Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(44)

There was a long pause, and Aldus held his breath. He needed Dagan Zoelner and, goddamnit, he hated needing anyone.

“I don’t think you’ve been playing straight with me, sir,” Zoelner finally said. “I think you orchestrated that mugging, and I know for a fact there’s more going on here than you’ve led me to believe. Both of those things make me decidedly uncomfortable. So, thank you for the opportunity, but I’m out.”

“Where are you?” Aldus demanded, maybe he could talk the idiot into—

“On I-90, heading south.”

“You’re coming back to DC?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“That’s no longer any of your business…sir.”

Aldus heard the faint roar of a motorcycle in the background, and the top of his head felt like it was lifting away. “You’re following them, aren’t you, you *? Where are they going?”

“Good-bye, senator.”

Fuck!

He smashed the cheap, plastic prepaid cell phone against the dashboard twice, but even when the device splintered into pieces in his hand, his rage wasn’t satisfied. The only thing that kept him from jumping from the car and stomping the remaining bits of the phone to hell and back was the young mother who carried a toddler on her hip. She was eyeing him with blatant apprehension as she scurried up to the restrooms.

Not good. She might recognize him. Because of his position, his face wasn’t a stranger to national television.

Okay, okay. Get a handle on yourself, Aldus. He took a couple of deep breaths and forced himself back under control.

This wasn’t the end of the world. He had another option.

An option he hadn’t wanted to employ, but now he was left with no choice. His back was to the wall. So just like always, and despite his personal feelings on the matter, he’d make the tough decision.

Looking at the broken pieces of plastic in his hand and littering the gray pinstripe of his suit pants, he silently cursed his earlier burst of temper.

He needed that goddamned phone.

His personal cell phone wasn’t useful in this particular situation, because the call he was about to make could never be traced back to him.

***

She’d finally fallen asleep.

Leaning heavily along his back, Ali’s slim, leather-clad thighs rested softly against the outside of Nate’s legs, and he could detect the heavy rise and fall of every breath she took.

For the first three hours of their trip, she’d been studiously careful to keep a handful of inches between their bodies, her knees angled way out.

Wouldn’t want to get too personal now, would we? Wouldn’t want to touch him anymore than was absolutely necessary.

Geez, he’d handled last night all wrong, literally tossing her out of his bedroom when he couldn’t stand having her look at him with such sweet compassion and desperate longing. So he had no one but himself to blame for the hurt look on her face today, for those dark smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes.

Someone should kick his ass.

Unfortunately, as he looked in his side mirror and again caught a glimpse of that silver Escalade way back there, he was starting to think someone just might try.

If he had to guess, it was Ali’s Mystery Man on their six. Their shell game obviously hadn’t worked. Which left them with two options.

One: Given Mystery Man had tailed Ali for months, knew where she lived and worked, the dude had to surmise from their current trajectory that they were headed back to Jacksonville. So what was the point of trying to shake him?

Or…Nate could go with option numero dos. Namely, lose the f*cker.

Given he didn’t particularly care to have an unknown at his back for the next six hundred miles, there was really no question which option he’d choose.

“Wake up, Ali,” he said into his helmet mic. He hated having to do this. Riding on the back of a bike was exhausting for those not accustomed to it and, man, she needed the z’s. Unfortunately, there was no other way.

“Uh.” He felt her move against his back. “Wh-what?”

Even through the tinny-sounding communications system, he could hear the huskiness of her sleepy voice. His gut tightened in response.

“Y’needa wake up, sugar.” Crap. That little endearment just slipped out. He’d always thought of her as such, considering she was about the sweetest person he’d ever known, but he’d never dared say it her face. He comforted himself with the fact that he hadn’t really done so now, either. She was at his back, after all. “I’m gonna need you to hold on tight.”

She stiffened against him and pulled her thighs wide.

Yeah, she was fully awake now.

“What? Why?” she asked.

“We got company, and I’m gonna need t’employ a few escape and evasion tactics. It may get fairly hairy for a few klicks.”

“What kind of company?” Her arms tightened on his waist as her thighs snapped securely around his.

Hey now, how about that?

Had he known that’s all it would take to get her to stop twisting herself into a pretzel, he’d have played the whole escape and evasion card a long time ago.

“I’ll give you two guesses and the first one doesn’t count,” he replied dryly.