Page 16 of Arrogant Bastard

I grit my teeth and turn to find him pouring a fresh glass of water from a jug in the fridge. “You never had that glass of water. You need to hydrate.” He walks over and holds out the glass.

I take it with the fresh reminder of everything that’s happened this evening. God. Was it only a few short hours ago that I left the martial arts studio in Soho, convinced I knew what my next move was?

I feel as if a lifetime has passed since then. I drink the water, mildly surprised when I drain every last drop. He takes the glass from me, and we continue with the tour. By mutual consent we don’t linger in the bedrooms, of which there are three with a master bigger than my apartment.

The last room is the study. Killian gives me no warning as to what to expect when I walk in. Probably because he expects me to take the sight of my picture reproduced a couple of dozen times on the walls in my stride. I stop in the middle of the room and stare at the shadowed image.

Supersize, small, and in between. All showing the same single shadowed image of my cheek and jaw. My shock passes, and I face him.

“This is how you found me?” That question had crossed my mind more than a few times tonight.

He gives a watchful nod.

I hide a grimace. It was the day I let my concern get the better of me and took the more direct route to the Upper East Side instead of my usual circuitous one. It didn’t matter that Axel Rutherford, my boss, had demanded the punishment that put severe bruises and lacerations on his wrists after a session in the Punishment Club. The man I’ve come to see as more than a boss was going through a hell I vaguely recognized, so I set aside our strict boss/employee relationship and went to his Upper East Side apartment.

“You were sloppy,” Killian says in the voice I remember from when he was my trainer.

I shrug.

“Where were you going?” he presses, his voice growing a little more abrasive.

“Does it matter?”

His piercing eyes narrow a fraction. “Not immediately, no.”

Which means the third degree is coming. If I stick around. Which I won’t be. “Tell me about Cairo. How sure are you?” A small part of me remains hopeful that he’s got this wrong.

He remains silent for a few seconds, and then he jerks his chin at the two high-backed leather chairs behind his desk. He pulls out a seat for me, and I sit before a bank of state-of-the-art screens. I catch his wince as he sits, and my gaze drops to the erection that shows no signs of abating. My internal muscles clench in an empty muscle memory reflex, and I hate myself just that little bit more.

He activates an electronic keyboard, taps a button, and Killian Knight morphs into someone else. Computer genius extraordinaire.

He was famous for his coding skills long before he became a spy. And while adding such a dangerous profession to his résumé may have been a very risky thing, considering he was a tech god and therefore worshipped by nerds with social media hacking and surveillance skills at their fingertips, his ability to manipulate technology was the very thing that made him a genius spy too.

I watch his fingers fly over the keyboard for a minute. Three pictures flash onto the screen. My breath locks in my throat, and icy fingers crawl down my neck. Two of the four people are known to me. Ted Milton and Shane Richards. Faces from another life I don’t want to return to. Faces staring at the screen with lifeless eyes. “Oh my God. When did this happen?” I whisper.

“Over the past month. Ted was the first. He disappeared from his hotel room in London three weeks ago. They found his body four days later in an abandoned warehouse in the East End. Shane was taken the day after Ted’s body was found. He was booked on a flight from Dubai to DC. He never made it. He was also found a few days later.”

I struggle to digest the news, and the glaring connection I can’t hide from. “How…did they die?”

Killian’s jaw tightens. “They were tortured.”

My heart drops. Spies are primarily tortured for one thing only. Information.

“Do you get the picture now?”

I shake my head, still wanting to live in denial. “Were they still active?”

He frowns. “Yes, but what the fuck does that matter?”

“I’m no longer active. I’m out of the game, remember?”

His face hardens as his fingers fly over the keyboard again. Pages and pages of mumbo jumbo scroll across the screens, with the occasional fuzzy picture flashing past. He hits one key and the screen freezes. Through the jumble of code, I spot the name KNIGHT WIDOW several times. I’m almost too afraid to ask. “What am I looking at?”

“The number of times our code name and images have been searched for in the last six months by someone other than me.”

Dread punches me in the gut. “I…that doesn’t mean…”

“Yes, it does. It’s time to wake up, Faith. We’re being hunted.”

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