Page 51 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Six Years Ago

Berlin, Germany

Alex

Alex didn’t remember falling asleep on the sofa, just a faint, dreamlike memory of floating through the air. Of strong arms

and the brush of warm lips and an almost silent whisper.

Sleep well, sweetheart.

But it was probably a dream.

The man sitting beside her on the bed, however, was very, very real as Alex came awake too quickly.

She started to bolt upright, but a big hand pressed her down, a gentle reminder not to move and not to fight. That there are

some stitches in life you shouldn’t tug at. One glance at King’s face told her it wouldn’t take much to make them both unravel.

“What...” Her throat was raw, and the sky was dark, and she didn’t know why he was sitting there, fully clothed, instead

of lying on the bed beside her.

“What time is it?”

He didn’t own a clock. She supposed it was because he didn’t need one. She usually didn’t either. Her internal alarms were

finely tuned and tightly wound, but somehow, in the last few days, the second hand had stopped ticking. Time was never on

their side.

“Michael... you’re scaring me.” The old Alex would never have admitted it, but that was before the bullets and the blood

and... “What is it?”

“I’m out,” he said to the shadows, and Alex’s sleepy brain couldn’t think of anything except—

“Of the closet?”

“No.” Was that a chuckle? She couldn’t tell. She just knew that the room got suddenly colder when he said, “The Agency.”

She’d misheard him. He was speaking a language she didn’t know.

“What did you just say?” She propped herself up as much as she could with a gunshot wound, but right then she barely felt

it.

“I’m leaving the Agency. The life. I’m done.”

“I...” Alex couldn’t make the words make sense. There were so many thoughts swirling around in her mind, but for some reason

the thing that came out was, “I can’t believe you’re telling me this while I’m half dead and half naked.”

She couldn’t believe it when he laughed. “You’re always one or the other.”

He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t joking.

“King... Michael.” That was when he looked at her. His finger brushed away a strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear.

“I’m out. I can’t do this anymore.”

“As of when?”

“Tonight.” The word was the kind of black that sucks up all the color—all the light. The full range of the spectrum could

disappear inside it and get lost there.

“Is this about Tyler?” She was half afraid to say the name. “What you did?”

“Tyler’s fine. Tyler’s safe. Tyler isn’t...” He looked down at her. She felt small in one of his big T-shirts and even

bigger bed. “It’s about you.”

Alex had never heard his voice crack. She’d never seen his hand shake. She’d never seen... him . Not like this. She watched him draw a long, deep breath and then choke out the words, “I have a photographic memory. Do

you know what that means?”

“Of course I know what that means. I’m not a moron, Kingsley.”

“Do you know what it—”

“It means you remember,” she shot back, but he just sat there in the stillness, as innocent as a little boy and as tired as an old man when he whispered—

“It means I can’t forget .”

It was the same thing, but it was also completely different, and Alex didn’t want to think about the burden.

“I remember, Alex. Every bullet. Every knife. Every scab and scar and scratch. I remember all of them. The memories are just

right here”—King tapped his temple lightly—“but you’re not. And that’s okay. As long as I know you’re okay. But, someday,

Alex... Someday you won’t be. And then it will kill me.” He got to his feet. “Someday it will kill me too.”

“Michael—”

“So I’m out.” He drew a ragged breath, and suddenly, he looked tired and worn-out, and Alex couldn’t help but think about

his father—his grandfather. The fact that he’d probably been the only kid at preschool who knew the Moscow Rules by heart.

He’d been doing this job since the cradle. Their world was like a carnival ride, and the man in front of her wanted to get

off. I want you to come with me.”

At least, that’s what Alex thought she heard. But Alex was wrong. She had to be. There was no way he was saying, “Come with

me, now. Today. We can... Come with me.”

Alex knew as soon as the laugh burst free that she was going to regret it for the rest of her life. He eased back like she’d

hit him. Like she’d hurt him.

“Michael, we can’t... I can’t... We’re spies.”

“We don’t have to be.”

“People don’t just stop being... us.”

“We’d still be us.” He brought a hand to the back of her head and cupped her nape, fingers weaving through her hair. “We’d

be better. We’d be together. And we’d be free.”

“There is no free.” How could the man with the perfect memory have forgotten that? King and Alex could never be anything but

what they were: people who were trained to be someone else but never really happy?

“What do you think’s going to happen? What’s your plan? This is you, King.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “ Michael . Do you think you can just buy a fortress somewhere and pull up the drawbridge and live happily ever after?”

“Why not?” The words were so sharp, they might have cut her.

“Where are we supposed to go?”

“We can go anywhere.”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“We can do anything! They trained us for this—for exactly this. We can go anywhere . We can be anyone . They trained us to be ghosts, but right now, all I want to be is happy. All I want...” He pulled back. Like he was afraid

to touch her. “Is you.”

Alex didn’t know what was happening, but her gaze was suddenly blurry. Like a windshield in the rain with busted wipers. But

it didn’t make any sense, because Alex didn’t cry. Alex didn’t long .

The thing that Alex had wanted since she was nine years old, she had. The person she wanted to be, she was. She was already

living her Best-Case Scenario, but the way he looked at her said that moment was his Break in Case of Emergency. And the emergency...

was her.

But...

