I wake as soon as my door opens.
I’ve always been a light sleeper.
The slightest change in light in the room, the smallest sound will wake me.
I know it isn’t one of my men. They never come in my rooms, not ever. If something happens, they just call my phone, which is charging on the nightstand right next to me.
I don’t know how many intruders there might be, or if they’re armed. If they’re wearing night-vision goggles, they’ll be able to riddle me with bullets before I can even roll off the bed.
So I force myself to stay perfectly still. I keep my breathing calm and steady, though my heart is racing.
I wait, listening to the near-imperceptible sounds of someone approaching the bed.
Just one person. Incredibly quiet and light on their feet.
How did they get into the compound?
The alarm never went off. There were no sounds of a struggle—that would have woken me up way before the door opening.
I feel a flush of fury, the closer they get.
How dare this intruder come in my house? Into my bedroom?
It’s outrageous.
But I’m also the smallest bit impressed. Nobody’s gotten this close to me before.
I can feel the figure approaching, more than I actually hear them. I feel the movement of air across my bare skin as they near the edge of my bed. I hear the rustle of their clothes as they take something out of a pocket.
I try to look at this person through a slit in my closed eyelids.
It’s dark in the room, and the figure is dressed all in black, like a shadow come to life. I can see that they’re only average height, and slim.
Now I’m just waiting to see if they’ve got a knife or a gun.
I have a Glock under my pillow, and another in my nightstand. An AR under the bed and more weapons in my closet. But as the figure raises its hand, I can see I won’t need any of that.
They’re only armed with a syringe.
The needle tip glistens in the starlight coming through the blinds.
It looks wickedly sharp.
It sends a flush of pure rage through my veins.
This fucking coward planned to sneak in my room in the middle of the night and jam that needle in my neck while I was sleeping.
The assassin raises the syringe over my throat.
I open my eyes and look up into their face.
I see two wide, startled eyes looking back at me. In shock, the assassin hesitates.
That’s all I need.
I launch myself off the bed, grabbing their wrist in my left hand, and driving my right shoulder into their body.
The would-be hitman is ridiculously light. He goes flying backward, crashing down onto the floor with my full weight on top of him. He’s still trying to twist the syringe, to jam it into the back of my hand, so I wrench it out of his fingers and fling it across the room.
I’m tempted to stab it into his chest instead—give him a literal taste of his own medicine. But I don’t want to fuck around with that needle of death. For all I know, the slightest prick could kill me, and it’s too easy to get scratched in a fight.
I intend to throttle this little shit instead. However, he’s not easy to hold onto. He’s wriggling and thrashing beneath me. Now that he’s lost his weapon, he’s obviously abandoned any hope of winning the fight. He just wants to get away.
He’s so slim and light that I’m sure he’s lightning fast. I have no intention of letting go of him. But he’s fighting like a wildcat, kicking and punching and squirming, trying to snatch up anything he can get his hands on.
He grasps the bedside lamp by its cord, yanks it close enough to grab hold of the base, and tries to bring it crashing down on my skull.
I knock it away with my arm, then swing a haymaker at his head that he only just manages to dodge, my fist brushing past his nose.
He responds with a kick to my groin. It just misses the mark, his heel striking my inner thigh instead. It still hurts like a bitch and makes me double over. I’m going to have a bruise the size of a softball.
Enough fucking around.
I seize the assassin by the throat. I’m going to squeeze the life out of him.
But I want to watch the light fade from his eyes as I do it. So I grab the stocking covering his face and I tear it off his head.
And I’m face to face with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
I stare at her in utter shock.
She stares back at me, my body pinning her down, our faces inches apart.
She’s flushed with color, panting hard from our fight. I can feel her body quivering beneath mine, her heart pounding away against my chest, as rapid as a rabbit’s. She’s trapped. Like a wild animal, she’s desperate to flee.
I can’t understand how I didn’t realize her gender when we were rolling around on the floor. I suppose it’s because I never could have imagined a woman breaking into my room to kill me.
I’m mesmerized, staring at this face that’s flushed with exertion and sheer terror.
Her dark, almond-shaped eyes are wide and bright, thickly lashed and framed by straight black brows. She has a heart-shaped face with a slightly square chin, offset by a remarkably wide, full-lipped mouth. Pulling off the stocking has loosed a halo of black curls all around her cheeks and shoulders.
I can’t tell who she is or where she’s from. With those dark eyes and hair, and that lightly tanned skin, she could be French, Iranian, Greek, Albanian . . . I only know she’s not Russian. Because I’ve never seen anybody who looked like this before.
It takes me a moment to remember that she was trying to murder me.
And I’m supposed to be paying her back in kind.
Yet somehow, I find my fingers loosening around her throat.
I don’t let go of her—I’m not that stupid.
But I find myself in a conundrum.
I’ve never actually killed a woman before.
I’m not against it, in principal. After all, this is the very definition of self-defense. Whatever she had in that syringe, I know for damn sure it wasn’t a vitamin B-12 shot.
She would have jammed it into my neck without hesitation.
I should do the same to her now.
But I just can’t.
Part of it is the sheer destructiveness of the act. This woman is absurdly gorgeous. And she’s obviously smart too—she managed to sneak past all my security, all the way into my bedroom without getting caught. Killing her would be such a waste. Like smashing the Venus de Milo with a sledgehammer.
There’s another reason I don’t want to kill her: she’s made me curious. Who is she? Why did she come here?
For practical reasons alone, I should find out who sent her.
So I let go of her. But as I do so, I say, “If you move one millimeter, I’ll snap your neck. Don’t test me.”
I see a shiver run down her body. But she doesn’t let her fear show on her face. She watches me, expressionless.
Without taking my eyes off her, I pull my kit bag out from under the bed. I take out a couple of zip ties, and I say, “Lay down on the ground, with your hands behind your back.”
For a moment, she hesitates. I see her eyes dart toward the window, the door.
She must know she won’t get far, not with me awake and not dead, and a whole houseful of soldiers ready to be summoned with a yell.
Slowly, she lays down on the carpet, her face turned to the side, and her arms behind her back.
I zip tie her wrists, a little tighter than necessary, because I’m limping from her kick to my groin. Then I tie her ankles for good measure.
I pause, looking down on her.
I need one question answered. The answer is going to determine her fate, at least in the next five minutes.
“Did you hurt any of my men on the way in?” I ask her.
“No,” she says.
Her voice is low and clear. It doesn’t sound like she’s lying.
“That’s very lucky for you,” I tell her.
I leave her lying on the floor and go to the next room over to wake up my brother.
