Rogue Launch, page 1
Rogue Launch
The Renegades
Book 1
Cara Dee
Contents
Clock’s Ticking for The Renegades
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
More from Cara
About Cara
Rogue Launch
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The Renegades #1
Copyright © 2023 by Cara Dee
All rights reserved
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This book along with its cover are licensed for your personal enjoyment and may not be reproduced in any way without documented permission from the author, not including brief quotes with links and/or credit to the source. This work along with its cover may not be regenerated or processed using artificial intelligence (AI) in any capacity. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction and all references to historical events, persons living or dead, and locations are used in a fictional manner. Any other names, characters, incidents, and places are derived from the author’s imagination. The author acknowledges the trademark status and owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction. Characters portrayed in sexual situations are 18 or older.
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Edited by Silently Correcting Your Grammar, LLC.
Clock’s Ticking for The Renegades
Romantic Suspense | Action | Hurt/Comfort
(The series should be read in order)
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Book 1: Rogue Launch | Elliott & Joel
Book 2: Enemy Combatant | Crew & Adrien
Book 3: On the Double | River & Reese & Shay
Book 4: Tango Down | Joel & Elliott
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Book 4 will also include an epilogue for the MCs of the series
Chapter One
Elliott Jones
2023
“The ranch is freakin’ beautiful, Elliott. I mean, the ocean is right down there!” Gray gestured out the kitchen window.
I chuckled and dumped a bottle of beer into the bowl with meat and marinade. “You feelin’ cramped up in the woods?”
“Never.” He grinned. “But I do like the ocean.”
Yeah, no, he had it made where he was. But Southern California didn’t offer the same forested mountains that northern Washington guaranteed. He and Darius had built a home and a family up there, with nothing but evergreens, mountains, and springs for neighbors. And Darius’s brother, I reckoned. Ryan had bought land there too. Last time I talked to him, they’d just started building their little farm. Too bad he couldn’t make it down this weekend.
It was good to see Gray and Darius, though. Even more so ’cause they were gonna help me move in my shit. Two rented moving trucks stood in the driveway.
“I’m gonna go see what my hubby’s up to,” Gray said. “He’s probably inspecting your avocado trees.”
“Tell him he can bring home all the avocados he can carry after the weekend.” I wasn’t even kidding. I’d bought my new home because…well, I fucking loved it. It was a two-minute trek down a hillside to get to the ocean, and the back of my house had everything else. Nice patio with a barbecue area, a pool for when my niece visited, and half a dozen avocado trees I had no fucking clue what to do with.
My only plan was to constantly bring avocados to work.
Speaking of, those guys should be here soon. I checked my watch. I had plenty of tasks for everyone today and tomorrow; I’d only brought in mattresses and kitchen items. The rest of the house was empty. Oh, patio furniture too. Gotta have that for the barbecues. Before my weekend guests left on Sunday, I was sure the grill would be properly christened.
All right, foil-wrapped vegetable mixes ready for the grill, meats and sausages ready for the grill, a fuck-ton of potato skins ready for the oven—with leftover mash for tomorrow’s grilled fish. Bunch of sauces and dips in the fridge. Check me out, I could do this.
I grabbed a bag of chips and more beer, then headed for the backyard. Through the empty living room that would soon house my brand-new couch.
A fresh start. Damn, did I need it.
A guy could start over at forty-five, right?
That birthday had snuck up and kicked me in the gut just last week.
I sat down on the patio and twisted the cap off my beer. Gray had joined Darius over by the avocado trees where the mountainside crept upward again. My home sat on a mid-mountain ridge, alongside ten or so other properties, with plenty of space in between each house.
These mountains weren’t granite gray or majestic, but they were home to me. In all their yellowish, shrubby glory.
I took a deep breath.
So I was a little jaded and lost at the moment. I’d get over it. I had my new home. A place to start over. Granted, I’d still be in LA almost every day when I went into the office, but the forty-minute commute had given me the distance I’d craved.
One of the four bedrooms was gonna become a study so I could work from home a bit more. In reality, I didn’t need that many rooms, but after the isolating life I’d led for too many years, I was hoping for a lot of get-togethers.
I was closer to my sister and niece now too. If I had my way, they’d drive their butts up from San Diego every Sunday for dinner.
I wanted traditions.
Maybe a couple dogs and a cat to keep me company. I sure as fuck wasn’t venturing into the dating jungle again. I was done. So goddamn done.
“Gray!” I called. He turned toward me, some eighty feet away. “How about some music?”
He’d brought his Bluetooth speaker. My entertainment center and all that was packed up in one of the trucks.
“Absolutely.” Gray jogged over and ducked into the house.
Darius took his time walking back, eyeing the pool and the lawn, the trees and the hillside. “House looks great, Elliott.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll be happy here.”
He scratched his jaw absently and sat down across from me. “What else are you growin’?”
I grinned. Always the homesteader, that one. He and Gray had it all. Pigs, rabbits, chickens, crops.
