Page 8 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)
Present Day
The Shack
Alex
“I’ll handle this,” King said when they heard the doorknob start to rattle.
“Yes, because, historically, that has never gone badly.”
“Well, what’s your bright idea?”
“Rip Van Winkle?” Alex suggested.
“No.”
“Elle Woods.”
“No.”
“Dead Man’s Bluff?” she tried just as the largest figure she’d ever seen filled the doorway, backlit by moonlight. “Finally!”
she shouted at the man who stepped forward, slowly. “Get in here! Now!”
The man hesitated on the threshold, as if kidnapp ee s weren’t supposed to give orders to kidnapp er s and maybe he’d missed a memo.
So Alex yelled louder. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my—”
“You are awake.” The giant had the kind of vague European accent that bad guys in movies always had and something about that
made Alex want to smile. But first—
“You have to untie me! Now! Please!” She was breathing too hard. Her voice was breaking and—
The man hit her. Hard. Her head snapped to the right and Alex thought that she might bruise. All told, it wasn’t the worst
part, but it wasn’t good either.
“Whew.” She let out a breath. “Thank you. Yes. I feel calmer now. But...” Her lip trembled. “I’m still handcuffed to a dead body !”
The figure was more shadow than man then, and she watched him turn and call over his shoulder.
“ Prishlo vremya! ”
Alex hadn’t heard the Russian language in a year, and just the sound of it made her blood turn cold.
Kozlov was dead. He was , she reminded herself. She’d killed him. But Kozlov had friends. And enemies. And Alex wasn’t on good terms with either, so...
“Untie me,” she begged as the goon flicked a switch. Instantly, a dim, dusty bulb sliced a circle of light out of the shadows.
“Please? Please? Pl—” Then another figure filled the doorway, even larger than the first. Great. Had these guys fallen in a vat of radioactive waste? Maybe they were the product of a KGB experiment program?
The first guy had glasses, and the second had a goatee, but neither of those features went with either of their bodies, Alex
thought as they huddled together for a moment, close and whispering. Whatever they’d been expecting to find, it wasn’t this,
and they didn’t know what to do. Good.
Alex felt a tug on her arm that told her King was getting impatient. She slapped at his hand. He slapped back.
“He’s dead!” she cried again, and the goons looked back at her. “I don’t know what you idiots did, but you killed him!”
Glasses walked around the chairs and leaned close, reaching for King’s limp head, feeling for a pulse—
And that’s when it happened.
King pulled back and headbutted him—hard. Alex heard the glasses crack as the goon yelled, then fell to the ground, still
conscious but groggy and unmoving and bleeding around the eye. And then King was up, practically dragging Alex out of her
chair. Which was when Alex realized that they were in a classic good news/bad news situation.
The good news was they were temporarily down to one extremely large (and probably Russian) bad guy.
The bad news was that they were still handcuffed together, back to back.
Her right wrist bound to his left. His left to her right.
And the other (extremely large, extremely ticked off) Russian was rushing toward them with a grunt.
“Not exactly ideal positioning.” King dodged like a bullfighter, and Goatee went wide.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Goatee lunged again, but Alex kicked her chair and sent it sliding across the concrete floor and the goon stumbled over it
in the shadows.
They had no weapons, no backup, and no choice. These guys were going to kill them—eventually. It was just a matter of how
much torture they had to endure first. But Alex wasn’t afraid, and that should have terrified her. She didn’t know where they
were or how they got there, but this was familiar territory somehow. She’d spent nine of the last ten years fighting with
Michael Kingsley—in one way or another. It was the first time in a long time that she’d actually felt at home.
“Bend over,” Alex said, and King didn’t argue. He just did it. Because hesitation is a death sentence, and if a seasoned operative
says “duck,” you duck. If they say “bend,” you bend.
If Michael Kingsley III tells you not to come back...
Goatee was coming toward them, and Alex hurled herself backward, kicking out and catching Goatee under his chin as she flipped
over King like they were contestants in the world’s deadliest dance-off. It might have been funny, if not for the deadly part.
It might have been fun if she hadn’t found herself suddenly inches away from the face of someone she used to know but who,
suddenly, felt like a stranger.
“You grew a beard.”
It was a stupid thing to say—a stupid thing to think—but for a moment she just stood there, frozen in that pale circle of light, trying to reconcile the man with the thick beard and too-long hair against the clean-cut, all-American guy who had once told her she didn’t be long at spy school.
Even his eyes looked haunted, and Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been gone for a year, but he was the one who hadn’t stopped running.
It wasn’t like him. Something was wrong. But it wasn’t the moment to ask questions, not with the two of them standing there,
hand in hand, like they were about to promise to love and cherish for the rest of their lives. Or make London Bridge come
falling down.
There was movement on the ground, and Alex saw Glasses draw a gun, and then she dove, dragging King with her as— BAM BAM BAM —Glasses shot up from his place on the floor, leaving holes that looked like stars in the darkness of the metal roof. He was
shooting half-blind, glass and blood in his eyes.
“Move!” King shouted, taking off to his right.
Which was unfortunate because Alex took off to his left, and they both came to a shattering halt at the same time, shoulders
nearly jerking out of sockets, handcuffs biting into skin. Their arms were strung between them—taunt and vibrating like a
string—and King looked like he was seriously considering letting the goons have her when Glasses raised his gun to shoot again,
and the bullet zoomed between them, striking Goatee right between the eyes. He dropped like a rock.
Well, that was lucky.
Glasses swore and shot again, but this time the bullet connected with one of the handcuffs, and Alex stumbled a little when
her right hand was no longer anchored to King’s left.
Well, that was convenient , Alex thought as her gaze found King’s. They were still standing there, tied together, when Glasses gave a roar and King
gave a shrug that said, Why not? Then they turned and ran for Glasses, clotheslining him and knocking him to the ground. The gun went flying, but the man
was agile and angry, and in the next moment he had a knife.
Alex didn’t think—she dove. And then the gun was in her hand and she was pulling the trigger, over and over until—
The man stopped.
The knife fell.
And then the only person left who wanted to kill her was the one on the other side of those handcuffs.
For a moment, she and King just stood there, breathing hard. She wanted to say something—she really should say something —but her heart was pounding too fast, and her mouth was too dry, and the last fifteen minutes were too surreal to be anything
but a dream. The only thing that rang true was the look on his face when he turned to her.
“Good job, Alex. Perfect. Now we have two bodies and zero answers.”
“You can’t possibly blame me for this.”
He looked offended. Like she’d underestimated him. “I can always blame you.”
“Fine.” She aimed the gun at their remaining handcuff.
“Wait!”
She pulled the trigger and then... nothing .
They were all out of bullets. And maybe options. And probably time. So Alex hurled the empty weapon at the wall. She couldn’t
read his mind, but King looked like a cloud before it rained—dark and ready to storm. “What?”
He shook his head slowly. “Some things never change.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means”—he threw open the door—“you never did know when to stop fighting.”