A knot of sorrow lodged in the back of her throat, and to help swallow it down—she so couldn’t fall apart after they’d agreed to let her come along—she glanced up, way up, at the sparkling glass and steel structure of the downtown high-rise.

Instantly, her sorrow was replaced by red-hot rage.

“So this is how rich murderers live,” she snarled, swinging from the motorcycle with the ease of a frequent rider.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Mac warned, hooking the helmet she handed him over the handlebars of his tricked-out ride. And speaking of tricked-out rides…

“Says the ex-FBI-agent-turned-motorcycle-mechanic slash…” she let the sentence dangle, frowning when he refused to fill in the blank. “Oh, come on!” she wailed over the loud, gut-rumbling roar of Bill and Eve pulling up behind them. All her sorrow and anger needed an outlet, and right now Mac and his goddamned reticence were awfully handy. “You have bug-detection equipment in your shop and a direct line to the Chicago police chief. So do you really expect me to continue to believe that incredibly sucktastic we’re-just-a-bunch-of-grease-monkeys line? Seriously, dude, I could eat a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal and crap out a better story than that!”

When one corner of his mouth twitched, she narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at his rugged face. “It’s not funny! Nothing about this day has been funny!”

And, just like that, the picture of Buzzard’s last moments burned in front of her eyes, immediately causing tears to scald the back of her nose.

Why didn’t you hit the floor like everybody else, Buzzard? Why didn’t you—

And she realized she was shaking when Mac cursed beneath his breath before swinging from the bike. He wrapped a heavy arm around her shoulders just as Bill killed his cycle’s engine. The sudden, ringing silence made her feel unmoored. She imagined it was only the weight of Mac’s arm that kept her from floating up into the balmy evening air. Sucking in a calming breath, she turned to watch Bill and Eve’s approach.

Eve…

Now there was something to take her mind off her own troubles. She cocked her head at the woman, lifting a brow at the sure steps, the steady expression, the eyes that were clear and determined.

Damn. Considering they were going upstairs to accuse Eve’s father of attempting to murder her, Delilah was shocked and impressed to discover Eve was doing one hell of a job of keeping her shit together. Then again, delusion combined with denial had been known to be a wonderful cocktail when it came to pumping up a person’s courage.

Her own father. Holy shit…

Delilah couldn’t fathom it. Then again, in her experience, the ultra-wealthy sometimes had very skewed priorities, and often had very questionable loyalties. Scrooge McDuck-style piles of cash did strange things to folks…

“Are you guys ready?” Bill asked, and Delilah wondered if he realized he reached for Eve’s hand, or if the gesture was subconscious.

“I, uh…” Mac gingerly removed his arm—she immediately missed his warmth and the grounding effect it had on her—and ducked his chin to peer into her face. “Are we?”

Seriously? She was the weak link in this not-so-happy little chain?

Nuh-uh. Oh, hell no. Because she was supposed to be the ass-kicking, Harley-riding, shotgun-toting, beer-slinger-from-hell!

Okay, so maybe not all of that. But she was definitely determined to hold her own.

“Of course I’m ready.” She lifted her chin while simultaneously girding her loins.

Although, she had to admit, when they walked into the building’s posh, air-conditioned lobby and the stuffy, balding, Armani-clad doorman took one look at her before curling his lip in disdain, some of her bravado abandoned her. Then the man’s eyes came to a full stop on her boobs and remained glued there for a ridiculous length of time, and all her spit and vinegar returned in full measure. She found herself battling the distinct urge to punch the douchebag in the plums.

Instead, she smiled acidly and chirped, “Mesmerizing, aren’t they?”

“Oh, uh…” The doorman had the wherewithal to look appropriately chagrined. “Ms. Edens,” he said, turning toward Eve and frowning when he took in her disheveled appearance. “Shall I call your father and tell him you’ve—”

“No need, Arthur.” Eve waved him off, sailing toward the bank of elevators, ignoring the curious and pointed looks of the well-coifed couple signing the ledger at the front desk.

“But, madam, I’ve been instructed to—”

“I said there’s no need, Arthur,” Eve tossed over her shoulder, and damn! The woman could do haughty and entitled like no other. Which was kind of amazing since Delilah knew Eve was, at her core, as shy and retiring as a field mouse.

Then again, she had come out on top in the fight with that masked gunman, so obviously the woman had hidden depths.

Good for you, girlfriend, she thought. You’re going to have to plumb those depths during the ordeal to come…

The four of them loaded into a waiting elevator—Sir Arthur Stares-A-Lot still making noises about needing to call up to Eve’s father—and when the silver doors slid shut with a dainty ding, Delilah was confronted with her hazy reflection.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she was a horror show…

Her hair was an absolute rat’s nest. Mascara was smudged under her bloodshot eyes, giving her the look of a drunken raccoon. And her lipstick red T-shirt was stained brown with dried blood. Buzzard’s blood…

And before she knew it, her chin was wobbling again.

“Delilah,” Mac began, turning toward her, concern twisting his face. “You don’t have to do this. You could—”

But that’s as far as he got before the express elevator bing-bonged their arrival on the penthouse floor.

“I got this,” she told him, never so happy to see a set of doors slide open in her life.

He narrowed his keen blue eyes. In return, she gave him a look that said, Dude, I told you, I got this!

