“Targen.”
“Not now,malyshka.”
Theory grabbed the front of my shirt. “No. No, don’t do that cold shit with me right now. We just got run off the road, people tried to kill us, and your big scary ass hopped out like this is any ol’ random Sunday. What. The fuck. Was. That?”
I looked at the blood near her hairline again and had to unclench my jaw before I answered. I wanted to fucking hurt somebody… I mean, I already had, but still.
“An attack.”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t fucking play with me!”
“I’m not playing.”
“You knew how to move too fast. Them men knew how to move too fast. Even Juvie knew how to move too fast. Ain’t nobody about to stand here and act like this was regular street bullshit, Targen!”
No. It wasn’t.
Juvie came back first, frowning. “Russian ink on two of ’em. One of the phones got wiped already.”
Mikhail held up a chain with a small medal on it. A saint icon. Guy was probably Russian Orthodox.
Theory looked from them to me and went still, her honey eyes going cold. That was worse than the yelling. Slowly, she stepped back.
“Who are you? Don’t try to change the subject. Don’t try to shut me up.Who are you?”
“Theory—”
“No. You don’t get toTheoryme or calm me down or kiss on me right now. I almost died out here with you, and those niggas came at us like they were hunting someone So, no more omission. No more ‘later.’”
She pointed at the bodies on the roadside and the ruined trucks.
“You gon’ tell me who you really are. You gon’ tell me who your people are. You gon’ tell me what happened to make men like that chase us down in broad daylight.”
She was shaking, furious but determined. She glared at me.
“You said you’d tell me after the wedding. The wedding’s over. You tell me right now, or the marriage will be, too.”
I was shaking so hardI could feel it in my teeth. It was June in Texas and my hands were cold. My knees were weak. My heart was beating too hard, too fast, and every breath I took felt like I couldn’t get enough oxygen. But I refused to give into the panic, even as I looked at the Yukon sitting crumpled in a ditch, smoke still curling up from under the hood. Even as I looked at the bodies that lay like gruesome decorations on the gravel where Juvie and Mikhail had pulled them. I wrapped my arms around myself and turned in a slow circle, trying not to look too long at any one fucked up thing.
“Theory, come here.”
Targen’s voice was soft. I looked at him and got pissed all over again.
“No.”
His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking there. “Theory.”
“No,” I repeated, louder. “Don’t stand there acting like I’m supposed to calm down because you said my name in that deep ass voice. Don’t do that.”
Juvie and Mikhail had enough sense not to come near me. They knew to keep pretending to be busy before they ended up like the bodies they were examining. Targen took a step toward me. I stepped back. That stopped him.
Good.
I held up one hand like that could ever hold him back. “You need to talk. Right now.”
His eyes moved over my face, then to my head where my fingers had felt the small cut. It was little, but the way he was looking at it made me feel like he wanted to burn the whole world down about it. I refused to acknowledge the flutter that caused.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
