Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(44)
“No problemo,” Ozzie declared, and Bill knew this wasn’t one of the times the kid was boasting. If Boss wanted every satellite on the planet out of commission, Ozzie, aka The Wizard of Oz, could probably make it happen. Which, when Bill took the time to think about it, scared him half to death. He couldn’t help but fear the fate of the world when a twenty-seven-year-old kid who loved bad ’80s music and had a weird affinity for cheesy sci-fi shows wielded that much power at the tips of his fingers. He just thanked God Ozzie was on their side…
“Good,” Boss jerked his chin once. “Everybody clear on their tasks?”
“Affirmative,” the Knights answered in unison, with Eve shakily whispering, “Y-yes.”
“Then let’s toss back some concrete milkshakes, harden the hell up, and do this thing. We’ve got half an hour before Vanessa and Rock reach the city limits.”
Bill shook his head at another one of Boss’s inspirational speeches—concrete milk shakes; where did the guy come up with this stuff?—as the group shuffled out of the closet. Once they were gathered in the center of Eve’s bedroom, Ozzie opened his mouth, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
Boss was quick to cut him off with, “If you make a joke about all of us coming out of the closet, Ozzie, I swear I’ll kill you in your sleep tonight.”
“Aw, man! You’re all party poopers,” Ozzie pouted.
And, just like that, the Black Knights were in full effect and back in action…
***
Rock used an antiseptic wipe to clean the last vestiges of mud from his fingers before glancing down at his watch and then back to the obscure jungle trail down which Vanessa disappeared.
Thirty minutes, he thought dejectedly as he opened a new pack and pulled out a second medicated cloth, scouring his face with it until the smell of alcohol burned his nose. Just thirty measly minutes, half an hour, a mere drop in the bucket on the timeline of his life. That’s all he had left with her…
Mon dieu. It hurt more than he ever thought it would. And scared him down to his very bones that it should be that way.
So, it’s good you only have thirty more minutes with her.
That’s what he told himself as he wadded up the used wipes and shoved them in a side compartment of the pack looped over the dirt bike’s handlebars. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t make himself believe it. And when he saw her crashing through the undergrowth, dirty, bedraggled, and so beautiful he could barely breathe, making him hotter than a billy goat in a pepper patch just by stomping toward him with that unconsciously sensuous gate of hers, he knew he was a lost cause.
And he knew he was about to do something colossally stupid. Because it suddenly occurred to him that this was his last chance. His last chance to do something for himself. His last chance to experience something wonderful and pure. And, oui, he knew it was a mistake, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to make himself care.
He wasn’t going to make it out of this thing alive. The secrecy of his second job—hell, even after all these years he didn’t have the first goddamned clue who his contact was—combined with the speed with which the evidence in all those killings was laid on him, assured him he was up against one or more very powerful, very elite, and very connected people. And chances were pretty good he was eventually going to find himself on the wrong end of a bullet or a syringe loaded with enough polonium-210 to drop a horse.
But for now, for the next few minutes, he was going to forget about all of that and live his life. Live it like he’d dreamed of living it before he was dragged from his BUD/S class in order to be trained as a master interrogator. Live it liked he’d dreamed of living it before the black specter of death shrouded everyone and everything that’d made his life worthwhile. Live it like he’d dreamed of living it when he’d been a young man, poling his pirogue out on the coffee-colored waters of the bayou.
And just the thought had Mr. Happy, the brainless wonder, pounding impatiently against the zipper of his cargo pants.
Tu es stupide. This is for her. This is going to be all for her, so she’ll remember us…
Vanessa finally made her way to him, and some of what he was thinking must’ve been written across his face, because she turned and watched him warily from the corner of her eye. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what, mon ange?” he asked, not surprised his voice came out a low rumble. And, just like always, her sensitive ears picked up on the subtleties of his tone, because she shivered despite the heat. Quickly, efficiently, he transferred his pistols from his waistband to his pack, and she watched the maneuver with wide eyes.
“Like I’m a six-course meal and you haven’t eaten for a week,” she finally answered, swallowing, her lovely, dusky-colored throat working delicately.
He held out a hand to her, and she looked at it like some people might look at a loaded weapon. “I want to kiss you,” he told her.
Unlike what most folks believed, honesty was not always the best policy—at least not in his line of work. But he’d learned early on, it could get a man very far with the right kind of woman. And Vanessa Cordero was certainly the right kind of woman.
“But I thought you were in a hurry—”
“We can take a few minutes.”
She shook her head, but she didn’t back away. It was a good sign. “But you said—”