“Not much,” I admitted. Yet, anyway. I might pick up where the previous owners had left off—and what they’d left behind. “Couple lemon trees, figs, and a random bed of dill next to the front porch.”
Darius shrugged a little. “It’s a good start. You won’t be getting any of that when you visit us. Except for the dill. I think Gray grows that in the herb garden.”
I shook my head, amused. The Darius Quinn I’d met some fifteen years ago had definitely wanted the secluded mountain farm and the crops—but the family? That was new. He used to shy away from commitment and attachments, claiming that he had enough siblings and nieces and nephews.
On the other hand, it brought me a little bit of hope. Darius had found the rest of his happily ever after in his forties. The man was a couple years shy of fifty now, so fingers crossed for me.
“How often do you sit back and have a conversation with yourself from, say, ten, twenty years ago?” I asked.
Darius snorted softly and threaded his fingers across his stomach. “That guy’s there every damn day, wondering how this happened.”
I could imagine. My own twenty-year-old self reminded me of his presence all too often; only, he wasn’t happy.
“Are you takin’ on any more contracts?” he asked curiously.
I shook my head. “No, I’m out. Tariq too. We completed our final contract last year.”
I’d semi-retired as a private military contractor almost ten years ago, but Tariq and I had accepted some assignments while we’d built up our business.
“Good.” Darius nodded. “That’s when life begins for us old grunts.”
In my wildest dreams, I had hope that he was right. Work was certainly good. More structured, safer, and still challenging. Private security was the perfect field for me. More New York and London, less Baghdad and Djibouti.
“We got company!” Gray hollered shortly before he emerged with the speaker. “Two big-ass SUVs just pulled up outside.”
That would be the people from work. “Tariq has his own set of keys.” I took a swig of my beer and then opened the bag of chips.
“Advice? Don’t play Wordfeud against him,” Gray said. “Bastard beats me every time.”
I let out a laugh.
Darius chuckled. “Why would you play a word game against someone who’s fluent in nine languages, knucklehead?”
“I need someone who keeps me humble when I mop the Wordfeud floor with Ryan,” Gray replied frankly.
That cracked me up. Oh, Ryan. Sharp as a tack in the field, talented in countless ways—probably one of the best marksmen I’d ever met, but he was a Marine through and through. Zero patience, reckless, a lot of trial and error, more doing than thinking.
“Yo!”
Speaking of…
I tilted my head and spotted Crew coming through the living room.
“How you doin’, kid?” I smiled.
“Wonderful. Fucking gorgeous down hea’, boss.” He came out and slapped his hand to mine, then immediately turned to greet Gray and Darius. “If it ain’t my saviors! How the fuck are ya?”
I smirked. Crew had walked an interesting path. First as a fantastic Marine—who could be described very similarly to Ryan—and then he’d learned how difficult it could be in the private sector. He’d tried his luck as a PMC, promptly found himself in a h ostage situation—saved by Darius, Gray, and a few family members…and now, he was with me. Hadn’t even turned thirty yet.
I believed in Crew, though. He made an excellent bodyguard for the more risk-filled assignments. Mostly diplomats and bankers with enemies.
While Gray and Crew chatted, Darius and I focused on Tariq and Ortega as they stepped out. They’d found the beer already, good. Ortega had brought his wife Marisa too, and she spoiled me rotten. Often showing up at the office with casseroles and treats.
Last but not least, Toby and Madison.
“Is it inappropriate for me to say you’re glowin’, hon?” I smiled.
Madison beamed at me. “Never, boss. But it’s partly sweat. I cannot freaking wait to jump in your pool.”
I chuckled. “Have at it, whenever you want.” I bumped fists with Toby, the nervous daddy-to-be. They had an interesting dynamic, those two. At work, Toby was the fearless bodyguard who looked the part too. Madison was the head of our cyber department—soft-spoken, a true code monkey with a Dr Pepper addiction she’d had to kick when they found out she was pregnant. But off the clock, man, Toby was a mess. Happy, of course, but all over the place. The baby wasn’t due for another five months, and he’d already assembled two cribs. After destroying the first one.
Given our age differences, I wasn’t surprised to see a split in our group. The youngsters who were still in their twenties headed for the pool, so that included Crew, Gray, Toby, and Madison.
Marisa went inside to call and check in on the kids, who were apparently spending the weekend with Ortega’s folks in Thousand Oaks. And Ortega and Tariq sat down with Darius and me.
“What a reunion, huh?” Tariq was happy. He’d worked plenty with Darius in the past. “When’s Dante coming?”
Darius checked his watch. “I reckon he’s landed by now.” He glanced up at me. “The Tenleys are flying in too, right?”
