Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Jessup’s eyebrows lowered.
“No,” he admitted.
“He’s Ridley Walker,” Bull said it like everyone in the whole fucking state should know who I am.
But, a lot of people did.
My name was definitely known within the law enforcement community.
A lot of it had to do with my work to bring down the Coller Gang.
Then there was the fact that while I was in the midst of pursuing the Coller Gang’s president, that man’s son was murdering my wife.
I’ll be the first to admit that my vendetta against the Coller Gang hadn’t been sane.
There was no way I could perform my duties impartially when I’d gone back to work after two weeks of mandatory bereavement leave following my wife’s murder.
I sat at home stewing the entire two weeks, thinking of all the ways I could fuck over the president of the Coller Gang.
And when I’d returned to work, I hunted the members of that gang tirelessly until I had what I needed to send as many of them to prison as I could.
Now only the president, and a few lower-ranking, pissant members were left.
Every time he tries to build the ranks back up, I turn my focus back to them.
And their president hates me.
Although hates may not be a strong enough word.
Loathes.
Detests.
Abhors.
Those were more like it.
Jessup’s expression changed in an instant, and on his face I now saw awe.
“Holy crap,” he whispered, voice squeaking slightly.
I laughed.
I didn’t know why everyone thought so highly of me.
I was a law enforcement officer, just like every other man in the room.
It’s just that I’d been extremely successful, and a bit lucky, in my reckless quest to bring down one of the most prominent gangs straddling the Louisiana/Texas border.
“Was it true that you…” I held up a hand before Jessup could continue.
“When I get out of here, I’ll gladly have a beer with you, and we can talk all about me and the Coller Gang, ok? But, now’s the time to go back to work and let me do my job,” I said.
A job that I didn’t particularly want to be doing.
“Well then, I’ll go ahead and admit I sent one of your girls away today,” Stanson said, raising his hand guiltily. “I thought you were a real prisoner, and everyone has the same thirty day hold on visitors.”
I blinked.
“What’d she look like?” I asked worriedly.
My sister was the only one that knew I was here.
“Blonde hair down to her waist as white as snow,” he started.
I held my hand up.
“Never mind,” I said. “You can stop right there. I know who it was. And you can keep sending her away.”
His brows rose.
“Well, son,” he said. “I told her your thirty days are up next weekend. What do you want me to tell her?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose.
There was no way in hell that I wanted Freya here.
Not where all these nasty motherfuckers could lay eyes on her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Tell her I’m in the hole or something. Why and how does she even know that I’m here?”
The hole was what the guards and prisoners alike called the windowless cells down on the lowest levels. The hole was where you went when you got yourself into hot water, and the guards wanted to punish you.
Some went in for a week. Others only hours.
She never had to know that I wasn’t actually in there.
Stenson nodded his head. “I can do that.”
I hesitated to say what I said next, but some part of me hoped that she’d come back.
“If she persists, bring her to the family room and I’ll fix it. Ask her to stop coming.”
“Alright,” Kelly said. “Then get back to work. And watch his back. I don’t want to explain to his sister and club president how we let him die on our watch.”
I snorted.
Kelly wasn’t actually one of the ‘guards.’ He was only playing a newly hired one so he could watch my back.
“Alright, boss,” Jessup said facetiously.
Kelly flipped the small man off, and Jessup, along with the others, left without another word.
“You ready to go back now?” he asked.
I nodded and picked up my nearly charged phone from the windowsill where I’d placed it when all the guards had arrived, and shoved it down into the waistband of my underwear.
“You know they’ll notice when they see you’re wearing the boxer briefs, right?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Not if I can help it,” I said. “I keep getting sent to the infirmary and come back cleaned of blood. If I can manage it, I’ll just keep showering in here and nobody will have to know my balls aren’t free hanging like theirs.”
The prison issued underwear was disgusting, and I didn’t like wearing boxers.
I liked for my nuts to have a little more protection and support than the boxers offered, and there wasn’t a goddamned thing Kelly could say to get me to take them off and switch them for those pieces of shit.