Page 8 of The Triangle

“What favor?”

“What do ya fuckin’ think, Christine? What do ya fuckin’ do?”

Her eyes dart three places in quick succession.

A blood-stained pillow on the couch.

The floorboards in front of the couch.

The closet.

So she’s got three guns in here. Probably the ones she used for that job. Which means we’ve gotta get rid of them. And that pisses me off. “We’ll ditch the guns along the way.”

“No,” she says. “I’m not leaving here. Not with you.”

“You don’t have a choice. I’m not askin’ you. I’m taking you.”

“You can try to take me.” It comes out like old Christine. Little sixteen-year-old badass Christine.

And goddammit, that hurts. Fuckin’ hurts every time I get those little glimpses of how things used to be.

“Look,” I growl. “I don’t have time for this shit. I just spent the last two hours thinking you were dead. That your fucking luck finally ran out. That your skills just aren’t what they used to be. That your past came back, or some enemy got you for some long-ago hit that you forgot all about but he still remembers like it was goddamned yesterday. And,” I say, putting my hands up on either side of my head, fingers outstretched like I want to grab her neck and strangle the stupid out of her, “and that you left me. For him. That the two of you have been on some fucking yacht off the coast of the Cook Islands counting your goddamned diamonds, yucking it up on how you pulled one over on that dumbass Danny.”

I stare at her. I’m breathing hard. Like a fucking bull staring down a matador. Ready to charge.

“Or,” I say, barely a whisper now, “that he had you. Because you fell for his shit again. His lies. And he got you into something new. Something bad. Something worse than all the other motherfucking somethings he’s already gotten you into.”

I stop. Swallow.

She just stares back at me.

“You being dead would, of course, be the worst-case scenario. But that last one was a very close second. Because Christine, if he’s gotten you tangled up in his web of lies again you might as well be dead. It’s only a matter of time before that payment comes due. And I know you don’t fear death. You’ve said it so many times I can hear you screaming it at me now, even in your silence. But this won’t be death. You have no idea what kind of shit he’s gotten himself into these days. They won’t kill you, Christine. They’ll rape you first. Torture you until you’re begging for death. So save your I’m-all-good bullshit for someone who doesn’t know better. You’re not all good. You don’t even know who you are. Or what you did to earn this day. And you’re not staying here. So get your fucking shit together and let’s fucking go.”

She turns her head. It’s almost a no. Almost.

But then she bites her lip and exhales.

There’s a vulnerability in her expression that’s not usually there. And last week if she’d given me that expression I’d have fucking melted like a piece of chocolate in the glove box on a hot summer day. My heart would’ve exploded with satisfaction.

But today it scares me.

Something happened to her.

Something bad.

But what else is new?

Bad things happened to all of us.

LONG TIME AGO

“Just do it,” Alec is telling Christine. “He’s drunk. He won’t even see you.”

“What the fuck do you mean, he’s drunk? You said he wasn’t gonna be there.”

“Relax, bru,” Alec says. “He partied hard last night, it couldn’t be helped. Only way to get the information, yeah? So just go in there, do it the way I showed you, and all is good. Life is good.”

Christine’s hazel eyes find mine. She’s not asking me to save her. God fucking forbid she asks someone to save her. She’s asking for backup.