Page 19 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Present Day

Las Vegas, Nevada

Alex

The elevator was scuffed from decades of laundry carts and room service trays. It felt like they were a million miles away

from the swirling lights and ringing bells of the casino floor, so Alex wasn’t quite prepared a minute later when the doors

slid open to silence. There was thick carpet and a long hall and, out the window, a view that seemed to stretch forever. They

were on one of the guest floors, evidently. The top floor. And somehow Alex wasn’t even surprised when King let them into the biggest hotel suite she’d seen since Cartagena.

“Oh yes. Very covert. I’m sure no one is monitoring this place.” She looked at him. “That was sarcasm, by the way. In case

it was too subtle.”

“Trust me, Sterling, ‘subtle’ has never been a word I associate with you.”

She batted her eyelashes at him. “Oh, you charmer.”

The glance he shot her was lethal, and Alex had to bite back a laugh as she looked around the opulent room. Floor-to-ceiling

windows overlooked the Strip. There was a balcony and plunge pool, a sunken living room and bar. Judging by the number of

doors, there had to be at least two bedrooms. She watched King walk to a galley kitchen and tap a switch. The lights came

on and the windows went dim. It was like he controlled the sun.

“We’ll be safe here,” he said simply.

“And you know this because...”

She had never seen Michael Kingsley look guilty—not until he glanced away and muttered, “Because I own it.”

It actually took a moment for the words to land. “You what ?”

She’d honestly forgotten about the handcuffs until she tried to spin away and got tugged back too quickly. He started throwing

open drawers with his free hand, finally finding a small leather-wrapped kit and unzipping it with his teeth.

“Stay still,” he ordered, but the angle was weird, and he wasn’t as dexterous with his left hand. Alex could have stood there

for a week, watching him struggle. It was literally the most fun she could remember having in days.

“Do you need some help?”

“I do not.” The words were crisp and brittle.

“Because it looks like... ”

“Here.” They must have been in worse shape than she thought for him to hand over the tools that quickly.

Two seconds later, Alex’s cuff was popping open and she was wriggling her fingers. It took all her self-control not to say

ta-da , but King just grunted and held out his own hand. A moment later, his cuff sprang open. They were separate. They were...

free.

On instinct, Alex looked at the door, like maybe she should turn around and walk away. Like maybe she was safer on the street

than she was with him. She’d spent the last year telling herself she’d gotten good at hiding. But she was wrong, evidently.

The red ring around her wrist was proof that someone had found her. Someone who wasn’t King. But that might have been because

he hadn’t even bothered to look.

“Go ahead. Run if you want to.” The voice was darker than the windows. “Goodness knows I couldn’t stop you if I tried.”

He sounded bitter and cold, and Alex didn’t want to argue. She didn’t want to fight, and she absolutely refused to explain.

They were both better as free agents. That was true a year ago and it was true now.

“King—”

“You can go take a shower if you want to. I’ll scrounge up something for you to wear.”

He went into one of the bedrooms and Alex wandered toward the darkened windows. It was the middle of the day, but it looked

like the middle of the night. And that just made Alex remember—

She didn’t know what time it was. She didn’t even know what day it was.

“King?”

“Yeah?” he called from a bedroom.

“What day is it?” Alex couldn’t imagine a more embarrassing question, but (for once) the man in the other room didn’t mock

or scold. He just came out and tossed a heavy robe in her direction, then picked up a remote control, and the TV flickered

to life.

“Thursday. January sixteenth,” he read from the hotel information page. “Eight forty-five a.m.”

There were dark spots on the edge of Alex’s memory, looming like a total eclipse that stretched across her mind. She remembered

waking in her little cottage, groggy because she’d stayed up too late, one-more-chaptering herself until she finished a book at four a.m. She remembered making a grocery list and being out of coffee. She remembered...

home. And solitude. And silence.

And missing...

“So?” King sounded impatient.

“Okay.” She had to get her act together. “It’s Thursday. I remember... Wednesday? No. Tuesday. I remember two days ago.”

She turned and looked out the window. “I lost two days,” she whispered, but the reflection in the glass just stared back,

indifferent and uncaring. She wished he’d go back to hating her. It was so much better than this.

“Okay.”

“See, now it’s your turn. What’s the last thing you remember?”

