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

by T. M. Frazier

  “You…it’s true,” I say, not able to form the right words. I have so many questions and can’t pick the right one from my brain.

  Thorne looks surprised and relieved, knowing exactly what I’m referring to without having to ask. She nods. “Yeah. It’s true.”

  I place my hands on her shoulders and search her eyes that are the same color as mine. “Why didn’t you…why haven’t you told me?”

  Her eyes gloss over. “You never asked?” She laughs nervously and sniffles.

  “Seriously, Thorne. Why? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she says, shaking her head and stepping out of my hold.

  I follow her out of the police station. “Like hell it doesn’t,” I argue

  “That’s not what I mean. It matters, but it doesn’t matter right now. This conversation can wait. Right now, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

  I can’t argue with her on that one. “We’re having that conversation,” I promise her, although it sounds more like a warning.

  Thorne’s smile is a sad one. “I know. And you should know that I’m holding you to that.” But I hear something else. Something she’s not saying, but I hear louder than her actual words.

  Don’t die tonight.

  15

  Mickey

  The plan has been discussed and gone over a million times, but a baseball-sized worry is rotting in my stomach as the party begins and the clock ticks on.

  It’s almost time.

  To calm myself I shove my hand into my back pocket containing one of Pike’s cuffs. Feeling the rusted metal against my fingertips renews my strength for what’s to come.

  However, all the preparation in the world can’t prepare me for Darius taking the stage or what he says next. “Fellow members of The Order of The Fourth Reich, I have a very special guest for you, tonight,” Darius announces.

  Horror fills my guts as the girl I was trying to recruit, Emma, the one Pike gave money to and offered a job, steps to the side of Darius, looking to her feet and fidgeting with her hands.

  Darius wraps an arm around her, pressing her against his side. “This is Emma. She told me some very interesting things earlier today.” Darius' eyes find mine and gleam with understanding. Instantly, I know tonight isn’t going to go on as planned. He raises his voice. “We have a traitor among us!”

  Suddenly, my arms are pinned behind my back. I struggle and kick, but it’s no use. I’m trapped. I blow the hair from my face and stare Darius in his hate-filled eyes as he steps off the stage and struts toward me. “I will give you credit, Michaela. You’ve hidden your betrayal quite well.” He spits in my face.

  I jerk my head to the side, attempting to wipe his poisonous drool from my temple. “Fuck you,” I seethe.

  My eyes land on Emma, who is frozen still on the stage. She glances up and mouths I’m sorry before rushing away. I can’t blame the girl. Darius probably offered her something better than money and a job. After all, that’s what he does. He manipulates. However, knowing her reasoning behind giving me up doesn’t make this situation any better or any less deadly.

  “What the fuck is all of this about?” Percy asks, parting the crowd and stepping to my side.

  Darius is all too eager to fill him in. “It turns out that your wife here already belongs to another. That your marriage isn’t pure just like her heart isn’t pure.”

  Percy steps between me and Darius. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, old man” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Young Emma told me that Mickey tried to recruit her, and then a man by the name of Pike, who owns the pawn shop in town, the same one where Mickey was held captive for weeks and then suddenly escaped from, intervened and told Emma to go. She watched them behind the gas station. It seems Mickey and Pike were quite…familiar with one another.”

  Percy rolls his eyes. “That’s what the fuck this is about?” Percy asks with a laugh. “I already know all about that.”

  “You do?” Darius asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “You think my wife does something I don’t know about? You taught me better than that.” Percy turns and looks at me then back to his father. The entire Reich is now gathered around us, watching the scene play out. “So, let her the fuck go,” he grates.

  “No. Not until you explain why I should,” Darius replies, widening his stance and standing his ground.

  Percy rolls his eyes. “She made Pike believe they were friends so she could escape, she told you as much. So, of course, he’s going to be friendly toward her. She did what she had to do in order to survive. He made her let the girl go because she was in his territory. So, she did and brought you another one in her place. She’s not a fucking traitor. She’s just smart. Too bad you’re not smart enough to recognize it.”

