Page 35 of Pretty Little Assassin

Donnie has the municipal feeds looping, our plates are false, and we’re parked outside the hotel, camera angles shown on the schematics. Technically, no one should know we’re here.

The car is too hot, the air is too stagnant, and his scent is too much. Not in a “stinky” way, but in a way that makes me feel unusually disoriented.

Hours in a car with this guy—hours.

“Do you have to breathe so loudly?” I ask, cracking the window an inch. “It’s like being trapped in a car with a bear that just came out of hibernation.”

“I breathe at a normal volume.”

He returns his gaze to the venue. “You are the one filling this vehicle with sound. Tapping your foot. Sighing every ninety seconds.”

“I do not sigh.”

“You sighed four times in the last ten minutes. I counted.”

“Because you have nothing better to do than count my breathing.” I fold my arms and glare at the valet stand across the street. “Maybe if you’d let me go inside and do actual reconnaissance, I wouldn’t have to breathe at all.”

“That would solve many of my problems.”

“Ha. Funny.” I reach for the thermos of coffee wedged between us, and our fingers collide. We both pull back like the metal’s on fire.

“You touched me again,” he says.

“I touched the coffee.”

“Your hand was on mine.”

“Your hand was in the way.”

His mouth twitches. That fucking grin, threatening to break loose again. “You are keeping count too. Admit it.”

“I’m keeping count of how many times I’ve wanted to stab you in the last hour. We’re at seven.”

“Only seven?” He looks disappointed. “I was aiming for double digits.”

“The night’s young.”

I unscrew the thermos and take a sip, then immediately gag. It’s cold, bitter, and tastes vaguely of gun oil.

“This is disgusting. Did you make this?”

“You drank half of it twenty minutes ago without complaint.”

“That’s because I was distracted by your driving. You drive like a getaway assassin who’s never actually done a getaway.”

He shifts in the seat, and the whole car groans under him.

Mr. Pickles, who I stupidly agreed to let ride along because Alley Cat insisted “the gorilla gets lonely,” shifts in his carrier in the back seat and lets out a yowl.

“See,” Viktor says. “Even the cat is bored.”

“The cat is bored because you insisted on bringing him, and now he’s stuck in a plastic prison while you make goo-goo eyes at a hotel entrance.”

“I do not make goo-goo eyes.”

“You made them at Mr. Pickles for a solid minute this morning.”

“That was allergy inflammation.”