Sam shuddered. “Don’t remind me. I dunno which was worse. That we had a deathstalker scorpion living under our bathroom sink? Or that when you found him, you ran out of there buck naked and screaming your head off? I still have nightmares.”
“About the scorpion?”
“About your candy stick and giggleberries bouncing six inches from my face.”
“Ah. I understand.” Hunter nodded solemnly. “There’s that old saying about comparison being the thief of joy, right?” He clapped a commiserating hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I hate that I burst your bubble of self-delusion. But if you’re really worried about it, I’ve heard there’s some surgical options. A silicone implant? Maybe a fat transfer? Or you could even—”
“Well, look at you,” Sam cut him off, “lowering yourself to aspersions about the size of my willy. What gives? When it comes to being a weapons-grade dingus, you usually leave that to me or Fisher.”
Hunter snorted. Weapons-grade dingus. Sam had a rare gift for words. Which was probably why he liked Coen Brothers movies so much. They were filled with snappy, fast-fire dialogue.
“Blame it on us being left behind,” Hunter admitted, taking a deep breath of air perfumed with the competing, and yet somehow complementary, scents of too-strong coffee and grease guns. “I hate having nothing to do. Makes my skin feel too tight for my body.” To emphasize his point, he hitched his shoulder blades together.
“You and me both, brother.” Sam nodded. “But I’m trying to focus on the bright side. We may hafta hold down the fort, but that’s a thousand times better’n playing babysitter to some politician’s spoiled spawn.”
Black Knights Inc. had been the brainchild of President Thompson and the last administration. And even though the players had changed right along with the leadership when Madam President took over the seat at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, the concept was still the same.
Some jobs were too clandestine or too pressing to leave to the usual suspects. Despite most of the people working for the CIA, FBI, and NSA being good at their jobs, their hands were often tied by red tape. Which meant threats against the U.S. slipped through the cracks as solutions and actions were debated by committee. Throw in posse comitatus and the international resistance to certain types of government-backed exercises, and the bad guys were allowed to escape scot-free more often than anyone would like to admit.
This frustration had prompted President Thompson to form his own fast action response team, for lack of a better phrase. He’d scoured military branches and government agencies for the best of the best when it came to spycraft and those gifted in reconnaissance, unconventional warfare tactics, and the ability to counter terrorism. Then he’d found a home for those highly trained individuals in the heart of Chicago. And when it’d been her turn in the hot seat, Madam President had done the same.
Behind the façade of a custom motorcycle shop worked the most elite, most covert group of spec-ops warriors the world had ever seen.
Warriors who didn’t have to run their mission parameters up the chain of command. Warriors who could fly into action at a moment’s notice and operate in complete secrecy without their actions being traced back to anyone inside the federal government. Warriors who sometimes got assigned bodyguarding jobs as a favor to Madam President herself.
Three days earlier, the Black Knights had received a request to ensure the secretary of defense’s daughter didn’t get kidnapped or killed on her end-of-summer trip to Venezuela. But the job had only called for four of the six current BKI operators since there were only four extra seats on the political debutante’s private plane.
Hunter and Sam had drawn the short straws.
Or the long straws if one was to side with Sam that being stuck at home was better than playing bullet-catcher for a twenty-year-old kid who didn’t know the difference between danger and dessert.
“I’m so bored I could eat a tire iron,” Hunter lamented.
When he was on the job, his gray matter was occupied with how best to breach a position or take down a tango or rescue a hostage. And when he was in self-imposed exile, as Sam liked to call his trips north, he focused his mind on chopping wood or figuring out the best way to turn an old cattle trough into a raised garden.
But more and more often, and especially recently, when he found himself at loose ends, his brain filled up with thoughts about his future.
Or, more specifically, his lack thereof.
In the three and a half years since he’d come to work for BKI, he’d been watching the original crew, all the hardened operators who’d answered to the previous president and who’d left their mark behind on the world of international intrigue. To a man, the OG Black Knights had moved on with their lives. They’d gotten married and fathered children. They’d proved that even for guys like them, guys like Hunter, there was something to look forward to after service.
Except…it was different for Hunter, wasn’t it? Not only did he not have the first clue how to build a family since he’d never been part of one, but he also lacked the basic means to begin even if he had known where to start.
The thought of never marrying, never becoming a dad, hadn’t bothered him before. Mostly because he’d assumed it would be a miracle if he didn’t end up running into a bullet with his name on it; covert operator was just a prettied-up description of a guy who grubbed for tin as a means of employment. But also because he’d had no clue what he was missing.
The men who’d come before him had had the unwitting audacity to show him everything he’d never thought was possible. Show him that even guys who’d witnessed so much brutality and bloodshed could still have the capacity to embrace domesticity. Show him just how sweet the flip side could be.
Now he was left wanting. Wishing.
Which pissed him off.
He hadn’t wanted or wished since he’d been a kid and learned the hard way that life wasn’t fair and that not everybody got their happily-ever-after.
“Well, you’re better off twiddling your dick than messing with that.” Sam hitched his chin toward the motorcycle frame secured to the bike lift. “What the hell are you doing anyway?”
“I sanded off the powder coat on the engine mount so I can install the V Twin and the transmission,” Hunter told him, happy to have his somber thoughts interrupted.
One of Sam’s dark eyebrows arched so high it was nearly lost in his hairline. “Did Becky say you could do that?”
Becky Knight, née Reichert, was the wunderkind mechanic and motorcycle designer who made it possible for them to keep their covers intact.
Her creations were the faces Black Knights Inc. showed the world. Works of rolling, roaring art sought after by collectors from Texas to Taiwan. The ultra-wealthy stood in line to drop a quarter mil on something that only had two wheels. And professional athletes couldn’t seem to pass up the flash and fury of a hand-designed and hand-built Harley.
Which was all to say, Becky was super picky about who she let touch her babies.
“She had no problem letting me do the last install.” Hunter shrugged, figuring three and a half years of part-time apprenticeship meant he could mount an engine without Becky standing over his shoulder and supervising. “I thought it’d be a nice surprise when she comes into the shop in the morning. You know, one less thing.”