Page 7 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

Ten Years Ago

Somewhere in Virginia

King

The first thing King noticed was the darkness. Then the smell. Then the feel of sweat sliding across his skin even though

it was the middle of winter.

It was hard to get his bearings because something was over his head. His hands were zip-tied behind his back, and his legs

were bound at the ankles, and even though the space was small, it felt like he might be adrift out in space, too far away

to see the stars. Or else he was lying in a grave somewhere, too stupid to know he was already dead.

But that wasn’t it either.

King... remembered. Everything. Always. It simply wasn’t in his DNA to forget, so that might have been the weirdest thing

about coming awake in the dark with no clue where he was or how he’d gotten there. But then he shifted slightly—a dull ache

shot through his arm, and he flashed back to the Agency doctors lining them up for a routine shot after dinner.

“B-twelve, my ass,” he said to the darkness. He didn’t actually think the darkness would talk back.

“So it turns out”—the voice was wry and more than a little condescending—“ spies lie .”

When he was five, King’s grandfather had bought him his first bicycle without training wheels.

They were living in Vienna at the time, and as it turned out, bikes and centuries-old cobblestones don’t mix, so King had fallen and scraped his elbow.

No matter how many times his mother washed the wound, he could always feel a little piece of grit under his skin.

They said it was in his head, but King knew better.

It was a part of him now, and he’d either have to cut it out or learn to live with it.

That was how it felt when he met Alex Sterling.

He’d known she was trouble from the moment she clocked him in the hotel bar. The place had been crowded, and he’d been alone

in the dimmest corner, damn near a part of the wall. She shouldn’t have seen him—but she did. And he’d hated her for it then.

He hated her more now for how pleased she looked when she pulled the bag off his head and smiled down. “Did you miss me?”

King didn’t even bother with an answer, because no. How could he miss her when she was always there? Everywhere. All the time.

For the last month, she’d been behind him on the ropes course and ahead of him in the cafeteria and beside him at the shooting

range, drilling bull’s-eyes and giggling in a way that made her part prodigy, part psychopath.

She was oxygen and he was too stubborn to breathe, so it was fitting, he supposed, that she would be the person he’d be locked

inside a small, enclosed space with, sucking up all the available air.

Time was ticking away and there was no chance they weren’t being monitored, so King twisted and turned and tried to get his

bearings.

There was hard metal above him, a scratchy fabric underneath. “I think we’re in the trunk of a car,” King said for no reason

other than to make his mind start working.

A light flickered on, faint and golden. After the bag and the darkness, it was like staring at the sun. “No.” She sounded

smug as she finished twisting two wires together. “We’re in the trunk of a 2012 BMW 5 Series.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No. It’s not.”

No, it wasn’t. Though he wasn’t going to say so, not with her lying smushed against him.

The two of them were far too close, and the trunk was far too tight, and her hair looked far too golden in the light, and.

.. Wait. How was the light on? Not that it mattered.

King had to get to work. He tried to turn so that he could reach the emergency latch with his bound

hands, but when he tugged, it didn’t do anything because the Central Intelligence Agency wasn’t about to make things easy.

“Yeah. They disabled the emergency release, but that’s not a problem.” She was tearing at the upholstery.

“Why aren’t your hands behind your back?” He felt cheated.

“They were.” Sterling didn’t look at him; she was too busy feeling along the walls of the trunk. “I shimmied my legs through.”

“You shimmied?” He sounded like a snob, but what he really was was jealous. Why couldn’t he shimmy?

“The model matters, you see,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Because everyone knows the 5 Series had a design flaw that...”

She slipped her still-bound hands into the hole she’d made and, as if by magic, the trunk popped open.

“How did you...”

“I’m a mechanical prodigy.”

“No.” He wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. “Really. How—”

“Who do you think told them about the design flaw?” She turned and swung her bound legs out of the trunk and... yeah...

shimmied out. “That’s how I ended up working on a Formula One pit crew.”

He studied her voice—her eyes. “Those drugs must have really knocked me for a loop because I honestly can’t tell if you’re

lying.”

“Of course I’m lying!” She laughed like he was the punchline of her favorite joke. “I wasn’t on a Formula One pit crew.” Of course not. “I was in the engineering department.”

He stopped and studied her in the moonlight. Hair blowing around her. Dark clothes blending with the night. He could just

make out a smudge of dirt or maybe grease on her cheek. He didn’t know why, but it looked right on her. Like it belonged—like

she belonged.

They had nothing in common. She was brash and bold, the center of attention and the life of the party. There wasn’t a covert bone in Alex Sterling’s body, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was King’s world—his birthright—but she was the one who was alive there.

The clock in his mind ticked louder. Her hands were still zip-tied, and he told her, “Here. Hold your hands like—”

But before he’d even finished, she put the end of the zip tie in her teeth and pulled it tighter; then she raised her hands

over her head and brought them down quickly, snapping the tie in two. “Like that, O Special One?”

“Yes,” King had to concede. “Like that.” He mimicked the gesture while she found a small stick and used it to pry open the

ties around her legs, and he realized that, of all the infuriating things about Alexandra Sterling—from her too-big eyes to

her too-blonde hair—she was her most annoying when she was good. And, as badly as King hated to admit it, it happened a lot.

“So this is a test, right?” It was cold, and her breath was an icy cloud that surrounded them like a fog. King blew out a

tired sigh, and in the stillness, even that low sound seemed to echo.

“Yes, Sterling. Everything is a test. We have to get out of here and then run the gauntlet of whatever they have waiting for

us”—he motioned to the dark terrain that surrounded them—“out there.” They were on the edge of the woods. Maybe they were

still at Camp Peary? Maybe they weren’t? There was only one way to find out.

“Cool.” She grinned. “Come on, if we’re being timed, I want to win.”

“And if we’re not?” It was a ridiculous question. Of course they were being timed. And videoed. And graded in a hundred different

ways, and yet he had to hear her say—

“I always want to win.”

Because King was wrong about one thing. He and Alex Sterling had something in common after all.