by Elle James
She’d gone through all the information in the backpack. She’d found a US passport with her image on it and set up a plan to get back to the United States. With enough Russian rubles to get her out, she’d caught a train and headed for a port where cruise ships disembarked.
At the port, Alex had found her way into a warehouse containing pallets with supplies for the cruise ships. In the wee hours of the morning, she’d hollowed out one of the pallets to make sufficient room for her to fit inside. The pallet had been staged the night before to go on the next cruise ship. In the morning, a forklift had lifted the pallet and driven it onboard the ship. The tricky part had been getting out with nobody seeing her.
Fortunately, the receiving area had been somewhat chaotic with a multitude of pallets being driven onto the ship, offloaded and set aside. The cruise ship had left Moscow with her on it. Eventually, she’d made it back to the States, bought a used car with cash, stolen a license plate and had driven to the hills of Idaho where she’d begun her training. She never again wanted to feel as helpless as she had the night her parents had died, and she’d vowed to make the people who’d killed them pay.
Tired to the bone Alex stripped out of the silver dress, stepped into the shower, washed off her makeup and the hairspray and let the water run over her face and body, rinsing away the tension of the night. She stepped out of the shower, dried off and slipped into the leggings and T-shirt she preferred to sleep in at night. She slid her feet into the slippers the hotel had provided, liking the feel of warm terry cloth wrapped around her toes.
Just as she was about to open the bathroom door, she heard a noise in the other room. It sounded as if somebody had broken glass. She dimmed the light then opened the door a crack, just enough to see a man reaching his hand through the broken glass to unlock the French doors opening onto the balcony.
Alex didn’t have time to think, she only had time to react. In her slippered feet, she raced across the room.
Just as the man shoved the door wide, Alex plowed into him like an American football player. She slammed into him hard enough that she drove him backward until the backs of his legs hit the railing. He flipped over backward and would have fallen the three stories to the ground but, at the last minute, his hand grabbed hold of the top of the rail. The gun he’d been carrying clattered to the ground. He hung for a moment by one hand.
Using her fist, Alex pounded those fingers hoping he would let go. She needed something harder that would hurt him. However, she reasoned that by the time she’d found something he would be back up on the balcony after her. The man was big.
Alex knew her limits.
She ran back through the French doors, closed and locked them. It would only slow him down a little, but maybe enough to allow her time to get away. She ran through the room, grabbed her backpack and her shoes and raced out into the corridor. A dining cart with the remains of someone’s meal stood outside one of the rooms. Alex grabbed it and pushed it in front of her door then raced for the stairwell. She could have gone down to the lobby to report that someone had broken into her room, but that would be first place he’d look for her.
Hopefully by the time the attacker made it out of her room, he’d think that she’d taken the elevator down. Years of keeping a low profile told her to go up the stairs instead of down. As she raced passed the elevator, she punched the down button. Then she dove for the stairs, pushing through the door, letting it slam shut behind her.
Alex ran up the stairs as quietly as she could in her slippers. Fortunately, she traveled with everything she owned in a backpack. Sometimes, she stored important information in lockers at the airports that she traveled to most. Mostly, she lived out of her backpack, purchasing items she needed in the places she visited.
As she climbed the stairs, she wondered where she would go. Her first thought was of the American on the fifth floor where she had been earlier. Below her, the stairwell door on the third floor crashed open. She slowed, only to make her movements quieter and eased up the stairs to the fifth floor. Footsteps sounded on the stairs below. They seemed to be fading, as if whoever was running was heading down to the ground floor instead of up.
Alex waited a few seconds to make certain that was the direction he was headed, and then quietly pushed the stairwell door open onto the fifth floor. Once she’d passed through it, she eased it closed behind her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t control the loud click of the latch engaging. If her pursuer had heard the same click, he’d be headed back up the stairs. She only had moments to hide somewhere. She ran down the hallway to the door she had entered earlier and knocked three times. With her heart pounding against her ribs she waited, praying the man had not gone to sleep.
“Daniel,” she called out softly. “Please, open the door.” She positioned her face in front of the peephole, counting the seconds. She’d just raised her hand again to knock when the door swung open.
Daniel stood there with a frown denting his brow. “What the—” he started to say.
She pushed him backward far enough to let the door swing shut behind her then she leaned against it breathing hard, her pulse racing.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Daniel demanded.
Alex nodded. “Let me catch my breath first.” She sucked in air until she’d secured enough in her lungs. When she had control of her pulse, she pushed away from the door, turned around and glanced through the peephole.
“Is someone after you?” Daniel asked.
“Shhh,” she said. “Yes. He broke into my room.” She gasped as a man dressed in black ran past the door. She turned to Daniel, pressed a finger to her lips and mouthed the words, He’s out there now.
Daniel leaned in and pressed his eye to the peephole, and then jerked back.
