Prologue
Black Knights Inc., Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois
Fisher Wakefield was blown away.
Not an entirely unexpected outcome given his chosen profession. As a decorated Delta Force grunt turned super-secret government defense contractor who ran missions so black they never received a code name or crossed the desk of some high-ranking official in the Department of Defense. On a good day his chances of getting turned into chunky salsa were hovering somewhere around fifty/fifty.
It wasn’t an IED that took him out, however. Nor was it a 50-cal, a hand grenade, or a rocket launched from a bazooka.
It was a woman.
Thewoman.
She didn’t end him with an arrow to his heart or a round to his brainpan, however. She ended him with a dress.
No, it’s not a dress,he thought, feeling his heart rate kick up at the same time his breathing went shallow.It’s the pinnacle of dresses. The dress that every dress before it has tried to be and every dress after it will fail to be. The dress to end all dresses.
Black satin. One of those necklines that looked like the top half of a heart. And a slit up one side that bordered on being indecent. Probablywaslabeled indecent in some of the more conservative parts of the state.
It held her breasts high when she appeared at the top of the stairs. Sighed open to reveal one mile-long leg as she placed her hand on the rail and stepped onto the first tread. And it moved with her like a second skin as she made her way down from the second floor of the old menthol cigarette factory that was headquarters for the custom motorcycle shop known to the world as Black Knights Inc.—and living quarters for the clandestine group of operators who worked out of it.
She walks in beauty like the night…
Lord Byron’s famous line drifted through his head. He chastised himself for falling back on an old cliché when he had so manyothergems to choose from.
Like Maya Angelou’s…I am woman. Phenomenally.Or William Wordsworth’s…She was a phantom of delight when first she gleamed upon my sight.
Both poems were appropriate. Both described the woman and her impact. But neither worked as well as Byron’s. Because Byron’s compared a lady to the night. And that fit her to a tee.
Her hair was as black as a moonless sky. Her skin was as pale and as bright as the stars. And when she smiled at him, particularly anytime she’d smiled at him lately, it was as hard and as sharp as a sickle moon.
“Careful. You’ll be catching flies.”
He realized he was gaping like a catfish trapped on a mudbank when Britt Rollins reached over and knuckle-bumped the bottom of his chin.
Britt was a former Army Ranger and an adrenaline junkie who liked jumping out of airplanes, climbing mountains, and racing dune buggies across the desert even when hewasn’ton a mission.
Britt was also Fisher’s best friend.
From the day they’d met inside a windowless basement room in the Pentagon—the day they’d been tasked with abandoning their military contracts and signing on to answer to none other than the president herself—they’d been cronies in crime. Bosom buddies. Or, as Britt liked to say,wingmen for life.
But where Fisher moved through the world with as much irreverence as possible, Britt seemed perpetually on the hunt for the next most-dangerous thing. Where Fisher was lucky to make a grilled cheese sandwich without setting the place on fire, Britt could whip up a crab boil or a bowl of shrimp and grits as easily as breathing. But most glaringly, where Fisher was deliberate and planned, Britt was haphazard and impulsive.
Their differences meant they made a good team. Where one was weak, the other was strong. Andthathad saved their asses more than a time or two.
Being teammates, best friends, and brothers by choice instead of blood, meant theyalsodidn’t bullshit each other.
Which is why Fisher didn’t prevaricate when he answered, “Either I’ve died and gone to heaven…” He had to clear his throat. The hoarse grate of his voice reminded him of Humvee tires crunching over rough terrain. “Or I’m in hell.”
“Gotta be the former.” Britt’s Lowcountry accent dropped the R sounds off the final word until it sounded more likefahmah. “Because only angels look like that.” The ex-Ranger’s voice was filled with awe as his eyes remained glued to the dress.
And the womaninthe dress.
When something venomous and prickly legged unfurled in the center of Fisher’s chest, he reminded himself Britt loved Eliza like a kid sister. Same as the rest of the Knights.
Er…same as everyone but me,he corrected, shifting his stance when his blood surged south in the normal reaction to seeing a beautiful woman wearing something that hugged every curve and slithered over every line.
Normal, but frustratingly unwelcome.
