Devil's Gambit

Chapter 13

"So, uh, are we going to unpack what just happened?" Daniel murmured uncomfortably, leaning his elbow on the passenger side window as he fluffed his chocolate hair with his fingers.

"There's nothing to unpack," Lucas grunted, right hand on the steering wheel as the other dangled out of the open driver's side window. The wind whipped his raven hair around violently, thin lips pursed in concentration as his eyes never once strayed from the road in front.

"Really? Is that so? Because your one night stand kinda looked like Harley."

"Did he? Huh, I guess he did now that you mention it. Didn't even occur to me," Lucas replied smoothly.

"I don't even know what to call this. It's like... almost projection? But you're not displacing your own negative attributes onto another person, although you also do that, you're just. . . pretending you're fucking someone else? I thought constantly fucking the pain away was bad enough. God, Lucas, any therapist would have to charge you double with the amount of shit you'd have to work through. And you've got hella daddy issues on top of that-"

Daniel's ramblings soon became indecipherable background noise as Lucas' steely eyes flicked between the road and the rear view mirror, becoming alarmingly aware of the damaged white pickup truck that had begun tailing them just a few blocks back.

"Fuck," he mumbled under his breath, eyes flitting around as Lucas examined his surroundings, thinking of a decently public place to pull over. He would usually never condone pulling over when a vehicle is in pursuit, but he's done this particular tango with this particular guy many times, and the fully loaded Glock in the glove compartment greatly increased his confidence in managing the situation.

"What? Why are we pulling over?" Daniel straightened, looking around frantically before his eyes landed on the car's side mirror, the dirty truck coming to a slow rolling stop behind them. Lucas' body deflated, letting out an annoyed groan as Daniel slumped in the passenger seat.

"Are you serious? What the hell does Marco want?" Daniel griped.

"Guess we'll find out, we can't go home now anyway because we'll give away where we live, so we gotta deal with him. Hand me the Glock," Lucas grunted, hand outstretched as Daniel fumbled around in the messy glove compartment. When the gun clattered to the floor, along with various other junk and paper as Daniel struggled to keep all of the contents contained within the compartment, Lucas let out a breath, rolling his eyes.

"Big stinky rolling up any second now," Lucas prodded impatiently, eyeing the side mirror as two of the greasiest, dirtiest men in all of Southside came sauntering up to the driver's side.

"Got it!" Daniel hissed through his teeth, thrusting the Glock into Lucas' palm as he quickly hid the gun in the crevice between the driver's door and his thigh.

"Hey there, Lukey," Marco grinned mischievously as he leaned against the side of the car and into the open window, pale eyes looking further into the car at the other occupant. "Daniel," Marco acknowledged, bringing a hand up to push back the oily piece of shoulder-length brown hair that had fallen into his face.

"'Sup,'' Daniel smiled tightly in disgust, jerking his chin before cringing and looking away slightly. Lucas merely kept his gaze locked on Marco and the pudgier man behind him, who sported a patchy beard and buzzed head.

"What can we do for ya, Marco? My dear old friend," Lucas hummed.

"Have you been keeping tabs on daddy dearest lately?" The gangster mused, shifting his weight onto his front leg as he leaned slightly further into the car, bringing up a pistol to rest on the frame of the open driver's side window. Lucas' eyes flicked down to the gun, before meeting Marco's casual gaze as he pushed his own gun up and into the window, right next to Marco's. The gang leader's jaw set tightly as he acknowledged the gun, narrowing his eyes at Lucas.