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“Well, I’m not now,” she shot back.
He glared at her. “You have forty-eight hours. Kill him or I will.”
His voice was colder than I’d ever heard it. I watched as he disconnected the call and threw the phone on the bed.Kill him?I could pretend to be shocked, but I’d known since the moment I laid eyes on him what he was capable of. To hear it voiced so calmly, though…
“Targen—”
I wanted to comfort him, but for the hundredth time today, I was unable to stop the tears that seeped from my eyes. These tears were outraged, angry for the woman who lay shattered in that bed. Wordlessly, Targen pulled me into his arms.
“What’s wrong,milaya?” he asked.
My fingers curled into his biceps. I needed him, needed to hold onto him to keep myself from sliding away into an unbearably dark place.
“Who would hurt her like that? Why?” I demanded, hearing the brokenness in my own voice.
“There is no answer to ‘why,’ baby, because the shit is senseless. And the ‘who’ will be handled, if not by Monica, then by me. “
I knew his words were meant to make me feel better, to ease my tension and my tears. But my mind was spinning out of control, Sasha’s circumstances taking me back to?—
“Targen… it’s bad. It’s so bad when someone hurts you like that. Breaks you like that. Leaves you for dead like you’re nothing,” I murmured more to myself than him, as I slipped into the hell of memory.
“No one will hurt her again like that,” he said tightly. Then, his voice softened. “No one will hurtyouagain like that.”
He knew. Not the details, but he knew. Despite his words meant to reassure me, a familiar flood of shame and guilt washed through me. I pulled away from him, but he held me tight.
“Let go.”
He shook his head. “No. Never.”
I swiped an impatient hand over my face, wiping away tears and drawing myself up to challenge him.
“Targen, please. I need a moment. I just?—"
My voice trailed off, the hurt of remembering clogging my throat in a tense, painful ball. He stared at me for a long moment.
“I want to go to my room and lie down. Now, let go,” I insisted.
He hugged me so close I thought I might suffocate, and it still wasn’t close enough. Then, he relented and let me go. I met his eyes and almost changed my mind. Ineededa minute alone to get myself together. Iwantedto stay right here with him.
“I’ll see you later,” I choked out finally.
Then, I did what I had become so good at doing.
I ran.
I slappedmy hand on Prime’s desk as I looked down to where he was seated, looking unbothered. That pissed me off worse. Between Sasha’s situation and Theory’s memory of whatever haunted her, my head was about to explode. Every-fucking-body needed to be bothered until my cousin was healed and my baby felt safe. I’d left her sleeping, exhausted by an enemy she wouldn’t let me help her fight.
“Who the hell is Marguerite Armstrong?” I demanded.
Prime stood slowly. The move would’ve intimidated a lesser man. I’d never been lesser.
“You gon’ sit down so we can have a conversation or you gon’ continue to bellow at me like one of Granny Nette’s sick cows?” he asked calmly.
I felt my top lip curl. “Fuck you, nigga.”
I wanted to reach across the desk and pull his spine through his throat. But I wanted to know who Marguerite Armstrong was even more. Grudgingly, I sat down. Prime did the same.
“Marguerite Armstrong is the matriarch of a very powerful, very dirty crime family based in Mississippi. Why did her name pop up this week? It shouldn’t come up anywhere around this family ever again,” he said, his own tone laced with anger.