Dark Protocol

Chapter 5

Genevieve

Five o’clock.

The tactical watch on my wrist marked the beginning of morning with a dull, silent vibration, but it was pointless. I hadn’t slept for even a single minute. I had spent the rest of the night lying in the darkness, counting my own breaths while my ears focused on the irregular sounds coming from the other side of the wall. Roman Crawford had finally gone quiet sometime around three in the morning, but his presence still pressed against my room with such weight that it felt as if he were physically there with me in that cramped space.

Slowly, forcing every muscle to cooperate, I sat up on the narrow bed. My body felt heavy as lead, and my eyes burned from exhaustion. But routine was a merciless master, and I was its perfect servant. Within fifteen minutes, I had showered in ice-cold water, the only method that could wash the dull fog of fatigue from my mind, then began rebuilding my armor piece by piece. First came the thick black Kevlar vest, which somehow felt tighter and heavier today than it had yesterday. Then the crisp white shirt, the dark navy jacket, the holster, and finally the earpiece in my left ear. I pulled my red hair into a bun so tight my scalp ached, but the physical pain helped keep me awake.

When I looked into the mirror, the exhausted woman fighting shadows from the night before was gone.

Special Agent Genevieve Shaw stood in her place.

Mechanical.

Cold.

Impenetrable.

At five-thirty, I stepped into the antechamber of the presidential residence. Director Vance was nowhere to be seen yet. Only the two night guards at the end of the hall gave me a silent nod. I took my place in front of the carved oak door to the President’s bedroom, clasped my hands behind my back, and waited.

According to protocol, wake-up was scheduled for six o’clock, unless the subject gave other orders.

The door flew open at five thirty-five.

What stepped out was not a perfectly groomed head of state in a tailored suit.

It was raw, destructive force in human form.

Roman Crawford wore simple dark gray sweatpants and a fitted black T-shirt that clung tightly to his broad shoulders and chest. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were so wild and dark it looked as though the demons of the night were still raging inside those blue irises. Black hand wraps were wound around his knuckles.

He stopped when he saw me.

His gaze swept over my perfect, rigid stance.

“Do you ever sleep, Girl Scout?”

His voice was hoarse, full of morning darkness and mockery.

“I’ve had an adequate amount of rest, Mr. President,” I answered at once, my voice stripped of all emotion. “Your official schedule doesn’t begin until nine. Where are we going?”

“The basement.”

He walked past me, setting a pace so fast that I had to lengthen my stride to keep the required one-step distance at his right shoulder.

The private gym in the White House basement was closed to both staff and Secret Service whenever the President used it. When we entered, the room was lit only by cold fluorescent lights. The air carried the bitter, unmistakable scent of rubber, metal, and decades of sweat. A massive black leather punching bag hung from the center of the room, surrounded by weights and benches half swallowed by shadow.

Roman walked to the middle of the room without a word.

I remained by the door, my back against the wall, my gaze sweeping over the two possible entrances and the ventilation grates.

He stepped up to the bag without warming up.

The first punch landed with such brutal force that the sound cracked through the enclosed space like a gunshot. The heavy bag swung almost to the ceiling, the support chains clanging sharply above it.

This wasn’t a fitness routine.

It wasn’t training.

It was an execution.

Roman dismantled the bag in silence with methodical violence. His movements were fast, precise, and devastating. There was no elegance in them, only raw, dark force. Left hook. Right cross. A knee strike that nearly tore the bag from its chain. Within minutes, his black shirt had darkened with sweat and clung tightly to the muscles of his back. With every strike, he exhaled in sharp, controlled bursts.

I stood in the corner and watched.

Training had taught me how to analyze body language and fighting style. What I saw now belonged to a man carrying so much buried rage and pain that if he weren’t destroying that bag, he would probably tear someone apart with his bare hands.

Maybe me.

His muscles tightened and released with every movement, his body moving like a big cat losing its mind inside a cage.

After twenty minutes of relentless, punishing strikes, the bag’s swing finally began to slow.

