“He was a fucking POW and so was I,” Sean snapped. “Just give him some space.”
Sean’s words didn’t seem to give the officers pause. If anything, it riled them up.
“Don’t tell us how to do our job. You want to argue about this, you can join your friend in the back of a squad car.”
Under any other circumstances, Alexei would’ve fought his way free. Except this wasn’t a mission behind enemy lines, wasn’t a fight on domestic soil. These were fellow citizens he couldn’t lash out at, and making a bigger scene wouldn’t aid him or Sean in any way. Grimacing, Alexei steeled himself for the cold touch of the mag-cuffs when Officer Reed grabbed each of his hands and pulled them behind his back.
“Quiet, Senya,” Alexei grunted as the mag-cuffs locked around his wrists.
“Shut up, Lyosha,” Sean retorted as he was handcuffed as well.
The cold rings of metal made Alexei’s heart rate ramp up, and he flexed his fingers. Getting out of them wasn’t impossible, but he knew he had to play along at least for now, even if he didn’t like it.
And he really fucking didn’t like it.
The officers put Alexei and Sean into the back seat of separate squad cars. Alexei didn’t fight Officer Arguello as he was guided down onto the hard plastic bench. Alexei still watched him with a sharp-eyed intensity that made the other man glare at him.
“Problem?” Officer Arguello asked gruffly as he buckled Alexei up.
“>” Alexei said in Russian.
The door slammed shut and Alexei faced forward, slouching down on the hard plastic bench. Squad cars were monitored, so he didn’t respond to Jamie’s voice coming through his encrypted comms.
“We’re on our way,” his captain said.
I didn’t even get any pancakes,Alexei thought to himself.
They should’ve just stayed in bed.
4
A Cycle of Blowback
Sean’s plans topropose to Alexei had been ruined and he waspissed.
He’d managed to get Alexei out of the apartment with the promise of pancakes even if he knew Alexei wasn’t a huge fan of museums. Sean liked museums, but the real reason he’d wanted to go to the National Mall was for the Constitution Gardens there and the biodome-covered area protecting Washington, D.C.’s famous cherry blossom trees.
The trees were blooming this week, and Sean’s father, a United States District Court judge, had managed to secure him two reserved tickets with an open-ended timeframe after reaching out to some friends in the judiciary. You could buy lunch from the small café inside the biodome and have a picnic beneath the blossoming trees in an environmentally controlled atmosphere. It was easy and romantic, something he thought Alexei would enjoy.
Sean was a little nervous about the proposal, but not for the reasons other people might think. Yes, they’d really only known each other for a year and three months, and technically been dating for less than a year, but Sean knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Alexei. What’s more, he was pretty damn certain the feeling was mutual. In their line of work, especially after what they’d gone through in Boston, waiting for the right moment to ask was a risk.
So Sean had gone ring shopping on a day Alexei had hung out with Kyle, quietly agonizing over his options until he finally broke down and called Valentina and Tatyana. Alexei’s younger sisters had practically broken his eardrums with their excited shrieking before regaining their focus and helping him out. Sean had sworn them to secrecy, though he wasn’t sure how much longer they’d be able to keep the secret. Russians liked to gossip, which was one of the reasons he wanted to propose sooner rather than later.
But the fucking police had ruined it for him.
He didn’t appreciate getting interrupted by a process server, arrested on a trumped-up charge, and losing everything in his pockets—including the engagement ring—to an evidence box. He was lucky that Alexei had been processed in a separate room and never saw the gold and diamond ring. The officer logging his personal items had merely raised an eyebrow at the flat velvet box and its precious cargo before entering the description into the computer.
If they pretend to lose it, they’ll have to charge me again with murder,he thought to himself.
Normally, Sean wasn’t easily riled, but he’d had this moment planned for a while. A lazy morning in bed and their favorite place to get breakfast that wasn’t fancy, offered large portions, and satisfied Alexei’s sweet tooth. Then a walk through the park and a proposal under the cherry blossom trees. Sean had dreamed about kissing Alexei after popping the question.
Seemed his dreams would have to wait again.
Sean looked up from where his hands were cuffed to the table when the door to the interrogation room slid open. Oh, the Metropolitan police didn’t call it that—the official sign outside called it Interview Room 1—but Sean knew otherwise. From the first moment when his and Alexei’s RealIdent chips had blocked all police access from identifying them, the police had been nothing but pissed off. The charming pair of officers who had escorted them to the station had almost immediately been replaced by a stern-faced detective who’d taken one look at the red flag in the system and outright sighed.
“You two are going to be a headache, I just know it,” the detective had said.
True enough, they were.
