Page 15 of Declan (Gold Team #5)

Something had seriously pissed Declan off and it went beyond us not staying behind to watch out for the convoy.

And it wasn’t me changing out of that ridiculously hot covering I’d been forced to wear.

Just yesterday, Declan had helped himself into the shower where I was naked, had kissed me, then held me while I’d spaced out, and we’d swapped secrets.

And we’d slept in the same bed last night—that was another first—but nothing had happened. He was as far to his side as he could get and I was rolled on my side facing away from him. But this morning when we’d woken up, it was business as usual.

Now, he was angry and we had a mission to carry out.

Go-time was imminent. Madeleine’s SUV had pulled into a gated compound, Brooks and Max had already peeled off to search for a location Max could use as a sniper’s perch, and Thad and Kyle were scouting the area.

So whatever was going on with Declan had to end. We had a job to do and I didn’t need Declan barking at me while we were doing it. The only problem was, I didn’t know what to say .

Well, I did. What the fuck’s your problem , was on the tip of my tongue but I didn’t think that’d be the best approach. And since I couldn’t say that, I didn’t know what to say.

“Cover up,” Dec barked.

And suddenly I knew exactly how to broach the topic.

“What the fuck’s your problem?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You’re barking orders at me.”

“Correction, Autumn, I’m giving orders. Orders that you need to follow immediately and not question.”

Was he serious ?

“Are you serious with this shit?”

“Deadly.”

I pinched my lips together in an effort not to tell him to go suck a bag of dicks. Who the hell did he think he was? I didn’t blindly follow orders, not even when they were given nicely. Barked at like a dog? Um, no. Just no. That wasn’t happening.

Declan pulled to a stop in front of a half-crumbled building and I glanced around. The area wasn’t deserted but it was by no means populated. Just enough cars around that we wouldn’t stand out.

“Cover—”

“What the fuck, Declan?”

“You understand we’re in Afghanistan, right? You’re a woman and you got pale skin and blonde hair. Cover that shit up.”

“Or what? You’ll lock me in the trunk?”

His gaze sliced to mine and his eyes gleamed with irritation. “Fucking hell, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“ I’m the pain in the ass? Better than having a stick up my ass—which you have.

A giant rod shoved up the ass that’s turned you into a total dick.

You could’ve said, hey, Autumn, we’re gonna be parking soon, time to put on that ridiculously hot get-up.

I know it sucks you have to sweat half to death but it won’t be for very long.

” I watched as his jaw tightened and face turned to granite.

“You think this shit’s a joke? Someone seeing your hair thinking they just hit the motherload. Well, it’s not. There’s not one motherfucking thing funny about me having to kill an army of men when they try to take you from me.”

What the actual hell ?

I was right, this had nothing to do with the convoy, him seeing me in my tank top and panties, or anything that had happened yesterday. This was something else entirely, and honestly, I didn’t think it actually had to do with me. Well, it did, but it didn’t. This was about Declan protecting me.

Shit . My heart squeezed.

I was too late.

Declan blamed himself for his wife and daughter dying. A man like Declan, protective through and through, would think he failed. And that failure would eat him up.

So this wasn’t about me. It was about Declan being protective and afraid he’d fail.

And because my heart ached for his loss, for the years of anguish he’d lived through, I found myself doing something I never do—I gave in. If he’d been bossing me and barking for any other reason, I would’ve told him to go fuck himself.

“I’m sorry.”

I reached for the niqab and quickly covered my hair, then pulled on the rest of the clothes and immediately started sweating. But it was mere seconds after I was cloaked in black from head to ankle with no skin showing did Declan finally exhale.

There was no apology on his part, no explanation why he’d behaved like a douche, and I wondered if he even knew why he’d been so angry.

He was wound so tightly and buried all of his emotions so I doubted it.

Hell, I was the same way. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was feel, therefore when I did, it pissed me off and I lashed out.

“We gotta move to plan B,” Max radioed. “I got no line of sight within distance.”

My excitement started to well. Not that I’d share with Declan I was secretly happy Max couldn’t find high ground within the radius he needed. That meant we were breaching the compound and I’d get Madeleine up close and personal.

“Copy that,” Declan returned.

He said no more because he didn’t need to. Last night we’d gone over plan A, B, and C so many times I’d be dreaming about them for months.

Dec was looking out the windshield scanning the area and I was lost in my head visualizing my place in the lineup. I’d be dead in the middle. Brooks would take point, Kyle, then me, followed by Max, and Declan would take the back. Thad would be overwatch.

“Autumn?”

“Huh?”

“I said,” he huffed impatiently. “You’re gonna have to change again.”

Right. We were no longer staying in the car. Which meant I needed to be free to move and hide weapons.

