Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(5)
The mysterious man took off like a shot.
What? Was he really running away from her?
When he hopped into a big, tough-looking SUV, quickly gunning the engine, she had her answer.
He was running away from her.
What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?
Just when she would’ve taken off after him, she was jerked back onto the sidewalk by Mr. French Bread. “Whoa, there,” the guy said, still trying to catch his breath. “The dude’s long gone. Don’t go getting yourself run over trying to catch him.”
Mr. French Bread gave up attempting to appear collected and bent at the waist to put his hands on his knees and drop his head between his shoulders, panting like a dog in the summer heat.
He thought she was going after her attacker, of course, which yeah, probably made a lot more sense than running after some elusive man whom she was sure had been shadowing her every move for the past three months.
Laying a comforting hand on her savior’s sweaty shoulder, she reached into her purse—the mugger had not succeeded; score one for Alisa Morgan and her two unlikely heroes—and pulled out her BlackBerry. Zooming in, she snapped a quick photo of the SUV’s license plate right before it careened around the corner. Then she bent to peek into Mr. French Bread’s red, perspiring face.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, glancing up to include Rugby Jersey. The guy was also blowing like a winded racehorse, leaning limply against the front window of the hardware store. Obviously neither of them was accustomed to much physical activity, which only made their actions all the more heroic. “You both risked an awful lot—”
Rugby waved a hand, cutting her off. “Damsel in distress and all that,” he chuckled, wincing and grabbing his side.
Great. Just what she’d always dreamed of being. Not.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, dismayed by the thought of him getting injured while trying to save something as insignificant as a purse.
“Nah. I think I just bruised a rib.”
She opened her mouth to thank him again when the piercing cry of a siren interrupted her.
“Looks like the cavalry’s almost here,” Mr. French Bread observed.
***
Black Knights Inc. Headquarters on Goose Island
Chicago, Illinois
The next day…
“Yeah, right. This is a chopper shop. Just a little ol’ custom motorcycle business…and I’m the queen of England,” Ali muttered beneath her breath, as she glanced through her front windshield at the expanse of the…compound was the only word to describe it.
No wonder Grigg had always insisted she stay at a hotel whenever she managed to make it to Chicago to visit him. He’d claimed the loft he lived in atop the “shop”—which would heretofore be referred to as Fort frickin’ Knox—was too small to sleep a guest comfortably, but she’d suspected he was feeding her a line of bull even then. And now?
Now, she knew it was bull.
Most folks would look through the huge iron gates at the multitude of small brick structures tucked around an immense factory building and dismiss it for simply what it claimed to be on its website, a top-notch custom motorcycle shop. Most folks would disregard the ten-foot-high brick wall topped by huge rolls of razor wire and the 360-degree pivoting cameras as the necessary precautions taken by savvy businessmen who had a small fortune in tools, bikes, and equipment, and who knew this wasn’t Chicago’s nicest neighborhood.
Yes, that’s what most folks would do.
She wasn’t most folks.
She’d had a Marine for an older brother who’d taught her a thing or two about security, and Black Knights Incorporated had it out the wazoo.
Unwelcome tears suddenly pooled in her eyes, because here was the proof that Grigg hadn’t trusted her. He’d died and she’d never really gotten the chance to—
“You’ll have to leave your vehicle at the gate, ma’am,” instructed the redheaded giant manning the gatehouse. He had a thick Chicago accent, turning the word the into the more percussive sounding da. “We don’t allow unsecured vehicles on the premises,” he went on to explain. “Someone will be down to escort you to the main shop momentarily.”
“Uh…oh-kay,” she said as she pulled her lime-green Prius to the side and parked, shaking her head. She glanced in the rearview mirror and dabbed at the tears still clinging to her lashes before pocketing her keys and slinging her beloved purse over her shoulder. Exiting the vehicle, she strolled back toward the gatehouse and the behemoth inside.
“So,” she said as she leaned an elbow on the sill of the window and eyed Big Red, “have you worked for the Black Knights long?”
“Long enough,” he grunted, never taking his gaze from the series of TV screens showing different angles of the grounds around the compound.
Ah, a talkative one. Wouldn’t it figure?
God, what was she doing here?
Nate Weller certainly wouldn’t welcome her. For Pete’s sake, he didn’t even like her. Always eyeing her with such cold calculation. Those fathomless black eyes of his following her like she was some strange bug, and he was the dispassionate scientist charting her activities.
Sheesh.
Okay, so maybe she had the tendency to talk too much. But that was partly his fault because he never talked, instead remaining constantly and aggravatingly aloof, which was a state so totally foreign to her that she, in turn, started jabbering like her mouth was attached to a motor.