Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
My body is full of cotton, like I’ve been killed and stuffed with it. I try to open my eyelids, but they’re weighed down, stubborn appendages that won’t listen despite my pulse slamming irregularly, fueled by panic.
There’s that sound—scraping or shuffling, wood against wood—the one that woke me up.
My fingernails dig into my palms until the flesh stings and I force myself upright, straining through the dark.
A shrouded figure by the door to our hotel suite is stooped to their feet.
I fumble for my pocket knife, the only sharp thing on my person until the ISA sends a proper Everyday Carry.
Things like a better knife, a handgun, a pen. I’d kill for a pen right now.
As noiselessly as possible, I slip to the floor, standing on wobbling knees. The figure straightens, which is when I notice that it’s Graham.
Graham, dressed in all black, a backpack I’ve never seen before slung onto his shoulders.
He hasn’t realized I’m watching yet, preoccupied by pulling off a pair of leather gloves finger by finger.
Even in the weak moonlight streaming through the windows, I can see the thin sheen of sweat across his forehead and the ragged rise and fall of his chest.
He looks up and nearly jumps out of his skin.
“You’re awake,” he says, as if that’s surprising.
“Where did you come from?” I hiss. “And why didn’t I wake up when you left?” That last part wasn’t meant to be said out loud, and I think I’m slurring.
Graham approaches like I’m a wild animal coiled to pounce. “Go back to sleep, Agent.”
When he reaches for my shoulders, he grimaces and drops them back to his sides.
“You—” Why is my tongue so fuzzy? “—you’re injured.”
He mumbles something that sounds a lot like, “Not as injured as I’ll be if you…
” but the rest is warped and muffled. I glance down at my hand, which is when I recognize that I’m holding the tassel of a pillow and not my pocket knife.
Mouth open in horror, I drop it on the floor next to my burner, its tiny screen glinting faintly in the dim light like it’s laughing.
I don’t comprehend that I’m sitting until my back meets the pillows again, still warm from where I was laying upright earlier. My eyelids force themselves closed again.
The last thing I remember is mumbling, “I’m going to murder you when I wake up,” but it comes out a jumbled mess.
Butter.
Warm butter, the crinkling of paper, and the distinct aroma of espresso.
One eye pops open. Then another. I jolt sideways and nearly fall off the couch, recovering smoothly by standing, although it feels like I have sea legs. The blanket I don’t remember grabbing pools around my feet.
“My apologies,” Graham says. “I had no idea you have a phobia of breakfast.”
He’s dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks, freshly shaven, the same infuriating confidence billowing from his pores. It’s too early for this, I think. Then my sleep-addled brain focuses on the bag of pastries and two cups placed on the coffee table.
I scowl at him. “You left this morning without telling me.”
“Well, you were quite unconscious.”
“Right—which means you wake me up,” I reply, gritting my teeth. “Until this mission is over, I am your shadow. Whether you like it or not.”
“You say that as if it’s a threat.” Graham winks, and I watch in dismay as he takes a seat where I was sleeping only sixty seconds ago. Nothing is sacred.
“Sneaking off isn’t doing you any favors in the long run.”
“Must I apologize for the crime of—” His gaze pointedly drifts to the coffee and pastries. “—acquiring us breakfast?”
We stare at each other.
“I see,” he says, leaning forward to grab them. “Since these are contraband, I’ll go ahead and?—”
“Give me that.”
It’s not until I’m halfway through the best croissant I’ve ever had that I notice him watching me closely, lips curled with an interested smile.
One that presses up against the precariously drawn criminal-agent boundary.
One that should not, by any means, cause a wave of curious awareness to prickle across my skin.
Graham drapes one arm over the back of the couch and heaves a sigh. “Did you… have any dreams last night?”
“Huh?”
“Anything of note?” he asks. “I’m simply attempting to make conversation with the woman I’m shackled to for the foreseeable future, Agent.”
I press my palms to my eyes, dragging an exasperated breath through my teeth. “Graham, you’re dancing on my last nerve, here—” My hands tear away and my eyes latch onto his. “Hold on, this wasn’t the first time you snuck out,” I say, motioning to my coffee cup.
Steadily, as if I’m rubbing away the fog on a mirror with my sleeve, the champagne-flavored haze begins to lift from my memories.
