He switched on the Bug’s radio and fumbled with the old-fashioned dial. Skimming past a station playing music that sounded vaguely like the stuff he’d heard at the one-and-only bar mitzvah he’d ever attended, past another where some Romanian-speaking guy angrily shouted at his listeners, he finally settled on a station playing the closing notes of an old Bee Gees’ tune. As quickly as that song ended, another started.
He recognized the driving beat immediately and chuckled. Ozzie glanced up from his laptop, a huge grin spreading across his face. And Ace looked over at Rusty, shaking his head, but not trying to fight his smile.
The second the Village People started singing, Ace, Ozzie, and Rusty joined in. “Young man, there’s no need to feel down!”
For the next four-and-a-half minutes, two covert special operators and one former-marine-turned-cod-fisherman-turned-honorary-member-of-BKI sang “YMCA” at the top of their lungs while chugging down a winding ribbon of highway in bumfuck Moldova.
Life was bizarre. And awesome.
It made Rusty sad to think of the time when this mission would be over, when Black Knights Inc. stopped being Black Knights Inc. When he was left with no recourse but to go back to being a cod fisherman in Dover, England.
He would miss the Black Knights so much.
He would miss Ace…
Chapter 15
“Don’t send those photos, Sonya.”
It had taken nearly fifteen minutes for the little button camera to finally download all the pictures she’d taken onto her phone. But finally, there on the screen was a grid of photos showing the caterpillar-eyebrowed uranium dealer and the scrawny, bucktoothed Al-Qaeda operative. She lifted a triumphant fist and whooped her victory, but Angel’s request had the cry dying in her throat, her hand falling limply back into her lap.
He maneuvered the rust bucket through the streets of Chisinau like a race-car driver. Trucks roared past and motorcycles darted around them, but Angel managed to make dealing with the traffic look as easy as a Sunday morning drive down a country lane.
“I’m sorry. What?” she asked him warily.
“Don’t send those photos.”
A shard of ice sliced down her spine. There he was again. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous. Menace oozed from his pores as surely as the bead of sweat slipping between her breasts.
It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. The dead-set look in his eyes left no doubt.
She glanced at the semi-auto between his legs. He’d shoved it there while hot-wiring their ride. It hadn’t occurred to her then that it probably would’ve been more prudent for him to hand her the gun. That way she could have protected their six while he was otherwise occupied.
Why hadn’t he handed it to her?
When he saw the direction of her gaze, his brow pinched. “Sonya, I told you before, I will never hurt you.”
“Y-yes.” She nodded. Apprehension had begun as a niggle behind her breastbone. She wasn’t used to second-guessing herself, but…
“You believed me then. Why doubt me now?” he demanded.
“I don’t know, I…” Her eyes traveled over his blood-spattered face. He’d wiped most of the stuff away, but there were still a couple of specks near his temple and one on his chin. Then her gaze dipped back to the Glock. Adrenaline left a sour taste on her tongue. “Why didn’t you hand me the gun?”
He’d been keeping an eye on the traffic, but her question made him shoot her a quick glance. She wished he hadn’t. His dark eyes sliced into her like diamond-tipped daggers. Something awful came over his face.
“Angel?” Those two syllables were a little too breathless for her liking. “You…you’re scaring me.”
His jaw hardened until it resembled a slab of stone. He grumbled something under his breath, and when he reached for the handgun, she flinched. She couldn’t help it. The door handle was secured in her grip before she made the conscious decision to reach for it.
His ragged voice spit out his words like bullets when he snarled, “For fuck’s sake, Sonya! Here!” He shoved the Glock at her. She had to release the door handle to accept it with shaking hands. “Take it.”
The metal was warm from his body heat. The weight of the weapon was not insubstantial, and given the abruptness of his move, she bobbled the gun before clutching it to her chest. Eyeing the Flintstone hole in the floorboard, she watched the roadway whiz by beneath her feet and realized if she’d dropped the Glock, she would have lost their only means of protection.
Now she didn’t want the responsibility of the gun. She wanted to hand it back to him. But that would make her look foolish.
Tucking the Glock securely beneath her thigh for safekeeping, she whispered, “I’m sorry. When you asked me not to send the photos, I thought—”
