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Black Knights Inc.

Three months later…

Julia stood outside the gates of Black Knights Inc. and stared up at the building’s imposing brick facade.

Is Britt inside? she wondered, rubbing a gloved hand against the ache in her chest.

The pain had nothing to do with her still sometimes tender injury and everything to do with the days and weeks and months since she’d come home from the hospital to a sparkling clean house, watered plants, well-fed pets, and…Britt’s goodbye letter.

He hadn’t said the word goodbye in the letter. But his farewell might as well have leaped off the page and slapped her across the face. It didn’t take an FBI agent’s ability to read between the lines to pick up on what he’d been laying down. And even now, even all these weeks later, she could still recall every line.

Probably because she’d read and reread the letter so many times that the paper was beginning to thin around the edges, and the ink was starting to smudge.

Was it because she was a glutton for punishment? Or was it because, despite the finality of his words, one line—one particularly beautiful line—had given her hope?

Dear Julia… He’d begun, and her heart had fluttered at the sight of her name scrawled in his handwriting. In her head, she could hear his voice saying jewel-yuh .

I cannot tell you what an honor it’s been getting to know you over the hours we’ve spent together. Hours that were too fleeting but perhaps made more magical because of their briefness and transience.

You are an amazing woman. Your beauty and brains are only outdone by your courage and kindness. It has been my privilege to watch you work, to see you rise to every occasion, to touch you, kiss you, and hold you during those miraculous moments in front of the fire.

I know your recovery will be painful and frustrating. But if anyone can come back better than before, it’s you. With the help of those who love you—and lord knows, that’s everyone who meets you—you will have a fantastic life and an illustrious career.

I’m rooting for you. Always. And I hope you find someone who sees you the way I do, someone who is everything I cannot be. You deserve the world, and I hope you never settle for less.

Take care of yourself. Be happy.

With all that I am,

Britt

“With the help of those who love you,” she whispered to herself, “and that’s everyone who’s ever met you…”

That was the line. The one she kept coming back to. The one she thought about when she put her head on her pillow at night and the one that came to her the moment she woke up every morning.

Did he include himself in that statement? And if he did, then what did that mean for?—

“You’re free to go inside.”

The words drew her from her ruminations. She glanced at the redheaded Goliath in the guardhouse and nodded her appreciation.

“Miss Greenlee says she’ll meet you at the front door,” he continued, hitching his chin back over his shoulder toward the snowy expanse between the front gate and the factory building.

“Thanks!” She waved a gloved hand and tightened her stocking cap around her ears.

Her progress was slow and tiresome. The snow tugged at her boots and shorted her steps as she made her way across the grounds between the front gate and the motorcycle shop. Bitter wind tried to tunnel beneath her coat. She flipped up the collar and adjusted her scarf to cover her chin.

The night before had seen the city assaulted by an early-season blizzard. The storm had swung down from Canada to deposit eighteen inches of the white stuff. And even now, lazy flakes drifted from the hulking sky to stick in her eyelashes and melt on her cheeks.

The smell of snow in the city always carried a crisp, metallic sharpness. Clean but tinged with the faintest blend of steel, like the bridges that spanned the river and the trusses that held up the skyscrapers.

Of course, when the front door swung open, hitting her with a blast of warmth, all she smelled was strong coffee, engine grease, and automotive paint.

Ah, Black Knights Inc. , she thought fondly. Some things never change.

“What in the world brings you out in this weather?” Sabrina Greenlee waved Julia inside. The woman looked about a billion times better than she had the last time Julia had seen her.

While Julia had been in the hospital recovering, her colleagues at the Federal Bureau of Investigations had determined Sabrina didn’t know enough about the cartel to warrant the expense of putting her into witness protection. Dillan said he’d fought for Sabrina and had made the case that the poor woman couldn’t go back to Charleston because she knew the identities of three of the cartel’s hitmen. But the higher-ups in the chain of command had determined that wasn’t their problem.

Julia hadn’t been apprised of the situation until after the fact. Which was a good thing because she’d have raised enough hell to get fired.

One of the only things she didn’t like about her job was that it could be soulless. As a government entity, the FBI was subject to the almighty whims of the federal budget. And that sometimes meant they made choices based on a buck and not the best interests of those they’d sworn to serve and protect.

Thankfully, the Black Knights had come to the rescue. They’d agreed to house and hire Sabrina as their shiny new marketing, advertising, and social media guru. And Julia figured that was probably better than WITSEC.

Heaven knew the Black Knights had the setup to keep Sabrina safe. Their security was enough to make a warden at a supermax envious.

After stomping the snow from her booted feet, Julia whipped off her hat and gloves and breathed a sigh of relief when the large metal door clanged shut behind her. Even though she tried to stop herself, her eyes darted around the place, searching for Britt’s familiar form. For those icy-blue eyes and that adorably sexy cowlick.

