The night passed by slowly. Conner, Maya, and Ricardo talked for hours about the days before Nunez had taken over their home. Bass sat with Charlie tucked against his side and listened to stories of his son's childhood with a mixture of jealousy and pride. Miles passed around a bottle and it wasn't long before everyone was laughing chatting drunkenly about their lives.

Charlie had been dozing on Bass' shoulder for over an hour before he finally nudged her awake. "Hey, you should go get some sleep."

She blinked sleepily and smiled. "I was sleeping. You just ruined it."

Bass kissed her forehead gently and said, "I meant that you should go lay down and sleep."

"Is this some attempt to get me into bed, because I'm not really feeling up to it right now."

"Not everything is about sex, Charlie."

She sat up and stretched her arms above her head, pushing her breasts into his immediate view and watching his eyes fall to them in amusement. Dropping her arms, she smirked over at him. "It's not all about sex, huh?"

"I said it's not all about sex, I didn't say that sex wasn't a factor." He put a hand on her thigh and squeezed it for emphasis, making Charlie shiver. She leaned into him and brought her lips close to his ear.

"I think I'm gonna go change back into my clothes before I go to bed." She stood up rapidly and grabbed her pack before taking off for the trees. Stopping at the edge of the clearing, she turned and raised a single eyebrow at him questioningly. Bass stood abruptly and made to follow her.

"Oh, yeah. Real subtle, you guys. That's great." Miles called after them, but Charlie merely laughed and stuck her middle finger up at him. Once out of sight of the others, Bass grabbed her around the waist and pushed her against a tree, pinning her with his own body and sliding his hands beneath the dress along her thighs.

"So is this your way of proving that all I care about is sex?" He asked her.

Charlie chuckled and pulled him closer, sealing her lips over his. She slid her hand down his stomach and cupped his hardening dick through his jeans, making him groan against her mouth. Pulling back, she grinned up at him. "I never said that it was a bad thing."

She grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back down to her level, shoving her tongue into his welcoming mouth. Bass pulled at the knot at the back of her neck in an attempt to remove the dress, but Charlie stopped him.

"Wait, Maya wants this dress back so we can't mess it up."

Growling like a petulant child, Bass reluctantly undid the knot slowly and helped her slide out of the silky garment with gentle hands. Charlie draped it over a low hanging tree branch and turned back to find Bass looking at her with hooded eyes.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered. His hands stroked over the flesh of her hips and over her smooth belly, up to her breasts where he cupped them gently, rubbing his thumbs over her hardening nipples. Charlie arched into his touch as she pulled him down for another kiss. Their tongues battled back and forth as one of his hands slid down her stomach and through her wet curls. She gasped when his fingers brushed over her clit and dipped into her soaked pussy. He pushed two fingers into her wet heat and watched her cry out silently with her head thrown back.

"So wet for me, baby. I bet you can't wait for me to fuck you again."

Charlie surprised him by shaking her head and shoving her hand into his jeans. Her fingers wrapped around his cock as she moaned, "don't want to wait anymore."

Growling deep in his chest, Bass shoved his pants down around his ankles and grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off of the ground with her back pressed against the tree. She wrapped her long legs around him and directed his cock straight at her entrance. He surged forward into her slippery depths with a loud groan.

"God, I fucking love you."

Charlie moaned and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding onto his shirt for support. "Fucking love you, too."

He held tightly to her hips and set a fast pace, fucking her hard and deep against the tree. Charlie latched onto his neck with her teeth, biting and sucking in an attempt to keep herself quiet. He was already so close, he knew he wouldn't last much longer. "Fuck, I'm gonna come."

Licking her way up his neck, she bit lightly on his earlobe. "Come for me, baby," she whispered, making him slam into her hard and shoot his hot come deep inside of her. He didn't even have to time to think or catch his breath as Charlie shoved him away from her, letting herself fall clumsily to her feet and pushing him to his knees. "I'm not done with you yet," she growled and threw her leg over his shoulder, shoving his face into her wet pussy.

Bass didn't hesitate to shove his tongue into her dripping entrance, tasting his own salty fluids mixed with her sweet ones. Her hands grabbed at his hair and her hips bucked against his face as he licked and sucked. He found her clit with his thumb and rubbed it in quick circles, making her pussy clench around his tongue. Charlie let out a strangled gasp and collapsed against the tree, the only thing keeping her up was his hands on her waist.

Bass stood and kissed her slowly, spreading their combined juices over her lips. "Are you done with me now?" He asked with a smirk.

But Charlie just smiled. "For now. I'll let you know when I'm ready again."

