Pawn (The Pawn Duet #2) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,9
I can’t. It’s just not there, and it won’t be until I have proof that she’s a fucking manipulative liar.
“You should still do it,” Nine pipes in. His eyes are wide as he leaps up and paces the room, the glass crunching under his boots. “You should still tell her that you’re going to help her.”
“What?” Preppy and I ask at the same time.
Nine stands behind the recliner, resting his hands on the high back. “You should still offer to help her get her revenge. Worst case scenario, she’ll tell you no, that she doesn’t want your help, and then you’ll know it’s because she’s protecting the Reich. You’ll know she’s been lying this whole time because she’s one of them. If she is lying, you’ll get your revenge on both the Reich and her.”
“A hundred racists with one fucking stone,” Preppy chimes in, looking more than a bit baked, his eyes red and veined. “I knew you got some of those smart genes that I got. I was beginning to doubt it for a while there, brother.”
Nine rolls his eyes at his brother. Nine is the best hacker around. He speaks computer code better than he does the English language. He ain’t exactly dumb.
Nine’s idea sinks into my alcohol-riddled brain. I don’t hate it. “What’s the best case?” I ask, needing to hear it out loud to properly process what I’m getting into here.
“Stitches?” Preppy asks, twisting his lips. “You know, because—”
Nine waves him off. “Yes, we’ve established that.” He rounds the couch and sits at the edge of the cushion. “The best-case scenario is that she agrees to your help, and she’s not lying, and we take the fuckers down that killed Gutter. Either way, The Reich falls.”
“Don’t forget about the drug jacking, the attempt to alienate Pike from King, and the kidnapping of King’s daughter by manipulating the biological baby mama during a fucking hurricane,” Preppy says, sucking in a large gulp of air when he’s done rattling off all the reasons that Percy and Darius are going to die. “’Cause you know King will want in on that, too.”
“What he said,” Nine agrees.
Nine’s right. Before I do anything, I have to find out what side Mickey is on. What her plan is. Her end game.
Preppy snatches the whiskey bottle from my lap. “Either way, it still ends with a little murder-in-the-first and possibly a little necrophilia. Who knows what could happen? It’s a crazy world we’re living in, but I’d say it sounds like a motherfucking win for all. Oh, except for the dead guys.” He smiles and raises the bottle in the air. “But, they’ll be dead, so whatevs.”
The lingering fog I’ve been feeling shifts back into something familiar, something I can work with. Something I can use.
Pure unadulterated rage.
Now I understand why Mickey’s quest for revenge is so important to her.
It feels good. To think about it. To imagine it. Shit, tonight I’ll probably dream about it.
“So, we all agree then. And after we sort out the Mickey situation, we’ll need some intel before we go in there all guns-a-blazing. We’ll need a better plan than we had last time. It needs to be cleaner. More precise. We’ll need to know how many guards they have. Shift changes and at what time. Weapons stockpiles.”
Preppy smiles brightly. “Agreed. Then, we will have ourselves a big, racist BBQ. I heard hate mongrels taste like chicken.”
“If Mickey doesn’t want my help, then she isn’t going to be our man on the inside. If that’s the case, we’ll need to send in someone else,” I say, suddenly soberer than I’ve been in the past twenty-four hours.
“Who?” Preppy asks. “Whoever we send, it can’t be me. I’ve got enough issues. Doc will burn my ball hairs off if I tell her I’ve decided to take up racism as a hobby. She’s still mad about all the gear I had custom-made for the Quidditch team I never started taking up all the space in the garage.”
I nod. “It has to be someone they won’t suspect. Someone they won’t know and someone who will fit in.”
Nine twists his lips. “It can’t be any of us, King, or Bear. Smoke could probably do it, he’s great with that kind of shit, but he’s out of town with Frankie on a job.”
“So, who then?” I ask, wracking my brain of someone we know who is trustworthy enough to penetrate the Reich and ballsy enough to risk their lives and feed us intel.
Preppy pulls