And, so help her, it sounded like a question. Because he didn’t look like a good guy, not with every part of him on high alert. Muscles tensing, jaw clenching. She shouldn’t have even been able to see it in the moonlight, but Zoe knew him so well by that point. She knew him in the dark. But it was different this time, and it gave her a new kind of tingle, way down in her gut, and one word echoed in her mind: dangerous. Sawyer was dangerous.
“I told you, sweetheart, I’m not all good.” That little boy grin was back on his hot guy face, but his voice was lower and darker, and Zoe thought she was going to be sick.
“Zoe!” Alex was shouting and Zoe was shifting—away from Sawyer and the line of fire and the lies. Mostly, she wanted away from the lies. But her sister just sounded annoyed. “Get out of the way so I can kill him!”
“Come on, Alex,” he called. “Why don’t you put the gun down—”
“No. I need this gun because I’m going to kill you with it.” She sounded like she really wished everyone would pay attention.
“Alex,” Sawyer said with exaggerated patience, “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but . . .”
“What’s going on with me?” Alex actually laughed. “He’s a traitor, Zoe. Kozlov turned him. He works for Kozlov. He—”
“Alex! Will you . . .” But Sawyer trailed off as, suddenly, everything changed. The grin slid off his face and his gaze shifted to the highway that snaked through the mountains, a black ribbon rising and falling with the Alps. “Shit!” He swung back to Alex. “Listen, we’ve got about two minutes before all hell breaks loose, and you both need to—”
And then all hell broke loose.
The dark night was suddenly too bright—full of headlights and dome lights springing to life as people charged out of cars. There was shooting and screaming and a lot of （probably Russian） cursing as Alex dove behind the motorcycle and opened fire. Something slammed into Zoe, trapping her between the icy ground and the rock wall and—
Sawyer. His face blocked out the moon, and his weight pressed against her, keeping her down or keeping her safe and, right then, she wasn’t sure of the difference.
“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?”