Page 1 of Rogue Mission

ONE

I shouldn’t be thinking about her lips.

Or the way her mouth curves in that photo I’ve stared at too many times.

Or how I already know what her smile would feel like if it were pressed to mine.

Too bad that’s what is happening. All of it.

"Two mikes to breach," I relay through my comms, forcing myself back into operator mode. One eye on the thermal screen, the other on the monstrous corporate headquarters looming ahead of us. "Let's go get…m—our girl."

Shitttttt. I said it out loud.

Truck's low chuckle crackles through my bone conduction headset. “Sure you weren’t going to say ‘my girl’?”

"The missing scientist," I correct quickly, too quickly. "You know what I mean."

Why is my pulse pounding like I’m seventeen? Specifically just like it did the night Brianna Marsh let me slide my hand under her shirt at the drive in theater.

"Sure, brother. Whatever you say, I saw her photo too,” my teammate replies from his hide.

“You know I don’t date,” I grind out.

“I also know how fast that can change,” he remarks as his boots crunch quietly over terrain.

He would be the expert on that. The former SEAL fell for Allison in four seconds flat, even if she was determined to hate him.

“Can we just fucking work?” I ask, annoyed.

I am not thinking about the twenty-nine years old geochemistry specialist who lost her last living relative three years ago. Or the fact that she volunteers at the science museum on Saturdays when she's not buried in research.

No. I’m thinking aboutmyjob.

Rescuing her. And I don't have time for my teammate’s knowing tone.

Extract her. Recover the missing lab sample. Period. That’s it.

Through the darkness, three heat signatures glow on my oversized watch.

Two of them are unmoving on ground level—the guards enjoying their sedative-induced nap, courtesy of the delivery guy we paid off.

One other heat signature is unmoving on the fourth floor. Crouched small in a corner.

Where she’s been for hours, and that fact makes me sick.

But I know it’s her.

Christ.I've got it bad and I haven't even heard her voice.

"Guards are still down," Truck updates quietly, pulling me back to the mission. "We're clear for approach."

I slap myself mentally.

"Gotta love a little laced curry," I mutter, checking my magazine and securing my rig, falling into the familiar rhythm of pre-breach protocol. "Night-night, motherfuckers. But damn, talking about food makes me hungry. We should hit that donut shack after this."

Truck laughs, the sound low through my bone conduction headset. "I've driven Humvees with smaller gas tanks than you. Always thinking about food."

"Who isn't? 'Cause you're the one who wanted to stop on the way to the morgue that day,afterwe just left that luncheon."