The little heart-shaped locket held her mother’s photo and brought her comfort anytime she was stressed. And hoofing it was how she did her best thinking. Something about moving her body in a repetitive path encouraged her brain to disconnect from the world so it could run through scenarios, weigh consequences, and mull over the infinitesimal details that could mean the difference between a successful mission and one where the men she’d grown to know and love came home in body bags.
Shehadgrown to know and love each and every one of the Black Knights. Hunter for his ability to stay calm even when the entire world was turning upside down. Sam for treating her like a long-lost sister from the first moment he met her. Graham for understanding that silence was golden andneverattemptingto mansplain anything to her. Britt for his obsession with fun and adventure. Hewitt for his love of books and his comically pessimistic outlook on life. And Fisher for…well, that was a whole other story.
The Black Knights had given her a place to belong. They’d given her a purpose, a direction, a reason to get up in the morning with the goal of making the world a better,saferplace for everyone. But most importantly, they’d given her people to care for. People to pamper and spoil. People who had favorite meals she could prepare. Who’d sit around the table playing cards after the holiday dishes were put away. Who lived with her day-in and day-out and thus knew all her frailties and foibles and adored her anyway.
Having grown up almost entirely in boarding schools, she’d longed for the stuff she’d seen depicted in those sweet, sappy movies that played on the Hallmark Channel, the things she’d heard other girls at school talking about but had never experienced herself.
To put it simply, BKI had given her a family. And she was bound and determined to make sure allher guys, as she liked to call them, made it out the other side of this particular career path with all their body parts still intact.
If the original Knights could do it, so could the new crew.
But to ensure that happened, she had to stay frosty. Vigilant.Carefulwhen it came to helping plan missions and organize transportation and scour intel.
Her father had made it clear from the beginning he and Madam President expected BKI to operate as independently as possible.“
The president and I need plausible deniability should the truth of Black Knights Inc. ever reach the media,”he’d said the day he’d told her about his desire to install her in a position within the company.“I expect to be kept apprised of the details regarding the men and their missions, but that’s where I’d like my involvement to end. Are we clear on that?”
They’d been clear. Her job was to pass along the information about the Knights and their assignments, but if the BKI boys ever found themselves in a bind, the last place they should look for help was the Oval Office.
That fact had been hammered home recently down in Colombia. When her guys had found themselves fighting for their lives, it would’ve been the simplest thing for her father to call in an exfil from the U.S. naval base in Cartagena. But when she’d phoned him in desperation, asking him to do exactly that, he’d told her,“This op is strictly off books. Local military doesn’t even know it’s going down. I’m sure your guys can handle themselves. Aren’t you always bragging they’re the best of the best?”
It wasn’t bragging. It was a statement of fact.
And yet, she’d been scared. Scared by how badly the Knights had been outnumbered. Scared of the local law enforcement who’d been helping them on the op because, like anywhere else, a man in a uniform couldn’t always be trusted—a badge didn’t make a man immune to corruption. Scared that her guys might’ve found themselves in a situation too hot and too heavy for even their mad skills to navigate.
She’d never been particularly close with her father. How could she have been when the only times she’d seen him during her growing up years were the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and the few weeks during the summers when she hadn’t been shuffled between one camp or another? But even though they’d never been close, she’d always loved him, respected him, had wanted to do whatever it took to make him proud.
That night, on that call, things had changed. That night, on that call, she’d realized when push came to shove, her dear old dad reallywasjust a political animal. More worried about his position within the government than he was the lives of six courageous men who never questioned or complained about the sometimesinsanelydangerous jobs Madam President assigned them.
That night, on that call, Eliza had wanted to reach through the phone and throttle the man who’d given her life.
In the end, however, he’d been right. Her guyshadmanaged to handle themselves. They’d put a period on the cartel leader’s life and escaped without any of them sustaining serious injuries. But it’d been a close thing.
Tooclose.
Shestillcouldn’t understand how the intel they’d received from their source inside the CIA had been so wrong. If she were a conspiracy theorist, she’d swear they’d been set up. But she was pragmatic enough to know that even the Central Intelligence Agency, ostensibly the best information gathering group in the world, sometimes got shit wrong.
Speaking of getting shit wrong…
“Sam!” she yelled, dropping her locket as the roar of a V-twin engine filled the factory building. “Wait!” Flying down the metal stairs, she hissed, “Move!” as she shoved by Fisher who had taken up a position in the middle of the staircase. Against her will, his aftershave tunneled up her nose and made the hairs on her arms lift in awareness.
Why does he have to smell so good, all smokey and sweet like fine scotch? Why can’t he smell like the man-ho he is, like cheap cologne and 3-in-1 hair and body wash?
“Hey!” he called after her. “What’s the rush?”
She ignored him as she raced across the shop floor toward the yawning black hole that led to the secret entrance—or in this case,exit—to the BKI compound. Sam had already nosed the front tire of his big, heavily chromed out bike over the lip of the tunnel. His back brake light sent a wash of red into the shop, making the large space with its rows of bike-lifts and horde of tools look eerie, like the set of a horror movie where a serial-killer mechanic tortured his victims.
“Sam!” she called again. “Wait a second!”
But Sam couldn’t hear her over the motorcycle’s massive engine. With a twist of his wrist, the bike lurched into the tunnel and was immediately swallowed up by the darkness.
She skidded to a halt at the entrance to the Bat Cave, as they lovingly called the channel dug beneath the Chicago River. It ended in a lightly used parking garage on the opposite bank. Like the back taillight, the sound of the motorcycle was quickly consumed by the steep curve of the tunnel. And within seconds, all she could hear was the steadydrip, drip, dripof the moisture leaking off the thick walls and hitting the cement floor.
“Shit,” she muttered as she took her cell phone from her pocket to shoot Sam a quick text. Not that she held out much hope he’d actuallylookat his phone before making the trek to FBI headquarters.
The expression he’d worn when Cesar explained Hannah’s plan had said he was one-hundred-percent focused on getting to Miss Blue with all due haste. And when Sam focused, hefocused. It was almost trance-like. His pupils pinpointed. His breathing grew slow and deep. And his movements, which were always athletic and coordinated, became swift and efficient—no wasted movement.
It was sort of like watching a jungle cat home in on its prey.