Hew and Graham worked on a bike at the back of the shop—both men hunched over a particularly sparkly section of chrome. Julia couldn’t hear what they were saying but could tell they were engaged in a friendly argument. And, if they were anything like her brothers—which she’d learned they were—no doubt they were disparaging the size of each other’s manly bits.

Becky looked over a drawing spread atop one of the bike lifts, a pencil in her hand and a lollipop stick protruding from her mouth. She made a note on the drawing, slipped the pencil behind her ear, and then yelled for Hew and Graham to “Cut it out, you big buffoons! Or go get the ruler and end this argument once and for all.”

Julia hid a smile that she’d been right on the money regarding the men’s conversation.

“Men.” Sabrina rolled her eyes.

“Having three brothers allows me to say this with my whole chest,” Julia whispered from the side of her mouth. “They are forever stunted at the emotional age of fourteen and?—”

Graham’s response to Becky interrupted her. “Ruler? More like a yardstick!”

Becky guffawed. Whatever her comeback was, Julia missed it because she was back to scanning the room.

She could see the back of Ozzie’s head. He was at his usual spot in front of the bank of computers on the second floor. Skid Row hummed from the speakers, singing “I Remember You” at a decibel level that, surprisingly, didn’t endanger anyone’s ability to hear.

Frank Knight leaned over the railing. He had a cell phone pressed to his ear while wearing his standard issue expression—the one that said he snacked on puppies and babies in his spare time.

But no Britt.

Julia felt like her entire body drooped with disappointment as, one by one, the Black Knights noticed her arrival and waved their hellos. She lifted a hand in greeting before she turned back to see Sabrina nervously twisting her fingers together.

“Right.” She nodded. “How about I tell you why I’ve come over a hot cup of coffee?”

“Of course.” Sabrina motioned for Julia to follow her to the kitchen.

Two minutes later, Julia found herself sitting at the center island. She’d shed the rest of her outerwear and now gratefully curled her hands around a warm mug of caffeinated heaven.

She tried not to remember how Britt had pushed her against the door to the pantry, tried not to remember how hot and hungry his mouth had been, how hard and ready his body had been. Tried and failed.

She wasn’t sure how her news was going to land. So she figured she’d start with a softball. “You’re looking well,” she told Sabrina, who offered her a shy smile as she stood across the island from Julia.

“Eliza’s quite the cook.”

Julia chuckled. “I’ve had the pleasure of sampling her pastries. If I lived here, I’d weigh three hundred pounds.”

Sabrina patted her still-flat stomach. “I’m working on it.” Then, she grew serious. “How’s Knox?”

“Still being held in a safe house, waiting for the day he’ll take the stand and turn state’s evidence against the cartel.”

“And after that’s done?”

“Agent Keplar will find him a nice spot in the WITSEC program. Knox Rollins will disappear from this timeline and a new man will be born in his place.”

Sabrina’s forehead wrinkled. “That’ll break Britt’s heart. Knox is the only family he has left.”

Julia swallowed the knot that lodged in her throat, biting her tongue against asking after Britt since Sabrina had brought up the subject. “I hate it, too. But I think Sergeant Rollins would rather know his brother is alive and well rather than…the alternative.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Sabrina sighed heavily.

Julia took a sip of coffee, luxuriated in the bitterness of the strong brew, and then said what she’d really come to say. “Eddy Torres is dead.”

Sabrina blinked uncomprehendingly.

Julia emphasized, “The man who killed your brother, the man who brutalized you, is dead.”

“H-how?” Sabrina’s voice was a bare rasp.

“Shot in the head.”

“Why? Who? ”

All Julia could do was shrug. “Ballistics came back clean. Maybe his own guys offed him after he bungled the job with Knox and your brother? Maybe a rival gang caught up with him and did the honors? With a guy like him, it’s impossible to say. But I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Thank you.” All the blood had drained from Sabrina’s face. Even still, she didn’t come close to resembling the weak, wounded creature Julia had met months earlier.

Black Knights Inc. was good for Sabrina. Not that Julia was surprised. Black Knights Inc. seemed to be good for everyone lucky enough to live and work there.

“I really appreciate you coming all this way in the snow to tell me,” Sabrina added.

“Tell you what?” Hew sauntered into the kitchen and made a beeline for the refrigerator. He pulled out a carton of strawberry yogurt that looked impossibly tiny in his huge hands.

Peanut appeared from nowhere.

Julia wasn’t surprised. Her own animals had a Pavlovian response to the opening of the refrigerator door. Nor was she surprised when the grizzled-looking tomcat ran figure eights around Hew’s ankles in a feline bid for treats.

