Page 20 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

King

Spies live and die by their senses. It was something King had known for as long as he’d known what to call them. He knew to

trust only what he could see and smell and taste and feel, but right then, he was more concerned about his hearing. He was

standing, too still, in the penthouse, listening to the sound of running water, not knowing if he wanted it to stop or run

forever.

She was there. In his apartment. Showering on the other side of the wall, and King stayed frozen, lulled into a kind of trance

by the sound.

When the water turned off, he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. When he’d called down for the clothes, he’d

asked the concierge to send up the usual provisions, and now they had milk and bread. Fresh eggs and cheese and some veggies,

so he pulled out an omelet pan and went to work because King had to stay busy. Besides, he wanted to break something and the

eggs were nice and handy.

“Thank you. For the clothes.”

He stilled at the sound of the voice and felt his eyes cinch tight. He didn’t dare turn around. He just said, “Oh. You’re

still here? I thought you’d run off while my back was turned.” He tossed the words over his shoulder. Like a grenade.

“I wanted to say goodbye.” Alex gestured down to the clothes he’d laid on the bed. It was nothing fancy. Some jeans. A shirt.

Some shoes. Lingerie. (But King tried very hard not to think about the lingerie.) “So do you have a girlfriend who’s going

to wonder where her outfit went?”

Any other woman might have sounded like she was fishing for information, but Alex probably just wanted to know who she might have to kill.

He slid a pat of butter into the pan and watched it slide. “I know your size, Alex.” The pan sizzled, and it was all King

could do not to let his insides melt. “The building has a concierge. I made a phone call.” He glanced at her. “I’ll add it

to your bill.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Be careful out there.” He gave the eggs a quick whisk, then started slicing a ripe, red tomato. “I’d ask if you’re hungry,

but I’m assuming you’ve got to run.”

“King—”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone about this place—at least until I can find alternate accommodations—”

“Michael,” she snapped, and he froze.

How dare she call him that? How dare she stand there, bruised and blistered and beautiful? How dare she.

“So this is it?” She threw her arms out wide, and something about the gesture was too much for him. He should have put down

the knife.

“I’d ask you to stay, but we both know how that turned out the last time.”

“Last time we hadn’t both been kidnapped .”

“What do you want me to say, Sterling?” He gestured with the knife, but she didn’t even flinch because she didn’t need a weapon

to take him. She could kill him with a look, slice him to ribbons with a word.

“You could say—” she started hard, but the rest didn’t come. It was like the words were lodged in her throat, trapped in her

mind. It was like they were a record that was skipping and something wouldn’t let her move forward.

“Say...” he prompted when a shadow passed beyond the darkened window. Too big to be a bird. Too close to be a plane. And

coming way too fast to do anything other than shout, “Look out!”

In the next moment, glass was raining down and a hot dry wind was blowing through the place where the windows used to be.

“Not again!” Alex shouted, because there were two guys soaring through the hole in the glass. Rappelling harnesses and cords

and semiautomatics blasting up the room.

Alex dove behind the counter as King stood up and hurled the knife into the leg of the first man, who dropped just as King

leapt over the counter and kicked him in the face.

The other man started for Alex in the kitchen and she reached for the hot pan. Butter ran down the side and streaked across

the floor as she swung it. There was a sickening sizzle as hot pan met face, and the man screamed and fell to the floor, unmoving.

“I’d like to point out, I’m not killing anyone!” she said, a little snide.

“I appreciate the restraint.”

King kicked the gun away from the man with the knife in his leg. He took off the man’s own belt and made a tourniquet except...

there was already too much blood and the man was already gone.

“Shit. Must have hit the femoral.”

“That one’s on you.” She looked like she was almost enjoying this, and maybe that’s why she didn’t feel the movement behind

her, didn’t sense the threat—but King did.

In a flash, he pulled the knife from the dead man’s leg and hurled it across the room, right at the chest of the man with

the burned face who was up and lunging for Alex. The man staggered forward—one step. Two. Then he dropped on the spot. Dead.

“Oh.” Alex sounded almost disappointed, but all King could do was roll his eyes as he looked at the two dead bodies and the

gaping hole where the window used to be.

Curtains blew wildly. Alex’s hair waved in the breeze. There was glass everywhere and his best omelet pan was ruined, but

all King could think was—

“How the hell did they find us?” He wanted to tear the building down brick by brick, sift through the desert, grain of sand by grain of sand.

He wanted answers. No, King needed answers because he never did well without them.

“It’s not like you called...” He had to trail off at the look on her face.

“You called it in?”

“Maybe they found us because you brought us to your apartment? That you own.”

“One, I don’t own it. Technically. And two, we didn’t exactly have other options.”

“That is a matter of opinion.”

“It’s math!”

“That’s not what math is!”

King went to the second body and kicked it over. Alex was already leaning over, rummaging through the pockets and she pulled

out a phone.

“I don’t suppose you have a Faraday pouch handy?” she asked, and King pulled one from a drawer.

“I’ve never been more insulted in my life,” he said as she dropped the dead man’s cell phone inside, where no signal could

get in or out. And, together, they kept searching his pockets, but there was nothing else. No papers. No IDs. No credit cards

or cash or handy If found, please return to... stickers.

“He’s clean.” Alex kicked the body for good measure, and King pinched the bridge of his nose. “What? He can’t feel it. And

it was just a little—” She did it again. “Who knows you own this place?” she asked.

“I don’t own it—”

“So you keep saying, and yet...” She gestured toward the two dead bodies as if that made her point. And, in her defense,

it kind of did.

“Two, maybe three, people know I have sole access. All high-level associates of mine. All people I can trust.”

“ Can you trust them?” She gave a Can you really? head tilt.

“Yes.” King was a little insulted. Mostly that she had a point. “What about you? Who did you call?”

“Who do you think?” The words were sharper than usual. She wasn’t in a teasing mood when the tables turned.

“You called Merritt?”

“Of course I called Merritt.”

“Well, she would have told the Agency...”

The facts were simple and the truth was clear, but that didn’t mean King had to like it.

“We can’t trust my people, and we can’t trust...” He gave her a caustic look.

“Are you asking if I have people ?”

“I don’t know who you have, Sterling. I don’t know you.”

“But you’re stuck with me.” She gave the smirk that had been haunting his dreams for the better part of a decade. “Because”—she

hesitated. It was hard to admit—“you’re right.”

“Can I get you to say that again? Slower and for the record?”

“We can’t trust the Agency. So I guess we have no choice but to trust...”

She searched his eyes and King searched his soul. It was like a whole other person who whispered, “Each other.”

Only Alex could make it sound like an adventure when she said, “We have no safe house, no money, no allies, and no clues.”

But that was when King saw it—a tiny image on the dead man’s skin. He dropped to a crouch and pulled back the sleeve to reveal

the tattoo—a triangle made out of three sharp daggers.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say nothing.” King couldn’t help but smile when he said, “Look familiar?”