Page 45 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

King

King didn’t have a lot of time, but this couldn’t wait. He needed intel, sure. But, more than that, he needed to hit someone

and this was a good place to start.

“King!” Tyler threw open the door. “To what do I owe the—” King’s fist connected with his face, and Tyler stumbled back, cursing

and bleeding, but King just brought his forearm up to Tyler’s jugular, pressing hard and slamming him back into a wall.

For a moment, Tyler just stood there, blood running from his nose and breath coming hard until he smiled and choked out, “—pleasure.”

He gave a bloody grin, but King didn’t think it was funny.

“What did you do to Alex?” King’s voice sounded like how midnight feels, but he kept his gaze locked on Tyler’s.

“Alex is...” Tyler couldn’t breathe. Good. “Alex is... fine.” He tried to push King back. “Let me...”

“ What happened to Alex? ”

“I don’t know!”

King had the element of surprise and a whole lot of rage, but Tyler was still a trained operative and, in a flash, he freed

himself, pushing away from King and staggering across the floor.

There was a lamp on in the living room. The TV showed a soccer game from somewhere in the world, but the flat was dark and

bare and basic. It wasn’t a safe house, but it wasn’t a home, and King wasn’t in the mood to be social.

“What the hell happened tonight?” King kept his voice low, his hands steady.

His grandfather always said that there are two types of people when things go wrong—the kind for whom the world gets slow and the kind for whom the world gets fast, and King had never been more certain he was the first kind. “What did you do to—”

“I didn’t do anything to her!”

“Then why is her blood all over my front door?”

That time, when Tyler stumbled, it was because the words had hit him. “What?” He looked stunned and shocked and... guilty.

“Is she—”

“She’s alive,” King ground out. “No thanks to you.”

Tyler seemed a little unsteady as he headed for the tiny kitchen and poured himself a drink.

“What happened?” Even King was afraid of how his voice sounded, but Tyler just shook his head.

“Viktor Kozlov happened.” Tyler found a dishrag and held it to his bloody lip, but that wasn’t the reason King saw red. “He’s—”

“I know Kozlov.”

“Bullshit!” Tyler shouted. “You’ve read the reports and seen the data. I spent the last nine months up to my neck in his filth.

I know Kozlov. I...” The fight seemed to go out of Tyler, and he threw the rag into the sink, anger turning to guilt that

was coming off him in waves.

“What happened tonight?” King asked.

“He was expecting some kind of shipment, so I set up surveillance to see what it was. Alex was helping me. That was it. Hang

out in the shadows and try to get a look at whatever Kozlov was buying. That was it. But we couldn’t get a good line of sight, so Alex and I split up.” He pulled two beers from the old refrigerator, but King

didn’t dare reach for one because, at that moment, the bottle just looked like a weapon. “I didn’t know about Alex... I

didn’t know.”

King’s mind had been noisy since the day he was born, but right then it was tranquil and calm. He could see everything . He could hear everything . He knew how this was going to end because there was only one outcome he’d accept.

“Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to give me the names of anyone who might have seen her tonight. You’re going to tell me where they are. And then you are never going to contact her again. Do you—”

“That’s not up to you, is—”

King slammed a knee into Tyler’s groin because he didn’t trust his hands not to choke the life out of him. To his credit,

Tyler stopped fighting.

“ Do you understand me? ” King asked, slower now. “She doesn’t exist. She died tonight—bled out on the street where you left her. Alexandra Sterling

is gone, and if you forget that... I will do to you what I am going to do to them.”

“Oh yeah?” Tyler actually laughed. “What are you going to do to them? You’re a computer guy, King. A desk guy...” Tyler

took a sip of his beer, resigned and a little sad. “A good guy.”

But King just shook his head. “Not tonight.”