Blind Shot (The Sharpshooter Series Book 1) Read online

  I waited tensely for him to talk, but when he did, he surprised me again.

  “Did you get some kind of food?” His voice was gruff, harder than I was used to it being, but it wasn't angry or recriminating.

  “What? No...”

  “I told the guys who found this place to leave some food in the cupboards. Take a look, please.”

  The fridge was unplugged of course, but the beef jerky and trail mix didn't need to be kept cold. I set them on the table and silently we picked at it. Neither of us was hungry in the least, but it gave us something to do.

  After awkwardly eating bad food for half an hour, I finally couldn't help myself.

  “Shit, what happened to you?” I demanded, “Did you go out to help the strike teams, or...”

  “That's not important right now,” he said. I could tell that I wasn't going to be getting any more information out of him. “What we need to do right now is debrief. Tell me everything that happened after you removed your headpiece.”

  I hesitated for a moment, but he didn't get impatient. Instead he looked at me with that completely unreadable expression, expecting me to perform. I wished he would shout at me or slam his hand on the table, something to let the anger that I was sure he was feeling show. Instead there was nothing and I started to talk.

  I didn't tell him everything. I told him that Miklos was a kid I had known while on a long deep cover detail in Bucharest. I told him that Miklos was a petty crook who couldn't be trusted to tie his own shoes, and that there was no doubt in my mind that he was there as a sacrificial lamb. I think if Garrett had been a little less tired, he would have caught on to the fact that while everything was true, I was holding a chunk of it back. Mentioning Jakob wouldn't do either of us any good, so I just let it go.

  After I finally finished talking, Garrett was still for a while. Finally he stood up, leaning heavily on the cane. I knew him well enough to know that he didn't need it on good or even indifferent days, but today he was hanging on to it as if it was the only thing that was keeping him upright., Hell, maybe it was.

  “Hey.” I said awkwardly, and he turned back to me with a patient expression.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you pissed at me?” I cringed at the way it came out. I knew exactly what it sounded like. I managed to keep a pleading whine out of my voice, but I knew I sounded like one of those assholes who depended heart and soul on the approval of their handler. Maybe at this point, I didn't just sound like them.

  I thought for a second that Garrett wouldn't give me a straight answer. Instead he stood there, wavering slightly on his feet, and he thought about his answer until he was ready to give it to me.

  “Yeah. Less than you might think, though. Anger might show up at some point, but for now, I've got the last bit of fear working its way through my system, and I've got some paranoia as well. This is how I lost my team. It's not sitting well. There's also the worry that when we get back stateside, we're going to have to face the director, and I'm not looking forward to that. There... may be consequences for today that I can't alter. Maybe anger will show up after that. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  A surge of self-hate poured through my belly. I hadn't realized that I really would have rather heard anger and even contempt than that recital.

  “Yeah,” I said, and then stiffly and uneasily, “I'm sorry, Garrett.”

  He sighed.

  “I know you are. Get some sleep.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Garrett

  As I guessed, we were called in to the agency as soon as we landed in the States. There was an escort to get us from the airfield to headquarters, but at least we were given an hour to shower and dress at my house before we continued on to base.

  I looked at myself grimly in the mirror, dressed in a plain dark suit. There was just enough of an old campaigner in me to resent looking like an office drone. Properly, my place was behind a surveillance screen now, and maybe it was time to live with that.

  Ryland put up a token protest about dressing up, but he caved without too much complaining. When we met in the living room, I saw that Ryland had chosen a charcoal suit that fit him slightly awkwardly. It looked good on him, but there was something about it, the cut or the color maybe that made him look almost painfully young. He had that surly punk look on his face again, as if he expected to get bounced from the agency immediately. I couldn't even tell him that was wrong.

  “You look good,” he said quietly. “Thought you might use some makeup to cover up the shiner, though.”

  I snorted.

  “Why? They know it's there.” I hadn't told him how I had gotten that particular wound. He would hear about it soon enough.

  Our escort was waiting for us in the driveway, and we rode in silence back to headquarters. This wasn't the first time I’d had an ignominious return to base, but it might have been the worst. Ryland walked to my right and half a pace behind, and for some reason, I wanted nothing more than to touch him to let him know somehow that it was all going to be fine. It wasn't true, and for a moment I was almost dizzy with how inappropriate it was to watch or touch an asset as much as I wanted to touch him.

  I was pleased that we were meeting Director Farris in his office instead of an actual tribunal chamber. That boded well, as well as anything could at this point. He was waiting for us of course. When the door closed behind us, leaving the three of us alone, he looked up from his tablet to eye us gravely.

  “Well, have a seat,” he said at last.

  Farris has a little more than ten years on me, and more than one person has remarked I could have his desk if I played the game a little better. I didn't, and so it came to be that he was looking down at me as if I was a green recruit, while there was a traitorous part of me that felt just as rebellious as Ryland looked.

  “I have read both your reports, and I find them completely inadequate. Cortez. You first. Tell me what the hell happened that turned a standard mission into something that left three agents wounded, and a loss of cover for four more.”

