Chapter 15 #2
“Damn,” Shaun muttered out of the side of his mouth at Zenko.
Allie, their normally unflappable Allie, had just put Rock firmly back in his box, using the threat of Hawk and Creed no less.
Grif’s smirk from where he stood behind Rock was unmistakable.
Well, fuck, that explained the tension between them since they arrived.
Grif wanted to call his former teammate, Micah Kennedy, and his partners, while Rock wanted to handle the situation himself.
“Before we do anything, we need to contact JSOC,” Noble interrupted. “I’ll get us cleared to operate Stateside.”
Shaun waited for Rock to take over and either confirm the plan or shut it down.
When nothing happened, he looked at his boss again and didn’t even bother trying to stop the laugh that bubbled up in his chest. Rock had his fingers pressed into his eyes, his mouth opening and closing without a sound coming out.
He’d seen the man deal with bullets flying and missions going sideways without losing his cool, yet one tiny pissed-off woman had short-circuited him completely.
“Holy hell, Allie broke Rock.”
He waited as Noble got on the phone with JSOC. Across the room, Rock finally seemed to have recovered from having his authority thoroughly stomped on.
Shaun caught Grif’s eye, and when Rock’s second jerked his head toward the door, he took the hint and started moving.
He had no problem getting the fuck out of there.
Now that Rock had closed his mouth and remembered how to use it, his boss looked like he was gearing up to yell, and he had absolutely no desire to be standing within range when Rock remembered there was another conversation they needed to have.
Rock knew Shaun had been taken and that Red Squadron had been searching for whoever was responsible, but he didn’t know the whole story yet.
He didn’t know how a straightforward undercover fuel run in Iraq had ended with him chained up in fucking Syria, or exactly what Zenko and Red Squadron had pulled him out of.
He’d been perfectly happy postponing that debrief, especially now that finding Lexi had become the Ghosts’ immediate priority.
Grif was giving him the opportunity to do exactly that, and he wasn’t enough of an idiot to waste it. He made it two steps toward the door.
“Shaw. Where the fuck do you think you are going?” Rock’s bellow made even Noble jump. Without taking the phone from his ear, Noble smacked Rock on the arm before he pointed emphatically at the phone still pressed to his ear.
Shit. Caught.
“Umm.” He sighed and glanced back at Rock. It looked like he was going to get his debrief after all, and his boss was already in a pissy-assed mood.
Well, that fucking escape plan worked brilliantly. Fabulous.
“Get your ass back in here, fucker.” Rock pointed to a chair in front of the desk he normally used whenever the team occupied the Croatian safe house. “The rest of you, get your shit squared away and be ready to move once I’m done with our resident idiot here.”
Shaun trudged back into the room and dropped into the chair Rock had pointed at, fighting the urge to squirm when his boss stared at him for several long seconds without saying a word.
He knew that look. Rock’s gaze moved over his face before dropping lower, scrutinizing him for any visible sign of injury and probably noting every bruise or healing mark he could see.
The silence dragged on long enough that he had to bite back the smart-ass response threatening to escape.
Seen enough? Everything okay?
Shaun wisely kept his fucking mouth shut.
“Want to tell me why the fuck you were dicking around in Turkey with Zenko-fucking-Marks rather than doing the job you were supposed to be doing in Iraq?”
Shit.
Shaun winced internally. Rock knew he had been taken and that Red Squadron had rescued him, but knowing the bare bones was a hell of a lot different from hearing exactly how badly the mission had gone sideways.
Well, what a fucking joy. He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more, Rock accusing him of dicking around in Turkey when he knew damn well he wouldn’t go fucking AWOL in the middle of a mission, or knowing he was about to explain how he’d ended up needing Zenko and Red Squadron to rescue his ass from the people who caught him.
“I’m fucking waiting, Shaw,” Rock growled. “And getting grayer by the second while I’m doing it.” The pen he had been flipping back and forth between his fingers snapped with an audible crunch when Rock finally wrapped his fist around it.
“I wasn’t dicking around with Zenko, Boss,” Shaun told him. “You already know I got taken, and you know Red Squadron pulled me out. What you don’t know is how the fuck I ended up in Syria in the first place.”
Rock’s expression hardened, and Shaun watched the broken pieces of pen hit the desk. “Then start talking.”
Shaun drew in a breath. There really wasn’t a pretty way to dress this shit up, and Rock would only call him on it if he tried.
“I overheard a conversation in the showers and reported it to base command. After that, I went out on the fuel run like I was supposed to, except somebody was waiting for me.” He caught the change in Rock immediately, the anger sharpening into something far more personal as his boss drew in a breath.
A warning cough from where Noble stood with the phone pressed to his ear stopped the bellow Shaun was expecting before it got started.
“Explain. Now.”
Shaun watched Rock drag a hand over his head, his fingers digging into his scalp hard enough to leave pale tracks behind.
Yup, Grif could thank him later, because Rock was really going to need to burn off some temper after this debrief.
There was no training room at this safe house, so that pretty much left fucking.