Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,68
and I exchange looks. He raises his eyebrows silently asking, Are you going to tell him about her?
“Understood,” I say, my neck and shoulders tightening with tension and anger. I look to the stairs. “I’ve got a lead. I’ll let you know what comes of it.”
The line goes dead.
“I’ll tell him,” I say to Nine, rubbing my eyes, “when there’s something concrete to tell.”
Now that I know who Mickey really is, I realize the entire time she’s been playing a game with me, regardless of her reasons. A part of me wishes I never saw that mark, but I did and there’s no coming back from it. But there are two players in her game.
And I never lose.
She wants to play?
I’ll play. And I’ll fucking win.
“Call Darius Alban,” I tell Nine. “Arrange a trade. The girl for a truce.”
He tucks his phone in his pocket. “You really want a truce and not mass murder?”
“The trade is only the setting,” I crack my knuckles. “For the mass murder.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Pike
Nine follows me up the stairs, and I’m ready to do battle or worse when I smash open the door, but Mickey is in a heap on the floor, sobbing. She looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. My chest tightens at the site of her so sad, weak, vulnerable like I’ve never seen her before. What happened to the brave girl who was ready to take on whatever I was prepared to give?
I came up here ready for war and she’s already collateral damage.
I remind myself that she’s not my Mic anymore. She never really was. She’s a soldier of the Fourth fucking Reich.
Nine looks to me, but I can’t speak so he speaks for me. He tells Mickey everything King just said about his wife and children being in danger and about the woman the Fourth Reich sent after them.
She rises to her knees and wipes the hair from her eyes. There’s no need to threaten her because I see in the way her shoulders have slumped over that she’s already given up. Her eyes meet mine. “I’ll tell you everything. It’s time. I’m hurting people by not telling the truth. Not just you. Kids. I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.”
Nine sits on the dresser, and sets his gun beside him, keeping it within reach.
I lift Mickey off the floor and place her on the bed, but she instantly stands, shaking free of my grip. She walks to the window and I perch at the end of the bed, ready to hear what it is she has to say.
After a few seconds, she takes a deep breath and speaks to us while still looking out the window. “My dad wasn’t an affectionate man, but we never doubted that he loved us. He gave us everything he could to my sisters and my mother and me. He was never cruel. But he wasn’t an open book either. He was secretive. His praise and compliments were limited to our accomplishments and never given for our character. My sisters all succeeded in different areas. I think to some point it was to please him, because they saw all of the attention he gave me when I won an award or was the youngest person to receive a doctorate of science in my university. Although they got the praise, it was never like the kind he gave me. Maybe, it was because we were in the same field. But regardless, with any of us, it was never the kind of attention or pride that ended with an I love you. To the point where my sisters and I clung to every little endearment he offered as if it were the hugs we so desperately craved. But we loved him despite, and possibly in spite, of it.”
“Let’s jump forward a bit. Why the Fourth Reich? I mean, I’ve got a lot of reasons to hate a lot of people, but race isn’t one of them,” Nine remarks, jumping ahead in the story. “Basically, my question is, when did you become a hateful bitch and why?” He points at her. “And go.”
“I’m not a racist,” she insists. “I have the same hate in my heart that they do, but the only group of people I hate as whole are them.”
Nine raises his hand. “Uh, professor, I’m a little lost here. Can you please explain? Examples? Answer key? Anything?”
“Put your fucking hand down,” I mutter.
Mickey paces around the room, wringing her hands. “I’ve been training as a soldier