It was half past eight on a Wednesday night, so pickings were slim.
Most of the patrons were single dudes looking to tie on a buzz before heading
home to fall into bed, catch a few z’s, then wake up and start the daily grind
all over again.
A few couples were snuggled into the booths or sitting at the
high-tops having a nightcap before calling it a day. And then there was the
foursome of ladies playing pool. In their late twenties and dressed to the
nines in business attire, they seemed the answer to Christian’s prayers. Except
for the fact that they were hooting and hollering, kicking off their high
heels, and doing their best to get sloppy.
Girls’ night out.
Ozzie knew better than to intrude on that.
“You might be out of luck,” he lamented to Christian, eyeing one of
the pool players as she stumbled toward the jukebox. “And worse still, this one
looks like a Taylor Swift fan.”
Christian glanced over his shoulder at the woman as she drunkenly
studied the jukebox’s screen. “If she plays sodding ‘Shake It Off,’ I grant you
permission to un-holster my Walther and shoot me in the face.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
They waited, shoulders tense, as the jukebox loaded the woman’s
selection. It was “Shake it Off.”
“Right-oh. Never mind the shot to the face,” Christian declared. “I
have a better idea. Let’s get good and pissed and then ring up a cab to take us
home. Delilah, luv, fetch us two vodka shots, yeah?”
“You’re both pathetic,” Delilah declared after plunking the vodka
down in front of them. “It’s not like they wanted
to leave either of you behind.”
And by they, she meant the Black Knights. The
most select, most secretive group of covert operators ever to sign up to do
Uncle Sam’s dirty work. They were Ozzie’s teammates. His friends. And they were
all now half a world away, disrupting the Islamic State’s supply lines in order
to weaken the group’s defensive and offensive capabilities.
Well, except for Zoelner. He was in
London helping to hunt down a mysterious underworld crime lord aptly named
Spider.
But that’s just splitting hairs.
Because whether it was chasing ISIS or shadowy international figures, it all
came down to one thing. Every Black Knight was engaged in making the world a
safer place. Every Black Knight except for Ozzie and Christian. And Christian
would be heading into the field again soon. His burst eardrums, courtesy of a
recent mission when he’d been forced to fire a 50-cal. in an enclosed space,
were mostly healed.
And there they were again, the self-pity and remorse. Ozzie tossed
back the shot and welcomed the burn of the liquor, hoping it would pickle those
stupid pits in his stomach.
“It’s not that we feel sorry for ourselves,” Christian said after
downing his shot. “It’s that we’re sharks. If we stop swimming, we die.”
“Oh, for the love of tequila.” Delilah’s expression was
unsympathetic. “Neither of you needs to do anything but what you’re doing,
which is healing up. Besides, we like having you around, Christian. You brew a
freakin’ mean cup of tea.”
“God save the Queen.” Christian winked and saluted her with his
beer.
The we Delilah mentioned were the wives
and girlfriends of the Knights—Delilah being one of the former. All the ladies
had taken to gathering in the big warehouse in the evening, because at
precisely seven p.m. local time, one of the guys in the field would make an
encrypted satellite call back home to say a quick hello to his better half and
let the other better halves know that everyone in Syria was A-okay. The tension
in the shop in the minutes leading up to that phone call each day was palpable.
Just one more reason he and Christian were sitting at a bar in the middle of
the workweek. Just a little nip to take the edge off.
Ozzie lifted his beer to wash down the bite of the shot. No sooner
had he set his glass on the bar than the front door burst open and a Tasmanian
devil, otherwise known as ace reporter Samantha Tate, came barreling in. Her
right shoulder drooped under the weight of one of her giant oversized handbags,
which was stuffed full of the myriad piles of crap she carried around.
Christian took one look at her, turned to Ozzie, and started
whistling the tune to “Me and My Shadow.”
Ozzie elbowed him.
“Watch yourself, wankstain.” Christian pretended to reach beneath
his jacket for his Walther.
“Please. You wouldn’t shoot me. I’m the only one who’ll go to Fadó’s
to eat bangers and mash with you.”
“True,” Christian admitted. “Still, remind me why you think it’s a
jolly good idea to go mucking about with a reporter? I cannot wrap my mind
around you knowingly shagging someone who could blow your cover. You off your
trolley, or what?”
“First of all,” Ozzie assured him, “I’m not shagging her.” Although
every time I see her, I’m damned tempted.
“Well, that is a first,” Christian said.
“And second of all,” Ozzie went on as if Christian hadn’t spoken,
“you have nothing to worry about. I treat her like a mushroom.”
“Pardon?”
“I keep her in the dark and feed her shit.” Which is really
starting to bother me. I fucking hate lying to her. Of
course, Ozzie kept that to himself.
