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As a journalist, I wanted to find out what the hell had happened.

Cautiously, I opened the door and I stepped outside. No other explosions had occurred since the second one.

I pondered whether it had been a car bomb, an RPG, or something else?

Suddenly, I saw men running toward the blaze. Before I made the conscious decision to follow them, Negan Rusell ran over to me.

“We need to go,” he said. “Are you packed? Captain Jacoby wants you out of here right now.”

“This is bullshit,” I said, nodding to the flames. “What the hell just happened?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know. Can I help with your bags?”

“I’m not leaving,” I said, defiantly crossing my arms over my chest.

“If you don’t, Warren will be in even more trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis too, and—”

“Let me guess—you don’t think I need to know.”

“It’s not my call. Are you coming, or do I need to call the MPs?”

“I’m coming,” I said then stepped back inside to grab my suitcase and messenger bag.

“Hurry. The chopper is waiting,” Negan said as I followed him to the large, open space in middle of the camp.

“Will you please just tell me what happened?” I begged over the loud chopper blades and engine. “Was it the Taliban?”

“No,” he shouted. “It wasn’t an attack. You need to get on the chopper. Now.”

I glanced around, wondering about Warren. Would he look me up and call to let me know what had happened?

“You need to go,” Negan shouted, pointing at the helicopter.

“Fine,” I shouted back, ducking my head and jogging over. A soldier helped me inside and as soon as I sat down, the chopper lifted into the air. I peered over the side, looking down.

Warren!

He looked up at me in the chopper as it flew away.

The entire trip to the Kandahar airport, I thought about what had happened at Savage base.

While I hadn’t gotten the story I sought or the man I desired, all I wanted to do was get back to New York and resume my normal life.

CHAPTER 11

Warren

Two Years Later

As I got out of the yellow cab and saw the New York City skyline, I suddenly realized how much I had missed the city. As the car drove away, I walked up on the sidewalk and pulled out my phone.

Everything had fallen apart after Rose left the Savage base in Afghanistan. Captain Jacoby, involved heavily with the smuggling operation, had ordered her to the chopper after Melvin blew himself up; the damn fool had constructed a bomb from mining dynamite. It had gone off before he had a chance to take it off the base. He had said it was to shut-up a local Afghanis who wanted to report us.

I glanced up at her building from across the street, wondering which apartment was hers.