Page 46 of Vice

I need something to tie him down with. It won’t keep him tied down for long—Viper is damn near impossible to keep restrained—but it’ll be long enough to look through his shit, find my drive, and get the fuck out of here.

Before I can do that, Viper has managed to throw me off of him and then has me pinned to the ground on my back.

“You’re not getting it.”

“Viper.”

“We don’t know where the hell that information we got from Harp is going to take us. And you think this weekend was bad? You think having to let me fuck you in front of a bunch of men while they laughed at you being dominated and humiliated was traumatizing? This isnothingcompare to the insane shit out there. This is a fucking frolic through a fucking meadow compared to that shit. You just don’t go prancing into that shit alone and without backup.”

I try to throw him off me, but there’s no point. He has me pinned. And he emphasizes that by lifting me some and slamming me into the ground.

“We knew this shit was going to be dangerous. Or is that not why you made sure I was damn near unstoppable before we decided to take this on?” I growl.

“To protect yourself when you inadvertently found yourself in danger.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s not this, Dele. That’s not what this is at all. This is something you leave alone.”

“I’ll never leave it alone.”

“You’re going to leave this alone. What they do to defiant, pretty women like you is worse than anything you’ve been through. Or did you forget why I taught you all those cheap shots in the first place when you were just a kid who didn’t even reach my chest?”

I glare up at him. Because he’s right. Fuck, he’s right and I can’t argue with him. Because it was Viper who pulled my still too naïve teenage self aside after I tailed him on a mission that he thought was too dangerous. A mission where I took a sip of the wrong drink and blacked out and the next thing I remembered was waking up in bed with Viper sitting at the foot of it. It was him who told me the reality of what I was getting myself into. That it wasn’t a game. That the things that could happen to me were worse than death. That he’d seen things happen that were worse than death. And the last thing he wanted was for those things to happen to me.

We hadn’t known each other long back then. But even then I’d known I’d never wanted to leave Viper’s side. And he’d decided to keep me at his side. And then he taught me to fight. Things no other Sole would teach me. How to fight dirty. How to attack an opponent from behind when they were unsuspecting. How to attack even when it looked like the enemy was down. To fight until I was dead and to make sure I took my opponent with me. Nothing was too cheap, too dirty, or too dishonest or whatever when it came to taking down an opponent.

And even that wasn’t enough when the Soles briefly cast me out.

But if I’m going to leave here with my plans frustrated, then damn it, so is he.

I’m going to have to find a different tactic.

For months now, I’ve been cataloging this man. Observing his every strength and weakness. Preparing for the day I may have to kill him myself if it means protecting my children from his ambitions.

Then it comes to me. I can’t trust what he’ll decide to do on his own if he unravels this without me. He can’t trust me not to run into this alone. No matter what he does.

“So then don’t let me go without backup. When you comb through that information, let me know. We’ll both go off the grid for a week with Wyan and see what we find.”

“Or, I could just not.”

“You could. But then you wouldn’t be able to trust that I wouldn’t just find another source or see if Delilah can find a way to get that information off Harp’s computer and phone remotely, and then we’d be right back here. Risking me going somewhere dangerous and unprotected without you knowing.”

I don’t even know if it’s possible for Delilah to hack into Harp’s computer remotely. Maybe. If they’re logged into the same network. But not even Harp could be stupid enough not to have his network private and encrypted a thousand ways to hell. But it doesn’t matter if Delilahcando it. It only matters that Viperthinksthat maybe she can do it. And if he thinks Delilah can manage it, then he’ll have no choice but to agree to informing me of what him and Wyan find and bringing me along to investigate.

He's not going to risk me biting off more than I can chew. He’s not going to risk the greatest piece on the chess board that he has to taking out Pray. He’s not going to risk his favorite fuck partner. He’s not going to risk what belongs to him.

“Equal partners or not partners at all,” I remind.

I only mean it to mean that if I can’t trust him to keep me in the loop, then he can’t trust me not to find and do what I want on my own. Without him. But it sounds a lot more sinister and threatening than I mean it to be.

Luckily, Viper takes it the way I mean.

“Damn you,” he mutters. “Damn you, you stupid, reckless woman.”

He then releases me and stands up.

“Fine,” he says as I stand up. “I’ll tell you what we find out.”

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