Christian narrowed his eyes. “You filched that line from a movie.”
Ozzie feigned a playfulness he hadn’t felt in a long time. “Movie
quotes and song lyrics, home slice. They’re my bread and butter. Besides, you
know that old saying.” Ozzie saw the moment Samantha spotted him and started
heading in his direction. The woman had a way of walking that reminded him of
female sailors. They had hips so they moved like women, but their naval
training taught them efficiency of motion. That was Samantha Tate in a word.
Efficient. And beautiful. Last weekend, when they met
in Lincoln Park for a picnic on the grass, the sunlight had dappled through the
leaves of the trees, bringing out the auburn and gold highlights in her curly,
mink-brown hair, and he had been so stunned by her simple loveliness that he
hadn’t been able to breathe.
“Which old saying would that be?” Christian asked.
“‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”
Christian narrowed his eyes again. “You expect me to believe she’s
your enemy? That all these lunch dates and
coffee dates are…what? A smoke screen?”
They had started that way. But it’d quickly become…more.
“So you got me,” Ozzie admitted. “I like
her. The woman burns words the way a magician burns flash paper—quickly and
with a lot of show. It stimulates my brain.”
“I’m certain it stimulates something,” Christian
scoffed, the end of his sentence a bare whisper as Samantha closed in on them.
“I see you have your boyfriend with you tonight, Ozzie.” She hopped
onto the barstool beside him. Her soft, powdery-smelling body lotion reached
out to him, filling his nose and triggering a cascade of goose bumps. It
happened every damned time she got close. He’d scoured the shelves at
Walgreens, sniffing every bottle of body butter and balm they sold trying to
find out which brand she used so that he could…what? Use it to whack off with?
For the love of Spock’s ears. He was pathetic. “Good to see you again,
Christian.” She waved across him at the Brit.
“Ah, Christian’s not gay,” Ozzie assured her, ignoring his body’s
interest at her nearness and focusing on the lively banter she had come to
expect from him. “He’s just really pretty. But I can see how you’d make that
mistake, what with the hair product and the tailored clothes.”
Christian grunted.
Samantha nodded, waved her hand through the air, and was on to the
next subject. “Well, gents, it’s official. The zombie apocalypse has started.
On my beat today, I covered a police-on-police shooting, a ten-car pileup on
the Kennedy Expressway, an outbreak of salmonella brought on by a restaurant
knowingly serving tainted sushi, and a string of B and E’s where the perps
turned out to be two thirteen-year-olds who claimed to be in love”—she rolled
her eyes at this—“and fancied themselves the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.” She
signaled Delilah. “Make Momma one of your specialties, would you, please? Extra
dirty with three olives.” Then she turned back to Ozzie and Christian. “But you
two have nothing to worry about. Zombies eat brains, so you’ll both be fine.”
See. Verbal flash paper. Crackle!
Poof! Ahhhhh! Ozzie felt a smile—a real
smile—tug at his lips.
Christian harrumphed. “I shouldn’t think you know me well enough to
judge my mental acuity.”
“Maybe not. But you have to be a little lacking in the IQ department
to willingly pal around with this one.” Samantha hooked a thumb toward Ozzie.
The sparkle in her dark eyes was positively mercenary.
“That’s a bit like the pilot calling the hippie high, yeah?”
Christian raised brow.
“Oh, you think I want to spend time
with Mad Scientist Hair here?” Samantha pretended incredulity.
“No, no. I feel
sorry for him. I mean, who wouldn’t? Just look at him.”
Ozzie made a face and gifted her with a terse hand gesture that used
his third digit.
“Spoken like a true scholar,” she said.
A crack of laughter blasted out of him. And when Samantha turned to
thank Delilah for the martini, he took the opportunity to study her profile.
She was beautiful. Her brown eyes glowed
with intelligence, and she had one of those faces that drew you in. No one
feature stood out as terribly arresting or unique, but all her features fit
together to make an enchanting whole.
And then there was the gap between her two front teeth. It was
small. Just a sliver of space. But it was totally, wonderfully her.
Samantha tipped back her martini glass and took a giant sip, eagerly
sucking down the gin and olive brine like it was a gift from on high. When she
lowered her glass, she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and let loose
with a dainty, feminine-sounding burp. “I am woman. Hear me drink.”
Another bark of genuine laughter shot out of him, and all he could
think was… God, that feels so good. Most of his
jocularity was forced these days. But when she was around, he felt…more like
his old self.
Then it occurred to him. Samantha Tate, the woman he and the rest of
the Black Knights had avoided for years, the woman he should probably still
be avoiding, had somehow wormed her way into his life,
under his skin, and in so doing had become…his friend.
Who’d a thunk it?
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