that. So she rolled out of bed and whipped on some training clothes, being careful to tuck his T-shirt underneath her pillow. Keeping it secret. Keeping it safe. It might be her only tangible memory of him.

  She found herself in a fog, thinking only of Ryder. Of his lips on hers. On her neck. On her breasts. She thought of him entering her. Pumping into her. Her core was swollen, sore, and satisfied from all the punishment it had taken.

  The fantasies ran rampant in her head as she found her way outside to train. The rain fell heavily, soaking her. Taking one from Ryder’s playbook, she didn’t give a shit. The rain eased her pain.

  Outside at the pitch, where she usually met Bruce, she acknowledged that it would be a good day to avoid attention, since she wasn’t likely to get an audience in the weather.

  “Ready to rock, speedy?” Bruce called from behind her as he approached.

  She whipped around.

  “Hey, sure.” Her voice wasn’t as perky as usual, though she tried to act normal.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Just not feeling one hundred percent today,” she said, unwilling to confide that her problem was mental, not physical.

  Raindrops falling down the brim of his ball cap, Bruce leaned in and quietly asked, “How’s your project coming along?”

  “Fine.” She worked to put on a cheery disposition.

  “Of course.” He nodded. “Let’s start, then.”

  Olivia prepared herself, and upon her trainer’s signal, she took off, using the same track she always did. Around and around and around she went. The wet ground wasn’t as easy to grip, and the rain fell down her neck, chilling her spine. It was eerily quiet, and she felt more alone than ever. Missing Ryder, she wished she would whip around the corner and see his hulking, protective frame—something she could sink her face into and feel like everything was going to be all right.

  Breathing deep as she made that turn around the inner edge of the compound, she nearly slammed into a tall obstruction in her way.

  Just not the obstruction she wanted.

  A familiar dirty-blond-haired man stood with his arms crossed, his black hood up. His dark eyes assessed her as she stopped dead in her tracks. She tried stepping back, but he advanced on her.

  “Where are you going?” Senior Chief Liam Blackshot took three big steps to bridge the gap between them. “We need to talk.”

  “No. I can’t.” Olivia panted, more from anxiety than exertion. “I have to go.”

  Turning to the side, she saw a crew of guys far into the compound walking down the center pathway. A few of them noticed her and Blackshot—she’d met them before.

  “You say you are here to research our work culture.” Blackshot ran his tongue over his lip, his pupils dilating. “But I’ve been hearing rumors that say otherwise.”

  “I am here for that,” she insisted. “Whatever else you think is categorically false.”

  “Did he flip?” the senior chief questioned conspiratorially. “Did he talk?”

  “Who?” she replied defensively, assessing him for signs of drug abuse.

  “I think you know.”

  Olivia wasn’t sure how to take his words, but she knew she didn’t like them, so she deflected. “I’m sorry, but my work is classified.”

  Quickly, Blackshot morphed into a man with an agenda. “There’s something going on between you two. I feel it. And you are trying to hide it.”

  Her ire rose. It was not the time to mess with her. “Now this is getting personal.” Her fists tightened, and Blackshot took notice. “And you are dead wrong.”

  Blackshot laughed in the most irritating way. “Goddamn, you are a shitty liar. I should have known. He’s playing both sides.”

  “I don’t have time for this bullshit.” She stood her ground. “And I don’t know what the hell you mean.”

  And that’s when his tone changed from accusatory to hateful. Jaw clenched, anger visibly rising, Blackshot chewed out, “Tell me you aren’t fucking him.”

  Olivia felt a stab of pain in her chest. How could he? She felt disrespected and disturbed at the aggressive gall of this man.

  Blackshot leaned in, sensing her pain and going for the kill. “Don’t you wonder who else sees it? It’s only a matter of time before they haul him in and send him home for fucking you. He will be charged for this. You are literally fucking him over.”

  Olivia clenched her teeth, willing herself to appear as emotionless as possible but feeling a surge of anger all the same. “You are out of line,” she spat back. The flush of emotion forced her to come to terms with what she desperately wanted to do: protect Ryder against his will.

  Nose to nose, she slammed her pointed finger down on his chest. He winced slightly. She pushed harder. As she stared down the senior chief, his face twitched. His eyes were red and glassy. Is he high?

  “They’ll hang him. He could lose everything for this,” he continued. “Do you even realize what you are doing to him?”