“He’s still there, isn’t he?” she asked in a quiet whisper.
Daniel nodded, pulled her away from the door and into the bathroom and spoke in a soft voice, “Stay here.” When he moved to go around her, she grabbed his arm.
“What are you going to do?” she asked quietly.
“Look,” he answered.
She didn’t release his arm, her fingers tightening. “What if he has a gun?”
His lips quirked upward. “Then I won’t stay long.” He leaned closer and whispered in her ears. “I’ll be back.”
Alex waited in the bathroom as he stepped out and once again pressed his eye to the peephole. He remained there for several very long seconds. Then he shook his head and looked her way.
“Is he gone?” she whispered.
He shrugged. He moved to the other end of the room where he pulled the drapes across the window and turned off the lights. Once again, he returned to the door and looked out the peephole. Again, he shook his head. “He could be gone. The only way to check is to open the door.”
Alex shook her head. “If he’s anywhere on the floor, he’ll follow the sound of the door opening. Just leave it. He’ll go away.” Alex left the bathroom and checked for herself through the peephole. As Daniel had indicated, nobody stood outside the door, but the man could be anywhere on that floor, or he could have moved on to the next floor up. If he’d been going down, he wouldn’t know what floor she’d got off on. Hopefully, he’d give up and go away. In the meantime, Alex was stuck.
“Might as well have a seat,” Daniel said softly. He waved a hand toward one of the chairs beside the doors to the balcony.
She shook her head and paced, adrenaline still pushing through her veins at an alarming rate.
“Why would somebody want to attack you?” Daniel asked.
Alex shook her head. “Maybe Petrov didn’t like being bested by a female?” she suggested.
“Especially if he thinks you had anything to do with his stabbing.”
She nodded. And if it wasn’t Petrov, then who? Though she looked very much like her mother, her mother had gone prematurely grey. Alex’s hair was still jet black like her father’s hair. When she’d first come back to Russia, she’d wor
ried that somebody would recognize her. She’d returned as an American interpreter, easily finding work because of her excellent grasp of the English and Russian languages. But it was a possibility that somebody had recognized her as Anya, the daughter of Pavel and Mischa Federov. She’d assumed the name Alexa Sokolov, from the US passport she’d found with her picture on it.
“So, what now?” Daniel asked. “Do you want me to contact the front desk and ask them to send a security team to escort you back to your room?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t like to draw attention to myself. This summit is not about me. There’s already been enough drama with Petrov’s stabbing, which you know I did not do.”
“That would have been kind of hard for you, considering you were with me.”
She nodded. “Which is probably just as well that you disarmed me. If I’d been caught with that knife on my person, I would’ve been the one detained instead of the German Hans Sutter. For that matter, if he’s not released by tomorrow, I won’t have a job. I’m here to translate for him.”
“How did the attacker break into your room?” Daniel asked.
“He broke the window on my balcony’s French door so that he could unlock it.”
“And you just ran out of the room?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I charged him and knocked him over the balcony, but he hung on.”
Daniel grinned. “The guy I saw in the hallway was no lightweight.”
Alex stopped pacing and stared at him, her gaze going from his head to his toe. “He was probably about your size.”
“I’m impressed,” Daniel said.
“I’d have been more impressed if he’d have fallen all the way to the ground. My room was on the third floor.”
“Not the seventh?” Daniel cocked an eyebrow.
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “You followed me?”
He shrugged. “I might have. Do you always go up in the elevator before you go down?”
She shrugged. “A girl has to be careful. It doesn’t pay to let somebody follow you back to your room.”
“Apparently, somebody found out where you were staying. I can’t imagine anyone breaking into a random room.”
Alex shook her head. “Me either.”
“Which leads us back to the question, why you?” He raised his hand. “And yes, it could have been Petrov being embarrassed by a woman. But I get the feeling that you’re not telling me something I should know. Who are you really?”
“I told you…I’m an interpreter.”
“An interpreter who carries a knife and can flip a full-grown man over her shoulder. Right,” Daniel said with a snort. “In what language training school do they teach that?”
“A girl has to—”
“Take care of herself,” he finished. “You don’t have much faith in people, do you?”
“Since my parents’ deaths, I have yet to meet anyone I can trust,” she said.
“And yet, here you are in my room.”
“It was the only place I knew to go on short notice. I’ll be leaving you now,” she said.
“And go where?”
“That’s not for you to worry about.”
“But I will. Look,” he said, “you’re welcome to stay here.” He raised his hands. “I promise not to touch you.” A smirky smile curled one side of his lips. “Unless you want to be touched.”
She pressed her lips together. “Believe me, I don’t want you to touch me. I should go. I’ve already imposed on you too much.”
He waved toward the door. “Then go on. Poke your head out there. He might still be looking for you. Your best bet is to stay put until daylight. Masked men in black don’t usually show up in the daylight. I still think you need to report this to the front desk. How else are you going to explain a broken French door?”