  To my relief, Ryland spoke calmly and courteously. When Farris had questions, all pointed and none kind, he answered them. As I listened to him, however, I wondered if there was something off about the way he spoke. He was telling the truth, I would have bet on that, but there was something off about the way he told it. I wondered if he was that scared of Farris. Some of the agents were, but I didn't think Ryland was one of them. Then Farris turned an eye on me, and I couldn't think about Ryland any longer.

  I relayed what the setup had been, corroborating what Ryland had said, then Farris started asking questions about what had happened after Ryland tore out his earpiece.

  “You had to be restrained from leaving the surveillance van,” he noted without checking the after-mission brief. “You nearly hit Special Agent Tourneur over it.”

  “That seems a bit strong,” I responded, not sorry in the least. In my opinion, Special Agent Tourneur had been brought into the French division as a legacy and promoted all out of proportion ever since. He didn't have any authority over me in the op, and everyone knew it.

  Farris's mouth thinned.

  “That's what Tourneur's report states.”

  “You'll have to decide whether you believe him or me. Sir.”

  Farris gave me a long look, but then continued with a shrug. There wasn't much to worry about until he got close to the end, when we were mopping up the last of the two gangs. Low level foot-soldiers, the entire lot, and hardly worth the amount of man power than had gone into their capture. When questioned, the plot to use a decoy to flush out Drago's enemies was plain. There had been some casualties, and the mission was a bust, but all told it was never going to be a success in the first place.

  “And finally we come to the altercation in the square.”

  Ryland shifted next to me. I didn't flinch, but I did brace myself.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ac
cording to the agents' reports, you took offense to how they were speaking about Special Agent Cortez. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When you took offense, you offered a single warning...”

  “Yes, sir,”

  “And then you attacked the pair making the remarks.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You broke two of Agent Kemp's ribs and split Agent Montrose's lip.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you think that's acceptable?”

  “No, sir.” That was the truth at least. After they had called Ryland a mad dog who needed to be put down, I still felt they deserved worse. Farris let it go, which was something of a relief, because there was a good chance I might have said that.

  Farris looked at both of us for a long minute. I respected Farris, but it was difficult to say I liked him. He was a hard man, but men in his position had to be. He had the concerns of the agency to oversee. I wasn't a director, however. The only person I had to watch out for was Ryland, and I prepared myself to do exactly that.

  “Cortez. If you had any other handler, believe me when I say that you would be right back where we found you. Remind me where that was.”

  “Facing eight years for armed robbery,” Ryland said, remarkably calm.

  “Special Agent Garrett made it very clear in his report that he did not support this course of action. He has argued convincingly for your retention.”

  I refused to look at Ryland right then. I didn't want to know what he thought of that.

  “I find myself undecided. On one hand, Special Agent Garrett is a highly respected, highly decorated officer of this agency. His instincts are usually unquestioned. Then we have this completely unacceptable farce of a mission that involved you both.”

  Farris was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, I could tell by the coldness of his tone that these were his last words on the subject.

  “Cortez, with Special Agent Garrett's consent, you are going to be allowed to continue at the agency under a probationary status. Special Agent Garrett, you have twenty four hours to decide if you wish to continue with Cortez. If you refuse, he will be returned to the penal system. If you agree and he fails to this extent again, you will be removed from the agency entirely. You may give me your answer tomorrow morning when we meet again.”

  His gaze flickered over both of us. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  “Dismissed.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ryland

  We were silent on the ride home—one of those thick and uncomfortable moments where there was way too much to say and no real way to say any of it. I thought of a few ways to start, but I gave up after a while, choosing to sit slumped in the passenger seat like a sack of potatoes.

  How did you even say "thanks for sticking up for me," when the next thing out of your mouth would probably have to be I understand if you need to put me back in jail?

  Not that I was going back. If it turned out that Garrett was ditching me, I had a good bug-out bag stashed in town, one I was pretty sure the agency didn't know about. If I could get to it, I could disappear and start over, being careful to stay under the radar for at least a few years before everyone forgot all about me.

  If I was smart, I'd be heading for that bug-out bag right now, no matter which way Garrett was leaning. Hell, I could bail out of the car when he slowed down, hit the ground running. He could call it in, but it wasn't like he could chase after me.

  I immediately felt like shit, and somehow right at that moment, he glanced over at me from the driver's seat.

  "Quit it," he said, his voice low.

  "What?"

  "Poking whatever it was you found under a rock in your head. It's not doing any good. We both made the decisions in Marseilles. Now we need to figure out what we're going to do about them."

  "You're a mind-reader now?" I snorted.

  "No, you're just obvious when you're not in mission mode."

  God, I hoped not. That meant he knew how I looked at him, catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye sometimes. Sometimes all I wanted to do was plaster myself against his body and see how good I could make us both feel.

  "Don't worry about it," he said. "You're fine."