He either believed her or figured this was no time to argue, because he didn’t try to stop her as she followed Bill and Eve from the elevator into the marble foyer of the penthouse. Immediately she felt the urge to whistle through her teeth. With the grand archways, mahogany pillars, and soaring twenty-foot ceilings—not to mention the frou-frou smell of expensive furniture polish hanging in the air—the place belonged on an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Talk about champagne wishes and caviar dreams. Holy shit!

“Dad!” Eve yelled, and the word bounced around the cavernous space, shrill and incongruous against all the opulence.

“Dad!” Eve yelled again, angrily shaking off the restraining hand Bill placed on her shoulder. “Stop it, Billy. I don’t need you to coddle me.”

“I wasn’t cod—” But that was as far as Bill got, because Patrick Edens appeared at the top of the grand, sweeping staircase. Delilah recognized him from the covers of a few local magazines.

“Eve?” he murmured, lifting one brow. The man was wearing precisely pressed silk slacks and a navy and maroon velvet smoking jacket which, seriously? A velvet smoking jacket? Delilah always assumed those were used strictly for gag gifts and bad Halloween costumes. But, apparently not. Because Patrick Edens didn’t seem the least bit whimsical as he descended the stairs like a king coming to court. She wouldn’t have been all that surprised had the brass band notes of “Hail to the Chief” begun blasting through hidden speakers in the walls.

“Darling?” Patrick Edens cooed once he’d stepped from the last tread, his expensive, calf-skin loafers shushing on the polished tile. The endearment, spoken in that precisely cultured voice, went through Delilah like the stomach flu, making her want to puke her guts up. “This is a pleasant surprise. I thought you weren’t making it to dinner tonight.” Then, “Oh! Sweet Lord! What happened to you?”

Like you don’t know. Delilah seethed, barely resisting the urge to clap and yell bravo in response to that lovely performance. How could the man stand there, talking to his daughter as if he hadn’t just hired two thugs to shoot her down?

“I was attacked by masked gunmen inside Delilah’s biker bar a little over an hour ago,” Eve said, lifting her chin and refusing the concerned hand her father extended in her direction.

Patrick Edens frowned at her rebuff, and Delilah figured he’d chosen the wrong profession. With his perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper hair, aristocratically handsome face, and Oscar-worthy acting ability, he should’ve gone out West in order to grace the silver screen.

“Christ! Are you okay?” Edens asked, taking the opportunity to glance around the group. If Delilah wasn’t mistaken, that was one-hundred-percent pure hatred gleaming from his dark blue eyes when his gaze landed on Bill.

Huh, so there’s a story there. Although, she was learning that when it came to the Black Knights, there was a story everywhere.

“I’ll be f-fine once you tell me you had nothing to do with it,” Eve said, her lips quivering, belying the fact that the brave face she was putting on was just that, a face…

Hang tough. You can do this.

“M-me?” Edens sputtered. “What in the world would lead you to think I—”

“You’re the only one who knew where I was!” Eve shouted, her decorous mask slipping another inch. Delilah saw the red splotches standing like flags on the poor woman’s neck and chest.

“Darling.” Edens stepped forward again, this time not allowing Eve to shake off the hand he laid on her arm. Delilah bit her tongue to keep from screaming, Don’t touch her, you murdering bastard! “Just listen to yourself. You’re losing it, jumping at shadows again because your cousin was silly enough to encourage your paranoia. No one is out to kill you. Who would dare?”

Uh, I don’t know…maybe you?

“And as for these masked gunmen in the biker bar,” he went on, “what do you expect when you hang out in those types of seedy, lowbrow establishments?”

Oh no he didn’t. If Mac hadn’t placed a restraining hand on her arm, Delilah would have stepped forward to clock the pompous bastard. As it stood, she remained rooted to the spot, wondering if it was possible for steam to actually pour from her ears or if that only happened on Saturday morning cartoons.

“And,” it appeared Patrick Edens wasn’t done, “when you align yourself with seedy, lowbrow people?”

That was it. Delilah was going to slug him. Unfortunately, Bill beat her to the mark. From the corner of her eye, she saw him blow up like a rooster in a chicken coop when a rival struts in. All ruffled feathers and pomp. Only Bill’s ruffled feathers were really big, really impressive muscles, and his pomp was the two vigorous steps he took in Patrick Edens’s direction. “You better step up, or step off, asshole,” he growled, and Delilah figured her teeth were going to leave permanent marks on her tongue. Now she was biting it to keep from shouting, you tell him, Bill! “Because you keep looking at me and my friends that way, you keep referring to us in that snide tone, and I’m liable to take a swipe at you.” Bill lifted his chin, staring Eve’s father down. “And you know for goddamned sure you’re not ready for that.”

“He’s really good at that, isn’t he?” Mac bent to whisper in her ear.

“At what?” she whispered right back, mesmerized by the staring contest happening eight feet in front of her. Men! They stomped around each other, taking bites, when the truth was they should just whip ’em out and measure, solve everything just like that.

And, if she was a betting woman—which she so totally was—Bill would win that little competition hands down. Hands being the operative word. Because Bill’s were big and square and strong-looking, while Patrick Edens’s were long and thin and almost feminine. And in her experience that old wives’ tale about the size of a man’s hands compared to the size of his…erm…bits was right far more times than it was wrong.

“At making little speeches that encourage a man to fill his drawers,” Mac breathed against her cheek, his breath warm and distracting. She started to turn to him, but Patrick Edens took a small step back, riveting her attention to the scene playing out in front of her.

You won that one, Bill! Way to go!