Page 38 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Seven Years Ago

Amalfi Coast, Italy

Alex

It probably shouldn’t have been so anticlimactic, the way Alex felt as she slipped off her harness and slid into the shadows

of the house.

King had already disabled the alarm, and Irina and Kozlov were gone, so there were only two guards to contend with and, at

that time of night, they were making their rounds of the perimeter fence. The house was empty. Just Alex and King and the

shadows.

“I guess we’re alone.” Even King sounded mildly disappointed. After so much recon, it felt like there should have been...

more?

“Does this feel too easy to you?” Alex whispered even though he was right—they were alone—but something in Alex’s gut was

telling her something was wrong. This wasn’t safe. This wasn’t good. And the worst part was the look on King’s face—the cocked

eyebrow and clenched jaw that told her he was feeling it too.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” said the voice in her ear. “Let’s just get this done. And take it slowly. Those cameras

blur if you move too fast.”

Merritt was listening—and watching—from the boat. Her zip-lining days were over, but she was still with them, and it should

have made Alex relax, but there was something that had been niggling in the back of her mind for days now. One look at King

told her she wasn’t the only one.

“And what, exactly, are we doing?” King leaned close to Alex, staring in a way that made her want to punch him until she realized he was actually looking at the tiny camera embedded in the frame of her glasses.

“We’re searching for something.” Merritt had the tone of a woman who was wishing she’d just done it herself.

“Searching for what ? Exactly?” Even Alex was running out of patience.

“Merritt?” King prompted.

It was hard to say, with the distance and the darkness and the static coming through the line, but Alex could have sworn that

Merritt—a woman who had been doing scary stuff for more than half a century—was trembling when she said—

“ Viktor Kozlov’s nuclear option. ”

King found Alex’s gaze in the darkness. He found it and held on. “Are you being literal right now?”

There were always rumors about missiles that went missing after the fall of the Soviet Union. Someone like Kozlov would have

the connections... the money... the desire to keep a pet nuke. And if he had one...

“Merritt!” King snapped, and Alex heard a sigh through the earpiece.

“Is there a warhead in that building? No. Is there something there that, if my suspicions are correct, might lead to one?

Absolutely.” Merritt’s voice sounded like ice, and Alex could have sworn she felt the room freeze over. “Now start looking.”

Okay , Alex thought. Okay. Okay? “Looking for what?”

“ You’re not looking.” Merritt sounded like the legend she was when she said, “ I am. Now stop talking and take me through that house. Slowly. Show me everything. Start in the office.”

“But—”

“I’ll know it when I see it!” Merritt snapped, and Alex had to wonder.... It felt sloppy. Ill-conceived. Like the most

un -Merritt-y of missions.

But all she could do was say, “Okay.”

The office was just an office. They found computers and phones and technology of all kinds, but Merritt couldn’t have cared less.

The kitchen was professional-grade and pristinely clean, but Merritt wasn’t interested in anything—not even the tomato Alex found that was in the shape of a perfect little red heart.

“If we had some kind of clue...” King was growing frustrated.

“Just keep looking,” Merritt ordered when Alex turned down a long hall and stopped dead in her tracks.

And shouted, “OMG!”

Instantly, she wished she could pull the words back because she sounded young and silly and... like Zoe, but Alex couldn’t

help herself as she looked at the glass cases that lined the long, dim hall.

It reminded her of the displays at the Farm—soft white light shining on shelf after shelf of history.

Lipstick cameras and little tin boxes of toothpowder with hidden compartments. There were vintage shoes with retractable knives

in the soles, cuff links that doubled as lockpicks, and a pair of earrings that appeared to be a two-way radio.

But when Alex reached the item in the center of the case, she couldn’t help herself: she gasped. Because it was so magnificent,

it should have only existed in the movies. Or her dreams.

It was a ring—just a ring. Except it wasn’t or else it wouldn’t have been in Viktor Kozlov’s spy gadget museum, and that just made Alex love it more.

The band appeared to be platinum, with intricate swirls that turned into a circle of tiny diamonds with a large red stone

in the center.

Alex had never considered herself a jewelry person. In her quest to be as different from Zoe as possible, she’d eschewed most

girly things as soon as she learned what boxes the world sorted women into.

Reading romance novels: Zoe.

Watching spy movies: Alex.

Wearing pink: Zoe.