He chuckled as he peppered light kisses along her jaw. "I can't wait."

XxX

No one bothered mentioning how long they'd been gone when they returned to camp, though Bass noticed that Miles was the only one deliberately facing away from the trees. He made his way over to him and pretended to be looking for something in Miles' pack.

"Everything alright, brother?"

Miles huffed, but opened his eyes to look at him. "Are you really going to call me 'brother' after what you just did with my niece?"

Bass gave him a confused look. "I thought that you said you were OK with this - with us - I mean."

Miles closed his eyes again and rolled onto his back so he wouldn't have to look at him. "I said that I knew how you felt about her, I never said that I was OK with it."

"Miles, I... I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were so against it, I wouldn't have-"

"Oh, just stop." Miles stood up abruptly.

"Stop, what? What do you want, Miles?"

"This isn't about me!" He yelled angrily.

Everyone in camp turned to stare at the two of them, including Charlie who was looking rather worried, but Bass waved her off as he led Miles further away from camp.

"What are you talking about Miles, what do you mean this isn't about you?"

Miles pulled himself away from him and made a pained sort of face. "Well, it's not." He growled something under his breath but said nothing for a moment. "Look, this thing with you and Charlie has nothing to do with me."

"Yeah, but I don't want you to be mad at me-"

"Will you shut up about me already? It's not about me! Just because I don't like something doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. You're fucking forty-eight years old, don't you think it's time to start doing things for yourself?"

Bass stared at him confusedly. "So let me get this straight... You're glad that I'm doing what I want, you just don't like that what I want is Charlie. But you think I should keep doing it anyway, because I'm old."

Miles scrunched up his face but nodded. "Yes."

"So you aren't mad at me?"

"No."

"Then why were you yelling?"

"Because you just fucked my niece in the woods a hundred feet away from me! What were expecting, a congratulations?"

Bass bit back a smile a nodded understandingly. "Thanks, Miles."

"Whatever." He stomped off back to camp.

Bass followed him happily and found everyone else already settled in just as the sun started coming up. He kicked off his boots and slid into Charlie's bedroll, wrapping himself snugly around her and falling right to sleep.

XxX

"This is crazy. There is no way that you can walk into Luis' compound again without someone noticing you," Ricardo said.

Charlie shrugged unconcernedly. "Of course I can. And it won't even be the first time I've done it."

But Conner shook his head at her. "You got lucky the first time, Charlie. Nunez won't make that mistake again. There's no way that you'll be able to get in, kill him, and get out without being noticed."

"Are you sure that killing Señor Nunez is a good idea?" Maya asked. "Won't killing him just cause more problems?"

Bass gave Maya a sympathetic look. He liked her, he really did, but the poor girl really had no idea what she was getting herself into. "Maya, there is no other way. Believe me, when you're dealing with a power hungry maniac, the only way to stop him is by killing him."

They were all sitting around the camp fire enjoying a late breakfast while they discussed how to free all of Nunez's slaves. Charlie looked at Bass out of the corner of her eye, the unsaid 'but no one killed you' traveling between them. But he shook those thought away and directed his attention back to the conversation.

"If we murder Luis, then the entire town will go crazy. It's not that they want him to be in charge, it's just that he has been for so long that they won't know what to do with themselves without him." Ricardo said.

"That's where you come in," Miles told him.

Ricardo looked taken aback, as if the idea of him running a town was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I can not be in charge," he protested.

"Why not?" Conner asked him. "You've been a leader in the community for as long as I can remember. People listen to you and they respect you, and that's what they need. When Nunez goes down, they're going to need you to help keep things in order."

Ricardo frowned around at all of them. "This is crazy," he said quietly.

Jeremy snorted and popped a bit of bread into his mouth. "Well then lucky for you, crazy is kind of our specialty."

Maya saw the look of disbelief still etched in her father's face and reached out to take his hand. "Papa, you heard them. This is the only way we can keep our people safe. You can do it, I know you can."

His eyes softened and he kissed her forehead. "I will do it. For you."

Miles, ever the one with bad timing, stood up abruptly. "Great, then we should get moving." Out of habit, Charlie, Bass, Jeremy, and Conner all rose to their feet and moved to start breaking camp.

Ricardo and Maya looked around at them confusedly. "Wait, where are we going?" Maya asked.

"We can't take Nunez on by ourselves. We're good, but we aren't that good. We'll need to gather up some of the other townspeople to help us fight off the angry mob for when attack their compund."

"We can not ask these people to fight," Ricardo argued. "They are simple farmers, not soldiers!"

