Rev It Up (14 page)

“We’ll have one of the guys ride your bike over tomorrow morning and exchange it for the Hummer.” Boss continued.

“Sounds good.” Sounded better than good. Sounded
great
, because it meant he’d get to have Shell all to himself.

“Excellent.” Boss nodded, then frowned. “Wait a second. I didn’t ask if you’re okay to drive. How much beer have you had?”

Not
enough
to
keep
me
from
wanting
to
toss
your
sister
over
my
shoulder, cart her upstairs to one of those bedrooms, and make love to her until the sun comes up.

Of course, there wasn’t enough booze on the planet to keep him from wanting to do that…

“Only two over the last three hours. I’m good to go.”

“But I don’t
want
him to—” Shell tried again.

“You know what your options are.” Boss glared down at her, one hand raised in mid-salute by that bright blue cast and the other firmly planted on his hip. Though the stance was highly ridiculous, Boss still managed to make it look menacing. “Which is it going to be?”

Shell turned to Jake then, glaring like this was all his fault. In response, he flashed his dimples and a wink.

“Ugh,” she carefully plopped down in a lawn chair, angrily punching in some numbers on Boss’s cell phone with one hand while she cradled Franklin’s back with the other. “I knew it was a mistake to come here tonight,” she muttered as Boss once more pointed Jake toward the munitions building.

After they’d gone some distance, he ventured, “Just what are the chances this Johnny character will come after Shell and Franklin?”

“Very remote,” Boss assured him, using the key to open the thick metal door to the armory. “Johnny wants
us
dead. We’re the ones who killed his cousin and brother-in-law. But I’d already decided to bring her here or send one of the boys back home with her even before you showed up, so I’m glad you arrived when you did. And now, you’ve got the chance to convince her you’re not our father.”

“Yeah, uh,” Jake scratched his ear. “I gather there’s a story there, you know, given you called the guy a deadbeat.”

His former CO sighed, sliding a surreptitious glance over at Shell who was nodding and speaking quietly into the phone although the expression on her face was anything but conciliatory. “I never spoke much about dear ol’ Dad, did I?”

“Much? Try never. I always assumed the dude was dead.”

Boss motioned him through the door to the armory and, as Jake stepped inside, he breathed in the metallic scent of the weapons, the slightly tangy aroma of gun oil, and the more acrid smell of cordite. Why he found that combination particularly appealing spoke loudly of the life he’d chosen to live.

“I don’t know if our father is dead or not,” Boss admitted. “I haven’t seen or spoken to the man in almost twenty-eight years.”

Jake raised a brow.

“My dad had a thing for younger women and used to pretty blatantly cheat on our mom. When I was twelve and Shell was six, he finally quit trying to play the father and husband and split. Our mother fell apart after that and Shell…well, I guess Dad’s leaving probably affected her the most. It made her wary, mistrusting…”

Jake’s heart broke for the scared, hurt little girl Shell had once been, and he realized how much courage it must’ve taken for her to swallow her fear four years ago and give him, a self-described ladies’ man, a chance. The same chance he’d immediately proceeded to screw over and toss out the window.

Jesus, you’re an ass, Sommers…

“I guess that’s why I was so surprised back in California when it looked like you two were starting to hit it off,” Boss mused. “Considering your similarities to our father.”

“I would never screw around on my wife,” he insisted, pissed beyond measure to find himself lumped into a group of cheaters.

“Hell, I know that,” Boss scoffed. “But Shell doesn’t, and she didn’t back then either. I suppose that’s why she was so quick to settle on Preacher after things with you two hit the skids.”

She’d settled on Preacher because he’d literally thrown her at the guy, and Shell was smart enough to recognize an honorable man when she saw one.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, narrowing his eyes as he tried to read Boss’s mind.

“Because, like I said earlier, this isn’t going to be easy. And I figure you’ll stand a better chance if you realize exactly what you’re up against.”

Yo, as if all the shit that went down between me and Shell wasn’t bad enough…

“But she’s worth it.” Boss watched his face intently.

“Damn, dude, I know that,” he huffed. “I just wish I could find your father and gut him like a fish for making my job that much more difficult.”

“Ha!” Boss clapped him on the shoulder and spun him toward the shelves lined with every weapon an operator could ever desire. “You’ll have to get in line for that. Now, even though I don’t think Vitiglioni or his goons are really going to go after Shell, I figure we’re better off safe than sorry. Pick out whatever you need.”

He started toward the shelves then hesitated, turning back. “Why are you willing to help me with her?” he asked, gauging the big man’s reaction with a practiced eye.

“Because she’s a good woman, and she needs a good man. I always thought you were a good man, Snake.”

As warmth unfurled in his chest—because, yo, for more than a few years he’d doubted that very thing—he feigned wiping away a tear as he kicked an imaginary rock, “Aw, shucks, Boss. You’ll make me blush.”

“A pain in the ass,” Boss added, “but a good man. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t sneak into your room while you sleep and slit your throat should you hurt her.”

