Animal: A Prisoned Spinoff Standalone

by Marni Mann

  “I know,” I told him.

  “Had I seen their tattoos, I would have made the connection, but I wasn’t the one who killed them. That was Shank’s job.”

  I knew that, too. I’d learned that when I arrived at the prison.

  “How did you figure this all out?” he asked me.

  This was where I had to really think before I spoke. As much as I wanted to be honest with him, I just couldn’t tell him everything.

  “I hired a PI, and he followed a few of the girls who I suspected were breaking the rules,” I said. My gaze bounced between Jae and Mina. I loved the shock in her eyes, hearing that I actually knew more than her. “He found out that one of them had a boyfriend, and he had a feeling she was pregnant. He watched her closely and tracked her here.”

  “That’s how you found out about the prison?”

  This would be another answer that wasn’t completely honest. It killed me that it had to be this way, that I was playing dirty with a man I loved. But some things Jae just couldn’t know. These were some of those things.

  “Yes,” I said. “My PI followed the plane straight here. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was happening in the basement. Plus, one of your helpers has quite a big mouth once you get a couple of cocktails in him.”

  “Toy,” Jae growled.

  I got the sense Toy wouldn’t ever be speaking again.

  “What was the girl’s name, Tyler? The one your PI tracked?”

  “Audrey,” Mina and I both said at the same time.

  “She was Inmate #1501. Jesus, fuck.” He shook his head, and I didn’t like the expression that came with it. “That poor girl, she—”

  “Jae”—I held up my hand, cutting him off—“if it’s bad, please don’t say it.”

  He nodded and didn’t speak another word.

  I’d confessed it all at this point. He knew I’d faked my death, my relationship with The Achurdy, how I had found him, and why I was here.

  Now, it was my turn to ask the questions.

  I faced Mina, moving a few steps closer, my hand dropping from Jae’s. There was a chance she wouldn’t tell me. But she had to know she wasn’t going to survive the night, so I didn’t see a reason she would hold it in.

  “How did you find me?” I asked her.

  She smiled, and I hated her for it. I wanted to reach forward and slap it right off her face, but I knew she was getting what she deserved, and that would be happening very soon. I needed to save my energy because the second Jae and I got to his room, I’d be using all of it.

  “After you died,” she said, “Wynter pulled the video feed from the security camera in your building. It showed you coming in, taking the stairs to the second floor, and grabbing the elevator from there. The only reason you’d avoid the lobby is if you had something to hide. Turns out, we were right; you weren’t dead.”

  My hands still didn’t feel safe in front of me, so I stuck them on my hips and squeezed. “That doesn’t explain how you found out about Jae and me.”

  There was that smile again. Jae must have expected something from me because he moved behind me and put his hand over my stomach to keep me in place.

  “You want more from me?” She gleamed. “Then, take these cuffs off.”

  “Not a chance,” Jae said.

  “I’m not saying a goddamn word then.”

  I turned around and gripped his T-shirt between my fingers. “Please,” I urged, “just her hands. I need to hear what she has to say.”

  I didn’t like the glare he gave me, but eventually, he went to the back of the room, opened a drawer, and pulled out a set of keys. He used them to unlock her shackles. “Those are staying on,” he said, pointing to the ones on her ankles.

  Once her hands were free, she rubbed her wrists and moved them around in circles. “Much better.”

  “Tell me now, Mina. How did you find out about Jae and me?”

  She played with her hair as she spoke, twirling it around a finger, the same way she always used to do to me. “Wynter followed you one night. She didn’t know about Jae.” She paused, glancing over at him. “Or Beard, whatever the fuck you go by.” Her eyes then came back to me. “One of the guys at the bar told her everything she needed to know. It only took a few hundred dollars, and she learned all about your friendship with the bartender. From there…”

  She smiled, and it hit me right in the gut. I knew before she even said it. It was what I had been afraid of.

  “Your poor friend, Gary. He fought a good fight. He didn’t even tell us your location. I’m assuming because he didn’t know it. But he told us about Beard and where we could find him.” She gazed at Jae again. “You had your mail forwarded to a hotel in Miami. The rest was easy. You’re a whore who likes lots of pussy. We knew you’d never turn down two lesbians. Turns out, we were right again.” She licked across her bottom lip. Even with all that black makeup that had dripped down from her tears, she still looked beautiful, and it sickened me. “And that dick, baby, was one of the best we’d ever had.”

  “You’re the fucking whore,” I spit back.

  Jae held my arm, so I couldn’t move, but I could tell he was just as angry as me.

  “Let me get something straight,” he said. “All that shit was fake—the investments, the businesses, your office. All of it?”

  She nodded. “Nix helped me put the whole thing together. You remember him, don’t you, yerekha?” She didn’t wait for me to respond. “Anyway, everyone you met—Yerem, Panig, and the assistants—they’re all affiliated with The Achurdy. I didn’t even bother giving them American names because I didn’t think you were smart enough to catch on.” She laughed. “I wasn’t wrong either. You were too focused on our pussies. Weren’t you, Beard? Oh, wait, maybe that’s when you were trying to get in our asses. I can’t remember. You were in so many of our holes.”

