Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(52)

And, yeah, Bill was pretty sure the guy was sobbing.

Jesus.

A hard lump settled in the middle of his throat, and the ulcer he was so certain he’d finally kicked to the curb acted up and started gnawing on his stomach lining. Because Rock was one of the toughest bastards he’d ever known, with a hard set of emotional calluses built up over the years of bearing witness to the repeated horrors of war, and for him to be openly losing it now…

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but shit must be really bad.

Worse than any of them imagined.

And it only made it all the more terrible that, in order to keep them safe—and Bill was certain that’s what the deal was—Rock had been determined to go it alone. Was still determined to go it alone if the continued bucking and cursing and screaming was anything to go by, the big, stupid, self-sacrificing prick.

“And putting our fool heads in the middle of someone’s crosshairs would be different from every other day because…?” Steady huffed, and Bill was glad to see he wasn’t the only one sucking air. Wrestling with Rock was tantamount to kickboxing a kangaroo. Steady moved to secure Rock’s kicking feet by sitting on the guy’s calves and lacing together two zip ties.

Rock continued to struggle with everything he had, grunting and wailing and, even though Bill couldn’t understand French, he was pretty sure Rock was begging them not to do this.

“Hurry it up,” Boss called, leaning an arm out the window of the truck. “We’re starting to draw a crowd.”

And, sure enough, when Bill glanced up, running a forearm under his bloody nose—goddamn, stubborn Cajun!—it was to find a woman grasping the hand of a small, dark-headed boy, looking on in terror.

“We’re good,” Steady declared, throwing his hands in the air like a steer roper who’d just completed his final knot.

“Get ’im in the truck,” Boss commanded, and Bill and Steady each grabbed an arm and a leg, hoisting Rock up—good God, the man was heavier than he looked, too. As gently as they could, they transferred him into the bed of the pickup truck and all the while Rock continued to fight them as if his life depended on it…or, more likely, as if their lives depended on it.

And then Bill felt like crying too, especially when Vanessa turned around to peer into the truck bed, tears flowing down her dusty cheeks. “Stop struggling,” she pleaded, choking on a sob as Bill jumped up alongside Rock in order to carefully flip the guy onto his back. “P-please. You’re going to hurt yourself if you—”

“How could you!” Rock roared once he was on his back. His face was wet with tears and snot and blood, and it was obvious that at some point during their struggle he must’ve taken a blow to the nose.

Shit.

They hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

“How could you do this to them!” he continued to scream at Vanessa. Bill had to press a hand to the center of his chest as stomach acid started inching its way up the back of his throat. “How could you do this to me! I trusted you! And now you’ve killed us all!”

“Hey, now—” Bill began but was cut off when Vanessa shook her head and backed away, muttering, “No. No, Rock, I—”

“Get in the truck, Vanessa,” Boss commanded, but she just continued to stand there, openly sobbing, shaking her head and staring at Rock with…was that?

Yep. That was definitely her heart in her eyes. And, shit, that made what she’d just done so, so much worse.

Bill glanced down at Rock, wondering if the man knew that BKI’s sexy little Latin communications specialist was in love with him. Hard to tell, given the guy was busy struggling while simultaneously staring poison-tipped daggers at the woman.

“Get in the goddamned truck, Vanessa!” Boss thundered, and she jumped a good foot in the air. Then, as if she suddenly remembered where she was, she wiped a forearm over her eyes and sprinted around the back of the vehicle.

Bill watched her crawl into the passenger seat before glancing down at Rock, ready to give the * a piece of his mind for one: not letting them help him figure this thing out from the very beginning, and two: taking his hurt and frustration out on Vanessa when she’d only done what any one of them would have done in the same situation.

But one look at the guy’s face and…

Christ. Every thought flew from his head. Because Rock’s eyes were pleading, frantic, almost wild with fear. And it was seeing that fear—the bone-deep terror in a man he respected the shit out of and had grown to love like a brother—that had a lone tear slipping from the corner of his left eye to run into the groove beside his nose.

“Please, Bill,” Rock begged even as he continued to buck ineffectually against his restraints. “Please don’t do this. You hafta let me go. I’ll never forgive myself if—”

He stopped the man from saying anything more by slapping a palm over his mouth. He used his other hand to press a finger to his lips. And when Rock only continued to struggle, he wiped away that ridiculous tear—come on, steel-balled operators weren’t supposed to cry—and whispered, “Stop, my friend. We gotcha now. And we don’t plan to let you go again.”

***

“Stop crying, Vanessa,” Boss commanded, and she tried to obey. She really did. But the look on Rock’s face…

Disbelief, hatred, betrayal. It’d all been there. Flashing up at her like a neon sign.