She was shaking her head. She was backing away. It was way too much and way too soon, and Alex cursed the hole in her side

because she wanted to turn around and run as fast as she could. But then she realized what this meant: King wouldn’t be waiting

when she got there...

“What is it?” His voice was softer. Closer. “Sweetheart, tell me...”

“I’m...” She’d been so happy a week ago when she’d gotten the call from Langley and been told about the assignment. It

had seemed like such a good thing. But now... “I’m going undercover.”

“You don’t have to go.” He actually let out a deep breath, like this wasn’t so bad, this could be fixed.

“No. It’s important.”

“So are you. So are we.”

“It’s Kozlov.”

He froze. He went so still so quickly that she had to wonder if he was even breathing. But she could see his mind working, like clockwork, gears turning. She could actually see his mind change course.

“Okay.” He straightened. “One last mission. Together.”

“No.”

“I’m going with you.”

“You can’t.”

“But—”

“It’s not a mission,” Alex blurted, and she knew the moment when he realized what that meant, but she said it anyway. “I’m

going into deep cover.”

But King was shaking his head. “No.”

“I have to. Now. Before I’m too well known. They need a female operative—”

“ No. ”

“Someone with experience but who isn’t likely to be recognized.” It was her saddest smile. “I’m perfect.”

The old King— her King—would have made some caustic comment about perfection. He would have teased or maybe chided. He wouldn’t have looked

so terrified, he could scream. But this new King—her new King—looked dry and gray like dust.

“I have to do this.” Alex stared down at her hands. She was brave enough to go deep inside one of the most dangerous organizations

in the world, but she wasn’t brave enough to look at Michael Kingsley. “I know you don’t think I’m good enough.”

“Are you kidding me?” He pushed away, words like a knife between them, cutting that moment into two separate pieces: before

and after. “That’s not it, and you know it.”

She didn’t know it. She didn’t even know what it was, and he must have seen it in her eyes because he gave a sad smile.

“You’re the best, Alexandra Sterling. You were always the best. We were the best.” He swallowed hard. “Or maybe I’m the only one who felt it.”

He wasn’t. She’d felt it too. At every step, it had been there, beating beneath her skin like a pulse, but that didn’t change

the fact that—

“I have to do this, Michael. I have to.... This is all I ever wanted to be. Since I was nine years old. It’s the only way bad people can do good things, so—”

“Is that what you think?”

She couldn’t take it—the softness of his voice. She couldn’t look at him. That was how a girl gets burned.

“You are not a bad...” He got it, then. She could see it in his eyes because he shifted, softer now. “You didn’t kill your

sister.”

“I know. She’s alive.”

“Even if she had died, it wouldn’t have been because you killed her. You didn’t do that.”

They were the words Alex had needed to hear her whole life, but no one had ever said them—until then.

“Kozlov...” she started because it was either that or become some other person. A girl who cries and cares and loves. But

girls like that get hurt.

“I have to stop him, King. I’m in. I’m already in, and I can stop him. I can.”

But he was looking at her like he was trying to memorize her face and her voice. Like of all the things he’d never forget,

the only one he wanted to hang on to forever was her.

“I get it...”

“When I’m done... When he’s gone—”

“When he’s gone, there’ll just be another Kozlov.” He gave a long, sad sigh. “There’s always another Kozlov.”

But there was only one of him.

“King—”

Then he leaned close and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “The apartment is yours for as long as you need it, sweetheart.”

He looked into her eyes. “It’s yours.”

I’m yours.

He was already in the kitchen and halfway to the door before Alex started thinking clearly enough to follow.

“Wait!”

He reached for something on the counter. Alex recognized the green stone, but now it was set in a beautiful gold cuff, and King didn’t say a word. He just picked it up and clamped it around her wrist.

“Your emerald...” Her eyes were wet, and her throat burned.

“It’s yours now. If you ever need me... I don’t care where... I don’t care when... If you need me, press the stone,

and I’ll find you.” That time, when he kissed her, his lips lingered on her skin. “I’ll always find you.”

“Don’t.” She caught him before he could turn. Maybe it was instinct—or maybe it was fate—but the next thing she knew, she

was in his arms and her back was against the wall, legs wrapped around him as their arms tangled together and their lips met

and their tongues sparred. It was part kiss, part fight—part surrender. A code that spelled out this this this .

It was the scariest moment of either of their bullet-ridden lives, and Alex almost forgot how to breathe.

She forgot her name. Her covers. Her lies. She forgot all the things she’d been trained to remember.

She forgot.

And she wanted to stay right there—right then—forever. Because, in the next moment, she was on her feet again, and he was

turning and opening the door.

“Take care, Sterling.”

And then she was Sterling again.

And then he was gone.

***

Two months later, Alex was standing on a windy airstrip outside of London when she met a man with a crooked smile and sad

eyes. It was the look of a man with absolutely nothing to lose, and, immediately, she understood him, even when he looked

her up and down, studying everything from her new boots to her new hair. Even when his gaze lingered on her new bracelet.

“So you’re the one who’s going to make my life miserable?” he asked, but there wasn’t any heat behind the words.

“Says who?”

The man—Jake Sawyer from MI6—just gave her a long look—a whole conversation in his eyes when he said, “Michael Kingsley.”

She didn’t hear his name again for a long, long time.