Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ALENA
“So, he can just get away with it, and there’s nothing you can do?”
I stare, mouth agape. Shocked and sociopathically murderous at the news.
“I’m afraid so,” the federal agent answers. “He’s a high-ranking Russian diplomat, and his home country is not waiving his immunity.”
My heart’s racing. Pits sweating. I want to smash the phone in my hand, reeling from more world-rocking news.
For over a year, I’ve been calling about Sasha, desperate for an update. Now, I finally get one.
And I want to shoot something.
Sasha’s married to the sinister man who cornered me in the convenience store, seething about her rescue. Once he tracked her down, living in a safehouse, courtesy of the Feds, he took her into his custody again.
“But Sasha is not his wife!” I fume. “Not consentingly. I could tell.”
“Well, according to the paperwork filed with the US State Department, they were married in Moscow four years ago.”
I pace my cabin. Mutt follows, loyally on my heels. “But you know he’s up to evil shit. He’s trafficking her. And other victims. Men like him aren’t satisfied with one.”
“We have suspicions, yes,” she answers. “But nothing concrete. Nothing we can act on. Yet.”
“Come on,” I seethe. “Woman-to-woman, you know this is bullshit. How many CEOs and senators are on that list? How many powerful men are raping women and girls?”
Silence.
She can’t speak freely, but I can. “Where is he now?”
“Valetin Sheremetev has a residence in Washington, D.C., and a recreational estate in Chattanooga, Tennessee.”
“Chattanooga? What the hell? Why?”
“He consults with a Bureau of Counterterrorism there.”
I huff. “That’s a bureau of bullshit, Agent, and we know it. That puts Sheremetev on the border of one of the highest-ranked states for human trafficking in this country, and one of the most rural areas to get away with it. This park, where I found Sasha.”
Again, silence.
“Is that where he is? With Sasha? In Chattanooga?”
“Russian diplomats are supposed to report their travel outside a twenty-five-mile radius of their diplomatic post.”
She sounds like Wikipedia, but she’s telling me more.
“I see.”
I stare at Loch’s empty cabin. He went home to his brothers. Leaving me a note whenever he leaves a two-mile radius of me. Not that I ask. Not that I can stop him from telling me.
I can’t stop those crazy cousins on motorcycles from watching me like Sons of Anarchy found sainthood either. When Loch’s not here, guarding me, they are.
I don’t care.
I keep my gun loaded and my head on a swivel. More focused on the Bratva instead of the bears around here, lately.
“And Sheremetev is in the wind, isn’t he?” I ask the agent.
Silence.
“And that’s why I finally got an update. Cuz’ he may blow my way.”
Again, silence.
“Well, thank you for the update, Agent. It only took a year.”
I’m not disrespecting her with my sarcasm. I’m flipping my middle finger to every little dick in DC. For all their “big beautiful” laws, they sure don’t give a fuck about breaking them over the backs of women.
“Thank you, Ranger Allen,” she hedges. “And I should add that… Sasha Sheremetev has your bracelet.”
My heart skips. “What?”
“When I released her to the custody of her husband, she was wearing your bracelet.”
Covertly, the agent reveals what I was desperate to know. Sasha hasn’t forgotten me. She knows there’s at least one woman who’ll die to protect her.
“Thank you, Agent.”
“Hey, Jesse!”
I raise my hand as the bell chimes over the glass doors to the convenience store. It’s been a week since I spoke to the agent and updated my boss with the intel. He’ll tell the other rangers to be on the hunt for Sheremetev.
God knows, I am.
And I always need my fix at the end of a long day’s hunt.
“Hey… uh… Ranger! Alena Allen!” He shouts like Paul Revere to the empty store. “You’re early today! You’re early today!”
“Uh, yeah.” My eyes narrow, reading his nervous reaction. “I switched shifts with Morris so he could go to his daughter’s soccer game.”
Jesse dances like a bee is in his britches. “I hear you. Ranger ALLEN!”
Something’s off with him again. And when I round the end cap, loaded with cheese crackers and jerky snacks, I see the source of his anxiety.
It’s mine too.
“Hey,” Loch greets me, neon green Slurpee in hand.
“Hey.”
My heart clenches. The handsome sight of him in uniform mocks my deepest pain. How he can’t hide that massive, muscular, inked body or the love in his eyes.
“I… uh,” he stammers, explaining, “I usually come in around three. To… uh…”
I blink. “To avoid me?”
“Never.” His face falls. “To respect you, Alena. Always.”
When a man Loch’s size says it, you feel it.
He has respected me. I asked for time and space, and he’s given it. He gave me Mutt. He gave me the first shift. He’s given me everything but the one thing only I can’t find yet: my forgiveness.
I nod, reaching for a cup. “How was Charleston?”
“They miss you.” He means his family. He means himself.
“How’s Mutt?” he asks as if I don’t send Mutt to his door every morning for a walk with him. Like silent, shared custody.
“He misses you.” I mean me. I mean the girl who used to believe in Fate.
“He can come home anytime. I’ll wait forever for him.” He means me.
And he doesn’t mean to make me cry, but he does.
“Loch, I…”
I let him see them brimming in my eyes because I don’t know what to say. I’m still miles from shore with my emotions. Trying every day not to drown in them. It was so much, all at once. The lies and the truth. And he doesn’t know all of it either.
“Alena.” He steps so close to me, his words a whisper, his presence so powerful, I can’t breathe. “I’m giving you time. But it doesn’t mean for one goddamn second that I will ever give up on us.”
There’s a new tattoo on his neck.
A small green rose on the spot I’d always kiss.
It hitches my breath. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” His brows bend, worried.
Those dark, thick, sexy brows I wanted to pluck days before our wedding. I still have my dress. He still has my ring. It’s dangling from his neck, on a gold chain.
“Don’t give up on us,” I whisper. Letting the tear, spilling down my cheek say so much more.
Like, I love him. I’ll never stop loving him. This just hurts so much.
He swallows. His knuckles, clutching his cup. His lips part, closing the distance between us. To kiss?
But he halts, waiting for me.
For us.
Instead, he shares, “I’ve loved Slurpees since I was a little boy.
My mom had this friend who was like a daughter to her.
This badass young friend with long russet hair, big brown eyes, and freckles on her nose.
She had dirt under her fingernails when she gave me my first Slurpee.
Cherry cola. Classic like her. And I’ve loved them ever since because she was so goddamn beautiful. ”
My mom.
Loch remembers my mom.
I blink back tears.
“So, you see, Alena.” He leans forward, brushing his lips over my hair. “Fate won’t give up on us either.”
Then he leaves, giving me space, the bell over the door chiming goodbye.