Caged: The Underground

“Fuck,” she groaned. “How are we supposed to make that happen? Do you know anyone who can get you an audience with Terrance?”

“He’s not the King of England,” I growled. “I know where to find him.”

“And then what? Why the hell would he care what our beef is with Davonte if there’s a truce between the two?”

That’s what’d kept me out until three in the morning.

After leaving Pussywillow’s, I drove around, waiting for something to slam into my brain that would unfuck the situation I’d just created.

And then I realized there was only one way to make Terrance Johnson get on board.

Fucking lie through my goddamn teeth.

“Because I’m going to make Terrance believe that Davonte is working to bring him down under the guise of the truce.”

Her blank stare prodded me to elaborate.

“Look, they both hate each other, the truce is a fragile thing to begin with. All it will take is some creative manipulation of the facts to put them both snarling at each other like two alpha dogs after the same bitch. Davonte has had his eye on down river for some time, he’s just been too pussy to go after it. All we have to do is find out when Terrance Johnson has a shipment coming into the docks, leak that info to Davonte’s people and see if he takes the bait. If Davonte can’t resist getting his fingers on Terrance’s shit, then we’ve got the trap set. Once Terrance finds out that Davonte violated the truce…it’s game on.”

“Brilliant,” she quipped with a dark frown. “And when that blows up in your face, we’ll have two sociopaths after us. Jesus, Damon…what are we going to do?”

“Well, whatever we do, we have a ticking clock to make it happen, so get dressed princess. We got work to do.”

Chapter 20

Charlie

The plan was fucking crazy.

But maybe that’s all we had.

As much as I hated the plan, I had to admit that Damon was right.

We had to go balls in or else we’d lose and since we stood to lose everything anyway, what was the point in soft-pedaling the plan?

It was all or nothing.

Either we’d end up dead or free.

The odds were against us but the stakes were high enough to make the threat of dying worth it.

“Where are we going?” I asked, sliding from the bed to dress quickly. Damon looked away as if I disgusted him. What the fuck? Okay, now wait…Was I offended that he didn’t want to fuck me? I hated girls who acted bi-polar and yet, here I was, doing exactly that. Get a grip, Charlie. Time to focus. “All right, so how are we going to find out anything of value from Terrance’s camp?”

“I overheard Manny talking to Davonte one night at the gym how someday they were going to dose his favorite Thai food with arsenic. They were joking, talking shit, but Terrance hangs out at this restaurant near the docks, loves the place. Can’t get enough of that shit. So that’s where we’ll start.”

“A Thai restaurant? Are you sure?”

“Hell no, I’m not sure about anything. All we have to go off is rumor and gossip but we gotta start somewhere. Sitting with our thumbs up our asses isn’t going to get us where we need to go.”

I scowled at his crude point. “Fine. Let me shower and we can get out of this dump.”

Heat flashed in his gaze but he doused it so quickly I thought for sure I was imagining things. He rose and headed for the door, saying over his shoulder, “Don’t take all day. I want to get on the road within a half hour.”

He didn’t wait for my agreement, just slammed the door behind him.

I growled with impotent frustration. Why did he have to be such an asshole?

Because he was an asshole.

At least he never tried pretending to be something he wasn’t.

An asshole with a talented tongue.

It was hard to forget how it felt to have him between my thighs.

I shifted with a small groan, irritated that I felt suddenly wet and needy.

And by Damon’s attitude, I was the last woman on earth he wanted to touch ever again.

Maybe one woman’s vagina was the same as the others.

What kind of woman would catch Damon’s eye for real?

I couldn’t even imagine.

There was nothing soft or yielding about the man.

Maybe that’s what appealed to some private, locked-up part of me.

Watching him take down Davonte’s men like a bull rampaging through a China shop…it’d been powerful shit.

When he’d grabbed my hand and hauled me out of that bar, I hadn’t even thought of resisting.

He could’ve been just as bad as Davonte’s men, or Davonte himself, but I’d gone with Damon willingly.

The way he touched me…I could feel the hunger radiating from his hands, clutching me as if I belonged to him and he’d kill anyone who tried to take me from him.

That single-minded obsession should’ve been a turn-off.

That’s the kind of thinking that stalkers and psychotic nutjobs subscribed to.

But even as I tried to convince myself of that logic, my breath hitched in my throat when I remembered the heat between us.

That hadn’t been an act.

Whatever had sparked between us had been real and alive, no matter what he was trying to convince me of now.

So what did I want? Did I want him to be cold and efficient or hot-blooded and insatiable?

Seemed like a lose-lose situation on my end.

I sagged beneath the spray, bowed briefly by the weight on my shoulders.

I knew I was being wishy-washy and I hated it.

I couldn’t explain why I was acting this way.

I’d never felt like this with anyone before.

I’d mocked those who had.

Do you want to die a virgin, Charlie?

I didn’t want to be melodramatic but that was the real deal staring me in the face. I could die very soon.

We were playing with fire and bullets.

Did I want to meet my maker never having known what it was like to be with someone?

Yeah, but what about being with someone you love? What happened to that ideal?

That girl was naive.

Things could go down several different ways once we stepped outside this motel room.

I could find myself a pawn in someone else’s game, sacrificed at any moment.

I could find myself dead because Terrance found out we were playing him for our own end.

I could find myself back with Davonte, losing my virginity to a fucker I hated.

Or, I could be with Damon and hope that when the dust settled we were still alive to walk away from each other.

Or I could take my chances that everything would work in our favor and I’d get to still walk away with my hopes and dreams intact.

Get real, Charlie. The most likely scenario was death.

I didn’t want to die.

My sinuses tingled and I lifted my face to the spray. There was no time for tears.

I didn’t want Damon.

I wanted someone who loved me.

I’m not even sure Damon knew what love was.

Honestly, I didn’t know crap about Damon aside from what I saw at face value.

I guess I should find out who the hell I was throwing my chips in with before it was too late.

Who was I kidding?

It was already too late.

Better or worse, Damon was my only shot.

Chapter 21

My plan had holes big as Texas poked into it but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

We were playing with fire, no matter how you looked at it.

We’d spent the morning hanging around the marina, listening to the chatter.

If you knew what you were listening for, it was easy enough to pick up the intel we were looking for.

By the time we moved onto Orchid House Thai Cuisine, I had something to work with.

I could only hope tha

t what I’d picked up had value to Terrance.

“When we go into the place, you keep your trap shut. Let me do the talking,” I told Charlie as we pulled into the parking lot.

Charlie shot me a dark look but I didn’t care if she didn’t like my direction.

I was trying to keep us both alive and that didn’t leave much room for her feminine pride. “Besides, it’ll be safer if they think you’re my woman.”