Pawn (The Pawn Duet, Book Two): A King Series Spinoff Read online

  Family she doesn’t have because they’re all fucking dead.

  Hence her need for revenge on the Fourth Reich and the very reason why she left. Why, in a way, she chose them over me.

  If that’s even the truth.

  Trust is something I’ve never been fucking good at, but what fucking sets fire in my fucking veins is that I wanted to trust Mickey. I still want to. But the growing doubt grows with each passing hour, twisting into a spark of rage.

  Besides, I’d be stupid if I didn’t think there was a small possibility that Mickey played me, and her entire charade, including the show she put on in my bed, was all for the benefit of an easier escape back to her people.

  No, that part wasn’t a show. You can’t fake what we had in my bed. Her response to my touch.

  I shake my head. Just because she liked it when I made her come doesn’t mean she didn’t lie about the rest. It means she’s human.

  She could still be one of them.

  “Fuck!” I yell into my empty apartment, emptier now that Mickey isn’t here filling it with her constant need to try and figure me out. I chuckle, remembering when she made the observation about my learning disorder. I looked up her diagnosis, and she was right. About all of it. About me.

  Too bad I may not have been right about her.

  The meowing continues, at a faster and louder pace. The feline equivalent of, you can’t ignore me forever!

  “Fuck, alright, hang the fuck on!” I yell. Leaving my bottle of whiskey, I pad over to the door, cracking it open. I head back to the couch, plopping down onto the well-worn leather. Plucking the whiskey bottle from the table, I tip it back and take a long—much needed—pull.

  The source of the meowing jumps up onto my lap and positions itself so that its little grey and white striped paws are on my chest, its apple-shaped head resting below my chin. It weighs no more than a couple of pounds and is no bigger than my Glock 43. The tiny creature looks up at me with a runny nose and even runnier eyes. It meows again, the sound vibrating against my chest.

  I sigh. “I know. She’s gone. I don’t know what the fuck to do about it either,” I say, scratching it behind the ears.

  My explanation apparently isn’t good enough for the scrawny little thing because suddenly its claws dig into skin through my shirt. I leap to my feet with the whiskey bottle still in my hand, but the thing doesn’t let go, it only sinks its little talons deeper, hanging off my shirt and essentially from my skin like a little fuzzy parasite. Shaking it off doesn’t work either and only earns me a hiss.

  “Are we interrupting an interpretive dance recital?” Nine asks from the open doorway. “Because I don’t remember you telling me you were taking dance lessons.”

  “Interpretive dance is overrated,” Preppy chimes in, pushing past his younger brother into the room. “It’s all about theatrical dance now.”

  “And how would you know that?” Nine asks, stepping into the kitchen as Preppy takes a seat on the couch, draping a leg over the armrest.

  Preppy scoffs. “How does one not fucking know that?”

  I grab hold of the back of the kitten’s neck and yank, successfully managing to detach it from both my skin and my shirt. It hisses again, and I hiss back. “Fucking prick,” I swear.

  That earns me another hiss.

  “What’s with the cat?” Nine asks, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer. He uses the edge of the counter to pop the top off with his fist. “New friend?”

  I cross the room and set the thing back out in the hallway. I kick the door shut behind me. I’ll take the fucking relentless meowing over being shanked with twenty tiny shives.

  Nine raises his eyebrows and points to my shirt. I look down to find it’s pebbled with droplets of blood. “Little fucker,” I mutter, pulling off my shirt and throwing it on the counter. I take another swig from the bottle, and then another, and another, until I’ve swallowed several mouthfuls. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand as my throat burns and blood drips down my chest.

  “You need an AA meeting or something?” Preppy asks, eyeing the now half-empty bottle.

  “You, of all people, need to be asking that question?” I spit back. I take a seat on the recliner and rest the bottle on my knee.

  “Touchy, are we? Besides, I can ask you that because I’m not an addict. I’m a party opportunist. There’s a difference.” Preppy pulls out a large bag of blow from his pocket and dips a key from his keychain inside. He closes one nostril and snorts it. He, then, holds out the key to me. “Bump?”

