Chapter 3
The warm caress of an early summer breeze danced across my skin as I slowly made my way toward my front door. I looked down at my hand, entwined with a strong, brown one, and then at the profile of the man who held it.
I’d had a date.
And not only that; I’d had a really good date. One where I’d refused to hold back, where I let myself be open to talking, to laughing, to being complimented, to being admired.
All those things might not seem like they were hard when you were twenty-nine, attractive, and accomplished.
But oh, my God, trust me, they were.
They were after the first man you’d really trusted yourself had turned violently, viciously against you. When he’d hurt you so badly that anyone doubted you’d recover.
And if that weren’t bad enough, imagine allowing yourself to be lured and lulled and what you thought was healed after that man.
Imagine another man whose very heart and breath synced with yours the first time you met, who held you and whispered to you and said he loved you and promised you all your dreams. Imagine that you fell so completely, so deeply, so quickly for that man that you allowed yourself to hope again after you’d convinced yourself that hope was truly a four-letter-word and not the good kind.
Imagine giving yourself to that man and having him swear he was giving himself to you and then he just disappeared.
Yep, disappeared. A hasty goodbye, then a year of silence in which your heart and your mind broke again. A year during which you’d cornered his best friend for answers.
Well, one answer in particular.
Eight months ago, I’d made Montréal Hamilton face me. He was my cousin’s man and… that liar’s best friend.
“Is he alive?” I’d asked, voice and body trembling.
He’d looked so guilty, like he wanted to save my feelings, but there was no saving me at that point.
“Don’t lie to me. I just want to know… is he alive?”
He’d sighed, closed his eyes for a long moment before looking at me and mumbling, “Yes.”
“And if I asked you to tell him that I needed him, would he come?” I whispered, already knowing the answer.
“He… can’t,” Real had said.
“Why?”
The demand in my voice was clear. I was falling apart and he couldn’t? He was a grown ass man who could do anything he wanted. What the fuck did that answer even mean?
“Theory… I can’t tell you,” Real replied, regret all over him.
I nodded once, a soft laugh escaping me. “Right,” I said.
And I decided right then to go to work on myself. To recover myself. To take all that hope—that damned four-letter-word—that I’d put in someone else and put it in myself.
I’d done good.
And now, I was wrapping up my first date in forever. A smile curved my lips. This felt nice.
“What you thinking about?” he asked softly, lifting our hands and pressing a kiss to the back of mine.
“You. Tonight. I needed this. Thank you, Malik,” I murmured.
“The pleasure was definitely all mine, lovely.”
He stood back as I opened my door, then waited for me to cross the threshold. Turning, I rewarded him with another smile. I wasn’t ready to invite him in, yet. But soon, maybe. He didn’t press, just hugged me lightly and brushed his lips across my forehead.
Then, he was gone. I’d barely made it upstairs before my cousins and sister started blowing up my phone with texts and calls. Smiling, I shook my head. I answered my cousin Everly first.
“Hey, girl!” I greeted her, laughing at my nosy family.
“Hey, T! Just checking in. How was it?” she asked, not even pretending to make small talk.
“Girl, it was good! I’m actually just getting home. It was nice,” I said, sliding out of my heels and into my house shoes, before padding toward my dresser. “He’s sweet, and I’m probably going to see him again.”
“That’s so good, baby! You deserve it.”
Everly sighed softly. Relief, I knew. They’d all been worried about me for so long.
But I’d been doing my work—therapy, journaling, creative writing, moving my body, healing.
I was better, so much better. Still, a little twinge of loneliness, of uncomfortable silence, had been shadowing me. Maybe that was about to change.
“Now, tell me everything!” my cousin demanded.
Laughing, I did as she asked. “His name’s Malik. You know we met in an online writers’ group. He understands so much about me, Ev.”
“Y’all for sure gotta hang out more, then. Get to know each other,” she encouraged as I stripped out of my jewelry.
I nodded as I switched the phone to speaker and set it down, studying my reflection as I removed my bottom earrings.
“Oh, definitely. I want—”
I was so busy talking, I almost missed the slight movement in the mirror’s glass. It was nothing, really. Just a slight shift, a quick image, gone almost as soon as I processed it.
Then, a huge, blond, white man materialized behind me. A scream ripped from my throat as I whirled to face him, accidentally knocking my phone down. I could hear Ev calling for me, but I was turning back around, frantically opening my top drawer. If I could just get to my—
My heart dropped and a distressed whimper escaped me as I reached into the drawer and grasped nothing but the soft fluff that passed as my underwear.
