“Black Widow!” The tinny sound of her code name reached her ears. She glanced over her shoulder to where her burner lay on the floor.
Bishop.
Fuck.
Releasing the brunette with a shove, Vivian stalked back to the phone, careful to avoid the puddle of Hummer’s blood as it spread out in an ever-widening circle around his cooling body.
“The bitch we grabbed stabbed one of my guys in the fucking jugular with a piece of broken glass,” she snarled into the receiver. “So we’re down one man.”
Silence. Then, “Can you still get the job done?”
“As long as you tell me the job is to kill every last one of them,” she spat.
“I don’t care about the specifics.” The mechanical voice was as cold and emotionless as ever. “Make enough of a mess that the authorities will investigate. The president has pushed her power too far with this group. It’s time they, and she, are all brought into the light.”
“It’s done,” Vivian promised, her heart a swirling mix of vengeance and violence.
14
Black Knights Inc.
The place was humming.
Not with the sleepy, fluorescent whir of a typical after-hours office. Oh, no. It was the electric buzz of adrenaline running, nerves jumping, and gears turning. The kind of charge that raised goosebumps and warned: something big is coming soon.
A huge part of Lura wanted to stay. To see it through to the end. But she’d lingered as long as she dared.
Leonard Meadows had spent the afternoon sending her texts like, Where did you put the latest report on Palestine? Then he’d proceeded to spend most of the evening sending her gruff reminders—yes, text messages can be gruff, especially when they come from the chief of staff—that tomorrow was a big day, packed with morning meetings with the Joint Chiefs, a luncheon with the press secretary, and the state dinner honoring the prime minister of Japan.
His last text had flat-out demanded, Come back, Lura.
Got a seat on the red-eye, she’d hastily typed into her phone. I’ll be in the office at 7 A.M. Per usual.
She’d waited for the three blinking dots to tell her he was typing a response. But to no one’s surprise, they never appeared.
Leonard Meadows didn’t show gratitude, even when he’d browbeaten someone into doing exactly what he wanted. Especially then.
She paused inside the big metal door that acted as the front entrance to the Black Knights’s headquarters. Blast proof? she wondered absently as she checked her Uber app and saw her ride was still fifteen blocks away.
A quick search on her phone’s traffic map assured her I-90 was clear to O’Hare. Unless the security line was three hours long, she should make her flight no problem and?—
“Are you following me?” Sam Harwood turned to look over his shoulder. Graham was three feet behind him in the dark hallway leading from the motorcycle shop to the kitchen.
“No. I try to stay upwind of ya when I can,” Graham rumbled in that slow, Southern drawl that reminded Lura of home.
She still dreamed in that accent.
Isn’t that strange? she thought. Or maybe not. Maybe people always dream in their native tongue. And mine is pure Southern Appalachia.
“Downwind of ya, and I’m liable to choke on the smell of brimstone,” Graham added.
Sam snorted. “If I’m the devil, what’s that make you?”
“God’s gift to women?” Graham spread his massive arms wide.
“Pfft.” Sam shook his head. “All those growth hormones that flooded your system during puberty did something terrible to your head. It’s twice as big as it should be. Too bad more of those same hormones didn’t go to your dick, huh?”
Graham, completely nonplussed, threw back his head and laughed. “You know you’re talkin’ nothin’ but shit. You’ve seen it.”