  “I’ll pass. I’m not really in the mood to feel alert.”

  Nine chuckles. “Party opportunist? This ain’t exactly a party, Prep.”

  Preppy sniffs, shoving the bag back into his shirt pocket. He holds his nostrils shut and then sniffles again, shaking his head rapidly from one side to the other. “Yes, party opportunist.” He points to himself, Nine, and then me. “We have three people, booze, and blow. I see the opportunity for a party, and I take it.”

  Nine rolls his eyes. “So, can we get back to the cat? What the fuck was up with that?”

  I scratch my chin. “It’s nothing. Just a fucking cat.”

  “Liar,” Nine says, snatching the bottle from my hand. He pours a large amount into a glass and hands it to me as if it will somehow slow me down. He sets the bottle back on the counter. “I know Mickey loved those fucking alley cats. Is that why you got one of them up here?”

  “It was supposed to be a gift,” I reluctantly admit. “For Mickey. That one was always on her lap. She hated to leave it out there, and the little thing would always wait for her at… I shake off the memories. “It was a dumb fucking idea. Doesn’t matter now.”

  “Yeah, it was a dumb idea. Bitches don’t want cats,” Preppy chuckles. “Cats are too much of an obvious choice when considering domestic pet options.”

  Nine points his beer at Preppy, “Says the man with a pet pig.”

  Preppy points an accusing, tattooed finger at Nine. “You leave the sacred name of my Oscar out of this. He’s better company than either of you sniveling little shits. And Bear has a fucking coyote. So, there’s that.” He sits up. “Okay, let’s talk about the real reason why we are here. Like the fact that it’s been twenty-four hours since you called off plans for us to storm The Fourth Reich compound, and we have no immediate plans on the calendar to kill them at all, and why you’re wallowing up here like an old, fucking cat lady.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him.

  “Trust me, it’s true. I know a lot of old cat ladies, and what you’re doing up here would be an insult to lovely old cat ladies everywhere.”

  “I’m not wallowing,” I argue, even though I’m not really sure what wallowing means, but I make a note to look it up after these fuckers leave me in peace. “And one cat does not a cat-lady make.”

  “Seriously, we need to talk,” Nine says, looking way too serious and in focus when I was really aiming for more of a drunken blur.

  “So, fucking talk,” I say, chugging my drink, then setting the empty glass on my knee. “I ain’t fucking stopping you.” The faster they talk, the faster they leave, and the faster I can get back to my plans of getting shit-faced and wondering when my life had turned to complete and utter shit.

  Shit. I think that’s what wallowing means.

  Preppy takes a deep breath and straightens his bow-tie. He hooks his thumbs under his matching suspenders. “So, I hate to be the one to tell you...”

  “What?” I bark, growing irritated. “Spit it the fuck out.”

  “I hate to be the one to tell you that it’s possible that Mickey is a big, fat, lying cunt bucket, and the bitch has to die?” He raises the pitch of his voice and at the end he sounds as if he’s been sucking on helium.

  “It’s not like I haven’t thought of the possibility,” I grumble. It doesn’t make it any easier hearing it cross Preppy’s lips or to know that I’m not the only one who has these doubts.

  “He’s got a point,” N
ine chimes in. “We know the facts about Mickey’s father. About who he was, and about him founding the Reich with Darius. We know they’re true because we verified those facts. What we don’t know is if the other parts of her story were a lie. The reasons she gave us for her affiliation with The Reich. The revenge. The part about her growing up around them but not believing in their teachings.” Nine looks about as reluctant to be having this conversation as I am. “The part where she’s with them, but she’s not really one of them.”

  “I have a solution,” Preppy announces. He stands and grabs the whiskey bottle from the counter and takes a long drink on his way back to the couch. He plops back down and makes a satisfactory sound. He wipes a piece of lint from his khaki pants. “So, Pike, what you need to do is fuck her, and then, kill her. That way, she’s out of your system before you send her out of this world. Problem motherfucking solved.” He swipes his palms together, wiping them free of my problems, which he in no way has motherfucking solved.

