Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(81)

Literally.

The guardhouse nearly disintegrated before his very eyes, riddled with bullets that shattered the glass and shredded the wooden structure.

Sonofabitch! Manus!

He heard Ali’s terrified scream even though he was no longer connected to her through the helmet’s headset, and—dear God forgive him—but he spared no second thought for Manus Connelly.

His only concern was Ali.

Cutting the front wheel sharply, rubber screamed and foul, acrid smoke billowed up to obscure his vision as he planted his biker boot onto the pavement hard enough to break the bones in his ankle. Luckily, the stiff support of the boot kept that from happening, but…

Shit! The rubber on his sole quickly heated and melted as he did his level best to control the monster bike in its heavy, awkward skid. Every muscle he had strained to the limit as he wrestled with around a quarter ton of custom-made steel.

Control stopped being as issue when a string of hot bullets blasted through his rear fender. The big tire beneath exploded, and he had no choice but to lay down the bike and hope its bulk plus the bulk of his own body would be enough to protect Ali from the hail of gunfire.

She was still screaming when he forced her to the ground beneath him. Trying to use Phantom as meager cover, he used one hand to shield Ali’s helmeted head and the other to raise his weapon and…

Where the hell was that sawgunner?

He expected to see the black SUV, but it was nowhere in sight. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d let his paranoia get the better of—

He ducked when a bullet slammed into the motorcycle’s steaming engine, sounding louder than a damned train wreck.

They were sitting ducks out here in the middle of the street, just asking for a terminal case of lead poisoning. Even the heavy steel of Phantom’s chassis provided little cover when going up against a man with an AK-47.

He recognized the rat-a-tat-tat of that Russian special. He’d heard it often enough in so many of the shitholes he’d worked all over the world.

Another round glanced off the handlebars with a loud ping, and he was able to get a bead on the trajectory. Finally.

Lifting his head, he zeroed in on the dark shadow of the guy with the machine gun turkey peeking around the corner of the deli down the block, and just like always, the rest of the world faded away.

He wished he had ol’ Sierra and her optics, but that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t only that he didn’t have the time to assemble her, he didn’t dare move from his protective position over Ali—who was squirming beneath him, trying to lift her head and his reserve weapon at the same time, the stupid, wonderful woman.

No matter. He was nearly as good with a pistol as he was with a rifle. He slowed his breathing; his heart rate immediately followed.

Calm is king, Grigg had liked to say, and it was certainly true when faced with overwhelming odds and a foolish woman who was still trying to wrestle out from under him in order to join in the battle.

Xena: Warrior Princess indeed.

A bullet whizzed by his helmet, so close he felt the heat from the displaced air against his cheek, and then time stopped. The Hogue soft rubber grip of his Para Ordinance CCW .45 melded with his palm as his steady trigger finger slipped away from the trigger guard. A fraction of a second later, perhaps a heartbeat more, he automatically accounted for distance, bullet drop, and Kentucky windage, and then there was nothing left to do but squeeze.

The .45 round left the barrel with a loud bark, and the mad sawing of the machine gun sputtered to a choking stop.

Yep, the guy was likely to have a bit of difficulty continuing to operate that Kalashnikov with a hollow point entering one inch below his right eye and taking out most of his gray matter upon exiting the back of his skull.

In the resounding silence immediately following the sawgunner’s death, Nate could hear Ali cursing over the ringing in his ears. “Let me up, damnit! I can help!”

He almost smiled.

“Stay still,” he advised her gruffly, not taking any chances as he quartered the area. He must be crushing her, but a few bruises and some road rash were a whole helluva lot better than a bullet…much easier to recover from.

When his eyes fixed on what was left of the guardhouse, he swallowed back the bile that rose to the back of his throat.

It’d be a miracle if Manus were alive.

He didn’t want to move from his covering position over Ali, but he had to at least go and check on Manus. The guy was a Knight—by proxy, at least—and Nate couldn’t just sit if there was a chance he could help the man.

“I want ya to stay down behind Phantom,” he instructed Ali, still searching the surrounding buildings for the sawgunner’s partner. “I’ve gotta go check the guardhouse.”

He didn’t wait for her reply, just lifted himself from her prone body and—

A bullet plowed into the pavement by his left leg. Hot cement exploded into biting little shards upon impact.

That was no machine gun. Oh, hell no. That was a bolt-action rifle. A pretty good one by the sound of it.

“Sonofa—”

He dropped back down on top of Ali, swinging his weapon in the direction of the shot. Then something across the way caught his eye.

There was a man with a handgun held out in front of him running along the roof of the bagel shop. The dude was skylining himself like crazy, and it would’ve been a piece of cake for Nate to put a bullet in him, but the guy wasn’t aiming for them.