Forged in Secret (Heart of the Con #2)

1. The Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Beauty

Someone was in his room.

The realization shattered the thin veil of slumber Tennyson had been fighting to maintain. He’d always been a light sleeper, and years of training and relying on his instincts had honed his senses. He knew when he wasn’t alone.

He laid still, breathing deeply and listening for whatever had woken him.

There were no sounds beyond the faint hum of traffic outside the hotel.

No click of a cocking gun, no whisper of an unsheathing blade.

He was still alive, so whoever had broken into his room wanted to kill him quietly.

They would have to get close. When they did, he would strike.

The intruder moved through the room with soft, precise steps he could barely hear. Approaching the closet, clearing the room. Pausing. Turning toward the bed.

He waited, his body calm. It wasn’t the first time he’d been ambushed in his sleep. When the attacker leaned over the bed, he would reach up, grab and break their wrist, and toss them—

The intruder shifted, and a blend of bergamot, amber, and jasmine settled over him.

Tennyson let out a tense breath. “You have to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” whispered an unruffled, feminine voice.

“Breaking into my hotel room,” Tennyson said. “It isn’t safe.”

A warm weight settled onto the mattress beside him. “Why isn’t it?”

His eyes were still closed, and he inhaled her perfume and the solid reality of her body over his. “You knew it was me,” she went on, stretching over him to rest her hand on his other side. “You would never hurt me.”

Not intentionally, but he hadn’t known for sure—if he’d attacked before he’d noticed her perfume—but if she’d intended to come in unannounced, she wouldn’t have worn it. It was as distinctive to her as her voice, or her touch.

Or her kiss.

She trailed a finger down his cheek. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said.

“Then what is the problem?”

“You should be.”

She was resting against him now, her lips almost touching his. “I should be a problem?”

She was a problem, and she knew it. The real problem was that she was also the solution.

He let out a breath, and she stopped his argument with a finger to his lips. “I read something that made me think of you.”

“Oh?”

He could hear the smile in her voice as she recited:

“She sleeps: on either hand upswellsThe gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwellsA perfect form in perfect rest.”

She followed the poem with a kiss as soft as a dream, barely brushing his lips before leaning back. He opened his eyes. “‘The Sleeping Beauty’?”

“You do know your Tennyson,” she said. There was a quiet fondness in her voice that made his chest feel tight, so he sat up and tried not to notice her absence when she backed away.

“My knowing him was inevitable,” he muttered. “Your interest in him is more intentional than mine ever was.”

“I like the classics.” Louna stood and made her way to the window, drawing back the curtains to silhouette herself in the light. “The Romantics.”

“Tennyson was Victorian, not Romantic.”

“He was influenced by the Romantics. In his heart, I have always felt he was French.”

“You should take that up with Blake,” Tennyson said, donning a pair of glasses that didn’t fit the shape of his face.

Louna looked over her shoulder at him. “William?”

“Stone,” he answered. “My sister. She has a degree in English literature.”

“Then it does run in your family,” Louna said. She returned her attention to the window, studying the street with a sense of relaxed vigilance.

“It seems to.”

“Is she as beautiful as you?”

She said it casually, with that annoying little hint of sweetness that meant she was teasing him, and he felt his face grow warm. He turned toward the wall, but she didn’t need to see him to know she’d struck her mark. Her tone said as much when she spoke again.

“You needn’t worry; I have no designs on your innocence. You may go on sleeping, and I will be your chivalrous white knight.”

“White knight,” Tennyson said wryly. “Black Swan.”

She hitched one shoulder. “What would I steal here, mon loup? No, you must be content with plain Louna Despereaux.”

There was nothing plain about her. Her sweater was the color of old pages, smooth and familiar and capital-R Romantic, and her dark hair waved over her shoulders like the Beauty in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem.

A stream of gold highlighted her profile, and when she turned back to look at him, her outline became a halo, the shimmer of an eclipsed moon.

