Page 102 of The Blonde Identity

Sawyer had found her. He’d blown up a safe house and pulled a Go Bag from an electric box and pressed her up against a chilly window. He’d jumped off a bridge and held her beneath a tarp and tossed her a pen and given her the gift of her own name.

It was Sawyer. It had always been Sawyer.

It would alwaysbeSawyer.

He’d killed a man in a freezing river and kissed her in front of a fire and looked at her as if she was the most beautiful, wonderful, terrible, amazing thing he’d ever known.

He’d told her he loved her. He’d told her. And he’dshownher when he handed the drive over to the worst man in the world and all but pushed her down a mountain.

Because he loved her. Because he cherished her. Because he had chosen her in a hundred different, little ways and one big way that mattered.

So she looked at the man who had drugged her and lied to her and used her. She looked at the man who could only be there for one reason: he was working for Kozlov. And if that was the case...

“I knew there was a reason I shouldn’t trust the CIA.”

“Very good,” he said like the condescending asshole he was.

“I knew there was a reason I calledthemfor backup instead.”

“Very...” He hesitated. And, oh, how he worried. “Wait. Who?”

“Them.” Zoe pointed over his shoulder, and the man turned and looked at the clear, blue—and very empty—sky behind him.

Which was when Zoe pulled a piece of rebar from a pile on the ground. And swung. He cried out and crashed to the ground. He was just lying there—far too still—when Zoe turned to the iPad and shouted, “Sawyer, run!”

Then she went to the railing and jumped because it seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Him

“Sawyer, run!” Did he hear Zoe’s voice through the iPad or across the icy expanse? Sawyer didn’t know. Didn’t care. He just knew that Collins’s smarmy face had been on the screen; he was too busy thinking about the way Zoe had transformed with one look at the man on the train. But, most of all, he heard the question Zoe had asked over and over:Why didn’t Alex go to the CIA?

The moment he saw the sinister smirk on Kozlov’s face, he knew.

“You have a mole at Langley.” At that point it wasn’t a question.

He saw the gun in Kozlov’s hand, felt Oleg and Sergei on either side of him, easing closer and closer. Carefully, Oleg jerked Sawyer’s gun from his waistband.

“How long?” Sawyer asked because he had to keep the old man talking.

“Just before the bitch stole the drive,” Kozlov said, and Sawyer nodded because Alex had been right—of course Alex was right. Someonedidtell Kozlov she was CIA, and for almost two weeks she’d been out in the cold. Alone.

Then a scream pierced the air.

Sawyer turned and watched in terror as Zoe sprang over the railing of the observation platform on the other side. But Kozlov wasn’t looking at Zoe. He was watching Alex, who must have used the knife to cut herself free. She was almost at the midway point—getting ready to cross paths with the drive—when she leapt from one cable to the next. The wind gusts were so violent that she actually swayed, blown like a leaf, but she held on tightly as she pulled out the drive.

“Stop her!” Kozlov shouted and Sergei headed for the stairs that zigzagged down the side of the mountain and then out onto the glass-bottomed bridge.

And Sawyer... well, Sawyer just lunged for Oleg, grabbed his arm, and threw him at Kozlov like the world’s worst bowling ball. Hey, it wasn’t pretty. But it worked. They both crashed through the temporary railing and down the jagged rocks to land on a platform by the stairs, but all Sawyer could do was watch with his heart in his throat as Zoe started climbing down the icy cliff on the other side. Sawyer had to get to her. He had to save her. He had to—

And that’s when he remembered the pulley system and threw the thing into high gear. He grabbed hold of the cable and flew through the frigid air that sliced between the peaks. The swirling ice and snow stung his face, but he could still hear the shouting and the shooting as Oleg opened fire down below.

Up ahead, Alex dropped onto the glass bridge and started running in the opposite direction—toward Zoe and Italy. Toward safety and home. But Sergei wasn’t far behind her, gun out and closing fast. Sawyer saw it all from his place in the sky. In fact, he was probably the first to realize—

The bridge wasn’t finished—it just dead-ended in midair.

“Alex!” he yelled as she slammed to a stop, staring out over the cold, empty void. The drop was at least fifteen feet, but Sergei was barreling toward her. There was no place to go. She looked up at Sawyer and, for a heartbeat, she looked like Zoe—like at any moment she was going to roll her eyes and call him a jerkface.

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