Spy Girl (Spy Girl #1)

“Uh . . .”


“What I’m saying is that you’re pretty, you look good in a bikini, and know how to dance—so you’re being called out.”

“I’m in trouble for that?”

“No. You are being called to duty for those reasons.”

I sit up straighter. Wait?! He has an assignment for me? “But what about graduation?” I ask. Graduation consists of a senior skip day where we track real criminals, and I’ve been really looking forward to it.

“This is more important.” He hands me a black envelope. The back has a monogrammed seal with a red letter X on it.

“Is this from where I think it’s from?”

“Yes, they’ve been watching your progress.”

Oh. My. Gosh. My first assignment. I wonder what I’m going to be tasked to do. Sneak in the Kremlin, assassinate a terrorist, find a nuclear device, save the world?

He nods expectantly at me. I stop wondering about my mission and look at the envelope again.

I know the drill. Open my orders, commit them to memory, destroy them.





X X X





Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Protect the heir to the throne of Montrovia, uncover the person or persons behind the plot to assassinate him in order to take control of this geographically important sovereign nation, and eliminate the threat.





Get close to the hottest Prince on the planet and work for Black X, the double-black covert group so secret even the President of the United States is on a need-to-know basis?

I accept.

I think about what he said about me looking good in a bikini. Do they want me to hookup with this Prince in order to protect him? Are you kidding me? I’m valedictorian. I have the school’s highest scores in everything from parkour to the number of ways I can kill a man.

I frown as I’m burning my orders in the fireplace. “Sir, may I speak freely about my assignment?”

“I’m afraid I’m not privy to your orders. My job was to help choose the student best fitted for the task based on the parameters given to me.”

“And one of those parameters was that I look good in a bathing suit?”

He chuckles. “In this situation, my dear, they need an operative who is not only the best and brightest but one who can also demand male attention. Your handler is waiting for you outside. You leave immediately.”

“But I need to go pack. Tell people goodbye.”

“I’m afraid there’s no time.” He stands up and, in an uncustomary show of emotion, hugs me briefly. “Godspeed, X.”





X X X





After she leaves his office, he opens a drawer, takes out a bottle of bourbon, and sets it on his desk.

He’s never questioned his orders but, in this case, he can’t help it. He’s been dreading this day for the last eight years when he was called out of retirement to become the Dean of Blackwood Academy.

His hands shake as he pours the amber-colored liquid into a glass.

Blackwood Academy sounded good on paper. They sold it to him well. He’d get to train young spies. Continue to serve his country.

The Russians have had programs like this for years, taking orphans, delinquents, or high IQ students and training them. Stripping them of their names and families. Teaching them to be killing machines. To have no conscience. To only do what they are told is best for their country.

Blackwood would be different. They’d be training a new elite spy. Young men and women ages eighteen to twenty-two. A spy college, so to speak. Spies who could move in social circles of the rich and powerful. Who could hack a computer with their eyes closed. Who understood technologies he’s too old to learn. He made sure that they were trained in the old school ways though, too. That they could function equally as well without GPS, fancy gadgets, and the Internet.

What he never expected was for them to send her.

At only fourteen.

Her beautiful mother had been shot, execution style, in front of her by the most deadly assassin in the world, a man known only as The Priest. And somehow, she managed to shoot and wound the assassin, fight him off, and then escape. A feat not even the most seasoned agent had ever accomplished.

Two days later, she defied death again, when a bomb blew up her father’s car.

She wasn’t allowed to attend their funerals. Spies don’t have funerals. They get a star on a wall in an office deep underground and a few moments of silence.

This he knows. He’s attended too many of those moments over the years.

He brings the glass to his lips and takes a small sip, enjoying the way the liquid burns, reminding him he’s still alive.

Even though most of the world believes him to be dead.

During her time at Blackwood, he’s grown to care deeply for X and feels more proud of her than he knew possible. He was hard on her, but she has amazed him with her abilities at every turn.

He wanted to tell her the truth today. The truth about her. The truth about him. The truth about her parents.