“How’s he holding up?” King asks, dropping the anger for a nano-second. He looks genuinely concerned.
I light a joint. “It was a through and through. We got him over at Nurse Jill’s spot. He’s on a half a bottle of Jack and some blues. He’s been whistling Dixie for the last six hours. Literally. So, I’d guess that it’s safe to say he’ll be alright. Well, after the massive hangover I suspect the fucker will have.”
King nods. “You said they didn’t sound familiar. So, what did they say?”
I hesitate because saying words out loud that I know will only enrage King further isn’t exactly on the top of the list of shit I want to be doing right now.
“Tell him,” Nine prompts.
I blow out a breath. “One of them said to tell you that there’s a new King of the Causeway in town, and he’ll take everything from you, unless…”
“Unless what?” King asks, his biceps look as if they’re about to rip free from his skin. “Out with it!”
I meet his enraged gaze. “Unless, you give him what he wants.”
“And what the fuck is that?”
“I asked the same thing. He said you’ll be finding out soon enough.” Nine reaches up to his forehead and touches the angry red knot right below his hairline. “Then, he used the butt of his gun and knocked me the fuck out.”
King thinks for a moment before spouting off our orders. “Hack into every security camera from here to fucking Miami. Find out where that fucking truck went. Pike, call up every blood-sucking connection you have from street dealers to the cartel. Get me a fucking name. And when you get one”— he takes a deep drag, blowing the smoke out slowly through his nostrils like the angry fucking dragon he is—“you call me first.”
“On it,” Nine replies with a curt nod.
King leaves and we both blow out a breath, although it brings no relief because we already know we’re neck deep in shit. We head out of the addition and down the driveway, ready to start digging our way the fuck out.
Chapter Four
Pike
“What you got?” I ask, stripping off my leather jacket and tossing it onto the counter.
Nine stands up and moves to the side so I can take a look at his laptop. “It’s a live feed from the warehouse in Coral Pines. The van is there. Now, all we have to do is wait for someone to come out, and we got ‘em.”
“Can that thing travel?” I ask, pointing to the computer.
Nine rolls his eyes and holds up a tablet. “My tech can go anywhere.”
“Then, pack it up. We’ll roll up as close as we can to the warehouse without being noticed. The second someone gets in that fucking van, we’ll take ‘em.”
Nine nods and shuts his laptop, tucking it under his arm. He drains the last of his beer and sets it down on the bar with such force the bottom of the bottle cracks. “Let’s go kill these motherfuckers.”
“I’m glad you’re just as eager as I am, brother,” I say to Nine as we head out to my own van. I get in the driver's seat and shut the door. I start the engine and turn toward my oldest friend. “But we can’t go killing them.”
Nine raises his eyebrows. “That’s a very out of character thing for you to say. You feeling okay?”
I’m feeling great, the best I’ve felt since our shit was jacked. The road to revenge has been cleared, and I’m about to head down it at full fucking speed. “I mean we can’t go killing them right away. You heard King. We’ve got to find out who's responsible for threatening his family and jacking our shit.”
“Don’t I know it,” Nine says, lighting a cigarette. A deep V forms in the center of his forehead as I pull out of the pawn shop parking lot.
They may call Nine the prince of Logan’s Beach, but he still has a lot to prove to the men who gave him that title. King, Preppy, and Bear. The three fuck-you-up-a-teers that don’t take shit from anyone. They’ve made this town what it is and earned the right to do it through blood sweat and more blood. Nine’s got money now and plenty of it, both through his legitimate weed growing operation with his brother Preppy and an investment deal that went really fucking south before he turned it around and was able to make things right in the end.
He even got his girl out of the situation.
That being said, money doesn't mean shit when it comes to proving yourself and earning respect.
I understand Nine’s need to show them he’s here to earn that same right. I’m the biggest supplier in town. King and I have an agreement, and he’s allowed me to do business here. Shit, he even fronted the money for the shipment that got jacked the other night. Nine may have a lot on the line here and still have something to prove, but he’s not the only one. I’ve got to get this shipment back or my days of doing business in Logan’s Beach are fucking over.
We’re parked about a half a mile away from the warehouse in the shadows beside the stop-and-go parking lot. Nine and I are glued to the unmoving black and white surveillance feed on his tablet propped up in the center console. Exactly three hours and a half a pack of smokes later, there’s finally movement in the corner of the screen. Three men appear from one of the garage bays as another pulls out a truck.
Not just any truck.
“My fucking shit,” I growl. A vein behind my eye pulses with my raging blood. I turn one of the broken handcuffs I wear on my wrists over and over, not caring that I draw blood from the skin underneath; the metal is slightly rusted and not nearly as smooth as it used to be. I don’t give a fuck about my wrists though. I don’t give a shit about my own blood. The only blood I care about right this fucking second is the blood of the fuckers who stole from me. I can already taste revenge on my lips. It’s not sweet. It’s sinful. It’s decadent. It’s downright fucking erotic.
“You ready?” Nine asks.
I start up the van and nod. “Let the foreplay begin.”
