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“And Mr. Maksimov.”

“Ma’am.”

She points one finger up at his face, and he looks down at it.

“Pastor Moore does the wedding. Not a judge. Not some man on a boat. My pastor.”

He looks at her finger. Then at her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

In the car, he pulls me into his lap before we’re even off 82nd Avenue.

He puts his hand on my stomach. Under my hoodie. On my skin. Spreads his fingers wide.

I don’t move it.

“You told her you’re gonna marry me,” I say into his neck.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“No.”

“You’re not gonna ask me, are you?”

He doesn’t answer. His hand on my belly presses down, just a little.

I close my eyes.

He’s not gonna ask. He’s just gonna do it. Same as everything else.

And the scariest part is, I’m not even looking for the trunk.

Nine

Sasha

She bought a funnel cake with my card. That’s how I find her.

It’s eleven-forty on a Thursday night, five weeks after her mama’s oxtails, and I’m standing in the middle of my living room in Bel Air with Misha and four of my men and every camera feed from the house up on the TV. She’s gone. Again. Ninety minutes gone. Her phone’s on the nightstand. Her keys are on the hook. Her shoes are by the door.

Her gray hoodie’s gone. Her old Vans are gone. And the side gate by the pool, the little one for the gardeners, has a padlock on it that’s been cut through with the garden shears from the shed.

She cut my lock with my garden shears.

I’ve got men driving every street from here to the ocean. I’ve got a guy at the bus depot. I’ve got a guy at Tasha’s door, and another one at the apartment in Westwood, and I’m standing here with my hands in fists, and I can’t feel my fucking face.

I’m not worried. I don’t get worried. I’m a man who makes other men worried.

But my chest’s too tight to breathe right, and there’s a sound in my ears like the ocean, and I’ve checked her location on my phone forty times even though I’m looking at her phone on my nightstand on the camera.

Then my phone buzzes in my hand.

A card alert. My black card. The one I put in her wallet and she swore on her mama she’d never use.