Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(61)

Mmm, lovely. Just lovely.

Dagan breathed through his mouth as he bent to quickly search the corpse’s pockets.

Nothing.

No surprise there. Only a two-bit idiot would bring identification to a hit. And that’s certainly what it had been.

Dagan had been sneaking around the corner of the Morgans’ house just in time to see a big black shadow pull a Walther P22 with a six-inch silencer from behind his back. The hard spit of the silenced bullet had sounded obscene in the quiet solitude of the quaint little backyard.

Dagan dove for cover and missed Weller’s split second reaction, but there was no mistaking the hard bark of an angry .45. Nor was there any mistaking the fact that Weller was a much better shot than ol’ No Name here.

Bleck. What a stench.

Breathing through his mouth only made matters worse. He was starting to taste the fetid air seeping up from the lifeless body, and what he wouldn’t give for a nice shot of Scotch right about now.

He used his penlight to lift Stinky’s ski mask and cataloged the Italianesque features it revealed. Tan skin, black hair, brown eyes that’d yet to lose their brilliance in death. A nose that’d been broken a time or two and one front tooth that was pure, fourteen-carat gold.

Stinky looked like a hoodlum, that was for sure. But a well-paid hoodlum if the sparkly two-carat diamond in the guy’s ear was anything to go by.

Taking his cell phone from his breast pocket, he snapped the dead man’s picture and then quickly slunk back into the shadows.

What the hell is going on?

Flaming hell, he still hadn’t a clue.

Although there was one thing he was now 100 percent convinced of, if this was an old Western, Aldus would be the one black-hatting it. There was no mistaking this guy was the same man who’d attempted to mug Ms. Morgan—he’d recognize that no-necked sonofabitch anywhere—and he’d take two to one odds that whoever this reeking dead dude was, his paycheck was signed by one Alan Aldus.

Which meant the good senator was now desperate.

And there was nothing scarier than a desperate man with the power and resources of the U.S. government at his disposal.

The sound of one badass Harley firing up down the block had Dagan hurrying to his rented SUV.

***

“What about my parents? That guy…that guy could go in there and…” She couldn’t even finish the thought much less the sentence. They’d been on the highway for five minutes with Ali’s stomach firmly lodged in the middle of her throat before continuous swallowing finally got the sucker back down to where it belonged and she was able to ask the question.

“No. He won’t,” Nate assured her.

“But if he’s after the zip drive, he might think Mom and Dad—”

“He’s not thinkin’ ’bout anything anymore, Ali. I promise y’that.”

“Oh,” she said, then “Oh!” when realization dawned.

Okay, so the man was dead.

Nate had killed a man right in front of her…er, right behind her.

Good heavens, she didn’t even know how to feel about that. What in the world was happening? How had her life spun so far out of control?

“Who…who was it? He-he looked a lot like the guy who tried to mug me,” she said, refusing to think of the wife or kids who might be waiting at home for the man. If she started down that path, she’d go crazy.

“I don’t know who it was. Never seen him before, but I wouldn’t doubt he’s the same dude who tried to snatch your purse,” his voice was even more gravelly than usual. “Only this time, he wasn’t after your handbag.”

Her stomach began a steady climb back up into her throat, so she swallowed and tried again. “Was he…was he working for the government, do you think? Did we just kill a…” she choked.

“No,” he assured her firmly. “I know a trained operative when I see one. This guy was nothin’ more’n a two-bit hit man.”

“A hit man?” she squeaked. “How do you know?”

“The big gun he pointed at us with its six-inch suppressor was my first clue.”

“Suppressor?”

“Silencer.”

Good. Heavens.

A silencer. People really used silencers.

Well, of course they do, she chided herself. Especially if those people were hit men. “Who would send a hit man after us?”

Her question was met with stony, resounding silence. All she could hear was the harsh sound of her too-fast breathing and the rhythmic rush of blood pounding through her ears.

“Nate?” she finally prodded, squeezing her eyes closed as they leaned into a hairpin turn.

“Don’t know,” he finally replied, shifting gears until Phantom was literally roaring, eating up the asphalt like a two-wheeled demon. And not knowing was obviously causing him some concern if the labored tone of his voice was anything to go by. “But one thing’s certain,” he added, “someone wants us dead.”

“Dead?” she screeched.

Of course, she should’ve made the connection before. Hit men didn’t generally pass out snow cones and helium balloons, now did they? But her mind was working a little slowly, and the thought of someone actually trying to kill her was so foreign she was having trouble grasping it.

“But…but…” she was shaking her head and fighting not to panic.