Of course, part of her didn’t care what his reasons were. Because part of her was glad for any excuse to reach out to BKI. Glad for any excuse to hear Graham Coleburn’s voice again.
She hurried to her desk and quickly set aside her tablet. But before she could google BKI’s business number, a whisper of doubt curled around her heart.
What am I missing here?
21
Black Knights Inc.
“How do you think she’ll explain her absence last night?” Boss asked.
Graham stood just outside Boss’s office, arms crossed, shoulder propped against the wall like it might fall down without him.
The familiar hum of the War Room buzzed behind him. Ozzie clacked on his keyboard. Eighties music blared at a surprisingly reasonable level. From below, the sounds of the shop echoed. The soft shush of a blowtorch. The harsh whine of a metal grinder.
It was business as usual at BKI.
Funny, considering they had an assassin tied up in the tunnel hidden behind the shop wall.
Graham and Boss had been in Boss’s office discussing interrogation techniques when Martin Massey’s call came in. All the men of Black Knights Inc. had been through SERE training. It was the military’s standard course for spec-ops soldiers—regardless of their branch—and it was meant to prepare them should they ever find themselves captured by the enemy.
But teaching a guy how to survive, evade, resist, and escape was not the same as teaching him how to get information from someone who didn’t want to talk. Whose very life likely depended on them not talking.
That was the CIA’s purview. Those soulless shitbags had a whole training module covering enhanced interrogation techniques.
A handful of SEALs in each unit spent six weeks at Langley learning the ins and outs of torture from spooks and spies. Boss had been one of the unlucky bastards in his unit. Graham had pulled the short straw in his.
This meant it’d fall to them to devise a game plan for getting the blonde to cough up information. Like who’d hired her. And, more importantly, why.
Of course, they’d taken a break from discussing their plan to let Sabrina have some privacy for her call with the rich hedge fund manager. And now, instead of throwing around phrases like sleep deprivation and stress positions, they were talking about the love life of their resident social media maven.
Life is weird, Graham thought idly.
Aloud, he said, “Dunno,” in response to Boss’s question. “She’ll need to get creative.”
Sabrina had swung the door shut behind her when she’d raced to take Martin’s call. But it hadn’t latched. Now, they could hear the hum of her voice through the crack in the doorway, although they couldn’t make out her words.
“I don’t know how someone can build a relationship on lies.” Boss frowned, a line digging deep between his bushy eyebrows.
Graham gave a philosophical shrug. “She can’t tell him the truth. So I don’t reckon she’s got another option.”
Boss’s nod was slow, thoughtful. “I guess there was a part of me, at least when she first got here, that hoped she and Hew might start something. You know, once she’d healed enough to want to.”
“You ain’t the only one.”
Boss slid him a quizzical look. “He ever tell you why he never made a move? Sometimes I catch him looking at her like he can’t decide whether he wants to eat her whole or wrap her up in cotton so no one can touch her.”
Graham barked out a laugh. “And sometimes I catch her lookin’ at him like she wants to climb him like a cat climbs a tree.”
“So what’s the problem?” Boss’s frown deepened. “Why’s she in there making plans with another man?”
“I think our resident Nightstalker doesn’t know which end is up when it comes to romance. Poor Sabrina would probably hafta sit on his face before he’d catch a damn clue and?—”
The tone of Sabrina’s voice changed. What had sounded low and apologetic suddenly turned businesslike and cautious.
Graham exchanged a look with Boss. Then they both straightened when the door swung open, and Sabrina stood there blinking, surprised to find them waiting outside.
“There’s a Lura Dougherty on the line,” she said, and Graham felt his heart hammer. “She called in right as Martin and I were saying our goodbyes. She says she wants to talk to you.”
