Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sloane
My Georgetown apartment smells dusty.
I stopped by this morning to grab clothes and stood in the doorway for a full minute, staring at the space I’d lived in for three years.
It’s so much smaller than I remembered. A galley kitchen where two people can’t stand side by side.
A living room dominated by a couch I bought at a clearance sale.
A stack of mail on the counter that I don’t care about.
Cold air, stale smell, the particular loneliness of a place that hasn’t been occupied in weeks.
I grabbed what I needed and couldn’t wait to leave.
We’re staying at a hotel because this apartment can’t accommodate a seven-foot orc. Jonus takes up the entire king bed and his horns leave scratches on the headboard. The bathroom is comically small for him and he has to duck through every doorway.
But none of that matters because the article is everywhere.
Front page of the Times. Cable news on every channel.
Trending on every independent news platform and social media.
Larry Aldridge is arrested and awaiting trial.
His criminal network is being dismantled piece by piece as federal investigators follow the money trail I mapped out from a couch in Truckee, California.
And I’m being celebrated. There’s Pulitzer buzz, which I try not to think about too hard. Interview requests are flooding Jonus’s inbox. Other journalists I admire reach out to congratulate me. It’s surreal and wonderful and I keep waiting for someone to tell me it’s not real.
Jonus is beside me through all of it, handling media coordination like the professional he is.
But the dynamic has shifted and everyone in DC can see it.
He’s not just my media handler anymore, he’s my partner.
The other journalists keep glancing between me, the overweight, curvy redheaded reporter and the huge orc in a suit who stands beside her with his hand on her lower back.
Aldar came with us to DC. His stated reason is security coordination and tech support for the media appearances. Someone still needs to monitor threats, Aldridge is arrested but his associates aren’t all accounted for.
His real reason is that my best friend, Lucy, works at the Library of Congress, fifteen minutes from our hotel.
Anna and Keric were invited to fly in from Maine.
I insisted. Anna Kim is the real hero of this story and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
She’s the one who uncovered the corruption, survived three years on the run and nearly died protecting the evidence that brought Aldridge down.
I’m just the journalist who wrote it up. Anna lived it.
But Anna is uncomfortable with attention. She doesn’t want the spotlight. “This is your moment, Sloane. You almost died in a pit to get this story published.”
“And you spent three years running from the people who put me there. We’re partners in this.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going on camera. I’ve had enough of being a public figure for one lifetime.”
I respect this, but I make a mental note. I’m going to tell every journalist, editor and media person at that event tonight that Anna Kim is the real hero and I’m just the one who wrote it down.
The media event is tonight and is being held at a venue in downtown DC. It’s a reception celebrating the Aldridge takedown, hosted by the Times in partnership with the two other outlets that ran the story simultaneously.
I walk in with Jonus on one side and feel the room shift.
Every head turns. Some of them are looking at me, the journalist who survived a cartel kidnapping and filed the story of the decade.
But plenty of them are looking at the massive green orc in a tailored suit beside me, and I can see them trying to compute the visual.
Let them compute.
My editor immediately pulls me aside near the bar.
Melissa Duncan is glowing, working the room, already using the word Pulitzer in casual conversation as if she’s trying to manifest it into existence.
She’s got that look on her face — the one that means she’s already made a decision and is about to present it as a collaborative discussion.
“I know what you’re going to tell me,” she says.
“You do?”
“You want to stay in California. You’re going to pitch me on remote work.” She waves her hand. “I’m not stupid, Sloane. I can see what’s happening with you and that orc. I saw it the moment you two walked in together.”
I open my mouth but she keeps going.
“So here’s what I’m proposing. Remote correspondent. West Coast bureau of one. You file from Truckee, you fly in for the big stories, and we do a weekly video call. I’ll fight the board on it if I have to.”
I stare at her. “You’re offering this before I even asked?”
“You just delivered a Pulitzer-worthy exposé from a couch in a mountain town while recovering from a kidnapping. You proved you can work from anywhere. I’m not losing my best investigative journalist because she fell in love with a huge green orc.