Miles laid a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "I know that you're trying to protect everyone, and that's a good thing - it's what a leader is supposed to do, but the only way these people will ever be safe is if we get rid of Nunez and his gang for good. It's hard, but it'll be worth it when all of those kids are back home where they belong."

Ricardo sighed and nodded. "OK. I'll do it. I will get them to fight with me."

XxX

"I'm starting to think that Ricardo had a really good point," Jeremy whispered. "This is kinda crazy, Charlie." She chuckled as the two of them moved silently through the sewage tunnel towards Nunez's mansion again.

"Quit whining, we need to get into position."

"Are you sure you don't want to change your mind? We could always turn back now and tell Miles and Bass to find another way."

Charlie stopped and turned around to poke her friend in the chest. "OK, first of all, this plan was my idea. And second, we're on a clock, which means we can't just turn back now otherwise Nunez and all his little minions will realize that we're up to something and they'll retaliate before we can even get into the compound."

She turned back around and continued walking, ignoring Jeremy's mumbled, "fine."

They kept moving until they found themselves at the bottom of the same ladder that she and Conner had climbed down just a few days before. Much to Charlie's surprise, the two men that they had killed and dropped through the hole were still there. Their decomposing bodies reeked of rotten flesh.

"Ugh, who the hell are these guys?" Jeremy asked.

Charlie pulled her shirt up over her nose and tried not to breath too deeply. "Me and Conner ran into them on our way out of the compound the other day. I figured that Nunez and his guys would have found them by now, the sewer isn't exactly hidden up there. There was no way to pull the grass cover back over it once we were down here."

Jeremy shrugged and stepped over one of their legs to get to the ladder. "Whatever, let's just hope Miles and his new farmer friends know what they're doing so we can get the hell out of here."

"How close do you think we are to game time?"

Jeremy shrugged his shoulders again. "I don't know, probably less than five minutes."

Charlie grabbed hold of the ladder and started to climb. "Well we should get into position just in case."

He followed up behind her though she had barely reached the top rung before the entire tunnel started to shake. A large explosion sounded above them in the distance and Charlie felt Jeremy push up on her left foot.

"That's it, it's game time."

Charlie pushed up on the metal circle above her head and tried to shove it away, finding it a little difficult due to the patch of fake grass that was laying over top of it. She managed to shove it aside and climbed out as another explosion shook the ground below her feet. Jeremy climbed out behind her and she pointed down at the patch of grass. "Look, someone must have put it back after we left. That's why no one found the bodies."

"Thats great but we don't have time, we need to go." He pointed behind her worriedly. "Like, right now!"

She turned to find a stream of people coming from the secret door at the bottom of the house. Jeremy had a hold of her arm and was trying to pull her away, but Charlie pulled herself from his grip and ran to the leader of the escapees.

"Claudia!"

But of course, Maya's friend still didn't speak English. She started ranting rapidly in Spanish, causing the younger girls behind her to cower with fear. Charlie looked from Claudia to the fake grass and realized that she must have been the one to cover up the sewer when they left. Claudia had clearly wanted to be able to use her escape route again and by the looks of things, she was trying to do so at that moment.

"Stop, I get it!" Charlie shouted over her Spanish. "Just get those kids out of here!" She pointed at all of the little girls and then down at the hole. Claudia stopped speaking and nodded, ushering the children down the ladder. They were all wearing torn and ragged clothes, and each one was sporting various bruises on their arms and legs. A few of them even had wounds on their faces.

A small girl, no more than eight, passed by Charlie wearing nothing but a pink t-shirt with her bare bottom, complete with angry red fingerprints, on full display. Charlie looked over to Jeremy and found a matching horrified expression on his face. Blood boiling, Charlie crammed herself through the secret door into the house and didn't even wait to see if he was following.

Instead of wasting time trying to navigate through the house like last time, Charlie just followed the sounds of the angry men upstairs who were fighting. She and Jeremy burst through the basement door and into the kitchen just in time to see one of Nunez's guys get clobbered by a farmer with a baseball bat. They looked around at the other people fighting, spotting fires in the yard outside the window. Jeremy grabbed her arm and pulled her off to the left towards a set of stairs.

"Come on, there's no time for sight seeing."

They crossed paths with a few men along the way but they dispatched them with ease. Honestly, none of those poor guys really stood a chance against the Militia's former best Captain and Miles' mini-protégé. At the top of the steps, the house was eerily quiet. It seemed that everyone was already outside fighting, or perhaps just waiting to ambush them. Charlie sheathed the sword that she'd borrowed from one of the farmers in favor of her crossbow and loaded an arrow.

