Caged: The Underground

“No.”

“Well, you do.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” Then he added, “I’m not dumb.”

I shot him a quick look. Had I hurt his feelings? I didn’t think it was possible.

But I guess it was rude to call someone stupid.

Even though I wanted to slap him silly, I offered a mumbled apology because my grandparents raised me better than I was acting. “I shouldn’t have said that. My nerves are on edge and I’m hungry.”

“You’re hangry.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “Yeah, I guess I am. Maybe that pizza isn’t a terrible idea.”

“I get not wanting to go back to the motel to hide out like rats but if someone sees us hanging out, word’s going to get back to Davonte and we’re both gonna be fucked.

Right now I’m supposed to be looking for you, not sharing a cozy, candlelit dinner.”

A sudden thrill arced through me. Damon in a suit? No, I couldn’t see that. Those broad shoulders weren’t meant to be caged. In fact, so far the best look on Damon had been naked.

And wet.

Okay, so I might’ve snuck a look when he’d exited the bathroom after his shower.

Sue me, I’m human.

“I can’t really see you in a suit,” I admitted, biting my lip from smiling too hard. “I mean, you’re so…”

“Big?”

“Yeah.”

His lips twisted in a brief sardonic smile that did weird things to my belly until he said, “Not since my ma died. She was real lady. Not sure how she got stuck with a beast like me for a kid.”

That one statement opened up a million questions. Should I ask? Was it my business?

Would probing into his personal space violate some unspoken agreement between us?

It was the first real glimpse into Damon’s private world.

Probably best to just keep my mouth shut and let that admission slide.

Fuck it, I wanted to know more.

“What was your mom like?”

“The opposite of me, in every way.”

I chewed on his answer for a minute. I didn’t have to ask for more details. Damon’s mouth seemed to want to share, even if he didn’t.

“Ma wasn’t from this life. She, uh, was sweet and gentle. Kind.”

I tried to picture that kind of woman giving birth to a man like Damon.

A flush of private shame heated my cheeks when I realized my vision of what Damon’s family must’ve been like was nearly caveman-ish.

My tongue was tied. Each time I opened my mouth to utter something — anything — I swallowed it.

I didn’t know why he was sharing something so private about himself but I wasn’t going to cheapen the moment but saying something flip or cruelly blunt.

Maybe it was his way of making up for that curveball.

I didn’t need to ask to know that his mother was dead.

I wanted to know more but I wasn’t going to push.

Besides, my curiosity would only lead to more trouble.

Damon and I may have fostered some sort of relationship out of necessity but we both knew that as soon as that need was gone, so was our strange alliance.

Against my better judgment, my gaze darted to the man driving silently through empty streets, his mind elsewhere, his thoughts private.

Old scars marred his face from past fights in the cage.

His knuckles bore the same damage, though I could only imagine the true ruin beneath the skin.

Most men didn’t stay in the cage for as long as Damon.

It was a young man’s game.

Damon was like an old bull, battle-worn but still mean as fuck.

Cranky because his bones ached.

But the layers of muscle cording his body were still hard, steel beneath the battered flesh.

And even though Damon didn’t remember charging through Davonte’s men like a hot knife through butter, I did.

It was imprinted in my memory — a thing of terrible wonder.

I’d never seen the beauty or elegance of violence until that moment.

The truth was…I was struggling to remember why it repulsed me.

Damon…what have you done to me?

Chapter 23

Damon

I wasn’t a sharer by nature.

I preferred to keep to myself.

Better that way.

I hadn’t meant to tell Charlie about my mother.

That shit was sacred.

But I guess walking the razor’s edge of fuck-all made a person share more than they might otherwise.

We could both die choking on our own blood by morning.

Chantel could fuck us both and decide that the devil she knew was better than the devil she didn’t.

Davonte was ass-fucking her business but at least she always knew what to expect.

Terrance could be ten times worse for all she knew.

I understood the risk.

I knew it was a gamble with crappy odds.

But like I said to Charlie…it’d been the only play we had so I took it.

While I’d said that returning to the motel seemed safest, that’s not where we ended up.

I didn’t relish the idea of sitting in a tight space with Charlie for hours either.

The girl made my insides vibrate.

I could smell her skin and taste her sweetness.

My fingers itched to spread her legs and feast again.

Instead, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, determined to keep my distance.

But something inside me squirmed and thrashed in protest, banging around until I thought I might lose my mind if I didn’t feel Charlie pressed tightly against my skin.

I didn’t deserve someon

e like Charlie.

Neither did Davonte.

Charlie reminded me of Ma in that she was better than this lifestyle could offer.

Ma had fallen in love with a fighter and it’d been her downfall.

Disowned by her family, thrown into the rough life of the Detroit slums, often bewildered by the violence and chaos that made up each day in a world owned by poverty, Ma had been a rare flower trying to survive through a crack in the pavement.

And I wanted to tell her story to someone.

No, not just someone…to Charlie.

I guess that’s how we ended up in Ma’s old neighborhood, eating convenience store hot dogs that’d been rolling in their own grease for likely hours because they were chewy and disgusting but we were starved and they tasted incredible.

“Where are we?” Charlie asked, realizing we weren’t anywhere near the shitty motel we were staying at. She wiped the grease from her hands and mouth with a paper thin napkin. “Good God, the houses here are monstrous. Can you imagine having money like that? It’s almost obscene.”

I grunted in agreement but kept driving, winding through the tony neighborhood, my beat-up truck nearly screaming that I wasn’t a resident.

After my dad died, Ma used to drive me here, to where she’d grown up, but we never stopped, just drove through like hungry visitors, tourists who didn’t belong.

Fuck yeah, we didn’t belong.

Mansions lined the street.

It was like walking into a parallel world where nothing made sense.

Ma had walked away from all this? For my dad?

I couldn’t make heads or tails of such a sacrifice.

Because of the rift, I knew nothing of my mother’s side of the family and they seemed fine with knowing nothing about me.

No one had shown up for her funeral.

It’d just been me and the priest.

Quiet.

As if Ma had never existed.

I wanted to tell Charlie my mother grew up in this place, that she’d been among the obscenely rich that she and I knew nothing about but that would raise questions I couldn’t answer.

Would reveal soft spots I’d spent a lifetime protecting.

Besides, it wasn’t my world.

Never had been.