by Shandi Boyes
“Prisoner 9429 is waiting for you in my office.”
I shift my eyes from Roxanne to Warden Mattue. It’s a fucking hard feat, only done because I’m curious to learn how he knew which prisoner I wanted to visit. This is my first time at this establishment since Rocco was an inmate.
When he catches my imprudent stare, the Warden’s throat works hard to swallow. “I assumed he was who you were wanting to see, considering you’ve seen him once a month since his conviction.”
He shows me a visitor ledger with a barely eligible D Petretti scribbled in the log once a month for the past year. It’s not close to my signature, but I’m reasonably sure I know who it belongs to.
“You can wait here.” When the Warden attempts a rebuttal, I slice my hand through the air. “Did I sound like I was asking permission?”
I don’t watch the bob of his head. I’m too fascinated by the faintest hint of a smile under locks of red hair to pay his mundane submissiveness any attention. Even with her veins bubbling with anger, Roxanne can’t help but respond to my surly personality. She seems to get off on it like she’s obsessed with the thought I can protect her unlike anyone else.
It instantly proves my reason for sending her away was the most stupid idea I’ve ever had. As I’ve said before, she doesn’t want a man to take care of her. She wants a bastard, a monster, a man so evil, even when he has the blood of her mother on his face, she’ll still crawl onto his lap and snuggle in.
If Fien weren’t on my mind, I’d show Roxanne right now that I can give her all of that and so much more. Instead, I return her steely stare for a couple more seconds before I make my way to the Warden’s office.
Once again, it’s a fucking hard feat.
Twenty-One
Dimitri
I could never be accused of being tiny, especially when my chest is swollen with smugness, but I feel a couple of inches shorter when Maddox notices my entrance into the Warden’s office. The Walsh brothers don’t have the notoriety the Petrettis do, but they’re well known amongst the locals. Their mixed-race background makes them a little bulkier than their counterparts, and Maddox has taken it one step further by adding a good twenty pounds of muscle to his frame during his first stint in lock-up.
He has tatted up since the last time I saw him as well. His artwork almost looks as extensive as mine. If the quality of the work is anything to go by, he got a majority of them done outside of these walls, which is interesting considering he barely had a sleeve when he was arrested at Demi’s place of employment.
“If I knew it was you, I would have gotten dressed up for the occasion.” Don’t misconstrue his words. They were laced with so much sarcasm, they left a bad taste in my mouth, so I’d hate to experience what Maddox’s throat is going through. “What the fuck are you doing here, Dimitri?”
I take his brusque attitude in my stride. “I thought we were friends. Isn’t this what friends do? Visit the other while they’re locked up.”
He looks like he wants to spit at my feet.
The feeling is mutual.
“We ain’t friends.”
I smirk, grateful he walked straight into the trap I was setting. After pressing my palms on the Warden’s desk, I peer him dead-set in the eyes. “That’s right. We’re not. You just used my contacts to line your pockets with money, and then you wonder why we’re not friends.”
He’s got nothing. Not a single fucking thing.
“Sit down, Maddox, and for once in your fucking life, listen. If you had done that from the get-go, you wouldn’t be here.”
His sneer would make most men shake in their boots. It doesn’t cut the mustard with me. I was raised by a man who thought a fire stoke was a tool to keep his children in line. The hotter it was, the harder he struck me with it.
Don’t feel sorry for me. My father’s ways ensured I don’t feel pain. As you can imagine, the ability made me a coldhearted man. I’m not worried. Love and hate are on par when it comes to emotions. Both take everything you have and give nothing in return.
I’m hopeful my thoughts will change when I meet my daughter in the flesh for the first time, but it’s hard to change the views of a skeptic. Audrey attempted to chip at the decay. She barely made an indent. Roxanne, on the other hand, had me acting as if I had a heart in my chest. I would have taken a thirty-million-dollar hit for her—I still would.