  If only it were that easy, but nothing involving Mickey has been easy or clear. Not even my feelings for her.

  After spewing those words, anyone else would be laughing or smiling, because they wouldn’t be serious. Not Preppy, but I should know better by now. He’s all business, leaning forward on his elbows, his yellow plaid bow-tie as straight as ever, looking more than satisfied with his offered solution.

  Nine pushes off the counter and sits next to Preppy on the worn leather couch. He slaps his brother on the back. “Points for creativity, Prep, but I don’t think that’s exactly the kind of advice that Pike’s looking for right now.”

  He lifts his hands, palms facing up. “What do you mean? What kind of advice doesn’t he want? Solid advice? Great advice? Advice from the one and only Samuel Motherfucking Clearwater?” He looks to me. “Is that not what you’re looking for?” Preppy’s jaw drops, horrified that I would reject his genius.

  “Nine’s right,” I reply, again volleying around feelings of hurt and disappointment and rage at having to discuss the possibility that Mickey betrayed me. That this was all a game to her.

  That I was a game.

  Preppy sits back and crosses a leg over his knee. His index finger and thumb resting on his chin, his lips twisted in thought. He snaps his fingers, and his eyes light up. “How ‘bout this? You kill her first, and then fuck her. It’s not my bowl of blow, but I’m not going to be all judgey if fucking dead bitches is your thing.” He shrugs. “Some people are really into feet.”

  I close my eyes and hold the cold glass to my temple. “I just need to think about what my next step should be. And no offense, Prep, but necrophilia ain’t my thing.”

  A memory of Mickey warm, naked, and very much alive in my bed floods through my mind. My eyes snap open, not wanting to relive that moment for one second longer.

  Now is not the fucking time, I scold myself.

  Nine is staring at me with concern written all over his face and it’s making me uncomfortable as all hell. He looks down, picking at a loose thread from the seam of the armrest. “We shouldn’t have let her go. It’s as much my fault as yours. She should have been locked up. I should have told you to keep her locked up until we knew for sure she was telling the truth.” The disappointment in his voice is a hard pill to swallow because none of this is his fault. It’s mine and we didn’t let her go. She left. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. “What if she had something to do with Gutter getting killed? You took her out there to the swamp right? She met him? What if she told them where he was and how much he meant to you? What if it was her idea…”

  His words trail off as the thought sinks in, but I don’t have to hear them to know exactly what he’s saying and it hadn’t occurred to me before that she could have something to do with Gutter’s death.

  The entire time she was comforting me after he was killed, is it possible that none of that was real? That she planned everything? Knew it was fucking coming?

  I look up at Nine whose waiting for my response. “Check my computers downstairs before you leave.” I toss him my phone. “This, too. Check deleted search history. See if you can hack the phone records of all calls made out of this building, bar included, to see if you can find any sort of proof that Mickey was communication with The Reich.”

  “Now, that I can do,” Nine says, fingers flying over the keys. He tucks my phone in his pocket. “Hacker to the rescue.”

  Gutter’s face as he told me he loved me right before meeting his end by way of crowbar to the back of his head flashes through my mind. My jaw tightens and so does my grip on the glass. It shatters in my hand.

  Nine stands to help me, but I wave him off. “I’m fucking fine.” I stand and brush the glass to the floor, scraping and cutting my chest and fingers in the process. It doesn’t matter. I can’t feel them over the pain inside my chest. The rage. Besides, a few additional cuts can be solved with a Band-Aid. The larger ones can be solved with some Gorilla glue and booze.

  The gnawing doubt sawing its way through my fucking heart can’t be fixed quite as easy.

  If at all.

  Glass crunches and slices into my feet as I pad into the kitchen and grab another bottle of whiskey. I return to the couch, rip open the top, and take another healthy pull.

  Nine sits back down.

