In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(75)

“Oh, Frank and I have our fair share of those, too.”

Bill turned to eye Boss and the monstrous blue cast that wrapped from his waist and chest up around his shoulder and extended down his entire arm, keeping it frozen in an awkward angle away from his body. The surgeon said it was a species cast or a spica cast or some such thing. Bill didn’t care what it was called, because what it looked like was some maniac’s idea of medical torture.

“So when are they letting you blow this joint, Boss?” He fished in the bag and pulled out a muffin, dropping it in Boss’s greedily outstretched fingers.

Food was the first thing the big guy had requested after coming out of the anesthesia…

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. According to the nurse, the first thing Boss had requested was Becky, and that really threw Bill for a loop. He couldn’t help but wonder if things had changed between Boss and his sister since he’d had that little chat with the dude back at the shop.

He hoped so.

Because despite whatever little flirtation she had going with Angel, he knew Boss was the only man on the planet who could make her truly happy, since Boss happened to be the only man on the planet with big enough balls not to be intimidated by a woman of her particular talents and…uh…call it moxie.

Not to mention, Boss was the only man she happened to love…

Oh, she tried to hide it, and perhaps she did—from the other guys. But a big brother knows when his little sister gets a particular look in her eye. And she’d had that particular look in her eye since the first day she’d been introduced to Boss.

“They say they want me to stay overnight,” Boss replied around a mouthful of muffin. “Something about keeping an eye on my pain meds.”

“That’s probably—”

Somewhere a phone rang; the tone was the opening jingle to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”

“That’s me,” Boss said, and Bill chuckled. He figured if he had to have a brother-in-law, he could do a lot worse than Frank Knight.

“Where are my pants?” Boss asked.

“Here.” Michelle opened the little closet and pulled out Boss’s worn jeans. Digging in the hip pocket, she retrieved his phone and tossed it to him. And even loopy on medication, Boss’s reflexes remained those of a cat.

He caught the phone one-handed, punched the “talk” button, and held it to his ear. “Well, I’ll be damned. Dagan Zoelner, I was wondering when you were going to give us a call…what?”

Bill frowned when Boss’s eyes sharpened, his expression turning murderous. Automatically Bill reached to make sure his Sig was safely nestled at the small of his back, because he’d seen that look on Boss’s face before and it was usually when they were neck-deep in bad guys.

“Goddamnit!” Boss yelled, and everything began happening at once. Franklin woke up and started bawling, Boss ripped out his IV-lines and scrambled from bed, Rock asked, “What’s up?” even as he checked to see that his two extra clips were full, and Bill’s phone started vibrating in his pocket.

Pulling out his cell, he glanced at the caller ID and lifted a brow. Whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not, he’d been waiting for this call, but it was not a good time.

“What?” he barked impatiently, watching Boss push Michelle away as he started trying to hop into his jeans using only one arm.

“Billy?” Eve’s strangled voice sounded through the receiver. “He’s…oh God!” Her voice broke on a pitiful sob. “He’s got Becky!”

***

Sharif could not believe how easy that had been.

Snatching Becky had been as simple as waiting for her to appear alone from the safety of the high-fenced complex in which she lived, following her city bus as it slowly wound its way through the traffic-clogged streets of Chicago, hiding out in the men’s restroom of that sleazy bar while she got pissed on cheap whiskey, and lying in wait for the moment when she excused herself to the loo—because ladies always eventually excused themselves to the loo.

Hitting her with the stun gun had been a cinch; she hadn’t even seen him slip from the men’s restroom.

He’d been on her, pressing the electrical prongs into the side of her neck and squeezing the trigger, before she ever knew what hit her. Of course, his error had been in not realizing what a jolt of that magnitude would do to a small, inebriated woman. Instead of simply incapacitating her, the shock had knocked her out cold.

Still, he couldn’t help but think it’d all worked out for the best.

Having her unconscious certainly made it easy for him to hoist her over his shoulder and stuff her into the trunk of his rented vehicle—the vehicle he’d been able to secure on the stolen passport his father proudly handed him before he walked out of the house in St. Ives. Having her unconscious had also solved the problem of transferring her from the trunk into his abhorrent little room in a fleabag motel way out on the south side of town. He simply backed up to the door, opened the trunk, threw the discolored comforter he swiped from the queen-sized motel bed over her, and carted her inside.

No one had given him a second look.

Which was just one of the three reasons he’d chosen that motel…its location in a neighborhood where a woman’s screams were so de rigueur, nobody gave them more than a passing thought. The second reason was the metal bed. It was absolutely perfect for what he had in mind. And the third reason was loitering across the street at the petrol station. A group of pathetically dressed gangbangers who’d no doubt sell him the cocktail of street drugs he knew it was going to take to make this ordeal last, and last, and last…