He turned off the TV. “Yeah. Sure. Two days sounds about right.”

“But what do you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything!” He was mad at himself for shouting, Alex could tell. Not because he’d hurt her feelings but because he’d showed his cards. “I don’t remember.”

“I know—”

“No. You don’t.” He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “You don’t have any idea what this feels like.” He drank

the water down in three whole gulps.

“You were in... Scotland?” At least she didn’t choke on the word.

“I think so. That’s the last place I remember, but I come here a lot,” King told her. “Just because I don’t remember being

in Vegas doesn’t mean I wasn’t here when they grabbed me.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense.” But it didn’t. Not really. Alex had never heard King talk about Vegas. He didn’t even like Monte

Carlo. He didn’t gamble because he couldn’t keep himself from counting cards, and Michael Kingsley was far too noble to cheat.

He barely drank, and he wasn’t a fan of crowds, and there was literally no reason for the man she knew to have an apartment

here. But that just meant one thing: she didn’t know him anymore. “What aren’t you telling me?”

King was a brilliant strategist and a focused operative, but he wasn’t a great liar—not when he was talking to her.

“Like I said, no one knows I own this place. Technically, I don’t own this place. And it’s sitting on top of a fortress. I’m not an easy target here. But, more than that... someone tracked

you down, and so help me”—he let out a laugh that was more like a growl—“I’d like to know how. So whoever they were and however

they did it, we know one thing...”

“They’re good,” Alex filled in.

King looked at her, long and hard. “They’re very, very good.” The moment felt charged and ready to blow. “Guest room’s through

there.” He pointed to the closed door on the far side of the room. “Go clean up.”

“We have to call it in.”

“Do we?” A chuckle shot out of him. Michael Kingsley—a man who had probably memorized the Moscow Rules when he was five— actually laughed at the idea of following standard operating procedure, and Alex didn’t know what was happening.

Up was down. Black was white. “Do we have to call it in? Because I’m out.

Remember?” He ran a hand through his hair.

“The only question is, aren’t you out, too? ”

And that was the problem. The elephant wasn’t just in the room, it was standing on Alex’s chest and making it hard to breathe.

“I...”

“A year , Alex.” She was Alex again—not Sterling—and something about that made her close her eyes, but when she did, images danced

on the back of her eyelids, black and white and far too quick—like an old movie in fast forward. Too fast to read their lips.

“I just lost forty-eight hours,” he said, “but you’ve been missing for a year.”

“I wasn’t missing.” Her voice was lighter than she felt. “I knew exactly where I—”

A crashing sound cut her off, and when Alex turned, she saw the glass King was drinking from lying shattered on the floor.

The wall was wet. And he wasn’t looking at her anymore.

“There are people in this world who care about you, Sterling. They were worried.”

“People like Merritt?” She wasn’t sure what made her ask it, but as soon as the words were out, she wanted to beg him not

to answer. So why did it hurt so much when he didn’t?

“Shower through there.” He pointed to the guest room again. “Use it. Don’t use it. Jump out the window for all I care. Just

ask yourself this: Do you really want to make that call and explain where you’ve been for the past year and why you ran and

what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into now?”

“Why does this have to be about me?”

“Because trouble usually is.” He didn’t even turn around before he slammed the door.

***

The robe was soft and warm, and Alex was finally clean and dry, but, more than anything, it was a relief to have finally stopped

shaking.

She didn’t ask for advice. She didn’t need his permission. Alex knew what she was supposed to do, and her gut was telling her what she had to do, but it was still harder than it should be to drop down on the bed and reach for the phone.

Because King was right.

(Oh, how she hated that sentence.)

King had walked away , but Alex had run away , and she’d never been more aware of the difference.

The Agency might not know where she was yet. There might be a chance she could take the stairs to the lobby and disappear

onto the Strip and into the desert and lose another year of her life. But it wasn’t the last year that bothered her. It was

the last forty-eight hours. It was the dark shed and the handcuffs and the man on the other side of the wall.

So Alex picked up the phone and dialed the number she’d hoped she’d never have to use again.

“Secure line,” she said to the silence that answered. “Nine one seven alpha six.” Her heart pounded and her mouth went dry.

“It’s me. I... I think I need help.”