“Should I do that here or…”

Declan’s eyes squinted at my tone. I tried, I really did, but it was either be sarcastic or punch him in the balls. Just because I understood why he was acting like an ass didn’t mean I liked it, and there was only so much I could take.

“Wait a minute and I’ll find someplace where you can change.”

So, shoot me, I couldn’t help the smile that turned into a smirk when he grunted his latest demand.

What could I say? No one had ever accused me of being mature, or obedient, or nice. I was pretty much bitchy all the time, and my patience had worn thin.

He called it in to the team we were moving, destination unknown, so I could change. I will note, he barked at the guys as well. I guess Declan was an equal opportunity dick when he was pissed. Good to know.

Declan pulled away from the curb, if you could call it that, it was really just piles of broken concrete and rubble that had been cleared away from the buildings.

He remained silent, therefore so did I. There was nothing to say, and our fighting wouldn’t do anyone any good.

We all needed to work together to complete our mission, then we’d be on our merry way back to the US.

After that, I’d contact Ash and see if she had work for me.

If she didn’t, I had someone in mind. Early on, I was like my sister, I got close to the men I targeted, used the arm-candy approach.

Rich, powerful men loved to collect women, liked new and shiny on their arm when they went to events.

They thought it made them look a certain way, like they were real men because they walked into a room with a beautiful woman at their side.

But it hadn’t taken long because I’d overplayed that racket, until I just watched them from afar, collected my intel, confirmed what they were doing, then put them down like the beasts they were.

“Jesus!” Declan’s outburst pulled me from my musings.

“What?”

“You’re gonna have to pay attention.”

“What?”

“Pay attention, Autumn. You’re over there daydreaming and we’re in a war zone. You can’t—”

“First, I know where the hell we are. Second, I wasn’t daydreaming, I was thinking about Jason Dunbar.”

“Who the fuck is Jason Dunbar?”

Jeez, touchy, touchy.

“Depending on if the stable of thirty women he’s reported to have are all there under their own free will, or if he has them strung out and has forced them into prostitution, then he may or may not be dead.”

“And if the women are there under their own free will? Is he dead then?”

The way I lived my life I’d learned not to judge.

People did all sorts of things I might not agree with but it wasn’t my place to condemn them.

The things I did were morally incomprehensible.

I was a bad person with good intentions but that didn’t make my actions any less wrong.

So, if a woman wanted to sell her body of her own free will, that was not my business, not my place to pass judgment or try to stop her.

But if she was forced, stolen from her former life, that was a different story.

And if Jason Dunbar’s stable had underage girls, I’d shut him down.

“Not if they’re all of legal age and want to be there.”

“I don’t understand you.”

Welcome to the club . I barely understood myself.

“You don’t need to.”

“No one wants to be in that life.”

I shifted in my seat to get a better look at Declan. He was watching the road so I had him in profile. My eyes dropped to his neck and I stared at the faded scar there.

“How do you know? And who are you to judge them if they do? You and I have no room to question their chosen profession. We kill people for money. How is that ethically different?”

The muscles in Dec’s cheek jumped and he went solid.

I understood that reaction. It was the same one I had when I was forced to look in the mirror.

When I stopped lying to myself about what I did and who I was.

When all the bullshit about the greater good was stripped away—I was a killer.

Plain and simple. And when my target was dead, I took their money.

“You ever get tired of it?” he quietly asked.

“Every fucking day.”

“Then why don’t you get out?”

I felt it as it started to happen—my body’s normal response when I was uncomfortable, the tightening of my skin, the sick feeling in my stomach. I tried and failed to stop it. It was no use, I’d trained myself to shut down, to slam my mask down, to turn vulnerability into anger.

“That’s none of your business.”

Declan glanced over at me, then his eyes went back to the road. It was a split-second perusal but I knew he saw too much. We were too much alike. Something I both loved and despised.

“Right,” he mumbled, sounding infinitely annoyed.

“Why don’t you get out?” I inquired, turning the tables.

“Never said I was tired of it.”

“Right,” I repeated. But instead of annoyed, I made sure he couldn’t miss my mocking tone.

Well, that shut him up.

As the minutes passed and Declan said nothing, my muscles relaxed, my guard started to lower, and I suddenly wanted to tell him why I didn’t walk away.

Why I didn’t find some small town in the middle of nowhere and try my hand at being normal.

That was, if I could figure out how regular people lived.

But as much as I wanted to confess to the one person on earth who would understand, I couldn’t.

Telling him would be too personal, it would make me sound weak.

So I kept my thoughts to myself and so did he. It was better that way. We’d shared too much as it was.

Yeah, idiot, keep telling yourself that.