“Just ’cause a mission follows the plan doesn’t mean it went smoothly,” Hew muttered as he shifted uncomfortably at the thought of just how unsmoothly things had actually gone.
“Bad intel? Bad equipment? Or both?” Boss asked.
“Intel was fine,” Hew informed him, his tone bland.
Boss nodded in understanding.
Frank “Boss” Knight had been the head of the original twelve-man crew at Black Knights Inc. Like the current six-man team, the OG covert defense firm guys had taken their orders from and reported directly to El Jefe himself, the president of the United States. But the change in leadership at the White House had resulted in a change in BKI’s active-duty roster.
The new madam president had wanted to form her own clandestine, fast-response team, made up of men loyal to her and not the previous administration.
Enter: Hew and his five teammates.
“So how bad was it?” Boss asked, using his tongue to swap the sucker from one bewhiskered cheek to the next.
“The Bell 412 the RIB gave us was a friggin’ pile,” Hew lamented with a distasteful twist of his lips. “I didn’t expect their best, but I’d hoped for more than a Huey held together with duct tape and dreams. After we rescued the hostages, we made it twenty klicks from the Boko Haram base before she started fallin’ apart midair.”
Becky’s eyes widened. “Jesus.”
“Ayuh.” Hew nodded. “I was prayin’ to him and anyone else listenin’. It was sheer luck I could bang a uey and limp us over the border into Nigeria.”
“Sheer luck and a hell of a lot of skill, I imagine,” Boss interjected.
“Brought us down in what Graham called a hard landin’.” Hew made air quotes. “More like a controlled crash. Light on the controlled.”
“Navy SEALs.” Boss grinned broadly, referring to Graham Coleburn…and also himself since he’d once sported the Budweiser. “We’re nothing if not kings of understatement.”
Hew grunted and took another pull from his beer. He was bone-tired. His ears still rang from the systems malfunction warnings that had blared through the cockpit. And the twenty-six-hour trip home, squirreled away in the belly of a big G17 Globemaster cargo plane, had been anything but relaxing.
And still...
The second he’d walked through BKI’s front door to see Sabrina leaving for Red Delilah’s, he’d dropped his duffel and followed her like a goddamned golden retriever.
“Don’t say it.” Becky’s voice yanked his attention back to the present. The diminutive motorcycle designer shook a finger at her husband’s nose.
“Didn’t even open my mouth.” Boss blinked innocently. Too innocently.
“No. But your face is speaking volumes.”
The couple made an incongruous pair. Becky was tiny and beautifully elfin in appearance. By contrast, Boss was huge and burly and looked like he’d gotten tangled up with a weedwhacker at some point.
Hew flicked a curious gaze between them. “What did I miss?”
“Let’s get your opinion on this,” Becky declared. “What do you think is the appropriate length of jail time for the heinous crime of leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor?”
“According to her”—Boss hooked a thumb—“the answer is a life sentence.”
“Hooks are on the back of the door and next to the shower. You have a wealth of options, and yet?—”
“In case no one’s ever told ya,” Hew interrupted their argument. “It’s annoyin’ as hell bein’ the third wheel in your Hallmark movie. Where’s my damn backup?”
He looked back toward the bar and…immediately sat up straighter.
A short, stocky guy with a cleft in his chin rubbed a finger over the back of Sabrina’s hand.
His first thought was…Would you look at the sack on this friggin’ guy? His second thought was to rake his gaze over the man with so much force that he was surprised the douchebag didn’t feel it.
From the top of the man’s salon-styled superhero hair to the bottom of his handmade Italian loafers, he had silver spoon written all over him and giant asshole written on top of that.