  I was just wondering what the hell kind of Cold War telepathy experiment he had been a part of when suddenly he reached over without looking and roughed his fingers through my hair.

  I had been on the verge of making a smart remark, but that light and casual touch took my breath away. I got tingles from feeling his strong fingers rake over my scalp, and for a moment, all I could imagine were his fingers tightening in my hair, dragging me right over the console for a kiss.

  I hadn’t had much time to think about that kiss in his bedroom before we shipped out for the shit show in Marseilles, but I sure as fuck was thinking about it now. I remembered how he tasted and how that powerful body loomed over mine. Cane or not, he was strong as hell, and I wanted to feel what it was like when he grabbed me, held me down.

  Jesus, you need to wake the hell up, I told myself. If you’re not careful, you’re going to be dreaming about taking Garrett to bed when he sends you right back to jail.

  ***

  It was weirdly normal when we got home. I don't know what I was expecting, that he would order me up to my room like a kid, or suddenly spin around and land a punch while I wasn't expecting it. Instead, Garrett looked around, sighed, and asked me if I wanted to order a pizza.

  "Seriously?" I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

  "Well, there's really nothing ready to cook and I could really go for a pizza."

  The pizza was good, but some part of me couldn't get foster care out of my head. When a placement was ending (when they decided I was too much, not enough, just too fucked up for whatever they had thought they were signing up for) most of them just had me picked up from school or first thing in the morning with no warning at all. Worse were the ones that tried to make do with some kind of sad goodbye, good luck party out of it.

  Still, it didn't feel like that with Garrett. We were just... having a good pizza. We didn't talk much, but that didn't worry me. Garrett wasn't really all that chatty anyway. Finally though, I couldn't take it anymore.

  "Well? What's the decision?"

  He didn't ask me what I meant.

  "I don't know," he said honestly. "I know what I want it to be. I know what it should be."

  "Are those two different things?" I asked, and he smiled faintly.

  "No, actually. Don't worry about it. Either way, I'm not letting you go back to jail. You deserve better after what you've done for the agency, and Farris isn't as much of an untouchable rock as he likes to pretend he is."

  Not long after, Garrett cleaned up and went up to his room. I lurked in the living room, flipping through the DVR, wandering from the kitchen to the couch and back again. I knew the minute I tried to leave the house, he would be alerted via the fancy security system.

  I finally ended up in the tiny but efficient weight room he had installed in the basement. I lifted weights until I felt like jelly. If he were around, he probably would have stopped me from overworking myself, but he wasn't. I took a weird perverse pleasure in defying a man who wasn't there. After I had worked myself to a pulp, I lay on the bench, staring up at the ceiling. I had been ignoring this thought ever since we met up in the safe house, but now it finally emerged, demanding to be examined.

  The fact is, I didn't want to leave. I could now see what a mess I had been before Garrett got a hold of me. There had always been a vein of anger and stress running through me, and it was still there, but with Garrett, it had gotten smaller. It was easier just to live, and I knew it wasn't all good exercise and being fed on a schedule. It had a lot to do with the man himself. I didn't want to lose it.

  I didn't want to lose him.

  Back upstairs, I stood under the hot shower spray for almost half a
n hour. When I emerged, I was still sore but there was a kind of restless energy running through my body. I saw it was almost one in the morning and if I was smart, I would have just climbed into bed. Even if I tossed and turned until dawn, I would have at least a lie down before my fate was sealed. Instead, wearing just a towel around my hips, I ended up in front of Garrett's door. I knocked twice.

  "Hey, it's me, can I come in?"

  He growled something like an assent, and when I walked in, he was sitting up in bed, squinting at me a little. He was bare chested, and his pajama pants rode low on his hips where they weren't covered by the blanket. He looked good enough to eat, and I made a fast decision.

  "Ryland? I told you, don't worry."

  "Not worrying at all," I said. I went to sit next to him on the bed and he jumped, a little in surprised, but he didn't pull away.

  Like I did before, I cupped my hand around the back of his neck, pulling him over for a kiss. This time, however, he didn't push away. Instead, he kissed me back, one hand coming up to rest along my ribs.

  I couldn't get enough of kissing him. When I pressed against him harder, I felt the stubble he had missed on his cheek, how sharp his teeth were. Yeah, this was what I had been waiting for, what a part of me had wanted ever since I laid eyes on him. I didn't need to worry about being sent away or jailed anymore. Right now the only thing that mattered was how good he felt and how hot his skin felt against my hands, my body, my mouth.

  He broke the kiss first, but it wasn't to stop. Garrett's mouth moved to my ear, nipping the lobe hard enough to make me yelp. When he might have pulled away, however, I quivered and pressed against him again.

  "I can take it kind of rough," I murmured against his skin. "Don't hold back..."

  Garrett made a noise that was nearly a whimper. There was enough need in it that it could have dropped me to my knees, and then he kissed me frantically. His mouth found my throat, measuring out my pulse against his lips. One heartbeat, two, and three, and then he was worrying at my throat with his teeth, latching into the skin there and drawing against it hungrily.