” She takes a sip of her drink. “Besides, having a correspondent embedded with an orc family in rural California? The stories you’re going to find out there.
I’d be an idiot to bring you back to the bureau. ”
I hug her, right there at the bar, in front of everyone. “Thank you, Melissa.”
“Don’t thank me. Just keep filing stories that make my career look good.”
I find Jonus across the room and catch his eye. He raises an eyebrow. I mouth “I’ll tell you later” and I can see him filing this away, curious but patient.
The event fills up.
I keep scanning the crowd for Lucy. She confirmed this morning she’d be here. She was excited, she wanted to meet Jonus and Aldar in person. “I need to see if Aldar is as intense in real life as he is over text,” she’d joked.
It’s been forty-five minutes past when she said she’d arrive. This isn’t like Lucy. She is the most reliable person I know.
I find Aldar in the corner of the event, tablet in hand, his expression tight and hard.
“Have you heard from Lucy?”
“No.” His jaw clenches. “She told me she was leaving her apartment at six. It’s almost eight. She’s not answering.”
The way he says “she told me” — like they had a specific conversation about her evening plans. Because they did. He’s been tracking her movements for weeks and calling it security coordination.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I say, but I don’t feel sure.
Aldridge is arrested but his network isn’t fully dismantled.
There are associates who haven’t been caught.
And Lucy is connected to the investigation because she helped me with the research.
She pulled Library of Congress records, dug up financial documents, chased down corporate filings.
Hell, her name could be in files that were seized from my Georgetown apartment by the FBI for the case.
The prickle of concern sharpens into something colder.
I push it aside because Ryan Krychek just walked into the room.
I spot him across the venue. Nice suit, polished, working the crowd like he belongs at an event celebrating my achievement. That confident, easy charm I used to find so attractive. The smile that made me overlook how he never wanted to visit me in DC.
The sight of him doesn’t make my stomach drop. I feel nothing. Maybe mild irritation that he’s here at all.
He spots me and makes his way over. That calculated smile.
“Sloane. Congratulations. The article is incredible — really, truly incredible work. I always knew you had this in you.”
“Thank you, Ryan.”
“You look amazing. Better than ever.” His eyes sweep over me in a way that used to make me feel seen and now makes me feel assessed. “I’ve been thinking about us. About what happened. I made a mistake.”
I stare at him and wonder why he’s even in DC.
I did most of the traveling in our relationship, flying across the country to LA with my own money, because it was never worth the effort for him to come to me.
And yet here he is at my event because I’m on the front page of every newspaper in America and suddenly I’m worth the plane ticket.
The realization doesn’t make me angry. It makes me perfectly, crystalline clear.
“Ryan, when you declined involvement with the State Department after I was kidnapped, that was you telling me we weren’t together. That was the end.”
His composure cracks. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. The whole situation was so overwhelming and—”
“And now you’re here. You flew to DC, which you always told me was too far and too expensive. But now I’m front page news and suddenly I’m worth the trip?”
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
“I’m with someone,” I say simply.
A massive green hand settles on my lower back. The crowd parts slightly because an orc in a well-tailored suit has materialized beside me. I didn’t even hear him approach. I never do.
“Who is this?” Jonus asks with a deep rumble. His voice is perfectly pleasant. His smile doesn’t reach his dark eyes. His tusks catch the light from the overhead chandelier.
Ryan’s face goes white. He’s looking up — way, way up — at an orc who is looking down at him with an expression that suggests he could snap Ryan in half and is politely choosing not to.
“Ryan, this is my new boyfriend, Jonus Irontree. Jonus, this is Ryan Krychek. My ex-fiancé.”
“The one who told the State Department he was declining involvement and left you to die in a pit in Colombia?” Jonus questions. Still pleasant. Still smiling.
“Yep, the same one.”
Ryan manages some kind of mumbled congratulations and retreats so fast he nearly backs into a waiter carrying a tray of champagne.
I watch him go. Wait until he’s out of earshot.
“Was that mean of us?”
“No, that was accurate.”
