Virginia Safehouse

Gabriela, just before meeting with Ranger and Tank.

Looking back on the interview with Connie, Gabriela still saw questions that needed answers.

"What good does that do? How could that help all these years later?" Connie had asked.

"Look at the pictures Connie. Not at your friend but at the body. What do you see?"

"I see Arabic writing, I see her abdomen open…I see…" Connie was shaking as she once again looked at the woman who had been their friend.

The Arabic word for whore... carved into her... impossible to say from the photos if it was before or after.

"This, here, what do you see?" Gabriela had pointed to the open pelvis.

"Her insides, I don't understand." Connie looked as if she might vomit any moment.

"Her uterus is enlarged. Ana was pregnant, Ana likely had a child, within days of these photos being taken."

"She was married, she said her husband wanted a son." Connie was now looking wistfully out the window, tears filling her eyes. "Ana loved children."

"Felix Montenegro didn't want children. He never wanted children. He had a vasectomy long before he married Ana."

Connie never knew there was a child. Which meant Ranger didn't know there was a child. Which was going to make speaking to Ranger even harder. Because the Russians were looking for the child they thought he had stolen. And he clearly didn't have the answers they needed.

Virginia Safe House

Stephanie

Ranger was sitting on the loveseat with his cane beside him, staring at the fire. If it wasn't Ranger, I would say it looked as if he had been crying. But Ranger didn't cry. Ever.

When he looked up at me, I saw the tears. Oh Fuck! This was not good.

"Babe, I need to talk to you about something." He was somber, sad.

"If this is the start to your new proposal, it's not off to an engaging start." I said, trying to lighten the mood as I sat down beside him.

He took my hands in his. "Stephanie, I need to tell you about my past … and share some information Gabriela has discovered. If, after you hear it, you still want to marry me, I will marry you tomorrow."

I felt a cold wave rush over me. Ranger using my given name meant this was something serious. Tank told me to come here, and I really thought that it meant Ranger was finally ready to cave on marrying me. I thought I had worn him down. But this was something else. And whatever it was, it was one of the dark places Ranger didn't talk about.

"There is nothing in your past that will change how much I love you." I squeezed his hands. "I love you."

And Ranger told me EVERYTHING. About meeting Ana and Connie in College. I couldn't believe I never knew how close Connie was to Ranger.

He spoke his love affair with Ana. The beach house. How much she taught him about the skills involved in making love. How he had fallen completely and totally in love with her.

Then he told me about Jimmy Rosolli's warning about who Ana really was and who she was married to. How heartbroken he was and Connie's advice to disappear. He confessed how much he had struggled to walk away even after her betrayal.

And how the Rosollis had protected him- by changed the records at the College to make it seem like Ana's group had 3 females and a male. About how poor Eric was killed in his place.

"This isn't on you Ranger. Ana never told you she was married. And you couldn't have predicted the fall-out… So, do you think Ana is behind all that is going on now? I mean, it was so long ago."

A tear slid down his check as his body shook. He whispered the truth. "Ana is dead. She was killed because of me. Her husband Felix killed her. Because of me."

Was this the reason he was so afraid to make me a permanent part of his life. Why he was always just a little reserved, always holding something back.

I wrapped my arms around him and held him until he was calm enough to continue in quiet words as I held him. The letter and pictures that were sent to Connie, the death of Eric Tolar, who was killed in Ranger's place.

"Babe, there's more… The reason they killed Eric is because they had her journal. She only ever called me "Babe"…"

I swallowed hard. "Like you call me Babe?"

"I wanted to reclaim "Babe" and bring it back into the light."

I kissed his cheek. "I still want to marry you."

"Stephanie, there's so much more. Stuff we didn't know before. When Gabriela saw the pictures of Ana, she noticed something… And then she went to Charlie Shine who was able to confirm her suspicions."

"Charlie Shine? How does he figure into any of this."

"Charlie was able to give some details that came into his possession after Jimmy Rosolli's death. And some additional information since that time."

And his tears fell as he told me her husband had held her hostage and hurt her over and over when it became obvious that she was carrying a child. Ranger's child.

"He's had a vasectomy and knew it wasn't his… He ordered the child be killed at birth to punish Ana. But he was told the child was stillborn, and in a rage, he killed Ana. She was dead because of me."

Over the next hour, slowly, deliberately, he shared all he's come to know.

I was an emotional wreck as Ranger finished. And I reviewed all the fact in my head trying to see new connections- things the others had not seen.

The facts were that Anoushka Smirnov, the only daughter of the Russian oligarch Dmitri Smirnov, married a Lebanese gun runner named Felix Montenegro and lived to regret it. That she never knew her husband had a vasectomy prior to their marriage was clear. But Felix knew and went after the man he believed had spent time with his wife, killing Eric in error.

She had the child in the compound where she was held while Felix was away on business. Ana was terrified for her child, and she begged Montenegro's second in command, a man called Nikolai, to allow her to hide the child somewhere, anywhere. He allowed the midwife, his aunt, to take the child and ordered her to never disclose to him to whom the child was given. He then reported Ana had a stillborn. Another woman in a nearby village had lost a newborn girl two days before and the midwife presented her as being Ana's own child. The family who had lost the girl never knew the body was not buried in her grave.

Unaware of his Lieutenant's betrayal and deprived of any hold over Ana's father, in a rage, Felix killed her. He arranged for her body to be dumped on the steps of her father's home. He did not know the same man who stole the child away to safety also took photos of Ana after her death and sent them, with Ana's last message, to a drop address in the United Stated.

And after Felix died at the hands of Dmitri Smirnov, Nikolai wrote again to the address, asking for protection from the powerful Russian. And Jimmy hid him in plain sight, after giving him a new identity: Salvatore Bava. Vito's man who was killed alongside Vito. The gunman must not have known the value of Vito's bodyguard. The man who knew where all the skeletons were hidden.

And where Ranger's son was hidden. A boy just a little older than Julie.

No matter what else happened, we would find Ranger's son. And stop the madness.