“You dumb bitch!Of course you said no that night. But you didn’t mean it. You always liked it rough.” He grasped her arm, hard, and twisted, so the phone fell to the porch with a thud, and she saw the outline of a gun sticking out of his pants. “You’re mine, remember? See this one?” He pointed at a tattoo halfway up her arm. “This one took the longest, right? Remember that, sweetie pie?JOEY'S BITCH, it says. And you loved it. Every second of it. The sex that night? You fucking wanted it so bad. You could say no all you wanted, but really, you were dying for me to stick it in you.”
From somewhere close by came the sound of an engine. The police. It had to be. “You liked hearing me scream, didn’t you, Joey?”
He yanked her against him and slammed her against the wood of the door, thumping her head hard.
“D’you miss me, Umami? God, I missed you.” His breath was hot and vile against the side of her face. One hand moved to her breast and squeezed. “I missedthis.”
“Joey. You need to let me go. Now.”
“Oh no, honey. Seven months I’ve been looking for you, waiting for you to pop up someplace. No way I’m letting go now.”
He squeezed harder and moved in for a kiss. Before she could think about what she was doing, Uma reared back and let her fist fly, punching him hard in the nose.
Stunned silence. The calm before the storm.
Joey went at her, hands tearing at her hair, her clothes. Reaching for his gun, he leveled it at Uma, and without even knowing quite how she did it, she moved, her body led by instinct and memory and an intense desire to live. It was that pattern she’d worked and reworked in self-defense class, just days before. She’d practiced it on Ivan, and apparently, it worked. Without thought, her arms swung up and out, the momentum powering her knee into Joey’s crotch. His weapon went skidding to the floor, and he was left panting and clutching himself in soundless agony.
* * *
When Ive spotted the bright-red Audi parked in front of Ms. Lloyd’s place, his vision went dark for a second or two. And then he sawthem. The man on the floor of the porch, Uma above him. He had a brief moment of pride before Joey attacked again. He was up and on her, and the other woman, whoever she was, did nothing but scream while Joey tackled Uma to the ground, swinging wild, ugly punches.
Oh fuck no.
Everything happened fast after that. He roared up—more on the lawn than not—and barely got it into Park before throwing himself out of the truck and into the fray. They were caught in the glow of his headlights, that fucker not even noticing Ive until it was too late.
And when he got his hands on him, what a relief. It was easy, with the fucker on top of Uma. He just grabbed him and threw. Down the porch steps, where the guy landed with athud. But it wasn’t enough.
He’d kill him. It was too late now. He really would kill him. He barely registered the shrill keening of that stranger’s voice or the shriek of a siren not too far off or the metalliccachunkof a rifle, but as he moved to finish the job, his head turned in time to catch the door swinging open to reveal Ms. Lloyd, looking like some deranged Robert Rodriguez heroine, shotgun pumped and looking for a target.
“Don’t do it, son,” she said, barrel leveled straight down at Joey Chisholm but eyes on Ive. “Uma was right. Bastard ain’t worth it.” And although it took him a few seconds for the red to fade from his vision, when Ive’s eyes landed on Uma, her inked-up arms bared to the world, he decided she might be right.
The cops arrived, the sheriff leading the charge, but Ive didn’t pay a bit of attention. What mattered was that Uma was safe and whole and fuckingstrong. She handed her phone off to Steve and headed straight for Ive. He’d seen the way she’d taken that fucker down, and he was proud of her. His woman. He moved to pull her into his arms, but her outstretched hand held him off.
“Where have you been?” she asked, out of breath and hissing mad. Her pupils wide in her pale face.
He stilled, understanding the importance of this moment. “I had some thinkin’ to do.”
“Were you going to hurt him?”
Fuck. He couldn’t lie to her. “No. I was gonna kill him.”
“I told you I didn’t want that.”
“I know.”
“But you left anyway.”
“I left, but—”
Her hand came up again, and this time, she looked more than pissed.Cold.
“I had to call him to saveyourass from getting into trouble.”
“You didn’t have to do that, baby. I was com—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” She stepped into his body, leaned up, and whispered close to his ear, “You promised, Ivan.You swore to me.” She looked at him, hard, and at the hippy woman on the porch. “Ivan, Mother. I need some space and some time to think right now. Come on, Cookie. Let’s talk to the cops.”
With that, she bent to scoop up the cell phone and walked to meet the sheriff.