“I’ll worry about that when I check out.” Still, Alex hesitated.
“The offer stands open. You can stay here. I’d say you can trust me but, seeing as you are not a trusting soul, you’ll have to take your chances.”
She stared at him through narrowed eyes.
He held up two fingers like a Boy Scout. “I do so solemnly swear to be a gentleman, but then again there are your trust issues.”
Alex drew in a deep breath. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, and she was tired. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
“You can sleep in the chair,” he said. “Or you can sleep in the king-size bed with me. It’s plenty big enough for two people.”
“I’ll sleep in the chair,” she said, cutting him off.
Chapter 5
Striker was surprised when Alex agreed to stay the night in his room. He’d really thought she would leave and look for someplace else to sleep. Given the late hour and the fact that she’d have to let the desk know why she was moving from her room, he guessed she’d decided it made sense for her to stay with him.
He’d promised her he wouldn’t touch her, and he’d stand by that promise even though his groin tightened at the thought of sleeping in the same room with the beauty. He guessed it would be a long night with little sleep for either one of them.
Despite having told her she’d have to sleep in the chair, he found himself saying, “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He wanted to kick himself for offering, but he knew it was the right thing to do.
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll sleep in the chair. The floor is too hard for anyone to sleep on.”
He chuckled. “I’ve slept on much worse.”
She frowned in his direction. “I wouldn’t think that escorts would have to sleep on floors very often.”
Realizing his mistake, he backpedaled. “It happens,” he said. His reference to sleeping on hard surfaces went back to his time spent sleeping on the ground or in foxholes as a Navy SEAL on a mission. He wasn’t there as a Navy SEAL, and she didn’t need to know that he used to be one. “Please,” he said, “take the bed.”
He dragged the comforter and one of the pillows off the bed, made a pallet on the floor and stretched out to prove he was sincere.
She stared down at him on the floor, a frown denting her perfect brow. “This is your room. It doesn’t seem right for you to sleep on the floor.”
“Nevertheless, I am. So, somebody ought to sleep in that bed.” He laced his hands behind his neck and closed his eyes.
“How do you know I won’t try to kill you in your sleep?” she asked.
“I pride myself in being a good judge of character,” he said. “You don’t strike me as someone who would kill a man in his sleep.”
She snorted. “You are too trusting.”
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “And you don’t trust enough.”
Alex crossed her arms over her chest. “How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?”
“If I had intended to kill you, I would have done so by now. As I am sure, if you had intended to kill me, you would have done so by now.”
Alex kicked off the slippers she’d worn during her escape from her room and crawled into the king-size bed. As soon as she was settled, she was back out again.
“Did you forget something?’ he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I like to keep a light burning. Do you mind if I leave the one on in the bathroom?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I can sleep through anything and, at the same time, I’m a light sleeper.”
The bathroom light was still on. All she did was close the door most of the way, leaving just a crack to let light into the room. She returned to the bed and switched off the light on the nightstand. Then she laid down in the bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin.
Silence stretched between them. A million questions ran through Striker’s mind. He still didn’t know much about this woman, other than her parents had been killed in a housefire. She might be telling the truth about being a translator, but she seemed to be more than that, and she wasn’t telling him what that other part of her was. Then again, he wasn
’t telling her who he really was and why he was there. Still, the mission didn’t define him, and he suspected it didn’t define her either. “You speak fluent Russian. Where did you learn it?” he asked into the shadowy darkness.
For a moment, she didn’t respond. Just when he’d thought she’d gone to sleep she said quietly, “My parents. They were born and raised in Russia and immigrated to the United States shortly after they were married and barely out of their teens. We lived in the Unites States the first few years of my life where I learned to speak both English and Russian. Then we moved to Germany. For the next few years, I went to German schools. Immersed in the language, I learned it quickly. Then my parents moved back to Russia where I went to Russian schools until I turned eighteen.”
“So, you speak fluent Russian, German and English?”
“Yes, and I learned a little Italian while I was in the Russian school. I’m not as fluent in Italian, but I can get by.”
“I’m impressed,” he said. “And it makes sense to be an interpreter with your skill set.”
“It does make it easy to find work,” she said. “What about you? Have you always been a male escort?”
He snorted. “No, but it seems to be the only kind of work I can get now.”
“What did you do before?” she asked.
“I worked in security,” he said. Which was as close to the truth as he could say without blowing his cover. And he had worked in security. The security of his nation.
“Security? Hmm,” she said. “You look to me like somebody who might have been in the military.”
Her words struck too close to home. “How so?”
“It’s in the way you carry yourself with a certain amount of pride. And you appear fit.”
“You don’t get too many male escort jobs if you don’t remain fit,” he pointed out.
“True,” she said, “but it’s really your bearing that sets you apart from others and makes me think that you’ve had military service in your background. Am I right?”
