Page 16 of The King's Pawn

“Is that what you see?” I asked.

“It’s what you show everyone.” He shifted closer. “You make them think you’re a yes man, a murder machine, but you’re not like that, are you? You’re smarter than that. I’m starting to think you’re smarter than you look, Killer. How did you get my father to trust you like he does?”

I stirred the soup. “By putting his enemies in the ground.”

“But not me?”

I planted a bowl of hot soup into his hands. “No, not you.” Our gazes met through the steam. “You’ve never been his enemy, just a pain in my ass.” His eyes widened. I knew what was coming and nipped it in the bud. “Say anything about asses and I’ll tie you up again.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

I picked up my soup, the plate of bread, and sat at the small fold-out table. Noah sat opposite, smirking. Our knees bumped, so I shifted sideways. He grinned as he ate, dipping his bread and tucking in.

He was a relentless flirt. I knew that. I’d just never had the full force of his sassy charm directed at me and was struggling with how to shut him down, or whether to encourage it, since it brought parts of me alive I hadn’t indulged in for years. Parts I thought I’d never feel again.

“You didn’t tell me where you came from,” he said, eyes flicking up from his soup.

“No, I didn’t. Eat.”

“Mysterious man. Huh.”

“We need to figure out who lied about you. Any ideas?”

Noah gave a dry, empty laugh. “All of them?”

“You pissed off anyone lately—more than usual?”

“Just my father, by breathing.”

There was more to it. His father didn’t need an excuse to kill Noah. Someone had forced his hand, someone had given him evidence he had no choice but to act on and send me. Few had that much sway over Val.

“Ask him,” Noah said, shrugging. “He’ll tell you.”

“I never ask him. It doesn’t work like that.”

Noah swept a piece of bread around his empty bowl, soaking up the last of the soup, popped it into his mouth, finished up, and leaned back in the chair. “Is this all you want, to be my father’s pet? His killer until he kills you? Because he will, you know. One day, he’ll decide you’re a threat, and you’ll be gone by sunset. That’s how he’s lived this long. Anyone smart, strong, he uses, and then he turns on them before they turn on him. Kill or be killed.”

I knew exactly how his father ran the Back Bay Mafia, and I knew that day would come, but not yet. Not over his son, ValKing’s pawn. I wasn’t dying for a lie, and neither was Noah. Iwasfixing this.

“He kills the clever ones first,” Noah added.

“That’s why I don’t ask questions.”

He lifted his gaze, sensing or hearing something in my tone I shouldn’t have let slip, and he knew there was more happening here because he was another one in his father’s orbit who wasn’t as stupid as they seemed. Perhaps I’d been wrong, perhaps hedidlisten. He was listening now and hearing more than I’d said with words alone.

“What did he do to you?” Noah asked, his smiles gone. He looked older without that smile, colder too.

I stood, gathered up the dishes, and dumped them in the kitchen sink, then stared at the snow swirling in the dark outside the window. “There was someone,” I said, grounding out the words. “Someone in my life. He died. Wrong place, wrong time. Just… walking down the street. He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

I heard Noah move but didn’t dare glance back. If I stared at the snow, the words came easier, as though it had happened to someone else, another man, in a different life. Which was true. Things had been different back then.I’dbeen different.

Noah’s soft hand settled on my back and stroked higher. I almost shrugged him off, but the part that had broken off in my heart revealed the truth of how I needed his warmth, needed to feel again beneath the ice I’d frozen myself in.

“I’m sorry,” Noah said, leaning in close.

I smiled without any humor. He didn’t need to say sorry, but one day his father would, at the end of my gun.

He moved closer, hooking his bare leg around the back of mine and pressing all of himself up against my side. I stared at the snow falling as Noah’s heat thawed the past from my bones and warmed me through.