Conner had drawn them a detailed layout of the house that showed where Nunez was most likely to be and made Charlie commit it to memory so that they wouldn't get lost. Which was apparently had been a great idea because she had to pull Jeremy back from going in the opposite direction of where their target would supposedly be. They made their way through the upper floor quietly, trying desperately to ignore the sounds of a battle waging below them and outside.

Jeremy stopped at the end of the last hallway which led to Nunez's office and peered around the corner. "It's clear."

Charlie slid past him with her crossbow raised and approached the closed door. She tried the handle but it was unsurprisingly locked. One look in Jeremy's direction and a tilt of her head later, and he simply kicked the door down, completely taking it off of its hinges. They moved into the empty room and stood directly in front of a large, ornate desk.

Luckily, Conner had warned them that this might happen so they weren't surprised to find that no one was home, or that it seemed like no one was home at least. Charlie moved over to the wall opposite the bookcase and stood facing it while Jeremy stood next to it with his fingers wrapped around a candelabra hanging on the wall.

'Ready?' He mouthed to her. Charlie nodded and aimed her crossbow at the book shelf with her finger on the trigger. Jeremy pulled down on the candelabra and they both watched the bookcase swing open to reveal a man in an expensive looking suit, presumably Nunez, flanked by three thugs with guns.

The guy closest to the door didn't waste any time and came rushing out only have his throat slit by Jeremy as he passed him. Charlie aimed at the guy on Nunez's right and shot him in the neck, leaving the third man with his gun pointed directly at Jeremy. It was a laughable attempt, but the guy almost managed to fire his weapon before Jeremy yanked it from his hands and shot him with his own gun.

Nunez stood back against the far wall breathing heavily and looking between the two of them with wild eyes. "Who are you people? What do you want?"

Charlie grinned. She couldn't help it. "Me? Oh, I'm nobody. But I think you might be familiar with my friend, Conner."

Nunez's eyes went dark with anger. "He is a dead man! He had no right to desert me!"

Approaching him slowly, Charlie shook her head. "He left so he could be with his father. He had every right."

"Monroe knows nothing of Conner. He just wants him for his stupid Republic."

Charlie shoved him in the chest angrily. "No, Bass loves him. Unlike you, who just took advantage of a scared kid and turned him into your prized little leader."

"Bass?" Nunez asked, his face turning her in amusement. "I see that you seem to think that you know him."

"Considering the fact that he frequently shares my bed, yeah, I guess you could say that I know him pretty well."

Nunez's eyes went wide, then travelled over the features of her face and quickly down to the neckline of her tank top. "Monroe sends his woman to do his dirty work?" He asked with a sly grin.

"Actually," Bass corrected him as he came into the room, "I don't send her anywhere. Have you ever tried to tell a Matheson what to do? Well, trust me, it's really fucking hard."

Nunez looked between Bass and Charlie confusedly. "Matheson?"

Charlie took the opportunity to step back and lean against the wall with a smile. "Yep, that's me, Charlie Matheson. I believe you may have met my uncle, Miles Matheson.

Nunez swallowed thickly, the motion visible even from across the room as Miles joined them in the crowded space. "Oh, look who it is. You know I gotta tell you, I've been waiting for this rematch for a long time."

Looking around at all of them, the cartel leader slumped defeatedly against the wall. "What do you want? I'll do anything."

Conner stepped into the room and Charlie was a little taken aback by the cold look in his eyes as he glared at Nunez. "There's nothing you can do Luis. It's over."

"You ungrateful bastard. I took you in when you had no place else to go, show me some respect!"

But Conner simply raised his gun and pointed it directly between his eyes. "I'm done taking orders from you." And he pulled the trigger. Nunez's face exploded in a blast of blood and brain matter as his body slumped to the floor. Conner took a moment to stare at the lifeless body of his former mentor before turning away.

"We should go," he said quietly. "Ricardo already has everyone gathered outside the gates. They'll want to know that it's finally over."

Charlie caught Conner's arm on his way out the door. "Hey, the plan was for me to kill Nunez, not you."

He shrugged. "I helped make him who he was. If it wasn't for all of the things I'd done, he wouldn't have been nearly as powerful as he was. I made the mess, so I needed to clean it up."

Bass squeezed Conner's shoulder gently. "You did good, son. Now come on, let's go help get this place back in order."

Charlie, Miles, and Jeremy followed the father-son pair out of the room behind the bookcase, leaving Nunez and his thugs behind to rot.

A/N I think one more chapter should wrap this up nicely. Thanks for reading guys!