Chapter 22 #2
“And we know just who to ask for the answer.” Boss angled his gaze out over the second-story railing toward the shop’s unremarkable brick wall.
Nothing special about it. Just a chunk of old factory facade…unless you knew about the button behind the rolling Craftsman toolbox. The one that activated the hidden door that pulled back to reveal the yawning black mouth of the Bat Cave and the evil bitch being kept on ice inside it.
“Graham and I have some work to do,” Boss said.
“You need our help?” Sam asked, a muscle ticking under his eye.
Boss shook his head. “We have it covered. The rest of you go about your day. We got code names to trace, bikes to build, and at some point, we’ll have to apprise the lady sitting in the Oval Office of our situation.”
Hew didn’t envy Graham or Boss. Not for one millisecond.
It took a special breed of man to stand before a prisoner and strip away their lies without losing sight of the line between justice and vengeance. Without losing a little piece of his soul to the hellish work that was enhanced interrogation.
As the group started disbanding, chairs scraping across the floor and boots thudding toward the stairs, Hew rose. His feet carried him around the table toward Sabrina like they had minds of their own.
“Hey.” He caught her wrist gently.
She turned expectantly. Despite her seven hours of shut-eye, weariness left dark smudges beneath her eyes.
He wanted to rewind time and return to the moment she announced she was going for a drive. He’d insist on going with her. Chain himself to her back bumper if that’s what it took.
“Either I’m suffering a severe case of déjà vu,” she cut into his thoughts, “or we just did this song and dance over there.” She tilted her head toward the staircase.
Right.
He cleared his throat. “We need to talk about—”
“Hew?”
Boss’s voice. Again.
Damnit it all to hell!
Hew clenched his jaw so hard his back teeth ached before turning toward the head of Black Knights Inc. He made sure to temper his tone when he said, “Ayuh?”
“You got a minute?” Boss jerked his thumb toward his office door.
No, Hew wanted to snarl. I don’t have a minute. I don’t have a friggin’ second to spare until I talk to Sabrina about what she said upstairs.
Instead, he reminded himself that the Black Knights had bigger fish to fry than his will they/won’t they/does she even still want to relationship with their social media maven.
“I’ll be right in,” he told Boss, then turned back to Sabrina, ready to finish the sentence he’d started and stopped twice now.
However, the words slipped to the back of his tongue when he saw the look on her face. It was…worried? Distressed?
No, he decided. It’s pained.
“I know you want to talk about what I told you upstairs,” she said in a sudden rush.
“But you really don’t have to say anything.
I really do understand where you stand. Where you’ve been standing.
And it’s okay, Hew. I’m a big girl. I’ve been rejected before and bounced back from it.
” She offered him a small smile that twisted in his heart like a blade.
“When one door closes, another opens. Isn’t that what they say? ”
She did something then that damn near knocked the breath from his lungs. She patted his chest. A light touch. A simple touch. A friendly touch.
“I’m moving on.” She nodded determinedly.
“I’ve got Martin now. So there’s nothing for you to feel bad about.
Let’s chalk up what happened earlier to sheer lunacy brought on by the stress and horror of the previous twenty-four hours and forget it ever happened.
Can we do that? Can we go back to the way things were before I licked your neck like—” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening in.
“Like a Push Pop on the Fourth of July?”
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. In his mixed-up, muddled-up state, all he could do was nod.
He’d gotten damn good at nodding at her.
“Great.” Her smile widened, taking up her whole face and crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Hew.”
She immediately turned for the stairs leading to the ground floor and left him staring after her with his mouth half open and his stomach hitting the soles of his shoes.
Moving on.
Got Martin now.
Forget it ever happened.
His fingers flexed, but he wasn’t sure whose neck he wanted to throttle this time. He finally settled on his own because he’d been a damned fool. A blind fool.
She’d hinted. She’d tried. Hell, looking back, she’d stood right in front of him countless times with her heart in her eyes, and he hadn’t seen it.
Or he’d been too chickenshit to act on it.
Or more likely, he’d been too Maine-stubborn to believe it.
He recalled one night months ago when they sat beside the fire pit, and she turned to ask him, “Do you believe there’s one person for everyone?”
He’d laughed off the question, giving her some flippant reply about how he hoped not because that would mean some of his foster folks had been fated to find each other, and that just seemed too awful to contemplate.
God, what a jackass.
He’d missed the boat entirely. And now he’d be forced to watch her sail away in it with someone else.
When he remembered Martin actually had a boat—a real one, not a metaphorical one—he laughed. Or choked. He couldn’t tell the difference.
“Hew!” Boss’s voice echoed. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
“On my way.” He turned on stiff legs. But he’d only taken three steps before a thought occurred that stopped him in his tracks.
He hadn’t missed the boat. He’d shot a hole in the damn thing, sinking it himself.