Wearing black: Alex.

Caring about clothes and jewelry: Zoe.

Caring about nothing and no one: Alex.

But as she stood in the subtle glow of the display case, staring down at a ring that was both ornate and simple, old but timeless—there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that it was also beautiful but something else.

“I wonder if the gem is actually a cyanide tablet?”

She waited for King to say something like We have a job to do, Sterling , but her mind was going now, rolling downhill fast and picking up steam. “Do the diamonds spell out a secret message in Morse

code or— ooh!— maybe the ruby is a three-dimensional map, and if the light hits it just right—”

“It will show where to dig for the Ark of the Covenant?”

Yes!

“No. I just...” But Alex trailed off when she realized King wasn’t mocking—wasn’t laughing. He was just standing there,

smiling, which was odd enough. But the weirdest part was that he was smiling—at her.

“You like that?” He pointed to the ring like it was a key piece of intel—the final step in Operation Make Alex Make Sense,

and he wasn’t going to quit until he’d cracked it.

Alex looked back down at the ring. It seemed like something made for a different world—a different time. And, not for the

first time, Alex wondered what it might have been like to be a different girl.

One who got to pick first. One who didn’t have to worry that the world was going to wake up one day and realize that everything—literally

everything—was entirely her fault.

There was static in her ear and Merritt’s voice had gone silent, so it felt like Alex was alone with the soft light and the

stillness and the man who, for once, wasn’t staring at her like she didn’t belong there. For once, Alex felt like she was

exactly where she was supposed to be.

“I love this kind of stuff,” Alex admitted guiltily. “I love that something could be more than... Never mind.”

But he was suddenly closer—warmer. “Go on.”

“I love that things can be... more.”

Alex could be the prettiest girl at MIT and the number one student in the college of engineering. She could be Michael Kingsley’s nemesis and the best person to have his back on this mission. Alex could be Zoe’s best friend and the reason her sister had almost died.

“A toothbrush isn’t just a toothbrush when it’s also a hand grenade?” he tried, and Alex could feel her face turning red,

but the look King gave her was kind and indulgent and— “Try it on.”

Now Alex knew she was hearing things. Maybe she’d been hit on the head and was currently in a medically induced coma. There

was no way that Michael Kingsley of the Photographic Memory Kingsleys was telling her, “Go ahead.”

“Oh no!” Alex pulled back. It was like she’d been burned.

“Go ahead,” he said again, but Alex knew better. It was some kind of trap. He was a snake with an apple, trying to get her

kicked out of the garden for good. She couldn’t trust him. But there was something in his eyes as he opened the case and pulled

out the ring. “My grandfather used to have a whole closet full of things like this. I think they’re in the Spy Museum now.

But when I was a kid...”

There was an insult in there somewhere. He was calling Alex a child, maybe. He was saying she wasn’t smart enough or experienced

enough—or maybe just jaded enough—to be there.

So Alex pulled on her cover—her shield. She retreated into her mission, and she stopped thinking like a girl who was enamored

with a shiny ring and started thinking like a badass spy who needed to be spying, badassily. “We’ve got to—”

A burst of static filled her ear, and Alex flinched as Merritt’s voice screamed, cutting in and out, the words fractured but

clear, saying, “ Now! ” and “ Out! ” And then... “ Kozlov .”

Alex looked at King, terror on his face. The comms units in their ears were state-of-the-art; they’d come a long way from

the gadgets and gizmos on the shelves in front of them, but nothing was perfect.

“Say again,” King asked.

“You have company!” Merritt sounded scared. And if Merritt was scared...

Light flashed across the windows. A helicopter was making its descent. Kozlov and Irina must have decided to come home early. Which meant...

“Merritt!” Alex snapped. “Tell us what we’re looking for so we can get out of here!”

“I don’t...” The voice sounded small and frail and then, suddenly, harder than stone. “Burn it down.”

They didn’t hear her correctly. Right? They didn’t hear—

“Burn it all down.”

King was shaking his head. “Do you seriously want us—”

“To destroy everything in that building, Michael? Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to do. If we can’t find it...” There

was a beat, a moment of staticky sadness as King and Alex looked at each other like they were finally on the same side. They

had the same questions and the same fears. And the same orders.

“But...” Alex started.

“They’ll never know you were there. Now go. Burn it to the ground.”

So that’s exactly what they did.