“Wait,” Nine says, as I switch the van into gear. His eyes are on the screen once more. He turns it so I can have a better view and the three men are no longer by the van or the truck. “They just went inside. Should we…” he trails off when someone else appears, but it’s not the three men from before. This person is smaller and wearing a hoodie, and they look like they’re in a hurry as they rush into the van and head out of the parking lot.
“They must be switching locations again,” Nine says. They’ve done this several times over the past day in an effort to keep us from locating them.
Too fucking late.
“Our shit in there?” I ask, pointing at the van.
Nine shakes his head. “Not all of it. They must be moving it in smaller shipments.”
“Doesn’t matter. We need info. You see anyone else get in the van?”
Nine smiles. “Nope. Just the driver.”
My adrenaline races as I slam on the gas and head toward the direction of the warehouse. There’s only one road in and out of town from the warehouse. There’s no escaping us now.
We drive for less than a minute before I spy the headlights of the white van speeding toward us in the wrong lane. “What kind of fucking driver did they fucking hire?” Nine asks.
The driver spots us and swerves into the next lane in order to pass us. “Oh no you fucking don’t,” I grate, and just as we approach a small overpass, the one above a canal that connects the bay to the river, I yank on the wheel. We spin right in front of the van; whose driver jerks the wheel at full speed. I don’t hear the sound of breaks. Nine’s earlier question repeats in my head. What kind of driver did they hire?
We chase the van for close to an hour. It turns into a field, and we lose it in the corn stalks.
I slam my fists on the steering wheel as a realization slams into my brain. “Fuck!”
Nine glances down at his computer. “They’re moving our shit. Our fucking van just pulled out.”
We are way too far to catch up to them now. “It was a diversion. This entire fucking chase was a show to distract us.”
Instead of digging ourselves out of the
fucking shit storm, we’ve managed to bury ourselves in deeper.
Chapter Five
Mickey
I never thought I would ever find out what my own flesh smells like as it burns, yet today is that day.
At first, it smells a lot like charcoal on a grill. Oddly enough, once the skin burns away, the sizzling of melting fat and the blistering of muscle smell a lot like the kitchen used to after my mother pan-fried ground beef.
My stomach rolls from the stench, but it’s the least of my problems, and unfortunately, how it smells doesn't distract from how it feels. It's excruciating, like molten lava flowing down my back.
My teeth chatter, and my entire body convulses. I drop my chin to my chest, my head feeling too heavy for my neck. My hair falls into my face. The muscles in my back are jumping all over the place. It's as if they're unsure of how to handle the infliction of such an injury.
As the searing pain grows, so does the rolling in my stomach. It heaves and lurches. I bite down on my lip to keep the vomit at bay, drawing blood, tasting the copper that floods my mouth, coating my teeth.
I try breathing through the pain, but my body is responding out of sheer panic. I only manage to draw in several shallow punctuated gasps.
Pinching my eyes shut, I attempt to block out the image of the smiling men surrounding me to focus on staying conscious. Unfortunately, I can't close my ears and drown out the sound of the laughter and cheers as they witness the mutilation of my body.
"It's done," announces a masculine voice I could recognize anywhere.
The scorching heat lifts away from my flesh. Steam rises from the sizzling water bucket beside me, blurring my vision. The scent of cooked meat, my flesh, is too much for my stomach. I lurch to the side, and vomit gushes from my mouth like a broken pipe. The fresh wound on my lip stings as the contents of my stomach splashes onto the grass.
The lava has turned to ash, but it's still burning. The wound is only on my back, but I can feel it radiating throughout my entire body.
Before I can feel any relief, I'm violently ripped from the chair by several sets of arms and passed around to the crowd so the men can each take turns congratulating me with a hard thump to my newly burned back. I see stars with every touch, but somehow I manage to stay upright. I still feel the searing pain. I'm not sure if it's the memory of the pain or if it's real, but I still feel it deep in my spine. My nerves are firing off in every direction, causing my entire body to contort. With each crooked step, I jerk and jolt as if possessed by the devil himself.
And maybe, I am.
Because I volunteered for this.
I asked for it.
The crowd parts to reveal the bald man standing in front of the towering bonfire, his dark eyes locked on mine.
I lift my chin to him in acknowledgment. His thin lips curve upward in a crooked smile, reminding me that what I'm feeling in my body is a prick on the finger compared to the pain in my heart.
It's that pain that propels me forward, staggering until I'm standing beside the bald man.
The firelight gleams off his scalp as he yanks at my wrist, causing me to see stars. He raises my arm proudly in the air. "Welcome to the family, Michaela," he announces proudly.
The crowd erupts once more.
I glance around at the blurred faces of the men and imagine what a bullet would look like between their eyes.
I manage a small smile.
"You did well, child," the bald man says, his words scratching on my nerves like a cat’s claws.
He puffs up his chest in satisfaction as the imaginary bullet hole between his beady eyes takes shape before me. Suppressed rage boils up from deep within, burning hotter than the branding against my back.
“You’re one of us now,” he says, lacing his hand through mine and pressing a kiss to my knuckles that I thankfully can’t feel over the throbbing on my back. “And I have the perfect second assignment in mind for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say on a shaky breath.
