Epilogue Two
Sasha - Ten years later
Denver International Airport
“Miss Aston?” The man is tall, wearing a dark suit, and has the look that screams government.
And suddenly, ten years of manners and settling are washed away. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m Special Agent Jax, Miss Aston. And I have a few questions for you. Please come with me.”
“Am I under arrest for something?” Fuck. He leads me through a set of double doors, and then another door, and then another door, until I’m three layers deep inside the fucking Denver International Airport. We finally come to a small office, where he waves me in and says, “Please, take a seat.”
I take my seat. Just be cooperative, Sasha, Ford tells me in my head. We’ve covered my tracks well since he adopted me ten years ago. But we’ve always planned for the day when people discover my history is a lie.
“Am I under arrest?” I ask again.
“No, ma’am,” he says. “I just need to ask you some questions, if that’s OK.”
“What if it’s not OK? What if I want to call my dad?”
He sits down at the table opposite me and opens up a folder. “You are Sasha Aston, correct?”
“You know I am. I just got off that plane. So I was checked in.”
“You came from…”
“Peru.” I fill in the blank for him.
“What was your business in Peru, might I ask?”
“I was at an archeological dig. They found bones.”
“Bones?”
“Dinosaur bones. I’m a paleontologist. Well, a grad student. It was a summer internship. Why?”
He looks at me for a moment. “Impressive. And your father is Rutherford Aston IV?”
“Yes.” I swallow hard. Jesus Christ, we are totally busted for something. “I need to know what’s going on. You’re scaring me. Did something happen to my dad?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ma’am. I’m twenty-four and you look like you’re about thirty.”
He eyes me down the bridge of his nose. “Thirty? I don’t look thirty. I’m twenty-seven.”
“What?” I have to shake my head at that. “What do you want, Special Agent Jax? If I’m not under arrest, then I’m leaving.”
He flips the page in the folder just as I stand up, and produces a photograph that steals all my breath away.
“Do you know this man, Miss Aston? Can you identify him for us?”
I shake my head as I study Nick’s face. His perfect face. The blond hair, the brown eyes. The steely gaze. I can picture him smiling at me in that hotel room in Rock Springs. Live your life, he told me. “Never seen him before,” I say, lying right to Special Agent Jax’s face. “Why?”
“Take another look, Miss Aston. How about this one?”
This time, Nick is shirtless. His whole body is covered in tattoos. His chest, his arms, his neck. And when I look closely, even his hands have tattoos on them.
I shake my head again. “No, sir. Sorry.”
“Hmmm,” Jax says. “Well, that’s interesting, Miss Aston. Or should I call you Miss Cherlin?”
I stare him in the eyes and do not flinch. I don’t deny or confirm. From this point on, I do not talk. I say nothing until I’m given a phone and then I call my dad and tell him I need Ronin. Ronin, the liar. Ronin, the one who talks for all the Team members if we get in trouble. Ronin. That’s the only name on my mind right now.
“They call him Santino down in Central America. But here in the US, they call him Holy Boy. He’s white with blonde hair—but somehow, he’s the second highest-ranking member of the Mara Perro, Gang of the Dogs.”
“Very interesting. But what’s this have to do with me?” Shit, I just broke the no-talking rule.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Miss Cherlin. If that’s who you are, it makes a lot more sense.”
“How so?”
“I think you know how so.” He grins at me and flashes a dimple. His eyes are a dark blue color and his hair is light. Not quite blond, but not quite brown, either. He’s handsome. That’s probably why they sent him to me. Thinking I’m easily distracted by a pretty face.
“I don’t have time for this. I don’t know that man—”
“He knows you, Miss Aston. He knows you very well. Because he’s sent more than two dozen people here to find you while you’ve been digging down in Peru this summer.”
“What?”
“Did you two have some unfinished business? Before you took on this new identity?” I can’t breathe. “Or some prearranged agreement to meet up in the future?”
I shake my head no. “We didn’t.”
“But you do know him?”
I just gave myself away. I lean on the desk and bow my head to try to think clearly. Agent Jax places his hand on mine.
“Miss Aston, I’m not here to arrest you or pry into your past. I understand your fear right now, I do. Better than most. But if you know him, and if he’s looking for you, you should understand… he’s probably planning on kidnapping you.”
“What?”
“We’ve intercepted several of these men he’s sent to look for you. Three of them confessed to this plot. Now I don’t expect you to tell me much. Just yes or no. Is this man, the one they call Santino, Nicholas Tate?”
I nod. “That’s him. I’d recognize him anywhere. But I haven’t seen him in ten years. I don’t know anything about this stuff. I was in Peru, not Central America—”
“You‘re not under suspicion, Miss Aston.”
“Then why did you ask me here?”
“We don’t want to arrest you, Sasha. We want to recruit you.”