My thoughts snap back to the present when Maddox’s chuckles ring through my ears. “He was right. You’re so fucking gone.”
He doesn’t need to spell out the name of the man he’s referencing for me to understand our conversation is no longer between us.
Maddox refers to everyone by name—except my father.
“I’m gone? Ha! I’m not the one in cahoots with the man who marked up my sister with a mangy mutt.” That shuts up his chuckles in an instant. Fucking good as I was tempted to use my fists. “What did he tell you, Ox? That I ordered for her to be punished?”
His silence is extremely telling. It isn’t just my father whispering in his ear, it’s someone he’d pay careful attention to.
Confident I know which way to take our conversation, I ask, “What’s he got on her?”
He blows off the concern in my voice as if it’s fake before he takes a seat as requested earlier.
“If my father has a noose around Demi’s throat, I can help.”
Maddox slants his head to make sure his glare has the effect he’s aiming for. “Like you did Justine?”
I growl, baring teeth. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”
He slams his fist down on the desk separating us. “And crying every week on the phone. You fucked her over good, D. I don’t know if she’ll ever come back from this.”
His words are a kick to the gut, but they push our conversation in the direction I need it to go. “So, you’re gonna let him do the same to Demi?” When he scoffs, I hit him with straight-up facts. “You kept my daughter’s existence a secret. You didn’t do that for no reason, Ox. I’m here to find out why, and I ain’t leaving until I do.”
His tongue peeks between his teeth when I roll back the Warden’s chair, take a seat, then hook my boots onto his desk. This is the first time in my life I wish I had trod in dog shit. I’d loved nothing more than to see the Warden’s face when he rocked up to his office to find a big, dirty piece of shit on his spotless desk.
With Maddox as stubborn as me, our conversation soon hits a stalemate. This kills me to admit, but I have to break the silence. I don’t have time to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I’m juggling balls, many of them. If I don’t want them to fall, I need to move our exchange along.
“With Megan Shroud being alive and well, your debt has not been fulfilled. Since you’re an inmate in a maximum-security prison, I have no choice but to transfer that debt back to its original owner.”
I’m all but threatening his sister, and he knows it. “You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Try me, Maddox. I’ve got a heap of anger and no one to take it out on.” My words aren’t lies. They’re as gospel as my pledge to bring Fien home.
Spit seethes between Maddox’s clenched teeth. “My debt is with your father.”
I shrug before shaking my head. “Not according to you. I punished your sister, that means her debt falls on me.”
He’s speechless, truly and utterly speechless.
“I’m willing to negotiate—”
“With what? I gave your father everything I have. I have nothing left to give.” The angst in his tone is more telling than the worry on his face. I don’t know what my father is holding over his head, but it’s more than his sister’s life.
I remove my feet from the desk before balancing my elbows on the chipped surface. “Give me information—”
“I don’t know anything.”
I continue talking as if he never interrupted me. “And in good faith, I’ll repay the favor. Special perks, hours outside these walls…” I watch his face to gauge any response to if my o
ffers have already been brought forward. When his expression remains neutral, I continue, “I could even organize some additional conjugal visits.”
He seems conflicted. I understand why when he asks, “Can you get Demi out?”
I’m reasonably sure I know what he’s asking, but I’d rather he spell it out for me, then we both know exactly what he’s asking of me. This isn’t a standard favor. It will cost him more than a couple of years in county jail. “Out of what, exactly?”
He doesn’t speak a word. He doesn’t need to. I can see the fear in his eyes. Smell it on his skin. His debt with my father has nothing to do with his sister and everything to do with his girl.
“If she’s out, she can’t come here anymore, Ox. When you are out, you’re out. You can never get back in. Are you willing to face that?” He takes a moment to deliberate before jerking up his chin. The worry in his eyes should see me granting him a few more minutes to consider his options, but as I said earlier, I don’t have time to waste. “All right. But I’m going to need to know everything.”
The panic on his face recedes in an instant. “Have you got a pen and a piece of paper? You’re gonna need it.”