The muscles of his jaw twitch. “I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You’ve said that so often I’m beginning to believe it’s an empty?—”
Graham doesn’t finish his sentence, because I’ve launched across the room and bent over him, applying pressure to his injured arm. He scowls and curses under his breath. I brace my other hand against the back of the couch to keep from strangling him.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything less from an ISA agent,” he says, each word sharpened to a precise edge.
“And I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a low-life criminal,” I retort. “Drugging me? Seriously? Must’ve been a heavy dose, too—I have a tolerance built up for them all.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d drink the entire bottle.” His gaze hardens to steel and he grips the fist pressing into his injury.
I expect him to twist it away and throw me to the floor.
This is it, I’m thinking, my pulse slowing to a steady pace as all my senses narrow to a pinpoint.
My mind’s already calculating all the potential outcomes and how I’ll respond to each when it occurs to me that several seconds have passed.
He simply stares back at me, grip tight but not tight enough to hurt.
And I know for a fact he could hurt me if he wanted. I’ve done the estimations.
The shock alone causes me to push away from him. My skin burns where we were touching, like he’s doused in poison. “What’s your game here?” I spit, desperately holding onto my rapidly receding anger.
“No game.”
“There’s always a game.”
Graham lifts his uninjured shoulder into a shrug. “I didn’t break any laws, if that’s what you care about.”
“Okay, well—” I shake my head and tug my fingers through knotted hair. “Actually, no—that’s not what I care about here. I care that you could singlehandedly make or break me. I care that you wasted no time in drugging me and slinking off somewhere I’ll never know.”
He frowns. “I didn’t jeopardize your mission.”
Falling back onto the couch where I slept, I drop my face into my hands and rack my brain.
We’re hardly a day into my assignment, and I’ve already made the critical error of putting myself on the backfoot with Graham.
I can already hear the critiques from Raffaele—careless, negligent, amateur.
Another stain on a year of precarious wobbling and eking by.
Never too far from Chelyabinsk’s shadow.
As if the only thing that mattered about that mission was my performance.
I should have pushed it away and moved on. Turned it all off.
Kat or Petyr wouldn’t have struggled for so long to recover. They would have picked themselves up and dismissed it as an unfortunate reality of the job, moving forward without question. What makes me so much weaker than them?
“I visited my estate.”
His voice is so quiet that it takes me a few moments to register. I sit back onto the couch and peer at him.
“The estate that’s currently tented for fumigation?”
Graham raises an eyebrow. “I have my methods.”
“That’s a lie,” I reply, “because you’re injured. What did you do, fall on a kitchen knife?”
Several beats of silence pass. I’m sure he won’t bother with a response.
“Your friends at the ISA left a present waiting outside for me. It’s lucky I’m a fast runner.”
I let out a snort. “Seriously? Now I know you’re lying—they have no reason to hurt you.”
“Indeed.”
“That’s—” I cast my gaze heavenward, frustration coiling around my ribcage. “Of course you weren’t going to give me a straight answer. Why would you?”
When I look back at him, he’s wiped his expression of all emotion, choosing to stare blankly at the edge of the rug at his feet.
Part of me wants to ask about his injury—if it’s deep, if he needs stitches or bandages—but I tamp it down and clamp my jaw shut so tightly that I worry the bones might shatter.
“Is that what you’re going to be wearing today?” Graham asks, heaving a bored sigh.
He must have decided we’re done with that conversation. I wonder if I’ll ever know what really happened last night.
I stare down at my clothes, wrinkled and still smelling of dust, dirt, and sweat. I managed to fall asleep in my boots. In my duffel bag, I’ll find a graphic t-shirt of Poppy’s favorite band, loose jeans, and another pair of socks. I’m itching for a shower and some deodorant.
“I can be ready in thirty,” I reply flatly, retrieving my burner phone from where I secured it in my back pocket. “But first, I need to call my handler and touch base—thanks to your… change of plans yesterday.”
Graham’s not fast enough with a response. I slip out onto the balcony and shut the door firmly behind me, bracing against the railing so I can watch him instead of the early morning Parisian skyline. Birds chirp and swoop overhead. The phone rings once.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep,” I say.
Ximena spouts a colorful Spanish curse word. “Where have you been?”
“Graham decided he wanted to stay at his favorite hotel.”
“It doesn’t matter what he wants,” she replies testily. “This is your op, Sloane. His residence was secured in advance, and now you’re completely in the dark.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, because his estate is currently being tented for fumigation,” I hiss.