  I’m proud of Percy right now. He’s using his father’s own manipulation techniques and throwing it right back in his face.

  “You believe that the same Pike who killed your mother is friends with a member of the Reich? Maybe, you should be asking if she’s also making us believe she’s one of us?”

  Percy runs his hands down his face, stretching his cheeks. “You know, you’re so fixated on trying to make everyone into a traitor.” He steps forward, pointing an accusing finger at his father. “It makes me wonder why. Because the only people looking for faults in the people around them are the ones who are guilty of their own.”

  Darius lip twitches. “Watch it, boy, before you say something you’re going to regret.”

  Percy turns, his back to his father and glares at Hoppy, who's holding me. “Let her fucking go, Hop. That’s my fucking wife. She holds a higher rank than you.” The look in Percy’s eyes leaves no question of his authority. “Now.”

  Hoppy releases me and steps back.

  I stretch my arms and my right shoulder painfully pops back into place. “Ahh,” I moan, bending at the waist.

  Percy kneels beside me. “Hopefully, we’ve dodged that fucking bullet,” he whispers.

  I stand back up and wrap my arms around him. I whisper in his ear, “Yes, we dodged that bullet. The question is, how many rounds are in his gun?”

  There’s a commotion by the stage. I release Percy, and we make our way to the front of the crowd. Two of the Reich’s masked guards appear, with another trailing behind him. They’re dragging something between them. I stand on my tip-toes to get a better look. No, it’s a someone, not a something, and whoever it is...he’s unconscious.

  The guards turn the man toward us, and my heart stops.

  It’s Pike.

  I withhold a gasp as my entire body screams to run to him. To save him.

  “Speak of the fucking devil,” Darius sings, strutting up to the stage. He lifts Pike’s head by his hair. Blood drips from his nose and ear.

  “We found him circling the perimeter, sir. We didn’t see anyone else. Clocked him over the head pretty good,” one of the guards says.

  Darius claps his hands together in delight. “Well, tonight just got a whole lot more interesting.”

  “I knew he was coming,” Percy tells his father. “I made him believe we were discussing the terms of the truce.” He steps up onto the stage, and Darius releases Pike’s hair. His chin falls to his chest just as my heart falls into my stomach. “He’s a gift. From Mickey and myself. For you. To thank you for all you’ve done for us. Almost spoiled it there for a minute with your bullshit, but we’re willing to overlook that. Even the best leaders among us have their flaws.”

  Darius smiles, but I can see him grinding his teeth while he glares at his son for speaking to him in such a way in front of his people.

  This wasn’t part of the plan. What are you up to, Percy?

  Darius’s eyes light up, and I’m not sure if it’s for show or because he’s genuinely thrilled with our ‘gift.’ “Well done, son,” he says, without offering me any sort of apology. Then again, he could be facing an arsenal of weapons pointed at his bald head, and he still
couldn’t muster an apology. Like my father, he’s a narcissist. It’s not his fault. It’s the fault of others or circumstance that made him do or say the things he does and says.

  It’s bullshit is what it is.

  “There’s more,” I offer, deciding to move forward with my part of the plan. What more do I have to lose? Besides, it’s not like I’m going to get another opportunity. “Have a seat,” I point to Darius’s makeshift throne. A large, wooden rocking chair nailed to the stage that doesn’t actually rock. The three hooded guards drag Pike to the side of the stage to make room for us, and it takes a lot of willpower not to watch him as they go. I take my place beside Percy who gives me a curt nod.

  “It’s fucking go time,” he whispers.

  I take the folded paper from my back pocket. The one Nine found for us based on the information Carmen had given me. I clear my throat. “Tonight, we celebrate Darius’s fiftieth birthday.” The crowd claps, and Darius waves back like the fucking prom queen he is. “Darius has been our leader for a long time. He started the Fourth Reich thirty years ago along with my father. Recently, I found out that my father was a traitor to The Reich.”