Tennyson distracted himself by rummaging in his duffle bag for a clean shirt. “Have Jean-Claude and Philippe landed?”

“They were able to get an earlier flight,” Louna answered. “I already gave them the address. They’re waiting for us.”

“At the hotel?”

“No. Your choice of hotel is… well…”

Tennyson pulled a loose sweatshirt over his head, his back to Louna. “Well what?”

“Wanting.”

“I’m unemployed,” Tennyson said. “A cheap hotel is all I could afford.”

“You could have shared my hotel,” Louna said.

“This isn’t a vacation.” Tennyson buttoned a pair of baggy cargo pants and sat to pull on the work boots he had bought the day before to replace his dress shoes. “Until we free Lindsey—”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Louna said. She crossed the room and folded his discarded clothes into his bag. “We will take care of Lindsey. There’s nothing to worry about.”

His former best friend rotting in a Romanian prison after being falsely arrested under the direction of Tennyson’s former boss felt like something to worry about, but Tennyson let the matter drop.

Though he hadn’t asked for Louna’s help, he was grateful for it, and he didn’t want her to think he didn’t want her there.

“What address did you give them, then?” Tennyson asked, zipping his bag and throwing a heavy coat over his shoulders.

Louna donned her own coat and moved toward the door, and he hefted his bag and followed her. “Just a little place I know of,” she said.

“How do you know of a place in Romania?”

“The Black Swan has many hideouts,” Louna said. “Check out and meet me outside, mon loup. You won’t need to come back here tonight.”

Tennyson didn’t argue. He trailed Louna down to the little lobby, turned in his key, and met her on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

From there, she led him to a black sedan he assumed she’d rented, though it was possible she’d stolen it instead.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything, and he appreciated the silence she let settle between them as she drove to her secret hideaway.

It was comfortable, despite the tension weighing on him, and he tried not to dwell on what that meant.

After a winding drive that lasted almost an hour, Louna turned down a side street and pulled through an open garage door into what appeared to be an abandoned mechanic’s shop. The work space was empty, and she parked in the center and got out of the car to close the garage door.

“Were you expecting a tail?” Tennyson asked, joining her at the folding door for one last look at the street.

She waited until the door closed completely, then turned to smile at him. “Why do you ask?”

“We’ve only gone a few miles from the hotel, but you doubled back a dozen times.”

“One can never be too careful,” she said.

Especially where Harlow was concerned.

Unease, which had been churning in the back of his mind since they’d escaped Harlow’s studio in Spain three days before, fought its way back to the front of his thoughts again. He gave Louna a long, appraising look. “Has he contacted you?”

“No,” she said. “And I don’t expect him to. But I know you will rest more comfortably knowing that I’ve found us a safe house off Harlow’s radar.”

Tennyson folded his arms across his chest, breathing through the pain as the cut on his arm pulled under his sleeve. Louna had stitched it a few days ago, and it was still tender. “How exactly did you find a safe house off Harlow’s radar in Romania?”

“I have connections,” Louna said.

Tennyson surveyed the cracked concrete floor and plain brick walls within the garage. “With whom?”

“You ask so many questions.” Louna touched his arm and went back to the car to retrieve her suitcase, which Tennyson took from her as he shouldered his own bag.

She smiled and led the way toward a section of wall across from the door, completely at ease.

She pressed a brick, and the wall sank into itself and folded back to reveal a dark doorway.

“I’ve been to this part of the world many times,” she added.

“I spent several summers in Russia, and I often taveled—”

“Ah,” Tennyson said. “So it was Ilya.”

He’d only met Ilya three times. They’d punched each other two of those times. The only things he knew about Louna’s Russian friend was that he seemed to have connections everywhere, and he wanted to protect Louna.

That was fine, as long as he didn’t get in Tennyson’s way.

“My connection would prefer to remain anonymous,” Louna said, stepping through the doorway. “He doesn’t like you much.”

“What did I do?”

“You threatened his dog.”

Tennyson closed the door behind them. “I noticed dog hairs and made an educated guess. The fact that he took it as a threat—”

“You said it during a fight.”

