Chapter 20
I was shaking so hard I 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.
I laughed, and the sound came so ugly. “What do I want to know? Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Okay. Cool. How about you start with what I keep asking. Who the fuck are you?”
This man looked at me straight-faced and said, “Your husband.”
I threw both hands up. “See? This is what I mean. Stop playing with me, Targen. Tell me the truth.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, willing myself not to spiral. Not now. Anxiety be still. When I opened them, Targen was still watching me. I scowled at him. He sighed.
“Let’s go sit down,” he said quietly.
I looked around at the ditch, the broken truck, the blood, the bodies. “Sit where, Targen? On what? Somebody’s corpse?”
That made Juvie glance over.
“Damn,” he muttered. “She mad, mad.”
“Shut up, Juvie,” I snapped.
He lifted both hands. “A’ight.”
Somehow, Targen got the backend of the Yukon open. He pulled out a blanket. Walking, he shook it out before spreading it over a patch of grass a little way off the road. It was thankfully away from the bodies, but unfortunately, not so far that I couldn’t still see what had happened.
“I’m not sitting on no blanket like this some romantic picnic,” I spat.
“It ain’t romantic. Sit down anyway.”
He had the nerve to sound tired. I should’ve refused on principle. Instead, I walked over there and sat because I didn’t know how long my legs could stay standing. The minute I sat down, I realized how hard my whole body had been working to hold itself together. I felt exhausted.
Targen crouched in front of me first, then seemed to think better of that and sat on the grass a few feet away, forearms resting on his knees.
He kept his body turned toward me, like he was waiting for me to ask what I wanted to know.
For the first time since I’d met him, I looked at him and let myself fully process that I did not know this man.
Not really.
I didn’t know much beyond the fact that he was beautiful and charismatic and could make my body forget everything my mind told it.
I didn’t know much beyond the fact that he could be gentle with me one second and terrifying the next.
I didn’t know much beyond the fact that I had married him and right now that felt crazy as hell.
“Well? Talk,” I said.
He exhaled slowly.
“My father was a pakhan. Bratva boss.”
I stared at him, and for a second, all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears. “Bratva? Like the Russian mafia that be in my romance novels?”
A small smile curved his lips. “Probably not exactly like that, but yeah.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it. “Wow.”
“Theory—”
“Nah, let me have my wow. I deserve this wow,” I snapped.
He shut up.
I looked away from him and out toward the road.
Mikhail was speaking low into a phone in Russian.
Juvie had dragged the guns into a pile. And the late afternoon sun still looked warm and bright.
That made me want to scream. It should not be possible for the day to stay beautiful after what had just happened.
“So, you’re in the mafia,” I repeated, staring down at my legs. “Your father is—was—the boss. Your brother is what? Now the boss?”
“Yes.”
“And you just… didn’t think it was important to mention that to me?”
“I mean, it was a little important,” he teased.
That made me whip my head back toward him. “Boy!”
He sighed. “I was trying to keep you out of it.”
I laughed again, though none of this was funny. “Look around. How’s that working?”
He didn’t answer.
“Start at the beginning. No edits. You owe me all of it,” I demanded.
“I… you sure you ready for this?”
I turned my nose up at him. “I’m not fragile,” I said.
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You act like it.”
“Nah. I act like you precious,” he corrected.
Ah, shit. I looked away so he wouldn’t see the tiny crack in my anger. He spoke before I could say anything else.
“My father was already deep in Bratva life before I was born. My mama got caught up with him and had me.”
I frowned. “Caught up?”
“It was supposed to be a little fling, she said. They caught feelings. Still, I wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Well, damn.
“Keep going,” I directed.
“I told you; she suspected his lifestyle was… undesirable, so she hid me. I grew up with my mama and her family in Kansas City. I had a normal life on the outside. I went to school, played ball, hung out with friends. I had a lot of questions, but I didn't ask. Then, I went to college.”
He stopped, his face changing, eyes going cold.
“And?” I pressed.
“One of Sergei’s oldest guards turned on him for another family.
Told them every weak spot he could think of, everything and everyone my father had ever loved.
He remembered my mama. They dug into her life.
Found out about her gray-eyed, fatherless son.
Had a bitch drug me, then ambushed me. They held me.
Tortured me. That's how I got this fucked up face.”
He gestured toward his scars, smiling humorlessly.
I wanted to argue with him. His face was not fucked up. I didn't. Just waited.
“Turns out my father had that family under surveillance, had planted his own people in their inner circle. He found me pretty quickly, destroyed that family, and got his hooks into me and Mama.”
My head snapped back. “Targen!”
He smirked. “I'm just kidding. Sort of. Shit did change for us. Forever. He never wanted us vulnerable again, and I agreed. I started spending time around his people. Around Maxim. Learning things. Seeing things. Doing things.”
“What kinds of things?” I asked softly.
His eyes came back to mine. “Violent things.”
Well. There it was. My stomach dropped.
“You just… say that like it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. But I’m not about to lie to you. You asked for truth.”
He was right. So, I shut up. His jaw worked for a minute.
“I wouldn't join the Bratva, though. Not until—”
“Until me,” I whispered.
Guilt surged through me. He must've seen it because he said “I don't regret it. I'd do it again. I'm just doing more of some of the things I did already. Maxim decided I needed to be more prepared for this particular calling. And I think he was concerned about how much you mean to me.”
I shivered, although I felt no cold. “What does that mean?”
His eyes, silver-gray and unreadable, peered into mine.
“It means he sent me to Siberia.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. That's where I was this last year.”
“You telling me your brother shipped your ass to Siberia? Like how they threaten the Russian bad guys in movies?”
