Pike (The Pawn Duet #1) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,7

masculine voice shouts from nearby.

“Me?” she whispers, pointing to her chest. “What could they want with me?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’re telling me that there’s a team of armed men here because of you, and you have no fucking idea why?” I hiss. She really is fucking crazy.

She shakes her head, and a tear spills down her face. Suddenly, her entire body goes stiff. Her eyes widen, and just like that, I know she’s remembering something, and from the looks of it, that something isn’t fucking good.

I growl and risk another glance beyond the safety of the tree. Their faces are shadowed, but I can make out their positions. By my count, there are six of them. I’ve got six bullets. “I’ve been in worse situations,” I explain, watching as they gain further and further ground. I wait for the man by the stairs to step foot onto the sand. He’s the one I’ll take out first. “We’ll get out—”

“I’m here,” she announces loudly.

I spin around to find the girl with her hands raised in the air in clear view of the men. “I’ll come with you! Don’t shoot!”

She’s surrendering?

“What the fuck are you doing?” I grate through my teeth. The girl already almost died once today. Is she so determined to follow through with actually dying? I don’t even know her, but I’m pissed as hell that she’s giving up so soon.

She looks at me with sad eyes and takes a step forward toward the men, putting more distance between us. “I can’t let you die for me. You don’t even know me.”

I hear the men’s boots kicking up the sand as they rush to approach. A tear runs down her cheek. “Thanks for the ride.”

The men surround her, grab her by the shoulders and begin dragging her through the sand toward the driveway. She doesn’t even try to fight them off. Who doesn’t even try?

“This is bullshit,” I mutter.

Whether I know her or not doesn’t fucking matter. When someone shoots at you, you fucking fight. It might not be human nature, but it’s my nature.

With my gun raised and aimed, I step out from behind the tree. I take one single step to follow the group before something hard smashes into my head from behind.

I drop under the tree like a useless fucking coconut into the sand.

Chapter Two

Pike

Present Day

Torture.

By definition, torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.

My life has been nothing but torture, both giving and receiving.

Of course, I prefer to be on the giving end, but right now, I’m dealing with a new kind of torture, which involves retrieving my shipment. A shipment that is currently in the form of liquid shit. Unfortunately, liquid shit isn’t code for something else.

“Why are you doing this yourself? Don’t you have people for this?” Nine asks.

We’re standing in front of a large septic truck parked behind my pawn shop. The street lights and the bugs are already buzzing, and the sun’s only been down a few minutes. Unfortunately, the smell of grass after the afternoon rain isn’t pungent enough to cancel out a truck full of human sewage.

I stub out my cigarette and shove my arms into the shit brown coveralls, zipping it up over my clothes. Nine does the same.

“Because I got a hell of a deal. It’s a huge investment on my part, and I’m not about to let anyone else handle it. I need to be there.” I look to my friend. “You, on the other hand, don’t need to fucking be here. In fact, I told you not to fucking be here. What did you tell Poe you were doing, anyway?”

Nine has been my only close friend since meeting in juvie a decade and a half ago. He recently reconnected with his girl. Long story, but he’d been looking for her for a long fucking time, and even though I believe love is bullshit concept, Poe is a ride or die kind of girl, and the man is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him happy, so I don’t give him shit about it. Well, not too much shit.

“The truth. That we’re driving a shit truck to meet a boat, and sucking a shit ton of MDMA along with a lot of actual shit out of it to bring it back to Logan’s Beach so Pike can begin his reign