“I thought he was following you.”

“And then you had another fight—”

Tennyson waved a hand to cut her off. “Fine. I’ll apologize the next time I see him.”

Louna smiled and led the way down a dark corridor.

The walls on either side were unfinished, alternating between plain drywall and open studs dusted with cobwebs.

A bare lightbulb burned in the ceiling partway down the walkway—barely wide enough to be called a hallway, more like a crawl space between rooms. Louna took the center of the path, but Tennyson had to turn sideways to keep his shoulders from catching on the jutting two-by-fours.

At the end of the corridor was a creaking spiral staircase, and at the top, Louna opened a narrow door and stepped into a bright, open room.

“Welcome to the Nest,” Louna said grandly.

Tennyson closed the door and surveyed the room.

It was a studio-style apartment, with brick walls and a polished wooden floor covered in richly colored rugs.

A small kitchenette took up most of the south-west corner of the space, and windows along the eastern wall spilled light into a living area furnished with a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table.

Along the northern wall, a row of desks with computer screens showed surveillance videos of the streets around the garage.

There was a bathroom to the right of the staircase and a large cabinet built into the southern wall, and two closed doors which probably led to bedrooms.

And standing in the middle of the room, looking far too alert for men who had flown in on the red-eye, were Jean-Claude and Philippe Verdier.

“Bonjour à nouveau,” Jean-Claude exclaimed, taking Louna’s hands and kissing her cheeks. “What a delightful little loft.”

“With a very impressive security system,” Philippe added.

He waved away Tennyson’s extended hand and went in for a hug instead, which Tennyson returned without complaint.

The Verdier brothers had always been more comfortable with physical affection than Tennyson, but he wasn’t about to argue.

They had left their flower shop in Paris and flown all the way to Romania to help him, after all. They could have anything they wanted.

Jean-Claude released Louna and wrapped his arms around Tennyson, patting his back with one large hand. “What have you heard from Lindsey?”

“Nothing,” Tennyson said, switching to French.

“Three US Marines were detained following the murder of Gheorghe Razvan, a Romanian diplomat attending a party at the US embassy: Gunnery Sergeant Lindsey Fox, Corporal Jonathan Mitchell, and Corporal Javier Alvarez. They were arrested on Sunday and are being held on pre-trial detention.”

Philippe hummed. The expression on his wide face was serious, but there was no doubt in his eyes—or in Jean-Claude’s. They didn’t ask whether Lindsey might be guilty. They didn’t ask if Tennyson was sure he wanted to do this.

But at least they knew Lindsey. They’d met a lifetime ago, when Tennyson and Lindsey were still a sniper team, when they went to Paris to help train French troops.

The four of them had worked together, eaten together.

Lindsey and Tennyson had helped the Verdier brothers purchase their flower shop.

They were helping Lindsey as well as Tennyson, but Louna—Louna was working with no knowledge of who she was about to rescue.

He looked at her, blinking away the light glaring through the tall windows, with the iambic rhythm of “The Sleeping Beauty” still tripping through his mind.

Her constant beauty doth inform

Stillness with love, and day with light.

He’d never found his namesake so relatable.

“Do we have a plan?” Philippe asked.

Tennyson patted his shoulder and set his and Louna’s things beside the table dividing the living room and kitchen. “Does this place have paper?” he asked.

Louna rolled her eyes. “You think I would not keep paper at one of my safe houses?”

“I thought this was Ilya’s safe house.”

“Ilya keeps paper for me,” Louna said. She crossed to the cabinet tucked near the staircase, pulled out a large drawing pad, and brought it to the table. “Now. You have been to the jail, yes?”

“I scouted the perimeter,” Tennyson answered.

“I can get the blueprint,” Philippe said, taking a seat before one of the computer screens.

“I’ll make breakfast,” Jean-Claude added.

Louna blew him a kiss and beamed up at Tennyson. “Wonderful. Then let’s plan a prison break.”