Smith’s eyes lift to mine when I race across the dusty lot like a bat out of hell. He’s working from the hood of a brand-spanking-new Mercedes Benz G class. It looks like a tank, so it suits the terrain. The same can’t be said of the feisty redhead in the front passenger seat. I don’t know what Rocco said to get Roxanne in my car in one piece. It must have been something good because not only is she strapped in, ready to go, she’s only glaring at me with half the intensity of her earlier stare.
“Did you get that?” Just because Smith switched off surveillance doesn’t mean he didn’t have eyes and ears in the room with me. Feds aren’t the only ones familiar with button cameras.
Smith lifts his chin. “I’m hacking into the hospital servers now.”
When Roxanne slips out of the passenger seat of the Mercedes Benz to peer at Smith’s screen with Rocco and me, I don’t request for the feed to be shut down like I usually would. She has said all along that the organizer of Fien’s captivity is a woman, so it’s only fair she watches us hone in on one.
“There.” I point to a female with mousy brown hair and a skittish demeanor. Even with the footage being a couple of months old, she looks similar to the child in the images I’ve pursued of Megan the past few weeks.
“Is that her?” I ask when Smith zooms in.
“Give me a sec…” He takes a screenshot of her profile before he uploads it to his state-of-the-art facial recognition system. It brings up a match in under three seconds. “Bingo. We have a match.”
Aware he’s now tracking the right person, he traces Megan’s movements back several months, dragging the timeline back to the day Maddox said she was admitted to a mental hospital for a ninety-six-hour hold. It was well over a year ago. Maddox doesn’t know why she was admitted. All he knew was that my father wanted her alive no matter the cost—something about her having information he couldn’t get elsewhere.
“There,” Roxanne parrots a few seconds later, pointing to a reflection bouncing off the admission glass mounted to protect the staff from the crazies.
The brightness of the woman’s hair reveals she’s blonde, but we can’t see her face.
“Do you think it’s the woman you were talking to earlier?” Roxanne asks after drifting her eyes to me.
I want to say yes, it would make things a shit ton easier if Theresa were the only villain in this story, but my gut is cautioning me to remain wary, so I shrug instead. “Can you clean up the footage?”
Smith screws up his nose. “I’d have a better chance with wired equipment. The upload speed is as slow as fuck out here.”
“Then head back to the compound.” I take a quick snapshot of Megan’s up-to-date picture before gathering up his equipment and stuffing it into the passenger seat of his van. “Forward anything you find directly to me.”
Rocco cocks a dark brow as mirth hardens his features. “Are you not heading back to the compound?”
His face appears a mix of jeering and confusion when I answer, “I’ve got to take Roxanne home first,” before it switches to straight-up anarchy.
“I can do that for you. You don’t have to go out of your way.”
Needing to leave before I knock his teeth out, I grip the top of Roxanne’s arm before placing her into the passenger seat of the Mercedes with less aggression than I did Smith’s equipment. I’m not known for being gentle, but Smith’s laptop is only worth a little over half a million dollars. Roxanne’s price tag is closer to thirty—if not priceless.
“We need to find out what information Megan has that makes her invaluable to my father. If we can do that out without needing to travel to her, I’d much appreciate it.”
The last thing I want is a cross-country adventure when solid intel of a Russian invasion just landed in my inbox. Since the information came from a man with nothing to lose, I’m paying it more attention than I did when Theresa suggested the same thing.
I stop leaning across Roxanne’s body to fasten her seat belt when Smith says, “Megan could come to us.”
“How?” Roxanne asks before I get the chance.
I scrub at my jaw to hide my grin when Smith’s eyes lift from his prototype phone. He’s never without an electronic device. “She’s all-types of crazy… but not enough for a permanent placement. She could be signed out to a guardian.”
