Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(75)

Groaning and grinding his jaw hard enough to pulverize stone, he simply held on for the ride.





Chapter Sixteen


“General Fuller just got off the horn with the Jacksonville PD. The FBI has taken over the case of the dead guy in the Morgans’ yard. The Bureau is spreading around the story it was a mob hit,” Ozzie informed Frank while leaning against the same doorjamb Becky had leaned against not six hours earlier.

“Hmph,” Frank shook his head, idly spinning his KA-BAR in a circle on his desk. It was a destructive habit, one that’d worn a smooth spot in the varnish beside the coaster he used for his coffee mug—which sort of made the coaster superfluous, given there was really no need to protect the finish on his already wrecked desk. “At least the FBI is proving to be valuable for something. Any idea who the guy was?”

“Not yet. They’re running his prints as we speak. As soon as they know something, they’ll contact the General, and he’ll forward on the Intel.” The kid angled his head and took a hesitant step into Frank’s office. He shuffled back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking like he was about to burst.

“Spit it out,” Frank grumbled, giving the knife another spin and watching the overhead lights glint off the long blade.

“What’d you do to Rebel?”

Well that had his eyes pinging up to Ozzie’s youthfully obdurate face.

Great. Just…grrrreat. This was exactly what he didn’t need tonight. One more person questioning him about what he’d done to Becky. Patti had already nearly flayed him alive with her surprisingly sharp tongue. It was a wonder he had any skin left.

“Who says I did anything to her?”

The kid straightened his lean shoulders and took another step inside the room. If Frank wasn’t mistaken, Ozzie looked like he really wanted to offer him an ol’ fashioned five-finger sandwich.

He lifted a brow in warning. “You’re gonna want to reconsider whatever it is you’re thinking about doing, kid.”

“You made her cry,” Ozzie accused, puffing himself up like a goddamned peacock. Frank suddenly felt every single one of his hard-lived years. “She tried to hide it when she came down to finish up the electrical on the Hawk, but I could tell. She’d been bawling her head off. And this isn’t the first time it’s happened.”

Shit, he didn’t want to know that. It only made him feel guilty, which, in turn, pissed him off. He was doing this for Becky’s own good. Couldn’t anyone but him see that?

“Well, sometimes life’s a bitch and then you die,” he snarled, mad at himself for feeling guilty, mad at Rebel for putting him in this goddamned situation to begin with, and mad as hell at Ozzie for questioning his decisions. Because that only made him start to question his decisions…

No. No. In this instance he was right, damnit!

Slapping his palm on his spinning knife, he stopped it mid-twirl and lifted his shirt to slide the wickedly sharp blade into the custom-made sheath attached to his waistband. “She needs to toughen up if she’s going to keep working with us. I can’t be *footing around her all the time, scared I’m going to hurt her feelings.”

“*footing?” Ozzie raised an incredulous brow and sometimes Frank missed the discipline of military rank. At least in uniform he hadn’t had to worry about insubordinate facial expressions, especially ones that really, really chapped his ass. “Boss, you don’t *foot around anyone, especially Rebel. If anything, you’re hard as hell on her. And you don’t even begin to give her the credit she deserves. She’s good at the techie stuff. Really good. You should give her a chance to—”

“I’ve made my decision about that,” he cut the kid off. “We all have our jobs here. She needs to remember what hers is and stick to it.”

“But if you’d just—”

“Enough!” he barked. “This conversation is over, Ozzie. I don’t want to hear another word until you have an updated status report.”

The kid’s jaw worked like a chipper chewing up bark, but the little shit was smart enough to recognize a command when he heard one. Ozzie turned and stiffly marched toward the door. Frank heaved a weary sigh.

“You’re wrong about this, Boss,” the kid had the audacity to hiss, turning back to cut him a dark look. “Dead wrong.”

Okay, so maybe he’d been a little premature about the kid’s smarts regarding the situation.

“Well, then, it’s my mistake, isn’t it?” he asked, unaccountably tired all of a sudden.

Ozzie eyed him long and hard before he shook his head and stepped outside the office, none-too-gently closing the door behind him.

Frank dropped his pounding cranium into his hands. He really didn’t need this shit.

He had men in harm’s way, what with Rock and Wild Bill still doing duty in the Sandbox, and Christian and Mac in the company of a man whom Frank knew nothing about except for the not-so-reassuring fact that the guy was on a lot of folks’ “Most Wanted” lists. Not to mention what’d happened with Ghost.

The ol’ plate was full up to the tip-tippity-top, which meant he certainly didn’t have room for regrets about Rebecca Reichert, but that’s sure as hell what he was having. Regrets.

“Goddamnit!” He jerked his top drawer open, pulled out a root beer Dum Dum, ripped off the wrapper and shoved it in his mouth.