Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
It was only a matter of allowing time to pass without losing his mind or letting anything get to him before Absinthe came to get him out. Absinthe was their club attorney, and he could work magic on paper or off, get anyone to do what he wanted. He could compel truth from just about anyone. They wanted Absinthe to get his hands on the Russian woman and find out just why she was after Czar. No one knew, not even Czar.
Master paced back and forth like an animal for the next few days in that small cell. Push-ups. Pull-ups. Sit-ups. Pacing again. Anything physical to keep his body as exhausted as possible. He didn’t sleep much. He hadn’t for years; that left time for a lot of physical activity, as well as reading, music and his investments.
Just as expected, all hell had broken loose in the morning when the guards and four longtime prisoners were found dead in the laundry room. The laundry room appeared to be locked from the inside by the guards. It was a mystery that the detectives and prison authorities were frantic to solve. The public—and the politicians—tended to demand answers when murders happened inside a prison.
The glitches in the security cameras were later attributed to the guards. There was money in their accounts going back several years that seemed to be unaccounted for. The rumors were rampant in the prison—as they always were. Evidence was piling up that something shady had been going on with those prisoners and the guards. Who had killed them and why?
It was a classic assassination meant to rock the system and be very public. Evidence was fed to the investigators in just the right places. Bank accounts. Tips. Other prisoners coming forward to tell of the privileges given to the dead men—how everyone feared crossing them because they were protected. It was even rumored by prisoners that women were brought in for them or they were taken out whenever they wanted to leave to party.
Master wasn’t even part of the investigation. He had no interaction that anyone really saw with the prisoners or guards in question. He hadn’t been in that prison for very long. He simply waited, counting the days and nights, sliding back into that well of darkness that had been his home for far too much of his life.
He was quiet and he functioned, giving the club what they needed. He played in the band, practiced with the other band members often. He worked with his hands with the wood, building whatever was needed. He was good at it; the wood revealed so much history to him. And there were always the numbers. He lost himself in numbers, and that was what kept him sane—if he was sane. He questioned that often. Too often lately. Especially when he did pull-ups in his cell.
What was he going back to? A life where no one saw him. He really was what others had whispered about him—the chameleon. He became what Sorbacov needed. And then his country. And now the club. It didn’t matter that no one saw him, because if they did, they would see the killer in him. The man who couldn’t feel anything but that hot rage flowing through his veins. Or hot need.
The others didn’t understand that either. What happened to him when he came out of that small little cell. What Sorbacov and his friends had programmed his body to need. He could already feel that building inside. That dark lust. One more terrible difference to set him apart from the others in his chosen family.
As he paced and did push-ups and sit-ups and endless math problems in his head, he realized he was angry with Czar. He shouldn’t be. Czar couldn’t help seeing into people. Seeing into their souls—if one had a soul. He could pierce through your armor and get right to the core of you. He’d always had that talent, even as a boy. He would look at a child and know who would stand and fight, be loyal to the bitter end, or lie and cheat and betray. He knew the heart of you. While every other member of Torpedo Ink had been given a clean slate when they came to Sea Haven and Caspar, he hadn’t. Czar had looked at him with those eyes and said no, they would need his skills. That had been a sentence worse than if Czar had condemned him to death.
Master had known he was a lost cause the moment Czar decreed that not only should he keep his prison record, but Absinthe and Code needed to make certain he looked very scary while ensuring that his convictions would be overturned, so he wasn’t in danger of the three-strike law in effect. He had known there was little humanity left in him, if any, but to have Czar see into him and then expose him to the others—that was a blow beyond comprehension.