Page 7 of Knight's Fall

A slow devilish grin spread across Olivia’s face. “Great idea. You should bake a cake for him and show up with it on his doorstep wearing nothing but an apron. That will get his attention. Believe me.”

Courtlyn’s face heated up even as a thrill spiraled through her. “Believeyou? Are you speaking from experience?”

“Hell, yeah. Only it wasn’t a cake and an apron. It was a bright red raincoat and Dex’s favorite lunch. I made an appointment with his receptionist under a different name, and I surprised him at his office. We spent his lunch hour having some very hot sex in his desk chair. It was worth the trip out in public in that raincoat. I was scared to death I’d have a wreck or something driving around in all my naked glory.”

Dex Gaither was head over heels in love with her best friend, but Olivia was content leaving their relationship all fun and sex and nothing more serious. Courtlyn was certain Dex would eventually change Olivia’s mind, but in the meantime, Courtlyn lived vicariously through their outrageous escapades. Her own love life was dormant with only X-rated fantasies of her neighbor to keep her warm at night…and in the morning…at lunchtime…on holidays…

Olivia snapped her fingers in front of Courtlyn’s face, causing her to refocus on their conversation. “Stop traveling down the rabbit holes in your imagination. We need a plan. Who knows how soon Sexy Neighbor will be back? We need to be prepared. You need to shake things up, take a risk, make things happen. You owe yourself this.”

Courtlyn stood and walked back over to the sink, her gaze settling on the empty house behind her. “How would I know when he’s coming back? And I don’t take risks, remember? I’m not like you, Liv. I don’t know how to be anything but boring and predictable.”

Olivia joined her, forcing her friend to look in her eyes. “Your life is anything but boring and predictable. But you do need to shake things up. The door has been opened. You just need to walk through it. You don’t have to channel your inner me to do it. We can figure out something that is totally you and will work. When have I ever steered you wrong?”

Courtlyn stared at her friend incredulously. “Well, there’s the time you convinced me to dye my hair blonde so I could catch the eye of that bartender. He ended up laughing at me and asking me, and I quote, ‘What the hell did you do to yourself?’”

Olivia waved her hand as if dismissing Courtlyn’s example. “One isolated incident. You told me he preferred blondes. I just thought a grand gesture would be the way to go. I’m allowed one mistake, you know.”

“And when you set me up with Dex’s fraternity brother? What was his name…oh, yeah, Gus. He brought his mother along on the date because if she didn’t approve, then there was no reason for a second date. And then there was—”

“Okay, okay. I get it. So I have a habit of forcing you out of your comfort zone. But let me remind you that in the case of the blonde hair, those guys bought us a round of drinks to make up for the bartender being so mean. And with Gus, his mother recommended you for the diner job that you now have, putting you one step closer to your dream of operating your own food truck. That’s what I mean, Coco. For every rotten thing that happens to you, there’s always something right around the corner that turns the rotten into gold. Who’s to say I’m wrong because I think that in this case, Sexy Neighbor is the gold part of the scenario instead of the rotten?”

Courtlyn nibbled her bottom lip, watching Olivia wait anxiously for her response. Finally, she smiled.

“That is the biggest load of crap I’ve heard come out of your mouth in a long time.”

Olivia snatched up a dish towel and tossed it at Courtlyn, the move only eliciting her giggles.

“Just for that, you can finish clean-up all by yourself. I’m going to pick a movie, and you will sit through whatever mindless chick flick I choose.”

Olivia breezed out of the room in a very dramatic fashion, and Courtlyn felt like she could claim victory over the conversation. Olivia may be the one person who could push her out of her comfort zone in a way she rarely regretted, but when it came to Sexy Neighbor, Courtlyn couldn’t muster up enough boldness to take a risk.

She folded the dish towel and placed it on the counter. With one last look across her yard to the dark house behind hers, she sighed.Wherever you are, I hope you’re safe and well.

Shutting the light off as if shutting out her troubled thoughts, she stepped out of the kitchen to join her friend, determined to not think of Sexy Neighbor anymore…until she fell asleep and dreamed of him.