  “I gave you half a million dollars, you cunt.”

  “And The Achurdy appreciates it.” She pulled all her hair to one side and started braiding it. “I’m sure Arman bought another car with it. He was quite excited when he saw that bag full of cash.”

  “Unbelievable,” I barked.

  “After all of this,” Jae said, moving closer to her, “you didn’t even get what you wanted. You got nothing out of me besides cash and my cock. I didn’t fucking lead you to Tyler, the person you really wanted, and now, you’re sitting in the same chair you’re going to die in. How does it feel to accomplish nothing, Mina? Do you feel like you’ve come out ahead?”

  “I gave my life to my organization. It’s the oath I took when Arman bought me at sixteen years old, when he took me from my country and brought me to America. I have no regrets. I did what I had been asked to do, and I did it to the best of my ability.”

  “That’s your answer?” I shouted. “You’re sitting in a death chamber, and all you have to say is, you took an oath, and you have no regrets? What about all the girls you killed? The lives you ruined? The money you stole? The people you hurt? Do you know how sick you are?”

  “I took an oath, and I have no regrets.”

  I’d never seen anything like this. This level of manipulation. This loyalty that made absolutely no sense. It didn’t matter what I said or what Jae said; she would never admit how wrong this was.

  I moved over to one of the shelves and grabbed what looked like a crowbar. Jae was behind me before I even turned around.

  “You’re not going to kill her,” he said in my ear. “If you take her life, you’ll have to live with that on your conscience, and it will eventually become a regret. I won’t let that happen.”

  I dropped the metal onto the floor and turned around. “I’m not letting you do it either. Please call in one of the guys. I just want to get out of here.”

  He looked up at the camera that was in the corner of the room and made some kind of signal with his hands. It only took a few seconds before Diego was at the door.

  Jae clasped my hand and led me toward him. “Kill her
,” he told Diego. “I don’t know where Shank is, but I don’t want to wait for him. You make sure this bitch suffers.”

  “You got it, buddy.”

  Jae then escorted me to the door, but I stopped halfway through it, and I slowly faced her.

  “Good-bye,” I said to her. “After today, I’ll never have to run from you again because no one will be looking for me. You’ll all be dead.”

  “You—”

  Mina didn’t get to finish that sentence because Diego reached inside her mouth and ripped her tongue out.

  Beard/Jae

  I gripped her fucking hand so tightly, I was sure I’d cut off her circulation. But, shit, the girl had survived a butcher’s knife tearing the hell out of her arm. Therefore, she’d survive me clutching her fingers all the way up the stairs until we reached my bedroom.

  Once we got through the door to my room, I slammed it closed and held her face with my hands. “Are you really here?” I kissed her cheek and her forehead and down to her chin. “Tell me you are. And tell me you’re not leaving again.”

  “I’m not,” she promised.

  “Perfect answer.”

  I pressed my lips against hers, taking in her smell, her taste. Neither had changed. It felt like my mouth had been here just moments ago. But it had really been years with so much fucking pain and all those goddamn screams.

  “Jae”—she nibbled on my bottom lip—“we have so much to talk about. I mean, it’s been two years. Are you sure you even want me—”

  I put a finger over her mouth to stop her from talking. “Don’t say that, Tyler. Not ever again. I want you here, and I don’t ever want you to leave. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded, and I reached for the bottom of her shirt and tried to pull it over her head. That was when she put her hands on mine and prevented me from moving.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  I hadn’t seen her in so long. I’d thought she was fucking dead. I needed to be inside her, and I didn’t want to wait a second longer to remember what that felt like.

  “We’re going to have plenty of time for that,” she said. “Maybe we could just talk for a little bit.”

  Shit. She really didn’t want me to touch her yet. But talk? I thought we’d done a hell of a lot of that in the OR. I was sure there were things we still needed to cover, but I’d gotten the gist of it all, and the rest would unfold over time. The last conversation I wanted to have was about Mina and the stripper. I wasn’t even sure if she’d bring it up. I just had a feeling our talking would lead us there.

  She looked toward the door and sandwiched my hands in front of her. “Gary told me you said you were never going back to your condo. You didn’t, did you?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, I couldn’t. Not after what happened there.”

  “So, why Miami?”

  That was an easy one to answer.

  “It’s on the opposite side of the country, far as hell from home. But it’s still south enough, so it isn’t as long of a flight as the Northeast would be.”

  “A hotel, Jae?”

  Her voice was so quiet, I could tell she was getting upset. I didn’t want that. And that was why I wanted to skip all this talking and show her how I felt, how much I’d missed her, how I was never letting her out of my sight again.

  “I wasn’t ready for a home.” I sighed. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, but a home feels so personal, and I couldn’t put myself in a place like that. At least not for a while.”

  “You eventually wanted one, right? I mean, that’s why you gave Mina the money.”

  “I got tired of the cleaning ladies snooping through my shit.” I smiled to try and lighten what she was feeling. “I figured I could get a place that looked nothing like my old condo. Different in every way. If I couldn’t get comfortable there, I could always sell.”

  She rubbed her hand over my head. “You shaved it all off.”