  The audience gasps and whispers.

  Darius furrows his brows, probably wondering where the hell I’m going with this.

  Luckily, he won’t have to wait long.

  I continue. “And Darius was right. There are those among us who are false in their beliefs in the Reich and its message. Those who wish to bring it, bring us, down.”

  The whispers grow louder. Darius’s eyes widen in anticipation of someone’s head on a spike. Percy shushes the crowd, then nods to me to keep going. “I have, here, a birth certificate for someone in the Reich. Someone who isn’t who they claim to be.” I turn and look at Darius. The excitement in his eyes fades to fear.

  I jerk my chin to Percy who takes out his phone. I breathe a silent sigh of relief that he’s moving forward with the plan after all, even though I still have no idea why Pike is here or if he’s okay. I shake my head of the thought and press on.

  The backdrop of the stage lights up as the projector mounted above the clock of the warehouse shines upon it. “You’ll see that this image is of a young Jewish boy at his bar mitzvah.” The crowd boos. Percy clicks to the next slide. “This is an image of that same boy as a young man at his first school dance. His date is Alexa Brown, a young black woman. A woman who later married, then divorced that young man.” The slide clicks again, and it’s an image of the birth certificate I’m holding. “This is the birth certificate of that same young man. David Abramson.” Percy clicks it again, and I see Darius go stiff in the corner of my eye. If I wasn’t so terrified, I’d probably laugh. “You’ll see here a name change form filed in the county clerk’s office over thirty years ago when David Abramson officially changed his name.” I turn and look Darius directly in his terrified, angry eyes. “To Darius Alban.”

  The crowd erupts. Darius leaps to his feet. “No, this isn’t true. She’s lying! She’s the traitor!” Darius pulls a gun and descends on me. Before I know it, I’m on the ground, the barrel of his gun pressed against the nape of my neck.

  The wind is knocked from my lungs, and I can’t pull any air in because of the pressure of Darius’s weight pressing me into the ground. He smacks the back of my head with the barrel of his gun, and I’m so dizzy that I vomit into my mouth and into the dirt, sucking it into my nose. I choke and cough.

  Darius again presses the gun to my head. “I should have done this a long fucking time ago,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Get the fuck off of her!” Percy screams.

  “You. You were in on this?” Darius grates. He turns to the crowd who is standing around us in shock as they witness the fall of their leader. “You think this is true? These are lies. Lies so that my son can take power before he’s ready.”

  Percy scoffs. “I don’t want the fucking throne. I want out. Away from all of this, and away from you.” He’s goading him, and I know why. He’s trying to draw Darius’s attention away from me.

  He glares at Percy. “No. You’re just weak. She’s made you weak!” He emphasizes the comment with a press of the gun to my head. His other hand is pressing my cheek into the dirt. “And now, I’m going to remove that weakness from your life. For good.”

  On instinct, I blink away the blur and look for Pike. If I’m going to die, I want to see him one last time. Suddenly, he stands up. I blink again because what I’m seeing can’t be real. But it is. He’s standing, and his arms are free because…they were never bound to begin with. The guards remove their masks, revealing their faces. They aren’t guards, at all. They aren’t even members of the Reich.

  I know this for certain because I know those faces, and they belong to none other than Nine, King, and Preppy.

  Pike rushes Darius, who doesn’t see him coming. I suck in a long breath of air the second Pike tackles him, tossing him from my back. Darius lands on his back but Pike grabs a hold of Darius’s shirt and flips him over, pressing his fist against Darius’s chest. Pike removes his own gun from the waistband of his pants and shoves the barrel into Darius’s mouth. I roll over, coughing up mud and my own vomit. My vision begins to clear with every breath I take. I push up to my knees and watch Darius’s eyes grow wide with fear and disbelief.

  His lips move, and his words are mumbled as he tries to speak around the gun in his mouth.

  “You’ve said enough in this lifetime. Now, all that’s left to figure out is who is going to send you out of it,” Pike seethes, his chest rising and falling with his restrained anger.

