“She doesn’thateyou. She just wants to smash your balls.” It’s a stark contrast to the Wednesday Addams vibe Vale always brings with her command. “So, you’ll come to Axel and Ruby’s wedding, grovel on the beaches of Mykonos until your kneecaps bleed, and get Alena back.”
Nash laughs. “The queens have spoken.”
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 isnothis 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 likeSons of Anarchyfound sainthood either. When Loch’s not here, guarding me, they are.
I don’t care.