A ghost of a smile curved his mouth. “That’s pretty much what happened.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to experience what some brigadiers do, but it had to be a crash course.
He wanted me to prove myself, that I could handle shit, that I wasn't too distracted.
Maxim believes you could make me reckless.
He doesn't understand that because of you, I'm even more careful,” he explained softly.
“You… you didn't just leave me,” I whispered, the realization suddenly dawning on me.
“I would never just leave you, milaya,” he vowed.
I went still. His eyes, trained on me, were sincere. This man undid me so effortlessly.
“What happened there?” I asked abruptly, fighting my feelings.
Even though he was looking right at me, his gaze was suddenly somewhere far away.
“Cold. Fights. Training. Men trying to break me. Me showing them I didn't know how to break. Mines. Prison. Survival,” he rattled off. “And a lot of pain.”
Jesus. I thought of the new tattoos and the new scars on him. That experience had written itself on him in more ways than one. I swallowed. “So, he sent you away because of me?”
“Not because of you. Because of what you are to me. In our world, enemies don’t just use your weaknesses against you. They use your love. I showed Maxim how far I’d go to keep you safe. He wanted to see how far I’d go to get back to you.”
They use your love. That should not have warmed me. It wasn’t the time.
But it did.
I hated myself a little.
“And when you came back?” I asked.
“You know that, milaya. I came back to my place in the family. To my father. To Maxim. To work.”
“To killing people?”
His face blanked.
“Sometimes.”
I wrapped my arms around myself tightly. A thought occurred to me, then.
“Were those men sent by your family?” I asked.
He frowned at me. “No.”
“How do you know? Your brother can't like you much. He sent you to fucking Siberia!”
That would forever blow my mind.
“Because my family doesn't want us dead. If they did, we’d be dead.”
It was such a cold thing to say. I looked at him and realized, he wasn’t bragging. He was just telling the truth. God help me, I believed him and that was even more worrisome.
“Then who?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll find out.”
“And when you do?”
His eyes held mine. “I’ll handle it.”
I almost asked what that meant, but I knew.
I absolutely knew. My whole life had changed so many times in the last few years that I should’ve been used to the upheaval by now.
But this was a different kind of change.
I had married a violent, dangerous man. My husband, the Russian killer. Tears burned my eyes suddenly.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly.
I glared at him through wet eyes. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“I hate when you cry.”
“You should've seen me after you left,” I said, the words meant to wound him.
I could tell they did. But it wasn't the victory I expected.
I rubbed my face with both hands and then looked at him hard. “So… you have to do what your brother says. Did you marry me just because he said so?”
That pissed him off. I could see it. He leaned forward a little. “All that shit you just said insulted me.”
“Why?”
“Maxim being pakhan doesn't mean he fucking dictates to me. There are things I follow to protect my family and its interests. But I am a grown ass man with free will. Never forget that. And I'm gon’ tell you this one more time and don't you question it again. I married you because I was gon’ marry you regardless. I wanted my name attached to yours before God and everybody else. The danger pushed the timeline up. It didn’t create the desire. I married you because I love you, Theory.”
I stared at him. He didn’t look away.
“And if I had said no?”
“You did say no.”
“You know what I mean.”
His mouth tightened. “I wasn’t letting you go.”
He sounded so self-assured and damn infuriating. Very Targen.
“Do my parents know all this?”
“Not at all.”
“My cousins?”
“They know more than your parents.”
That made sense and still made me angry.
“Of course,” I said bitterly.
“I told the people who needed to help keep you safe. I'm sure they told their wives. Ain't nobody fucking up their marriage for me.”
“You should take notes,” I spat.
I stood so fast my head spun. He rose, too, but slowly, watching me like he knew his life was probably in more danger than it had ever been in Siberia.
“You can hit me later,” he joked.
“Don’t tempt me.”
I looked past him at the fucked-up trucks and bodies, then back at him.
“I don't want to be a fucking Bratva bride. You think this is gon’ be my life now?”
His answer came without hesitation. “No.”
I blinked, thrown off my argument. “No?”
“No. This,” he said, gesturing toward the aftermath of the attack, “is the part I’m trying to keep from becoming your life.”
Something in me softened despite my best efforts. Sighing, my chin dropped. “I don’t know how to do this. I don't want to do this, Targen.”
His expression warmed, and I saw the man who had held my hand through panic attacks, the man who kissed me so reverently.
“You don’t have to figure it out today. You definitely don’t have to figure it out by yourself.”
That did it. The tears spilled.
I turned away immediately because I was not trying to have a full-on cry beside a murder scene. But Targen was there a second later, stopping just short of touching me. I didn't want him to stop. I sniffed.
“You can hold me if you don’t say nothing stupid,” I mumbled.
He chuckled. “Ahh, Theory Grace, moya milaya.” His laugh was soft.
Then, he stepped in and wrapped his arms around me tight.
He was warm and solid and for one weak, exhausted moment, I let myself fold into him.
My face pressed against his chest. His hands spread over my back.
I could hear his heart, rhythmic and steady.
And then, I heard cars approaching. He didn't move, so I knew it must be safe, the Russian Calvary here to rescue us.
“I assume there’s more?” I asked into his shirt after a minute.
“Yeah.”
I sniffed. “A lot more?”
“Yeah.”
I pulled back enough to look up at him. “Then this evening, when we get back, you gon’ tell me the rest.”
His thumb brushed under one of my eyes, catching a tear before it fell. “Okay.”
“All of it.”
“All of it.”
I was ready for his more. I knew that, because I realized that knowing what I already knew, I was still standing in his arms.
And nothing could be scarier than that.