The Blonde Identity (71)

“You’re a liar.” She tried to push him off, but his big stupid body was too big and stupid and full of muscles.

“Of course I am. But you have to listen to me. I—”

Alex screamed and fell to the ground. Zoe saw her grip her shoulder and try to shift the gun to her other hand—she tried to keep shooting, but the gun didn’t fire anymore. She was out of ammo. And they were out of time.

“Zoe!” Sawyer shouted, and she stopped fighting. She just looked up into those blue eyes that were now the color of ice. “No matter what happens . . . No matter what, just know . . .”

He traced her cold cheek, staring at her like he was memorizing the curves of her face. It was the same way he’d looked at her in the light of the fire—like he couldn’t believe she was real. Like he couldn’t believe she was there. Like he couldn’t believe she was his. Because she had been his—she had. And, worse, she’d been happy.

And, suddenly, Zoe didn’t know who to trust—the sister she didn’t really remember or the man she didn’t really know.

But she did know Sawyer. Didn’t she? She knew his quirks and his sighs and the ghosts that haunted him and the things that soothed him . . . She knew him. And in that moment she was Team Sawyer; Team There Has to Be a Reasonable Explanation; Team Alex Doesn’t Know What She’s Talking About Because This Guy Is Clearly Amazing. Zoe was Team Happy Ending and would take that foolish, reckless hope to her grave.

She was just getting ready to say so when the shooting stopped.

And Sawyer said, “I’m sorry.”

Those two words . . . she felt them like a blade. They slipped between her ribs and pierced her heart, and she knew she was going to bleed out because she’d been wrong. About him. About them. About everything. And all she could do was lie on the cold ground, listening to the crunch of tires on icy gravel as a new set of headlights sliced through the night—the subtle click of someone opening the back door of a car that was long and black and looked like what you’d drive if you had all your clothes made out of puppies.

When an old man crawled out, Zoe knew immediately who—or what—he was.

Kozlov.

He had probably been massive once, but age had made him smaller and weaker, and now he carried himself like a wild animal who refused to live in a world where he wasn’t the top of the food chain. What time took away in muscle, this man made up for in evil—Zoe could see it in the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes as he snapped, “And?”

She should have been afraid of him. She should have been terrified. But the scariest thing on that mountain was the look on Sawyer’s face as he climbed to his feet. She watched as he grew taller and stronger and darker.

Posture changing. Features shifting. It was like every muscle in his body suddenly morphed into something that was genetically the same but totally different.

She watched Sawyer become his own evil twin, and all Zoe could do was lie on the icy ground, wondering if she was watching him pull on a facade or take one off? All she really knew was that her Sawyer was gone.

He pulled the drive from his pocket and handed it to Kozlov, smirked down at Zoe on the ground. “I told you I could get her to trust me.”

She was wrong, Zoe realized. She was wrong. Her Sawyer had never existed at all.

She was aware, faintly, of Kozlov looking down at her like she was a curiosity—a sideshow. A freak. She felt naked and vulnerable and exposed, but also numb and empty and brittle as a sick smile spread across the old man’s face.

“Bring the traitor,” he said flatly. “Kill the blonde.”

A dozen men lunged for Alex, who was shouting and screaming and fighting. She was fighting so hard that no one seemed to notice the way Sawyer was looking at Zoe, stepping toward Zoe, grabbing Zoe by the arms and pulling her to her feet.

She tried to jerk away but Sawyer was a wall of muscle, pressing forward until she felt the snow-covered ledge against the back of her legs.

“Careful,” he warned. “Do you want to fall down another mountain?”

Somewhere, Alex screamed. “Run, Zoe!” But Zoe was frozen, staring at Sawyer, who had lied. Sawyer, who had schemed. Sawyer, who had broken her in ways that might never, ever mend.

“I was wrong,” she told him. “You’re exactly like your father.”

Then Zoe turned around. And jumped.

Screams followed in her wake, Russian curses and arching searchlights, but Zoe didn’t care about that. She just tried to protect her head as she fell.





Chapter Fifty-Five





Him


Sawyer looked into the darkness at the place where Zoe used to be. In his heart he was still reaching for her, grabbing for her, pulling her close and keeping her safe. But in his head, he was hoping she fell hard and fast and was already halfway down the mountain.

It was maybe the truest thing he’d ever told her—that everyone was safer far away from him.

The wind had picked up and snow swirled through the yellow beams of the Bentley’s headlights. The whole fucking world was swirling, and he thought he was going to be sick. Because Zoe was gone, dissolved in the darkness like she’d never been there at all.

“Your woman has heart,” Kozlov muttered, almost like he approved.

And Sawyer had to remember. “She’s not my woman.”