  Preppy clears his throat. “Nine’s right. You guys shouldn’t have let her go. That was never one of the options. Marry or kill. That was it. Did you even read The Kidnappers Commandments? I spent a lot of time on that, you know, and not just writing it. I had to break into The Copy Store to print that thing, and that wasn’t exactly easy when the Trekkie who runs the printing press holds his Dungeons and Dragons meetings there at night. I was a fucking elf on a quest for six fucking weeks until I was able to sneak away and get it printed.” He sighs and looks to the ceiling with regret in his eyes. “I never even got a chance to find the diary of Princess Elfington and release its powers back into the world, restoring the basic rights and magical powers to all of the little elven boys and girls throughout The Kingdom of CopyStoreland.”

  “I read your shit,” I offer. Not only did I read it, but so did Mickey. I catch myself about to smile, remembering the shock on her face when she found Preppy’s oddly worded manifesto on the passenger seat of my truck.

  Preppy nods. “Okay, then you should know the rules. You didn’t marry her, so the bitch has got to go.” He takes a joint from the pocket of his button-down and lights it. “And, just to clarify, you know by go I mean you gotta kill her.”

  “Yeah, I think we understood you the first time,” Nine says, plucking the joint from Preppy’s hand and taking a deep drag.

  Preppy snatches it back. “Well, I like to be as clear as possible. The key to good relationships is good communication.” He passes me the joint.

  I take a deep drag and allow the smoke to burn down my throat into my lungs. Maybe, if I get as high as possible, I’ll come up with a solution to all this shit. Worst case scenario, at least, I might be able to fall asleep tonight without dreaming about Mickey.

  Nine raises an eyebrow at his brother.

  “What?” Preppy gives him a one shoulder shrug. “I’m reading a few relationship books here and there. I want to be able to keep my woman happy both in and out of the sex swing. You should give them a try. Maybe, Poe will like you better.”

  “She likes me just fine,” Nine argues.

  “Something wrong with Poe?” I ask. “I thought you said she’d stopped drinking.”

  “Everything’s fine.” Nine scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “Preppy just assumes that any girl who is with me doesn’t really like me.”

  “You’re just not as sexy as I am. It’s okay to live the rest of your life in my shadow. It’s a great place to live. Very roomy. High crime rate, but the food and blow are excellent,” Preppy ruffles his brother’s hair.

  Nine responds with an elbow to Preppy’s side.

  “How…forward thinking of you,” Nine says, carefully cho
osing his words. “To be reading books about how to please your woman.”

  “I’m nothing if not ever evolving and learning new things.” He looks to me and blows out a long stream of smoke into the air. “Now, if I can just get Pikey boy here to understand that he got played, we can get to digging a hole, and my job here will be done.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” I argue, turning the bottle around on my knee.

  Preppy leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “Hear me out. Mickey’s a snitch. She admitted as much to the both of you. She talked to the FEDS about Percy and wore a wire while he was in jail. A snitch who also admits to manipulating the Logan’s Beach equivalent of the fucking Klan for her own purposes for years, and if that isn’t true, it means you, Pike, are the one she’s been manipulating. A snitch, who although is smart, loses her mind on occasion and either thinks her family is still alive, or talks to apparitions she sees before her? How am I doing so far?”

  Nine and I exchange looks that say, Well, he’s not wrong.

  Preppy continues. “It’s simple. Mickey played you, and she’s a snitch, and according to the rhyme, at the very least, she needs to get a beat-down, because you know, snitches get—”

  “Stitches,” Nine finishes. “We know how it goes.”

  “It can’t be simpler than laid out for you in rhyme format, yet I’m still not sure you two boys are fully comprehending what I’m trying to say here. Shall I put it in a song?” Preppy clears his throat. “Me, me, me, me, motherfuuucking meeeeeeee….”

  I raise my hand to stop him before his warm-up leads to a song I won’t be able to get him to stop singing or worse, out of my head. Preppy is a crazy fucker who lives by his own set of misguided rules with no reasons behind them that anyone else can figure out, except maybe his wife, but one thing he is, is loyal. Another thing that I can’t get past is that everything he said is right. Mickey did snitch on Percy. She even thinks the reason her family was killed could somehow tie back in to her wearing that wire while Percy was in prison. But, why would she admit all of that to us if it wasn’t true? And why go back to the Reich if she thinks there is even a possibility that they know about her deception?