My Glock! Oh, God. He must’ve searched my drawers before I got there. That meant the little pistol in my nightstand might also be gone. But the shotgun Daddy had insisted on hiding in my closet before he left me, maybe the blond giant hadn’t—
I whirled toward the closet, determined to make it there before the big man who had stooped, apparently to pick up my phone.
“Please do not bother, Miss. I gathered them all. You have an impressive collection.”
His voice was low and gravelly, heavy with an accent that I didn’t quite catch. I didn’t wanna take his word, but I also realized it would be crazy to shut myself up in the closet if there was nothing in there to guard my life. Swallowing, I turned back toward him.
To my surprise, he just stood there, my phone in one hand, his other hand up, palm out.
My hands clenched into fists, trying to ward off the waves of terror that I could feel slowly lapping against my skin.
I refused to beg, though. I had done too much of that in my previous life. This new Theory just couldn’t.
“What –” I stopped, cleared my throat. “What do you want?” I bit out.
“I am not here to hurt you, Miss,” he tried to reassure me.
A strangled laugh erupted from me. “You broke into my house and took all my guns, but you’re not here to hurt me?”
He shook his head, and my eyes narrowed.
“Excuse my disbelief, but why would you be here then?”
I decided to play along. Maybe I just needed to buy time. Everly would’ve sounded the alarm by now, and Prime and Ajani would probably have people here in minutes. Yeah, just stall.
“Well?” I demanded.
“To retrieve you.”
Suddenly, those waves of terror that had been lapping at me were crashing, threatening to drag me under.
He must work for Chauncey’s people. Chauncey, my violent ex, had disappeared, and while I may not have done it, I was definitely the reason for it. Had his family decided to make me pay? If so…
…if so, I wasn’t going out groveling. I exhaled slowly, lifting my eyes to the mammoth in front of me.
“That’s not gon’ happen,” I told him as calmly as I could.
“I am afraid it has to happen, Miss,” he argued softly.
“You said you ain’t here to hurt me. Hurting me is the only way you gon’ get me out of this house.”
The challenge sat between us as we eyed each other warily.
“I will not hurt you, but this Malik I have no problem hurting.”
Confused, I felt my face scrunch into a frown. “Malik? Why would you hurt Malik?”
The blond giant shrugged. “He has already trespassed, touching where he should not, whom he should not. He must learn not to do it again.”
I gritted my teeth, rage and fear battling in my chest. Malik’s smile from our date flashed in my mind, the memory of warmth and laughter over cocktails spreading through me like sunlight.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hurt me, instead.”
I’d survived once. I could do it again.
He sighed. “I do not want to hurt you, Miss. I cannot hurt you. But you must understand, this is not a request.”
Where the fuck are Prime and Ajani’s people? I wondered. I had to keep stalling for Malik and me.
“Why can’t you hurt me?” I demanded, gaze narrowing.
“My boss… if you even have hair out of place, he will make my insides look like borscht,” he explained.
Borscht? I frowned. “That red soup?”
He nodded gravely. “I think that my organs will make terrible borscht. So, I will not hurt you. But Malik’s insides will not be so lucky.”
“Look, sir—”
“Mikhail,” he interrupted.
“Mikhail. Who is your boss?”
“Your husband. He is waiting. He is not a man who waits patiently.”
I looked at him like he’d sprouted another head. “This is some kind of mistake! I don’t have a husband.”
Lord, please don’t tell me I was being threatened and terrorized accidentally. It would be just my luck, too. But how would he know Malik’s name? Mikhail sighed again, heavier this time, like he was tired of my bullshit.
“Mrs. Sidorov, if you would please just come–”
Sidorov? I drew in a sharp breath, my pulse hammering in my ears as jagged, mysterious pieces started to fall into place.
The unfamiliar accent, the mention of borscht, the names “Mikhail” and “Sidorov.” All from Eastern Europe or West Asia.
Somewhere like… Russia. Suddenly, I knew who my “husband” had to be.
Fixing my eyes on Mikhail’s, I took a deep breath. “Fine. Take me to him.”
It turned out that we didn’t have far to go. A blacked-out Range Rover sat idling at the end of my driveway. Mikhail moved in front of me, opening the back passenger door before standing back. I peered into the dark interior.
“Get in, milaya,” the man inside ordered, voice deep, as he tapped the pod in his ear.
Oh, my God! His voice seemed to activate so many things inside me at once… longing, pain, desire, but mostly…
Anger.
Rage.