My eyes snap to Roxanne’s. I have no fucking clue why I’m seeking her advice. I am just relaying to you what’s happening. It could be the fact that I’ve spent the past few weeks going through the files she compiled while I was flat on my back. Or it could be her perfume. Whatever it is, a gleam in her eyes exposes she appreciates me seeking her opinion.
While bouncing her eyes between mine, she hesitantly shrugs. “She could lead us to the people we’re seeking.” The fact she says ‘us’ messes with my head even more than all the shit Maddox just bombarded it with. “It’s a risk, but if the reward could potentially exceed the danger, we have to take a chance.”
Because I agree with her, I give Smith the go-ahead, but with added stipulations. “Tag her before she’s released. We don’t want her location falling through the cracks.”
Smith’s hard swallow reveals he heard the words I didn’t speak, and the narrowing of Roxanne’s eyes exposes she’s just as telepathic. “You can’t microchip her like she’s a dog.”
“I can’t? Since when?”
The huff she does while crossing her arms under her chest is cute. I can’t wait to see how she responds when I order Smith to do the same to her. Then, there’ll be no more sneaking up on me. I’ll know where she is at all times of the day and night.
Twenty-Two
Roxanne
For how pricy this car is, it has shit ventilation. I’ve done everything imaginable to lessen the intensity of Dimitri’s unique scent—I’ve rolled down the window, cranked up the air conditioning, and removed my boots with the hope stinky socks would eradicate it—nothing has worked! It’s still there, lingering in my nostrils as often as his infamous half-smirk has trickled into my mind the past six weeks. And don’t get me started on other wondrous parts of his body, or you’ll book me in for more than a lobotomy.
Ugh! Why do I continue tormenting myself like this? He killed my boyfriend, tortured my parents, then sent a killer to my best friend’s apartment. I should have been glad to see the backend of him. I just wasn’t.
It’s for Claudia, I remind myself. I agreed to a ride I didn’t need for her.
With that in mind, I pull up my big girl panties, glide up the window I’ve been dangerously balancing out of the past hour, then shift my focus to Dimitri. Just like the first seventy miles of our trip, he stares straight at me. It should be impossible to watch both the road and me, but he makes it look easy.
“How much pull do you have with the warden at Wallens Ridge?”
&
nbsp; He wrings the steering wheel two times before replying, “Depends who’s asking.”
“Me. I’m asking.” His grip on the steering wheel turns deadly. It makes his knuckles go white, but I push on, determined to have an injustice rectified. “Claudia was unfairly convicted—”
Dimitri cuts me off with a brittle laugh. “That’s what all criminals say.”
Even though his tone is brimming with mirth, I still narrow my eyes at him. “She is innocent. Her boyfriend was an abusive ass. Witness statements prove his hand was on the steering wheel when they veered off the road, yet she’s still serving time. How is that fair?”
He waits a beat to absorb what I said before he asks, “Who prosecuted her case?”
Although I’m a little lost to where he’s going with this, I answer, “A DA more interested in looking at her tits than compiling legitimate evidence.”
I thought my description would match a thousand district attorneys. I was clearly wrong. “Luca Marco?”
After picking up my jaw from the floor, I ask, “Have you heard of him?”
When Dimitri dips his chin, the scent I’ve been struggling to ignore the past hour doubles. I think the full beard he doesn’t usually wear is responsible for the increase of his scent. It seems capable of soaking in everything around him, and considering that everything seems to only be him, it’s as intoxicating as the fact he didn’t replace me with the first blonde to cross his path.
“Do you have anything on him we could use to have Claudia’s conviction overturned?” There I go again, using the infamous ‘we’ on him. “I’m willing to get my hands dirty.”
“Although I appreciate the offer you’re making…” I poke my tongue out at him, stuffing his exaggerated words down his throat with a bucket load of attitude. “It’s not as simple as getting dirt on someone. His rulings are out of my jurisdiction.” When confusion crosses my features, he smirks, making a mess of my panties. “Marco is Ravenshoe’s DA. I don’t have jurisdiction there.”