“Agent O’Toole made good on her promise.” Sabrina automatically reached into a drawer to find a spoon to hand to Hew. “She came to tell me Eddy Torres is dead. Shot in the head.”

Hew stopped in the middle of peeling back the foil on the yogurt, his moss-green eyes darting to Julia’s face. “No shit?”

Julia nodded. “They pulled him out of a marsh last week. He’d been there a while. They had to run his DNA to identify him. Results came in this morning.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Hew spat, stabbing the spoon into the yogurt in punctuation. He pulled out a small spoonful and purposefully dropped it on the floor at his feet. Peanut pounced on the glob like he hadn’t been fed in a week. “I hope the sonofabitch suffered before they put his lights out.”

Sabrina placed a comforting hand on his forearm, and Julia watched in astonishment as every muscle in Hew’s body softened.

“It’s over,” Sabrina whispered, her eyes glistening up at Hew. “He’s gone. The boogeyman is gone.”

“Maybe now you’ll stop having those nightmares.” Hew’s expression was filled with so much tenderness as he stared down at Sabrina that Julia had to look away.

So…in the end, Sabrina did get the guy, and all I got was laid , she thought, and then immediately scolded herself for being a jealous bitch. Sabrina had been through hell and deserved all the love and happiness she could find.

After gulping down half the contents of her mug, Julia grabbed her coat from the barstool beside her and pushed to a stand.

“I need to get back to the office,” she announced. “If I’m gone too long, Agent Douglas hides my FBI star, and then I spend half the day looking for it.”

“An FBI star, eh?” Hew’s New England accent sounded particularly strong in that sentence. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” She grimaced. “It wasn’t like I had to do much to get it. Just be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a guy with a gun decided to start spraying bullets.”

“It’s no small thing getting wounded in the line of duty,” Hew returned. “I’m glad the bureau gave you the recognition you deserve.”

Uncomfortable with compliments, Julia fell back on humor. “Thank you, Chief Birch.” She snapped him a jaunty salute. “That means a lot coming from a Nightstalker.”

“ Former Nightstalker,” he corrected.

“No such thing.” Julia shook her head. “Just like there’s no such thing as a former fed. It gets in your blood and stays there even after you take off the badge. Or, in your case, take off the uniform.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded with a dip of his mile-wide chin.

“I’ll walk you to the door.” Sabrina motioned for Julia to follow her from the kitchen. Hew stayed behind to finish his yogurt.

As they exited the short hallway, Julia slipped into her coat and scarf while sneaking surreptitious glances around the shop.

Still no sign of Britt. But Sam had joined Graham at the bike lift in the back. He waved when he saw her. She lifted a hand and then watched him flip down the visor on his welding helmet.

She was too busy shoving on her stocking cap to see the moment he fired up his torch and went to work. But by the time she and Sabrina made it to the front door, the smell of burning metal filled her nose.

Julia held her gloves in her left hand and extended her right. “I’m happy you found a soft place to land,” she told Sabrina, feeling the subtle strength in the woman’s grip. “And I’m sorry the bureau wasn’t willing to do more to keep you safe. We can be real bastards sometimes.”

Sabrina’s soft smile said it all. “I think things worked out for the best. I’m happy here.”

Julia felt the green-eyed monster try to hop on her shoulder again. But she flicked him across the room with an imaginary finger. When she told Sabrina, “I’m so glad for you,” she meant it.

After pulling on her gloves, she allowed herself one more glance around the shop. One more chance to possibly catch sight of Sergeant Britt Rollins.

“He’s not here,” Sabrina said softly.

Julia didn’t bother pretending to be ignorant and asking who . They both knew who she was looking for.

“Where is he?”

“On week one of a three-week mountain climbing expedition.” Sabrina’s expression was sympathetic. “You know Britt. When he’s not building bikes, he’s looking for his next big adrenaline rush.”

Julia tried for a breezy tone. Tried and failed. “Actually, I don’t know Britt at all.”

Something moved across Sabrina’s face then. It looked a lot like pity. “Is there anything you want me to tell him? You know, once he gets home?”

Julia grabbed the door handle and opened the shop to the frigid day outside. The air that rushed in instantly chilled her cheeks. As she stepped past Sabrina, she murmured, “Thank you. But I think everything that needs to be said has been said.”

She didn’t turn back to look at the old factory building as she made her way across the snow-covered grounds, waved at the redhead in the guardhouse, and hopped into the SUV she’d parked by the curb. She didn’t turn back because there was nothing for her to see there. Nothing for her there.

It’s done. Finished.

Whatever she’d had with Britt Rollins, whatever she’d hoped to have with him, was over. And if her heart was broken, she had no one to blame but herself.

He told me the truth from the beginning. I’m just the idiot who thought he might change his mind.