  “Didn’t feel right. Nothing did after you left.”

  “Except the beard.”

  I rubbed my whiskers across the softness of her face. “I’ve had this thing off and on for years. More on than off. You’ve seen it this long, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. And I like it. Lots.”

  She laughed, and I knew exactly what she was talking about. What she liked was when I brushed it across the inside of her thighs while I was eating her pussy. Fuck, she loved it when I did that. I needed to do it again.

  Now.

  But, as I pulled her closer, reaching just under her shirt, there was a knock at the door.

  “Jae,” she said, “there’s something I didn’t tell you downstairs.”

  “Don’t do this to me, Tyler. I can’t take any more surprises.”

  She gritted her teeth, and I could tell I wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

  “This is kind of a big one.” She looked toward the door. “Come in!” she yelled.

  Shank walked in with a kid in his arms. It threw me back for a second. I’d never seen him hold a baby before, especially not one inside the prison. I didn’t know much about them. None of us were around children all that often, if ever. But this one was a little boy. Couldn’t say his age, couldn’t even guess. He had the brightest green eyes and a big blue pacifier in his mouth.

  Little fucker was real cute.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Tyler took the baby from him, and she came over to me. “Jae, meet your son.”

  “My what?”

  I glanced from Shank to Tyler, not sure what the hell she had just said.

  “Your son,” Shank repeated for her.

  “But…” My voice trailed off as I tried to piece this one together. Just when I’d thought I had shit all figured out, Tyler had hit me with something else I hadn’t expected.

  “I was pregnant,” she said. “That’s why I faked my death. If Mina had found out, she would have sent me here, and Shank would have had to kill me. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I only knew girls often disappeared, and I thought the worst, so I didn’t take any chances. I had to protect our child, and I did what I had to do.”

  “I have a kid…” I had to say the words out loud, and I still wasn’t sure I believed them.

  I hadn’t just gotten Tyler back. Now, she was telling me I was a father.

  I checked out the kid’s face, trying to see if he had any of my features. Shit, with my dark eyes and her blue ones, he definitely took after her more than me. His hair was light, his skin fair. But he was just a baby. He had plenty of time to darken up.

  “Want me to take him outside for a little bit and give you guys some time?” Shank asked.

  Tyler handed the baby back to him. “I’ll come down and get him in a little while.”

  “We’ll be on the beach,” he said. Then, he walked out of my room.

  I watched him leave and continued staring at the door.

  “Are you okay?” she asked once we were alone.

  “Yeah.” My eyes shifted to her. “I think so. This is a shit-ton to process in one day.”

  She reached for my hands, her short nails stabbing the backs of my knuckles. “I know, and I’m sorry. I hit you with a lot.”

  I laughed.

  We both did.

  It was fucking needed after everything that had gone down.

  My whole life had changed today. I’d gained not one person, but two. And, any second, one would soon be calling me Dad.

  Shit.

  I leaned my face into her neck and breathed her in. I didn’t need her naked. I didn’t need her screaming. I didn’t need her even touching me. I just needed to stay like this, with my mouth on her warm skin, her scent in my nose, and her hair tickling my face.

  “Jae,” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you said you wanted me here, but does that change now that I’m not alone?”

  I leaned back, so she could see my face. “No. Neither of you is going anywhere.”


  I felt her body relax a little.

  “Good. I was hoping you would say that.”

  I closed my eyes, touching my nose to hers. “I have a son, Tyler. A fucking son.”

  When my lids opened, there were tears in hers, and I wiped them away, licking them as they wet my fingers. Once her face was dry, I grabbed her cheeks, knowing I wasn’t holding her gently and knowing she didn’t want it any other way.

  “Let me say it.”

  “Jae, you don’t have—”

  “Let me say it, Tyler.” She didn’t interrupt me again, so I moved my lips to where they hovered just above hers, and I said, “I love you.” It felt so good to get that off my chest. Words I’d been wanting to tell her for a long-ass time, but she hadn’t ever let me. “I’ve always fucking loved you. And I’m going to love my son.”

  She closed the space between us, and I swore, the moan that came from her lips sounded like the most perfect scream.

  Shank

  I walked the little bastard down to the beach and took a seat on the wet sand, knowing we were seconds away from getting hit with a wave.

  He giggled when it happened. Imagine that, a sound so carefree, something as stupid as water causing you to laugh.

  I didn’t remember those days. The ones where ridiculous things were funny.

  All I remembered was wanting to kill.

  The hunger for it. The desire. The smell of blood teasing me so badly that I fucking drooled.

  And, now, there was a kid.

  And he would be living at our prison.

  He was the last thing we needed.

  The last thing I needed.

  The kid was cute. He had blond hair and these green eyes that were almost as large as a nickel. I thought Beard would have said something about that. Christ, my best friend had brown eyes that were so dark, they were almost black. Tyler’s were blue. Didn’t Beard wonder how the kid had gotten green? And why he looked nothing like his dad?

  He hadn’t even asked what his goddamn name was.

  I glanced behind me at the house and saw my dad in one of the windows. He was watching us. I was sure he was getting lots of ideas. Planning shit out. Working things through in his head.