Page 45 of Darcy
She’s our best friend. The past ten years have proven that Darcy justfitswhere no other woman has even come close. She’s probably the only person alive with half a chance at bringing Prophet back into the fold.
The more I think about it, the more Slate’s plan feels less like a ridiculous dream and more like a lifeline.
We can convince her. Buy her a nice house with a picket fence and all the trimmings. I want to spoil the fuck out of her. We’ve spent ten years worshipping her from afar, and now I’m ready to do it from beside her. Or under her. Or over her… On the couch…
Briefly, I consider crawling down the bed and waking her with my mouth between her thighs, but she fell asleep before we could discuss her limits. I don’t want to be that idiot who assumes his advances are welcome just because she slept in my bed.
So I creep out of my room and into the communal kitchen. I want to hear from Slate exactly what happened to Darcy’s room last night. Music blasts from the gym, and I’m unsurprised that Prophet is already working out. Slate isn’t a morning person, but I feel absolutely zero guilt in barging into his room and tipping a glass of cold water over his sleeping head.
“Asshole!” he splutters, jack knifing upright with a curse.
“What’s the plan?” I demand. “Come on, I know you have one. I want in.”
He wipes water from his eyes, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You changed your tune fast for someone who doesn’t like to mix emotions with fucking.”
“I haven’t fucked her,” I retort, shutting him up. “But this is Dark. She belongs with us. So tell me the plan, and then put your brain to solving the Miguel problem, because she’s not getting put in the middle of that shit.”
Slate sighs. “I told you. There is no easy ‘out’ when it comes to the cartel. We can protect Darcy the same way we protect everyone else. Good behaviour. Eventually, when we stop bringing in money…”
“Not going to happen.”
He knows as well as I do that this life doesn’t just let you leave quietly. There are always more ways for the people behind the scenes to wring money out of us. Comeback tours. Anniversary Tours. Too-old-to-really-be-singing-but-fuck-it-we’re-broke tours.
We don’t even have to be as successful as we are for Miguel to make money out of us, especially since his main money maker in this whole thing is the drugs and the trafficking. My fucking microphones are kept in cases lined with bricks of blow. Our merch is tied up in so much money laundering it’s actually painful to watch fans jumping up and down in it.
“Even if it doesn’t, Sully’s gathering evidence.”
Sully’s been documenting evidence for years. The problem isn’t the lack of proof, it’s the lack of people to give it to. For every good cop and upstanding judge, there are seven more in the cartel’s pocket.
My heart sinks. “So the plan is to bring her into this with no way out?”
Slate swings his legs out of bed and stretches. “Look, man, I don’t have all the answers. But I know, and you know, that Darcy is the only thing capable of bringing everyone back to how we used to be. We stand a better chance of getting out of this shit if all of us are on the same page, but right now, Arlo is practically a shut-in, and Prophet wants nothing more than to walk away and go back to stacking shelves in some backwater town. We need her.”
I can’t argue with him there.
“So what’s the plan?”
He grins. “We play to our strengths. Arlo tugs on her heartstrings. You use those bedroom skills you’re always bragging about to make her see sparks. Prophet pampers her, and I—” He shakes his head. “I’ll come up with something.”
“Woo her in Spanish?” I snort. “When are you going to tell her you don’t even speak the language?”
“Come mierda.” There’s no heat in his tone. “It’s not my fault my mom didn’t use it around me. Besides, I know the important words.”
Both of us sober at the mention of his mom. Carmen Reyes is a sweet, quiet woman. She left everything she knew to marry Slate’s dad, getting disowned by her family in the process. When he died, she had the severe misfortune of falling into a new relationship with an utter douchebag.
Slate hasn’t spoken to her since he got out of juvie, but I know he has people keeping an eye on her.
At least the fact that she’s not allowed anything to do with him means she’s relatively safe from our bullshit. Small mercies.
“So what do we do when Darcy finds out?” I ask. “Because they already trashed her room. There’s no way she won’t ask questions when she wakes up.”
“Trashed is too nice a word,” Slate grumbles. “They smeared blood all around the room and pissed all over the bed.”
My fists clench at my sides, and I resist the urge to pummel Miguel for the hundredth time.
“If she asks, we tell her there are some bad people who are targeting our staff to get to us, and our security is on it,” Slate decides. “It’s the truth, or close enough anyway.”
Normally, manipulating the truth is my thing. I do it easily—too easily—but the idea of lying to Darcy sits wrong in my gut.