  “Shut the fuck up.” She ground her teeth together. “You are a clown. You are wrong. And they’ll charge you for your on-duty drug habit. Don’t ever approach me again.”

  She spun on her heels and marched away quickly, leaving the hooded man in the mud behind her. She was fuming. She was furious. Her trip to Mali was turning out to be terrible. Everything except that orgasm. And Ryder’s ripped body. And his amazing lips. How they felt up and down her neck.

  As she found her way to the main path, her trainer spotted her and tried to ask if she was all right, but she waved him off. Stopping in his tracks, he looked over and saw the senior chief prowling in the distance. It was anyone’s guess how many other people had observed it too.

  Heading straight back toward the female bunks, Olivia felt tears welling. Goddamn, she felt so alone. She knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that she was playing a game with Ryder’s future. Whatever fate had brought them together, it was about so much more than sex—it was about doing what was right. There were never going to be any guarantees. She had to accept that. Had to accept the risk.

  Ryder was a risk. Avenging him was a risk. There was no doubt about that.

  Olivia already knew she would protect him however she could, but the question was how best to do it. She needed to decide if she was going to play it safe… or blow the roof off the barn.

  23

  Looking at the calendar above her desk, Olivia tried not to count the days that had passed since she’d last felt Ryder’s lips on hers. And she absolutely tried not to count how long it had been since she’d seen him.

  The cryptologist had told her that Ryder was away on an operation in the far north. Her stomach twisted with worry when she wondered if he would be back at all, and she empathized with military spouses all over who had to wait on news of their loved ones.

  The public argument she’d had with Blackshot wasn’t pretty, and she’d felt her own deep anger and resentment growing as the days passed. God only knew what Ryder was going to do if he found out what Blackshot had said to her. What he’d accused her of doing. Her deepest fear percolated to the surface: that Ryder was going to find out and do something fucking crazy, like beat the shit out of Blackshot, or worse.

  God. All she was doing was creating problems for a man who needed her to solve them.

  The thought of what Fuller and Blackshot had done to Ryder drove her to nausea, and she knew it was time bury them. Destroy them. For Ryder.

  Flipping open her laptop and typing her way past the security logins, she found herself on her last open document: the draft of the report. Her main heading spoke of the internal cultural inquiry. But below that, things had gone a little rogue. She had made several subheadings, including criminal allegations, leadership failures, and lack of accountability. All things that absolutely were not supposed to be subheadings in her report.

  In fact, her report title should have been What the NCIS Investigation Should Have Found or Wh
at the Last Honorable Leader Here Confided in Me.

  Double-checking her work, an anxious habit, she fanned open the allegations section, including the disturbing claims that had made headlines before the Navy commissioned her firm. Then she typed in Illegal Behavior, which included unlawful killings, the use of drop weapons to justify such, abuse of drugs, and execution of detainees and unarmed combatants.

  Olivia wrote that there appeared to have been a systemic values shift among troops and their commanders. She realized that was the crux of the problem: the commander didn’t share the same values as his master chief.

  Certain questions drew her in further. Was Fuller adapting details after the fact to justify the circumstances leading up to the violent engagement? Where was the failure to adhere to the rules of war?

  Her head began to spin. She had so many questions and very little information. All she had were the words of Ryder, and even those were few. They would have had shared more words if they hadn’t been so busy sucking each other’s faces. The thought made her feel empty and lonely. Guilt climbed so high, it sat as a ball in her throat.

  Olivia exhaled, knowing it was time to see what the firm had to say. What Jacqueline Hart had to say. She couldn’t avoid reading the messages any longer. By this point, she was just delaying opening her webmail application.

  Why? There was no reason for anything to have gotten back to the firm.

  But still, Olivia carried the ball of anxiety in her chest. She’d done wrong. Having sex with the master chief while she was supposed to be interviewing him—fucking him and then fucking him over—should have been the next subheading in her report.

  She breathed out hard. She’d been a fool. But did she regret it? It was hard to regret an experience like that with a man like that. He was to die for.

  Holding her breath, she slid her cursor over to bring up the webmail application.

  Amazingly, there was nothing from Jacqueline Hart. Nothing from the firm. Nothing new. In disbelief, Olivia scrolled up and down the draft messages they’d left for each other over a week ago, but there wasn’t anything new.