Chapter Five

Sweat dripped into every crevice of his body as Wings fell into step behind the others filing into the hut. The com in his ear was radio silent, telling him his teammates were doing just what he needed them to do —waiting and watching his back. The Haitian heat wasn’t making the waiting game any easier, and if Wings thought being inside would bring a measure of relief, he was soon proven wrong.

This hut was situated in the middle of the others in the village, and the team’s recon told them it was the main hub of the gang’s activity. Once inside, the smell of stale beer, body odor and cigar smoke almost made him gag, but he tapped down his reaction with an iron will. He kept his head down, but not so low that he couldn’t study his perimeter as he moved. His goal was to blend in as he gathered intel his team could use to breach and successfully rescue the missionaries.

He hadn’t expected to be the mole inside the Haitian gang’s village, but when they took down one of the guards without detection, they realized they’d captured the one gang member with the lightest skin tone among the others with the darker skin of their Haitian heritage. The guard was large and muscular — probably the reason he was recruited as a gang enforcer. Out of the members of the Alpha Team, Wings was the closest in size and appearance to the guard, which automatically made him the choice to go undercover.

The enforcer’s jeans were too loose for Wings’ liking, and the guy’s boots pinched his toes. At least the button-up shirt fit loose enough for him to hide his Kevlar vest underneath. The black face covering all of the gang members wore shielded his identity and sufficiently hid his shoulder-length hair as long as the other gang members didn’t look too closely. The automatic weapon slung over his shoulder bounced against his back as he walked.

The men talked back and forth in Haitian Creole, and Wings wished he knew more of the language so he could figure out what was going on. Instead, he hoped his com picked up most of the conversation so BB could do his best to translate.

“You’re doing good, man. So far they don’t suspect you’re anything but one of them. The best I can figure from what I’m hearing is you’re heading to see thelidè,the boss. They keep talking aboutkobra, which I’m guessing is his gang name, the Cobra. Owen is running the gang name to see if our international contacts have any intel. For now, though, you’re flying blind.”

Wings didn’t reply to keep from breaking his cover, and he fought the strong urge to roll his eyes. The pilot in him hated cliches like flying blind. No one liked going into a situation without an inkling of what was to come. Not to mention, the guy, who was holding the missionaries for a reason only known to him and his gang, was called Cobra. Gang nicknames always made him wonder what the jackasses were compensating for by choosing what they considered badass names.

Military nicknames, such as his, were a rite of passage, used to describe each soldier. Sometimes they were meant to be embarrassing, sometimes to be a reminder, sometimes to recognize just who they were as servicemen. For him, it was all three. Now, no one ever called him by his given name Griffin. He was Wings to everyone he knew, and he didn’t mind it.

The room where they stopped was devoid of furniture save for two tables with the kind of computer equipment resting on top that would make Sydney and Owen drool if they saw it. One man sat in front of a keyboard with his back to the group. The computer monitors flashed bright light in his face. His chair had patches of peeling faux leather, and the wheels squeaked as he repositioned the chair while he worked. Two others stood behind him, their frames too wiry for them to be enforcers. They were fixated with something on the monitors, barely paying the other guards any attention.

Wings peggedKobraright from the start. The others deferred to him as they gathered around the room. He was the only one who didn’t carry an automatic weapon, though Wings noted the Sig Sauer at his hip. He carried himself with the confidence of a man with an army of heavily armed, heavily muscled enforcers at his beck and call. A scarf was tied around his head, emphasizing his prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes.

Wings hovered toward near the back of the group, trying to get a view of the monitors. Finally the men parted,Kobraturning to speak the unfamiliar language to the group. Wings’ gaze zeroed in on the images lined in rows on the screen, a tally scrolling underneath each. The auction for the missionaries had begun, and he was watching the live bids driving up the price for each person. The women were drawing the higher bids, the younger ones going for more, and he shuddered to think of the fate that awaited them if he couldn’t pull off his part of the plan.

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