In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(18)
Eve didn’t know what’d hit her.
Because Becky hadn’t been suffering from insanity brought on by heatstroke. He was here…
Billy Reichert was right in front of her, and he certainly wasn’t a mere motorcycle mechanic. Heavens, no. He looked more like the real-life version of Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt. And he was yelling for everyone to return to the stifling bridge where the pirates had been holding them, shoving those people who didn’t move quickly enough to suit him. He was…well, he was not what she remembered at all.
“You too, Eve.” He barely looked at her, but even his brief glance was enough show his eyes, those chocolaty brown eyes she’d fallen in love with as a girl, were no longer soft and warm. The light shining through them was fierce, almost feral, like a wild animal.
Geez Louise.
A shiver raced down her spine despite the heat of the night. She’d never been afraid of Billy, not all those years ago when he’d been a bad boy from the wrong side of town. But looking at the hard set of his jaw, at the barely leashed power in the bulging muscles of his shoulders, it occurred to her that the tender boy she’d known was gone, replaced by this hard, callous man…this dangerous man.
“Why?” she asked as she tried to still the pounding of her heart. “What’s happening?”
“Becky’s in trouble,” he said, hustling her across the deck. “The guy who was guarding her is missing.”
Eve opened her mouth but didn’t manage to utter a word as Becky’s terrified voice broke through the confusion on deck. “Billy!”
Eve turned, along with the rest of the crowd shoving to get in the door leading to the Hamilton’s bridge, and her stomach sunk to her toes. The muttering of the group sputtered to a halt as everyone slowly realized what was happening.
Sharif stood in the center of the deck with one arm around Becky’s throat, keeping her in front of him as a living shield while he pressed the hard barrel of his handgun to her temple.
“Stay back!” he yelled when Billy coiled like a spring, ready to pounce.
“Just let her go!” Billy demanded. But Sharif paid him no mind as he dragged Becky toward the Hamilton’s portside railing. The harsh lights shining onto the deck from the top of the bridge spotlighted the two of them like a movie set.
It was totally surreal…and totally terrifying.
“Boss?” Billy said, pressing his thumb and forefinger against the strange black band he wore around his throat while he tracked Becky and Sharif’s movements with deadly end of his big, intimidating gun. “You copy? Our sixth target is topside with Becky in tow.” He paused, listening, then cursed viciously before finishing with a grumbled, “Roger that.”
“Stay back! Stay back! I’ll shoot her!” Sharif screeched, his black eyes darting between the crowd of the Hamilton’s crew bunched at the door and the right side of the bridge house. One of the men who’d arrived with Billy stopped dead in his tracks. He’d been slinking around the bridge house, trying to outflank Sharif.
“Eve,” Billy whispered, never taking his eyes off his sister.
“Yes?” she rasped, noting he was beginning to inch to the side, making Sharif split his attention between him and the other guy with a monstrous black machine gun.
“When he’s not looking, I need you to slip back through the crowd, make your way down to the engine room, and unlock the door.”
Gulp.
“O-okay,” she said, even though the very last thing she wanted to do was go crawling around, alone, in the bowels of the tanker.
You can do this, Eve Edens. You can do it for Becky.
Her legs were trembling as she waited until Sharif was distracted by the man near the bridge house, then she inched backward and began pushing her way very carefully and very quietly through the Hamilton’s gawking crew. “Move, move, move!” she muttered beneath her breath as she slithered between the crush of sweaty bodies.
Finally, she made her way to the interior of the ship, ignoring the gloomy corners and dark stairwells as she used her years of yachting to direct her toward the engine room. Racing along the metal gangways, she didn’t make one wrong turn. Of course, she was helped by the fact that once she got close, she heard an unholy clambering and what sounded like a lion’s roar.
The clambering turned out to be the third man who’d arrived with Billy, the giant one. He was bashing a huge wrench against the glass porthole on the airlock door to the engine room. And the lion’s roar was coming from him, as well.
Holy moley!
She swallowed past the dry knot of fear clogging her throat, licked her parched lips, and reminded herself that this wasn’t a monstrous creature but a man. A guy. One of the good guys even.
On three, she told herself, then did a quick countdown before turning the wheel. No sooner had the lock released than the door burst open, slamming against the bulkhead. She instinctively jumped back, but the giant didn’t spare her a glance. He just barged past her, his soft Neoprene wet suit boots pounding up the metal stairs.
Chapter Five
Sharif—that *—was a dead man.
No one put a loaded gun to Becky’s head and lived to tell about it.
“Are you in position?” Bill’s low voice rumbled through Frank’s earpiece.
“Affirmative.” He crouched behind a small shipping container located about twenty yards from where Sharif stood with Becky against the Hamilton’s portside railing.