In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(79)
“It’s parked in front of room six at the Lazy Suzanne Motorway Motel,” he repeated Zoelner’s words to Bill, “Corner of 108th and Wentworth.”
“One block closer. That’s even better,” Bill muttered, flying through a red light and narrowly missing being sideswiped by a rusted out jalopy that looked like perhaps it’d been an El Camino in a previous life.
The last block and the dilapidated buildings on either side of the street whizzed by in a blur of sagging stoops, drooping roofs, and dusty yards. Frank registered the rundown gas station with its requisite South Side gangbangers hanging out on the corner just before Bill whipped into the parking lot of the Lazy Suzanne. The three of them poured out of the vehicle at the same time Zoelner leapt from a silver SUV. All four men palmed their weapons, holding them out and at the ready.
Bill, Rock, and Zoelner ran low across the lot, each quartering the area, scanning for threats.
Frank just ran.
***
“You bitch!” Sharif screeched as the knife she’d sent flying lodged in the meaty part of his shoulder. He dropped his weapon and it hit the orange shag carpeting with a muted thud.
Becky saw her chance. It was now!
She lunged for the weapon at the same time Sharif charged like an enraged bull in her direction. She narrowly missed the swipe of his arms by ducking and launching herself at the handgun like a Major League base runner diving toward home plate. With a skid and a grab, she was able to snatch the Glock, roll, and leap to her feet. Aiming the Glock at Sharif’s head, she curled her finger around the trigger.
“You so much as twitch, and I swear to God I’ll squeeze this trigger until the clip’s empty,” she warned, panting, trying to quiet her racing heart in the same instant she tried to still her shaking hands.
She’d never met the devil, never really believed in demonic possession, but the absolute hatred on Sharif’s face made her realize she must be looking at Satan’s close cousin. There was no other word but evil to describe the dark light glinting in Sharif’s hard eyes.
She tried to swallow past the lump of fear and dread that had taken up permanent residence in her throat.
“Don’t make me do it,” she pleaded when he reached up and grabbed the handle of the tactical knife protruding from his shoulder.
Please don’t make me do it.
All the marksmanship lessons Ghost had taught her, all the coaching she received about separating herself from the target, had sounded really good in theory. But now that she was there, looking into the face of a man—albeit an evil man—it was hard to dismiss the fact that his heart was pumping blood through his veins, his lungs sucking in oxygen, his brain synapses firing. It was hard to dismiss the fact that he was alive, and it was within her power to take that life away, snuff it out in an instant with nothing more than a series of muscle contractions in her pointer finger.
With a bellow that had white spittle gathering at the corner of his mouth like a rabid dog, Sharif yanked the knife from his arm and lunged toward her.
God forgive me, she prayed.
Three pounds of pressure and a half-breath later, it was all over.
***
“No!” Frank roared, his heart exploding inside his chest a split second after the hard bark of a .45 rent the cool Chicago air and a muzzle flash briefly illuminated the dingy window of Lazy Suzanne’s room six.
He took two lunging steps, planted his size-sixteen biker boot in the center of the door, and used his momentum and every bit of his two hundred forty-five pounds like a human wrecking ball. The already-warped door flew off its hinges, landing inside the dim room with a splintering, teeth-rattling crash. Frank stumbled in right behind it.
And he saw it all in an instant.
He saw Becky blowing like she’d run a race, standing with her bare feet shoulder width apart, her left hand supporting the edge of her right palm, her head tilted slightly so that her eye lined up with the Glock’s sights. He saw Sharif lying in an expanding pool of sticky, crimson blood, the top of his head completely gone, his left leg twitching like a beheaded snake.
“Frank,” Becky panted, barely giving him a look as she continued to draw down on Sharif. What did she think? That the bastard might jump up and come after her again despite the fact that a good portion of his skull was missing and most of his brains were slowly sliding down the opposite wall? “You should be in the hospital.”
If he hadn’t been on the verge of breaking down and crying like a goddamned baby, he would’ve laughed.
She was alive, wonderfully, gloriously alive, and she was issuing opinions in that dusky Demi Moore voice of hers and…sweet, sweet, Jesus!
He did two things then. He dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, barely able to hold back the hard sob of relief building in his chest.
That-a-girl, was all he could think. That’s my tough, wonderful girl.
“Becky!” Wild Bill cried as he charged through the door, stumbling to a halt when he took in the gruesome scene. “Oh, thank goodness, sis. Thank goodness,” he repeated as he slowly made his way past Frank’s kneeling form and over to Becky’s side, gently removing the .45 from her trembling hands and shoving it in the waistband of his jeans.
Bill had to take her by the shoulders and physically turn her away from the horrific sight of Sharif and that twitching leg, and even then she kept glancing back, her beautiful eyes huge and filled with shock.