In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(25)

Finally.

He was getting a damn crick in his neck looking up at her.

“The things we do, the things we’re tasked to do, don’t necessarily fall under the guidelines of international law. This mission included. And given that, there are quite a few really, really bad guys out there who’d love to know our true identities.”

“But I don’t know any bad guys,” she murmured.

“Maybe not. But you of all people know how quickly rumors fly.” Being the daughter of one of the richest men in America, she’d graced the cover of more than one tabloid.

“So you’re telling me…What are you telling me? That our government sanctions illegal activity? That you guys are the ones they call to conduct it?”

“Which is harder to believe? The fact that our government skirts the boundaries of global bureaucracy or the fact that they trust me, a gearhead from the projects, to do the honors?”

She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears that she tried to blink away. His damn ulcer lifted its head at the sight and started gnawing away at his stomach again.

Good going, Bill. Way to put the “ass” in class.

“I never cared where you were from, Billy,” she whispered. “You were the one who had a problem with it.”

“Fine. Whatever.” He shook his head, feeling like someone should probably kick his ass for the way he was treating her, but he just couldn’t help it. “My point is every major power on the planet does the exact same thing as our government. Only the really good ones, the really smart ones—which I like to believe Uncle Sam falls into both categories—do so without any real evidence of direct meddling left behind. In order to do that, there have to be men like me, men like the Black Knights, who can be trusted to work autonomously, completely off-the-grid. Men who can be depended on to go in, get it done, and get the hell out of Dodge. Men who can be counted on to take the terrible secrets they carry in their heads all the way to the grave. So you see, it’s really very simple.” He raked in a calming breath. “If you tell anyone who I really am, what I really do, it could get me and the men I work with killed.”

Her narrow throat worked as her eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Holy moley, Billy,” she said.

“Yeah.” One corner of his mouth twitched at the familiar G-rated profanity. “You said it.”

***

“You look very pretty in red,” Angel said in that deep, husky voice of his after they’d gone some distance down the gangway from the women’s shower room.

“Whatever,” Becky rolled her eyes. “With this cheek, I look like I should be staring in a Lifetime movie.”

“If I say you are beautiful, then you are. I don’t make a habit of lying to my friends.”

She angled her head over her shoulder, eyeing the mysterious ex-Mossad agent’s dazzlingly beautiful face. “Are we friends, Angel?”

“I think you are my only friend, Becky.”

She shook her head as she descended a set of stairs. Angel’s big boots echoed hollowly on the metal risers behind her, drowning out the quiet shushing of her hospital slippers and reminding her that every step she took was bringing her closer to Frank. She denied the urge to take off running because, geez, she couldn’t be that obvious.

“That’s not true,” she reassured Angel. “You have all the other Knights. They’re your friends now.”

“Nonsense,” he snorted before instructing her to hang a right. “They tolerate me. That is not the same thing as actually liking me.” They both turned sideways and nodded at the Patton crewman who passed them on the narrow walkway.

“They’ll come around,” she assured him. “Just give them time.”

“You did not need any time. You accepted me right away.”

Yepper, she sure had. But only because she’d felt so darned sorry for him.

He’d been forced from his country, his culture, his family, his job. He’d been made to undergo extensive surgery in order to completely change his appearance.

Man, she still had trouble imagining what it must be like for him to wake up every morning and stare at a reflection that wasn’t his own…

Disorienting at best, she figured. Downright spooky at worst.

And having always had a soft spot for the underdog—which he definitely was, coming into the tight-knit group of the Black Knights the way he had—she’d immediately decided to take him under her wing.

“I was just trying to make the transition easier on you,” she admitted. “I know what it’s like to be the outsider.” After all, since Patti’s death—Patti had been the Knights’ secretary extraordinaire and Dan “The Man’s” wife—Becky was the only one in the Knights’ employ who wasn’t actually part of the team. She was just the face of the “public” operation. The wunderkind motorcycle designer who made sure all their covers as simple mechanics remained in place. But when it came to their missions, to the actual work they all did? She was kept smack-double-dab in the D-A-R-K, which, yep, pissed her off…big time. And was just one more reason why’d she’d started studying to be an operator.

Angel stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She turned, glancing curiously into his dark eyes. They were the only part of him that hadn’t changed from the man he’d been before. Oh, the plastic surgeon had no doubt altered the shape, but the eyes themselves were likely the same. And if the eyes were the windows to a man’s soul, then Angel’s soul was lost…lost and hurting…