He’ll have to unbind me to do it. Be ready. Use your teeth. Use your nails. Use everything that?—
“Kurt!” Black Widow’s voice boomed across the hollow space, and the mean little man immediately dropped Sabrina’s jaw. “I thought my instructions were clear!”
Black Widow walked toward them, adjusting the zipper on her top without hurry, her red lace bra still on proud display. Hummer trailed after her, zipping his pants and looking as self-satisfied as a man strolling away from a good meal.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the ganders,” Kurt muttered petulantly.
“Aw, poor baby.” Black Widow pretended to pout. “Did it make your little dick hard to hear mommy and daddy going at it?” She wiggled her pinky finger as if to indicate the size of Kurt’s penis. “Do you need to go into the office and give yourself a hand so you can feel better and get back to work?”
“Fuck you,” Kurt spat.
“Oh, no.” Black Widow shook her head. “I fuck men. Not boys. When you grow four more inches, then we can talk. In the meantime, do as you’re told. Bishop is paying us all a pretty penny for this job. So keep your head out of your pants and in the game.”
Bishop?
Sabrina filed the name away. Not that she thought she’d have an opportunity to pass it along. But just in case there was a sliver of hope. Just in case, against all odds, she was able to?—
“Take your own advice, why don’t you?” Kurt snarled at the blonde.
“Because I don’t have to.” Black Widow studied her fingers as if checking for chips in her manicure. “Because without me, none of you would have work. You’d all be pulling your pork in some no-name dump of a town and doing your forty hours in some dead-end job just so you could have a little extra scratch to get drunk on the weekends and harangue some poor bartender with tall tales of your glory days in the military.”
Her words were feather-light. Her tone was scalpel-sharp.
“I have the reputation in the field. I have the contacts that get us the jobs. I say when and where and who.” She dropped her hand to pin her soulless eyes on Kurt. “Got that?”
The short man didn’t speak. He didn’t nod. He simply went back to work with the others.
Sabrina didn’t let herself exhale. One, she didn’t want to make her relief at Kurt’s departure obvious. Two, it was hard to feel relieved when Black Widow turned her attention from the short man to her.
The corners of the woman’s red-stained lips lifted ever so slightly, like she was amused by the sight of horny men and deadly weapons and the promise of blood.
Did she reapply her lipstick after her little assignation with Hummer in the back office?
The errant thought was chilling because it was such a casual, everyday thing to do. Or—and this was more chilling—did she not need to reapply it because she and Hummer never kissed?
The sounds coming from the little room had certainly been primitive. But the thought of sex without the intimacy of sharing breath was downright animalistic.
Slowly, with an almost feline swagger, the blonde strolled over to stand in front of Sabrina.
“You’re tougher than you look, Sabrina Greenlee,” she remarked conversationally, and Sabrina blanched.
They knew her name.
Black Widow saw her reaction and purred. “Oh, yes. We perused your purse before chucking it out the window somewhere in Wisconsin. You have a South Carolina driver’s license. Southern girl, eh? But now you work with the Black Knights?”
Sabrina didn’t respond. Didn’t blink. Even when Black Widow bent down until their faces were mere inches apart.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to talk. You can just continue to sit there and act tough.” Black Widow straightened. “I admire your tenacity,” she went on. “There are too few women like us in the world. Women who refuse to back down to assholes like Kurt.”
Sabrina’s throat worked around the bile lingering there. “You and I are nothing alike.”
The woman’s smile sharpened. “So much spunk and spite. Too bad it won’t save you.”
Maybe not, Sabrina thought. But it might be enough to screw up your plans.
She glanced at the broken windows and the glittering glass beneath them. All she needed was an excuse. Something to sell the act.
She didn’t have to fake the nausea. Her stomach had been roiling since the moment she regained consciousness.
