Page 48 of Vicarious

Phae always found herself at the center of all that which is the reason we met and hit it off to begin with. But she doesn’t want to be, and she’s going to hate and resent me when she finds out the life she wants to destroy is the life I want to live.

I was naïve enough to believe that I could convince her to want it once when I was a younger man. But not anymore. She’s not going to follow me and forsake her goals for this. And I’m not going to forsake mine.

So in response to her question, I make a noncommittal noise, and Phae doesn’t press for a more concrete answer.

23

Viper

Eventually I’m able to find the energy to concentrate on me and Phae’s tasks enough that we’re both able to put a few puzzle pieces together abut Pray’s business. We don’t have the exact details connected yet. That’s something we’re going to need Dele for because she’s even more familiar with the logistics and intricacies of Pray’s business than I am. But we have a big enough picture to confirm what I’ve suspected all along.

Pray’s legitimate business in beverages and alcohol and his illegitimate drug business are all so intertwined that it may as well just be one business. If any of this ever was released as is, it’s enough to take him down, his corporations, his drug business, and most of his associates attached to the business. Myself included.

I’d have to run it by Dele and then Eileen. But based on what I’ve seen, if we want a criminal empire to rule after all this, we can’t use any of this to take Pray down.

Being that Phae’s goal is to destroy Pray, his entire empire, and anyone connected to it, if she’s come to the same conclusion, she’s ecstatic about that.

By the time Phae and I have decided to call it a day on the research for now, I’m even more restless than I was before. Pray really meant to run his criminal empire, die, and then leave it in smoking ruins that no one would be able to pick up the pieces from. In fact, I get the feeling that if anyone were to ever make a move on him, he’d lead the fucking authorities to this to take his empire down with him.

Suddenly, that birth certificate I have securely hidden in my office has so much more meaning. Adelena Fantoni is the only one who could possibly keep the business from collapsing in on itself. Stop anyone from getting their hands on those documents. But if Phae is really Adelana Fantoni, and I’m all but one hundred percent positive that she is, she’s going to be the one to give it to the fucking authorities. There aren’t enough paid off federal and state agents in the country to ignore that kind of conspiracy.

Fuck. I started all this because I thought Pray killed her and ruined her life. On some level I’m still glad Pray didn’t and we were able to find her, but I can’t help but have the fleeting thought that all of this would be so much easier if she’d actually been dead.

Feeling a tension headache coming on, I decide I need to do something to work out some of this anger and frustration that will actually work for me. Before I go to change into something more athletic, I check my phone and see a text from Dele from a few hours ago.

Want to spar?

I smirk and respond by typing,The kind where we’re naked or…

She responds with an eye rolling emoji and the words,The kind where we actually spar.

Still doesn’t mean that won’t lead to a different type of sparing so I respond that I’ll meet her down in the gym in ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, Dele is already downstairs waiting for me on the mat.

“You’re late,” she says.

“You’re just early.”

She gives me an unimpressed look and says, “No… I’m pretty sure you’re just late.”

I probably am. But I’d never let her have the satisfaction of me acknowledging that she’s right. So instead I ask, “Rules?”

She smirks and says, “Do your worst.”

Then she does something I don’t expect and comes at me head on. I could stand my ground and catch her. But since she’s doing something different, I decide to switch up too and go on the defensive and sidestep her headbutt. She goes just past me but is able to stop her momentum without missing a beat and spins around just enough to throw her weight into elbowing me in the chest. Or trying if I didn’t catch her. But even with that, she’s already moving into her next attempt to take me down or stun me.

It's been a while since we’ve actually been able to spar. So rather than going on the offense and forcing her to go on the defense to look for an opening that she’ll never get, I decide to play the defense. I want to see how much she’s improved since the last time I just observed her. So I simply block her every attempt to take me down. Every punch, every kick, every attempt to sweep.

After a while, I finally say, “You’ve gotten faster.”

“You’ve gotten slower.”

I haven’t, but maybe it seems so to someone like her. I’ve reached the peak of my agility and speed. Still much faster than the average person can move, but never as fast as Dele can. But what I’ll never be able to cover in speed, I make up for in brute strength. So I decide to stop observing Dele, and remind her that no matter how fast she is, there’s a reason she’s never been able to win a fight against me.

I go on the offense, and though she’s quick, it only takes one punch to stun her when I do manage to land a hit, a kick to the gut to doubly stun her, and then I have her pinned to the ground.

“Faster,” I repeat my assessment from earlier, “but you still can’t beat me.”

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