  Pike looks over to me. “He’s yours, Mic. If you want him,” he offers. “I’m not giving you this. This is yours to take. Your choice. Does he die by my hand or yours? Either way?” Pike glares at Darius. “He’s going to fucking die.”

  Darius screams and tries to kick his feet.

  Nine, King, and Preppy step out in front of Pike, holding their guns on the crowd in case any of them decide to leap to Darius’s defense. None of them do.

  “Do it!” Someone shouts from the back of the crowd.

  “Fuck, I’ll do it!”

  I look over my shoulder to find the owner of the last voice. Surprisingly, it’s Hoppy. He shrugs. “What? I’m pretty sure he had my brother killed. Plus, he wouldn’t give me his Netflix password.”

  I glance back at Pike who's still waiting for an answer.

  The sentiment is almost sweet, considering he’s asking if I want to kill a man or let him. As much as I’ve yearned for this moment, imagined it a million times over, I never imagined I’d also be with the man I love. Things have changed. I’ve changed, and so has my purpose. I don’t want to hate those who hate.

  I want to heal.

  Everyone except Darius, that is.

  I shake my head. “No, you were right. I can’t come back from that.”

  Pike blows out a breath, looking relieved. “Good. Because I’ve already been there, so his death is nothing but a notch on my belt and a reason to fucking smile at night.” He fingers the trigger.

  “No, wait,” Percy shouts.

  Pike looks up. His nostrils flare. “We had a fucking deal.”

  “I know, and I get it. I’m just asking you to wait before this gets worse.”

  Preppy blurts out a burst of laughter. “It ain’t going to get much worse for Darius,” he points out.

  “I mean for you,” Percy says, sounding sincere.

  “What is going on, Percy?” I ask, groaning as I’m finally able to get to my feet. I sway, but manage to stay upright. “Why wait? What aren’t you telling us?”

  “What the fuck does that mean,” Pike grates. Nine, King, and Preppy move to stand between Percy and Pike.

  Percy raises his hands. “I’m unarmed. And he deserves to die. There’s no doubt about it. Just wait.”

  “How fucking long?” King asks, pointing his gun at Percy.

  “Why?” Nine asks at the same time.

  Blue and re
d lights flood the compound, circling around the courtyard. Men in all black gear, holding military-grade weapons descend upon the crowd who runs and screams, scattering like roaches in the light.

  Pike releases his hold on Darius and sheathes his gun.

  His friends do the same.

  “This is why,” Percy shouts over the sirens and commotion.

  “You!” Darius accuses, staring up at his son from the ground. He raises himself up on his arms. “You did this!”

  Pike rushes to my side, shielding me from the chaos. He nods to his friends who quietly slip away. I spot Rage’s blond ponytail sitting in the field next to the compound holding something in her hand.

  “No, you did this, old man” Percy retorts as the crowd is corralled by the swarming FBI agents. He looks around and holds out his arms. “This? This is all a fucking farce!” Percy wipes the back of his hand over the Fourth Reich tattoo on his neck, smearing the ink and revealing scarred, yet tattoo-free skin underneath. “You want to know how I got out of prison early?” He points to the agents surrounding us. “Well, now you fucking know. You’ve got a new rat to hate now.”

  “No. It can’t be. Not you.” Darius’s jaw drops. He blinks through his confusion as if he could change what he’s seeing before his eyes. “Of all the fucking people.” His face reddens as he bares his teeth. “You!”

  Percy nods, folding his hands in front of him in a prayer-like position. “Yeah, it was me. What? You really think I got out because of something you did?” He unfolds his hands and points an accusing finger at Darius. “Please. You were more concerned about getting revenge on who put me in prison than getting me out.” He looks over his shoulder to Pike. “But Pike? He wasn’t the rat, and even if he was, he still wouldn’t be the one who got me locked up. We both know he had nothing to do with Mom’s death. You wanted to clear out your competition, and you made up a reason, a scapegoat, for me to direct all the hate you taught me.”