The
Stardust
Hotel

Chicago, Illinois

Listening to the couple going at it next door, Johnny contemplated shoving his hand down his pants to join in the festivities—sad, but self-service was the only kind of service he’d been getting since he’d gone into hiding—when his prepaid cellular phone buzzed on the nightstand. Startled, he nearly tumbled off the lumpy piece of cardboard that passed as a mattress in this filthy hotel.

“Damnit, what now?” he growled, refusing to answer the vibrating phone. The only person who had access to this number was his sister, and she was only supposed to call him in case of emergency.

Emergency?
Yeah, right.

So far today, Mary had had three “emergencies.”

The first crisis involved her calling to ask for the keys to his Lamborghini. Because she wasn’t going to be seen driving to Tahoe in her lowly Mercedes Benz—
the
spoiled
bitch
.

Next, she’d wanted to know if he could deposit 20K in her checking account. It didn’t matter to her that ever since the debacle with the senator, the one that’d gotten both her husband and their cousin killed and caused the FBI to start nosing around his holdings, he’d been forced to transfer all his funds to an overseas account, go underground, and stop making purchases in order to stay under the government’s radar. No, none of that mattered to her, because she had her twisted, frigid little heart set on this canary-yellow diamond at Tiffany’s
,
and she was accustomed to getting exactly what she wanted and damn the consequences to anybody else.

Which brought him full-circle to emergency
numero
tres
, which, like the other two, hadn’t really been an emergency at all. She’d simply called because she was bored and wanted to know if any of the Black Knights or their family members were dead, yet.

Um,
no
. If they were, he’d have called. Just. Like. He. Told. Her. A. Million. Times.

The insistent buzzing of his phone had him cursing and throwing one of the stale-smelling pillows across the room—imagining it was his sister’s frail body—before he pushed into a sitting position and pressed the “talk” button with enough force to bend the nail on his finger.

“What the hell do you want now, Mary?” he barked, trying to drown out the sound of the couple in the next room.

“Where are you?” she screeched. He held the phone away from his head and briefly considered flinging it across the room to join the smelly pillow.

“First of all, what phone are you using?” He couldn’t take any chances with the Feds on his tail.

She sighed heavily. “The prepaid one. Gimme some credit.”

Uh-huh. Credit. Right.

“And where are you calling from?”

“From inside the safe room like you taught me.
Come
on
, Johnny. No one’s eavesdropping, so cut the crap and tell me where you are.”

“I’m at the hotel,” he said, grinding his teeth.

“Why aren’t you doing something for Chrissakes? Isn’t that what you’re there for?”

He lifted a hand to his brow and prayed for patience. “I told you I’ve hired an investigator to dig up dirt on the Knights and their relatives. That takes time, Mary.”

“Yeah, and in the meantime, what are
you
doing to avenge the brutal murder of my dear, sweet husband?” she demanded.

Oh, give me a friggin’ break.

For one thing,
sweet
was not a word that had applied to Mary’s husband in any way, shape, or form. And for another, it was true the guy was murdered, but Johnny could think of a lot more brutal ways to go than a single shot straight to the ol’ gray matter that instantly put your lights out.

“If you must know, I followed the Knights to a local hospital yesterday, and while I was there I found out—”

“Well, why didn’t you just kill them all while you had the chance?” she interrupted, her voice petulant.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she was clueless. What? Did she expect him to pull his pistol in the middle of the hospital, where there were hundreds of cameras ready to catch his every move and a whole gang of security guards geared up to take him down the minute he opened fire?

Stupid
gash.
That was just one of the
many
nasty names hovering on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back along with all the rest. “Killing the Knights doesn’t make sense. Killing their
families
does. It’s poetic justice. An eye for an eye.”

And he couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces when their relatives starting dropping like flies. They deserved all the hell he was about to rain down on them for offing his brother-in-law and cousin. Of course, if he was really honest, he had to admit the great majority of his thirst for vengeance came from the financial hit he’d taken and the business losses he’d suffered when he’d been forced to go off the grid.

He’d succeeded in remaining under the government’s radar for fifteen long years, and it severely pissed him off that it was a bunch of leather-wearing bikers who’d managed to burn him.

“Well, if you aren’t going to kill them, then why did you take out that ad in
Soldier
of
Fortune
?” Mary asked.

Her tone infuriated him, and he screwed his eyes closed, rubbing at his aching temples. Just how dense could one woman be? “Because those bumbling, white-trash wankers who answered my ad will hopefully keep the Knights distracted long enough for me to exact revenge on their families.”

“And if they actually manage to
kill
one of the Black Knights?”

“Well, that’s a bonus, now isn’t it? But I seriously doubt any of them will even get close. Last night, I waited at the bar across the street for over an hour for one of those hit-man wannabes to come claim their reward money. Not a single one showed.”

Of course, he wasn’t going to complain about that. He didn’t really relish the thought of handing over fifty Gs even if the cash was going to a good cause.

“So, what did you find out at the hospital last night?” she asked.

“That one of the Knights has a sister and a nephew who live here in Chicago. I tried using the whole flower delivery trick on her this evening, but she’s warier than most broads. She wouldn’t open the door. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m going back tonight, and I
will
kill both her and her son.”