Page 48 of Pulling Strings

The guard swiped at the phone, but I sidestepped him. The cord pulled taut.

“You’re gonna be okay, right?” Donovan asked. “You’ll figure this out?”

My stomach flopped like a dying fish.

I locked my gaze on his, then gave a sharp nod. “Yeah. I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

The guard made another grab for the phone, Ithought, until he caught a clump of my hair instead. He jerked back, pulling me against his chest and barring his baton across my throat. The phone fell away, swinging near the floor.

More pounding on the glass. I squeezed my eyes closed.

“Talk dirty to me, Daddy,” I growled at the guard.

The baton cracked into my jaw.

Swearing, I raised my hands. Keeping my feet under me proved a struggle with the chair legs tangling in my ankle chain. Not such a problem since the guard was determined to haul me out of there, even if that meant carrying me by the nightstick hooked under my chin.

He waited till we got to the hall outside to let me drop onto the slick, linoleum floor.

I hacked a breath and rolled over to see him standing over me with his baton at the ready. Waiting for an excuse to use it as more than a choke chain.

My teeth clenched. “Real boss energy here. Definitely doesn’t feel like you’re compensating for something.” Angling my eyes toward his crotch, I bounced my brows.

“That’s a strike, inmate,” he replied. “Makes two for you.”

I huffed a breath and worked my way to standing—a challenging task with only a dozen inches of chain linking my ankles.

“What happens on strike three?” I asked once I was upright. “Do I get to go back to the dugout?”

The guard grunted. “Sure. You can warm the bench in solitary, smartass.”

Solitary confinement was a consequence I hadn’t considered, though it seemed obvious now. To avoid it meant keeping my nose clean for six more days, which would have been a lot easier if I wasn’t being bloodhunted by Jax and his lackeys.

Don’t worry,I repeated to myself as we began the slow shuffle back to my cell. I thought it again and again, hoping Donovan believed it, and wishing I could.

17

Payback’s a Bitch

I remembered enough of high school to find the prison cafeteria an accurate representation. Cooks slung gruel behind sneeze guards while inmates shuffled by with melamine trays in hand. People chattered. The pair of women behind me were tongue-deep in each other’s mouths, which would have been a turn-on if I wasn’t sick to death of this whole, damned place.

Six days left.

Don’t worry.

Grimm, via my brother, had made his terms clear. If I wanted out of prison before judgment day, I needed to bring the self-professed saboteur, Ripley Vaughn, with me. Maybe he wasn’t taking my place in the gang, after all. Maybe the welcome back was a sham, and one revenge plot begat another.

Rescue from Thorngate was rapidly becoming a distant hope, so I’d moved on to plotting escape instead. The biggest hurdle became the need for allies, of which I had none. Unless you counted Clyde. And I couldn’t dig through the wall of my cell without the big guy giving me the go-ahead, and cutting through the chain link fence around the yard required a distraction.

Suffice it to say, I was still in the brainstorming phase, and I was about sick of that, too.

The would-be lunch lady wore a hairnet over his full beard. He grunted a wordless offer while holding a ladle of yellow goop above a tray.

I scanned the steaming chafing bowls and found the meal options continuing a downward trend. Dinner tonight consisted of barbecue hot dogs and mac and cheese. Judging by the breadcrumbs in a large dish at the end of the line, they’d already run out of rolls.

“Sure,” I told the cook and shrugged.

My tray slid down the line, getting a scoop of sliced hot dogs and some browning apple slices before being thrust at me. Drink choices were cartons of white milk and cups of iceless water. I grabbed a cup and took it like a shot, then turned toward the room with a sigh.

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