I nodded. I’d wanted to bring as many of us together as possible. Private contractors tended to be scattered all over the place, not to mention leading fairly secluded lives when they were stateside. Right up until they retired, that was. Darius was married now, Dante was engaged, Tariq had recently welcomed a second daughter to the world, and then there were the twin brothers River and Reese Tenley. No kids or anything, but I’d sure heard them call their partner Shay little one. They’d been together a few years now, and Shay had even taken River and Reese’s last name.
Since I was having zero luck in the love department, I was just gonna have to surround myself with old friends and their new spouses.
It was great. Just great.
“Is my little partner in crime here yet?” Ortega asked. “Blake promised she was gonna whoop my ass.”
I grinned. “Not yet, but Piper texted about an hour ago. They’ll be here soon.”
I had a bone to pick with Piper. My sister worked so much, she’d hired a professional babysitter for my niece. Like, what the fuck was I? Chopped liver? I’d told her a million times; I could drive down and watch Blake. I didn’t care about traffic. Plus, they didn’t live smack-dab in the middle of San Diego. The worst of rush hour was easily avoided.
Bad enough I couldn’t see Blake when she was with her dumbass stepdad. His week with her cut my time with her in half.
About half an hour later, the house had filled up nicely. Dante had arrived shortly before the Tenleys, and approximately thirty seconds after I’d met Shay for the second time in my life, he’d shoved Reese into the pool with a little help from Gray.
That was the upside to having buddies who’d robbed the cradle for partners some twenty years younger than themselves; reunions were never dull. Gray, Crew, Toby, and Shay were getting along fine.
Reese pushed himself up from the pool.
Crew was struggling to contain his laughter. His uncle and the Tenley brothers went way back, so this memory would live on.
I grinned to myself as I prepped the grill. Reese was watching the youngsters with suspicion in his eyes while he threw off his wet clothes. River and Darius had naturally ended up on Reese’s side of the pool.
“Can you stop looking at me like that?” Shay laughed. “I told you I’d get back at you for stealing my travel pillow!”
Reese kept staring as he dropped his wallet and—oh, ouch—a possibly dead phone on one of the pool loungers.
“You might wanna put that in a bag of rice,” Gray offered.
“Don’t let that get to you,” Crew told Shay. “iPhones are waterproof.”
“Boy, you’re on my list too,” Reese barked out.
Crew merely widened his arms in a “come get it.”
Poor Reese. Not even River could hide his mirth.
Carbon copies, those two. Thank fuck Reese had a distinguishable tattoo on his neck.
It was gonna be a good weekend. Sun shinin’, country music playin’, friends laughin’.
“You look happier, querido.” Marisa came up next to me with one of the platters of sausage.
I smiled at her. “It’s good to have everyone here.”
The twinkle in her eyes was less good. That usually meant trouble. She set the platter on the side table, then put her hand on my arm.
“Just let me know when you want me to set you up with my brother.”
There it was.
“Hon, I’m swearing off both men and women for a long, long time.” I poked at the briquettes and bent down to blow a little on them, wanting the fire to spread.
At some point, after five or six spectacularly failed relationships, you had to ask yourself if the problem was you. I had an ex-wife, an ex-fiancé, an ex-girlfriend who’d stolen from me to support her secret drug addiction, an ex-boyfriend who’d cheated on me, one what-if who’d turned out to be the biggest ass of them all, and—
“Uncle Ellie!”
Finally.
I spun around and grinned automatically. There she was, peeking out from behind Dante and Tariq. Eight going on eighteen. Christ, I wasn’t ready for her to be out of diapers, much less out of second grade.
“Get over here, darling. You wanna tell me why you’re late?”
Blake laughed, and we met in the middle of the patio, where I swooped her up in my arms. “Blame Daddy!”
Oh, I had no issues doing that. That applied to everything. War, famine, pandemics, Blake arriving late—all Joel’s fault.
“Well, you’re all mine now.” I smooched her cheek and got a tight hug from her. She packed some strength for being so small. That was all the women in our family. Ma, aunts, Piper… We called them shortcakes, ’cause it got ’em all riled up. “Where’s your mama?”
“I’m right here, big brother,” Piper answered herself as she came out too.
Perfect. I made quick work of introducing her to the few she hadn’t met before, and I lost Blake in the process. She was gonna change into her bathing suit, she said. Fine. I’d get more hugs from her later.
Piper looked like she was about to head off with Marisa since they were somewhat close, but she asked to have a word with me first.
“Yeah, sure.” I handed the grill master task over to Ortega and followed Piper back into the house.
All fifteen of us were here now, and I was getting hungry. “We’ll go to the kitchen.” We might as well bring out the rest of the food.
“Okay, um…can you promise not to fly off the handle?”
I threw her a frown over my shoulder. What the hell? I wasn’t exactly the fly-off-the-handle guy around family. “Why would I fly off—”
“Joel’s on his way.”
I laughed. Yeah, right. “Good one.” I opened the fridge and began pulling out condiments and dipping bowls.
“I’m serious, El. Jane passed away last week. He’s not doing well.”
I froze.
His mom was dead?
Fuck.
