In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(33)

Ah, yes. And so the solution presents itself.

He almost smiled.

He’d just end it. Right here. Right now. On his own terms. Put a period on his life that had been tragically condensed to this lonely little world of infinite glassy seas and relentless agony.

He’d heard there wasn’t much pain in slitting one’s wrists. And bleeding to death promised to be much quicker and so much less horrific than dying from dehydration coupled with starvation and infection.

He tested the blade with his thumb.

Sharp.

Sharp enough to do the job with very little effort.

That was good. He was never very brave when it came to facing pain.

Gripping the handle with his uninjured hand, he laid the thin edge of the knife against his swollen left wrist. Holding his breath, girding himself against the sharp bite of agony to follow, he smiled when a warm gust of wind cooled the sweat on his fevered brow.

Mmm, it felt wonderful. Like a sweet benediction at the end.

He’d just begun to press the blade into his skin, watching with a sort of detached delirium as a tiny drop of blood welled at the tip, when another breath of wind whipped by him, chilling him, causing gooseflesh to rise over his skin.

He dropped the blade. The loud thunk it made when it hit the deck echoed like a cannon explosion in his pounding head, but he ignored it as he eagerly glanced out at the softly rolling seas. The deck beneath him bucked gently, a physical lullaby, but the very last thing he was going to do was sleep.

I’m saved!

With a cry of triumph, he stumbled to the main mast and began the arduous task of unfurling the sails.

He was a two-day sail from the Somali coast, and with the infection multiplying in his body every minute, the odds were stacked against him. But he’d been bucking odds his entire life.

“Here I come, Becky!” he yelled, laughing hysterically as the sails caught the wind and snapped tight. “Here I come!”

***

Outside the gates of Black Knights Inc.

Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois

“We’re here.” Patrick Edens’s cultured voice roused Becky from what she realized must have been a dead sleep. There was a giant smear left by her cheek on the limousine’s rear driver’s side window, and was that…?

Yepper, she’d been drooling. A big slobbery glob slowly cut a path down the tinted glass.

Perfect. Just perfect.

Of course, when she looked over and found Eve on the opposite side of the swank leather seat as dead to the world as she’d been, she didn’t feel quite so bad. Although at least Eve had had the decorum to simply tilt her head into the corner with her mouth closed and her hands tucked daintily between her knees.

Go figure.

Eve did everything with grace and panache, and Becky loved the woman to distraction, but sometimes she felt like a complete clod by comparison.

Wiping the wetness from her chin, she glanced out the window toward the high, wrought-iron gate that was the only public entrance into the compound and gazed lovingly at the warm, brick buildings beyond. It was quite a sight, especially when compared to where she’d started in that little pre-fab building. The main structure on the compound, the old factory they’d turned into lofts, office space, and her chopper shop, glowed dark red in the late afternoon sun. Yellow light glinted off the leaded glass windows on the upper floors. It was beautiful. It was her pride and glory…it was home.

And she couldn’t wait to get inside.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. Edens,” she whispered quietly so as not to wake Eve. “Tell Eve I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Patrick nodded regally, and she took that as her cue to depart.

Fine by her. Eve’s father had a way of sneering at her down the length of his patrician nose that tended to make her fingers itch to close themselves in a fist and plant one right in his puss.

Eve always claimed she was imagining things, but Becky knew the score. Patrick Edens didn’t think she was good enough to lick the bottom of his daughter’s couture pumps, much less be her best friend.

Asshole.

But right now even the slightly condescending tilt to his chin couldn’t bank her enthusiasm. Because she was home.

Finally.

Hastily, she pushed open the limousine door before the driver had a chance to do it for her. Stepping onto the curb, she watched the long, black car pull onto Cherry Street and disappear around the corner.

She took a deep breath, dragging in the damp, fishy odor of the Chicago River mingled with the sweet smell of cocoa drifting on the wind from Blommer Chocolate Company. The tension inside her ebbed like the retreating tide.

She knew exactly how Dorothy felt, because no truer words had ever been spoken than “there’s no place like home.”

Grinning, she turned toward the gatehouse and the big, red-headed beast of a man working inside.

“Hey there, Rebel!” he called, hauling himself out of his chair and ducking under the door frame as he exited the little building. He’d been seriously wounded in the same incident that resulted in Patti’s death, but, by the looks of him, he was making a full recovery.

The sight did her heart good.

“Manus!” she squealed, running and stopping herself from jumping into his burly arms at the last second. Gingerly, she wrapped her arms as far around his barrel chest as they would stretch and hugged him softly.

“Well now, that’s no kind of hello.” He pulled back, his round, freckled face wreathed in smiles below his shock of unruly Irish hair. “Since when do you handle me like a piece of Venetian glass?”