Roman stopped.

His chest rose and fell hard, and sweat shone across his face. He grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one smooth motion before throwing it into the corner.

The heavy air in the room became suffocating.

The muscles across his chest and back stood out sharply beneath the fluorescent light. He turned, grabbed a towel from the bench, and began walking toward me.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

My pulse gave one small jump, but I kept my breathing even.

My face turned to stone.

He stopped barely two steps away.

The heat radiating from his body almost burned my skin. The raw, animal scent of salt, sweat, and male power hit me as his chest continued to rise and fall. He wiped his face, then draped the towel around his neck.

His blue eyes drilled into mine.

This was not the grieving President staring back at me.

This was a beast.

“Bored, Shaw?”

His voice was low, vibrating through the room.

“Observation is never without activity, sir,” I replied coldly, keeping my gaze level with his eyes and deliberately avoiding the bare expanse of his chest.

A cruel half-smile curved Roman’s mouth.

He took one step closer.

The distance between us nearly vanished.

“You know, while you were standing there in the corner like a dressed-up mannequin, I started wondering…” He tilted his head slightly. “Can you use anything besides your gun? Or if someone takes away your little toy, is all that’s left a scared red-haired girl?”

The provocation was obvious and deliberate.

He wanted to test my limits.

He wanted to intimidate me with his physical advantage.

“I graduated in the top two percent of my close-combat module, Mr. President,” I said evenly. “I am capable of neutralizing an unarmed threat twice my height and weight.”

Roman gave a low, mocking laugh.

The sound vibrated in the air between us.

“Really?”

His eyes darkened.

The attack came so fast an ordinary person wouldn’t have noticed the shift in his shoulder. He threw a sharp right cross directly toward my face. Not with his full strength. He wasn’t trying to kill me. But it was fast enough that if I failed to react, it would break my nose.

My instincts took control in a fraction of a second.

I didn’t step back.

I didn’t flinch.

My left hand snapped up like a steel whip, deflecting his fist and using his own momentum against him, while my right hand drove forward with merciless precision toward his throat.

The movement froze in the air.

His wrist was locked inside my left hand, my fingernails pressing into his pulse. The edge of my right hand stopped exactly two millimeters from Roman’s Adam’s apple.

One tiny movement, and I could have crushed his windpipe.

The silence in the room became so deep I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Physical contact.

This was the first time I had touched him.

His skin was hot and damp beneath my fingers, the muscles of his wrist hard as stone in my grip. My fingertips tingled from the power radiating through him.

Roman didn’t flinch.

He didn’t blink.

He only looked down at my hand near his throat, then slowly, very slowly, lifted his gaze back to mine. His face was so close I could feel his hot breath against my skin.

Something new flared inside his blue eyes.

Something burning.

Dark.

The thrill of the challenge tangled with something entirely different, something thick and suffocating between us.

“Were you trying to hit me, sir?” I whispered.

My voice was ice cold, though perhaps a shade rougher than it should have been.

The corner of Roman’s mouth slowly lifted into a real, dangerous smile.

“Just a test, Girl Scout.”

“I don’t fail tests.”

I released his wrist slowly and withdrew my hand from his throat. Then I returned to my original stance with mechanical precision, my back against the wall.

My palm still remembered the heat of his skin.

A phantom touch my cold rationality immediately tried to erase.

Roman remained there for one long second, staring as if he were trying to carve his way into my soul.

Then he finally stepped back.

He picked up a bottle of water from the bench and took a drink, his eyes sweeping over me one more time.

“Prepare the convoy, Shaw,” he said, turning toward the dark hallway. “I need to be at the Capitol at nine.”

He paused at the door.

“And wear something less stiff. Your rigidity irritates me.”

When the door closed behind him, I shut my eyes and drew one deep, trembling breath from the hot, heavy air.

The hand that had just stopped the most dangerous man in the world curled tightly into a fist at my side.

The test might have been over.

But the war had only just begun.