It doesn’t matter that they’ve marked me because I’m not one of them. I’ll never be one of them. As far as I’m concerned, we aren’t even the same species, and the only similarity we share is that one day we’ll all be dead.
They don’t know it yet, but right now, they’re all as good as dead.
Possessed by the devil or not, there will be hell to pay.
Chapter Six
Pike
Pike’s Pawn was originally supposed to be a cover. A business to launder money and a place to rest my head at night in the apartment on the second floor. Last, but not least, a reason to move to Logan’s Beach. But in the years since it’s been Pike’s Pawn, I’ve generally come to appreciate the place outside of the benefits of concealing my more illicit endeavors.
Plus, it makes me a shit ton of money.
As it went on I found a respect for the place. A sense of pride at the business I created and the first place that I’ve ever truly been able to call home.
Too bad I’m going to have to sell it and everything inside of it to pay King back. Even then, I’ll still owe him a shit-ton of money.
Nine glances up at me. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re not going to have to sell shit. I’m fucking rolling in it. And my brother keeps giving me money or hiding it in the walls of my fucking house. I’ll pay King back and clear the debt. It’s the least I owe you after everything you’ve done for me.”
I scoff. “Thank you, but also fuck you. No. King’s rolling in it, too, but that’s not how this shit works, and you know it. I took his money, and I’ll be the one to give it back. And it’s about more than money. I can’t build trust or a reputation with the men who run this town if I let you pay off my debts for me. I’ll pay him back.”
One way or another.
“Whatevs. Have it your way.” While we wait for the security footage from that night on the causeway to upload to Nine’s computer, we do what any two men faced with an impossible task do.
We get fucking shit-canned.
“Hey, do you remember that punk?” Nine asks, pointing to the small TV propped on a stool in the corner.
With beer in hand, I pause my closing-up ritual at the register and glance over. Instantly, I recognize the man on the screen. I’d remember that cocky swagger anywhere. Percy Alban. He’s walking out the prison gates with his hand on his crotch like he’s keeping his big swinging dick from bursting through his bright orange jumpsuit. He crashes into the waiting arms of an older bald man who looks like a future version of Percy. The punk looks a lot older than I remember with a lot more tattoos, but then again, the last time I saw him, we were fifteen years old. “Yeah, I remember him. That skinhead was my cellmate for about six months in the detention center.”
Nine leans back in the chair and props his feet up on the counter. “Can’t believe they let him out. That fucker was born to live in prison.”
“His family’s got money,” I say, launching my empty beer into the trash can in the corner.
“Isn’t his dad like the Dumbledore of white supremacists?”
I cock my head. “Dumbledore?”
Nine waves his beer around in the air. “Yeah, you know, the head wizard guy or whatever they call the leader of their empire. Like the Hogwarts guy if Hogwarts were full of little neo Nazi’s instead of wanna be wizards.”
I shove Nine’s feet off the counter to grab another beer. “Doesn’t matter. He’ll end up back in there. These days, I’m more concerned about keeping myself out of the joint than wondering why they let some fucking piece of shit white trash racist out.” I remove cash from the register and shove it into the bank bag. “Besides, that motherfucker got himself locked up. He ran his mouth to everyone that would listen, and even those who didn’t want to listen, about all the shit he did. Someone was bound to snitch on the stupid fucker.”
“If someone ratted, then it makes sense why he was tried as an adult,” Nine muses. “I wonder who they got to do it? Maybe, that skinny kid w
ith the glasses who pissed himself every night?”
I close the register with my hip. “Wasn’t that you?”
Nine frowns. “Hey, I…got contacts.”
I shove his feet from the counter again so I can pass. “All I know is they sent anyone within three cells to different detention centers after he was brought up on new charges. Probably so he couldn’t figure out who flipped on him.”
Nine twists his lips. “So that’s why you got transferred?”
I nod. Nine and I met in juvie and lost touch after they transferred me to a center in Tallahassee. He found me again when he left the system, and by then he was in rough fucking shape. The kid was about to fucking off himself. I took him under my wing, gave him a place to stay and taught him how to earn on the streets and turn nothing into something before he found his brother.
Nine has family now, but he’s still the closest thing to family I’ve got and the only person I trust.
Well, him and Thorne.
“What are you boys up to?” Thorne asks, walking in from the back room.
“Think of the fucking devil,” I sing.
She winks at me. “Good to know you boys were thinking of me.”
Which earns her a roll of my eyes.
Thorne removes an elastic band from her wrist and ties up her bright orange hair into a knot at the top of her head, making her look even taller than her already tall six feet. Her black Amy Winehouse t-shirt is small and tight, revealing her pale stomach. Her jeans are baggy in the legs, covering most of her flip-flop clad feet. If you look at all of the elements of Thorne’s look separately, the septum ring, the tattoos, the tight shirt with baggy jeans, the flip flops you can only see when she walks, the bright orange fucking hair, it looks like a train-wreck. But together, on Thorne, it works.
Pike: The Pawn Duet, Book One Page 4