I look up at Jonus. This orc who flew to Colombia in forty-eight hours after the call from the State Department. Who carried me through a jungle barefoot and told me he loved me in front of his whole family because he couldn’t wait one more second.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For being the opposite of him in every possible way.”
Jonus bends down and presses his lips to my forehead, right there in the middle of the event, in front of every journalist and editor in Washington DC. I don’t care. Let them watch.
Eventually, the event winds down and Lucy never showed.
I’ve called four times and it’s gone straight to voicemail every time. My texts sit unread. Now I’m worried.
Aldar is openly agitated now — pacing near the exit, tablet in hand. The composed tech genius who coordinated a firefight from his hallway monitors is visibly rattled and it’s unsettling to watch because Aldar doesn’t rattle. He leaves without saying goodbye to anyone.
“He’s in love with her,” I say to Jonus as we watch him go.
“He has no idea,” Jonus agrees.
Later, back at the hotel, I sit on the bed still in my event clothes and try not to worry about my friend. There are a million reasons why she might not be answering. Her phone might be broken. Maybe she got a flat tire. Maybe…Well, whatever it is I know that Aldar is on it.
I blow out a breath and change out of my clothes and into pajamas.
Over the remains of room service, Jonus mentions casually that the bed was delivered to our new house yesterday. Dane supervised.
“A bed. That’s the first piece of furniture you put in that house?”
“It’s the most important piece of furniture.”
I shake my head but I’m smiling. “You have a one-track mind.”
“I have excellent priorities.”
We chat about Garlen and Ellie’s house. The remodel is underway and the entire first floor was gutted by the attack.
Insurance is covering it but it’ll take weeks.
New windows, new walls, the kitchen completely rebuilt.
Garlen and Ellie are in good spirits, though.
Ellie told me on the phone that she’s using the remodel as an excuse to upgrade the kitchen appliances and Garlen doesn’t get a vote.
In the meantime, the whole family is eating meals at Dane and Laurie’s. The household has shifted next door and Laurie is in her element with a full house. She’s been cooking for an army and loving every minute of it.
“They won’t even notice we’re gone,” Jonus says. “When we fly home from DC, we go straight to our own place. Our own bed.”
I press my hand briefly to my stomach without quite knowing why. Something feels different lately but I can’t name it.
Jonus sits beside me. Takes my phone gently and sets it on the nightstand. Takes my hands in his. “She’ll be okay. Aldar won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Aldar doesn’t even know he’s in love with her yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. An Irontree doesn’t need to understand what he’s feeling to act on it. He’ll protect her whether he has a name for it or not.”
I nod in agreement. Jonus didn’t have a name for his feelings for months. He flew to Colombia before he’d said “I love you.” He bought a house before he told me he wanted a future. Irontrees act first and understand later.
He reaches into his jacket pocket. “I have something for you.”
I stare at the small black box.
“It’s Irontree gold, from the family mines in Maine. My grandmother’s ring, resized.” He opens it and a warm gold band with a simple stone catches the hotel room light. “Orcs don’t traditionally exchange rings. But I know humans do and I want you to have something that tells the world you’re mine.”
My lips twitch. “Are you proposing to me in a hotel room?”
“Technically, I proposed when I flew to Colombia and when I carried you through a jungle. I proposed when I told you about the house.” His dark eyes hold mine. “This is just the part with the ring…Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
He slides the ring onto my finger. Kisses my hand. Presses his forehead to mine. “There’s something else. I’ve been able to scent a change in you for the last two days.”
“A change?”
“You’re pregnant, Sloane. You’re carrying our son.”
My hand goes to my stomach. The thing I’ve been feeling — the difference I couldn’t name. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve been certain since yesterday morning.”
“And you waited until now to tell me?”
“After the ring seemed right.”
I laugh through my tears. “A ring and a baby in the same five minutes. You really don’t do anything halfway.”
“I’m an Irontree. We’re thorough.”
I look down at the ring on my finger. Warm gold catching the light. Then I press my palm flat against my stomach.
Life is certainly looking up, filling with career fulfillment, love and family.
Now all I need is to know that my friend is safe and sound.