Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“You can tell Slash that I’m—“ Murphy started to say as she came into the room, seeing only me at first, then Rook, making her come to a stop. “Oh, hey,” she said.
“Rook, this is Murphy,” I said, slinging an arm over her shoulders. “Murphy, Rook.”
“So, you’re the reason I’m here,” he said, nodding at her.
I had to give him credit.
Years behind bars.
But he didn’t eye-fuck Murphy.
Hell, his gaze didn’t even leave her face.
“They were already considering you,” Murphy told him. “But, yeah, I guess they do need you now because of me.”
“Oh, good,” Slash said, coming in from outside, nodding his head at Rook.
“You look like a man in charge,” Rook said.
“Yeah. Slash,” he said, offering his hand. “We got some shit to talk about. Mainly, your parole,” he said. “Who is your P.O.?”
“Nancy Bird,” Rook said, grimacing a bit as he did so.
“Fuck,” Slash said, shaking his head.
“Yeah,” Rook agreed.
Thanks to our whole ‘recruit straight from prison’ plan, we’d started to learn a lot about the parole process.
Judge and Coach had been released just with county supervision. And, hey, we knew which cops could be bought off.
Rook would be our first member who had an actual parole agent to answer to.
And we’d done research into the parole officers in the area. Which ones could be bought, which ones were hard, but fair, and which ones were complete and utter pains in the asses.
Nancy Bird fell into the third category.
Forty-six, short red hair, icy blue eyes, and one of those voices that made your shoulders inch up toward your ears.
The rumor was that her husband had been put into a coma from a guy fucking around while on parole, and it had, let’s say… motivated her to have a career change.
And dozens if not hundreds of men had been suffering since because of that one guy who’d done a bad thing years ago and had nothing to do with them.
“She got you set up somewhere?” Slash asked.
“I wanted the motel since they offer residency rooms,” he said. And that would have been fucking ideal, given that Jack owned and ran the place, and wouldn’t give a single fuck about lying to the parole officer about where Rook had been.
“Let me guess, Nancy wouldn’t allow it,” Slash said.
“No. Got me set up at a transitional house next town over. I need to report there before the end of the night.”
Slash got the information for the house, and started looking into it on his phone.
“What about a job?” Slash asked.
“Haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked, looking at Slash, seeing the gears turning.
“Figure Nyx could use some help at the karate studio,” Slash said. “Then after a month or two, you could request to move residences to somewhere in town since it would be closer to work. It would be a reasonable request. And there are rooms all over town to stay. I can talk to some people if you get Nancy to agree to it.
“Then you get to be here, but are just five minutes away from your place if she drops in for a random inspection or some shit.”
Which, from what we heard, she did. Frequently.
“We’d keep a bag at the ready just in case,” Slash said, having thought of all the details. “One with the grocery store logo. With some random shit in it. So it looks like you’d stepped out just to get supplies when you come in. It will shake out. How long do you have?”
“Three years,” Rook said.
It wasn’t great, but it damn sure could be worse. Some fucks got stuck with ten years. Though, in the cases of violent sex offenders, we all understood the need for that.
Guys like Rook, like Coach, like the other guy who’d beat up on his best friend who’d fucked his wife while he was deployed, their crimes were specific to that one person. It was kind of fucked to force them to report to a babysitter for years over that after they’d already served their time.
“Any special conditions of your parole?” Slash asked.
Parole all had general rules. That you had to work, had to abide all laws, had to report to your overseer. That kind of shit.
But a lot of your conditions relied upon the mercy—or complete lack thereof—of your personal parole officer.
“I’m not allowed to own a laptop,” he said, scoffing. “Or a smartphone.”
“Luckily for you, we got burners,” Slash said, nodding to Detroit who went off to go grab one. “Figure I don’t need to tell you not to program us in by our names,” Slash said.
“I know how to get around her bullshit when it comes to technology,” Rook said. “She couldn’t figure out how to open her browser on her phone when I’d seen her last,” he added with a smirk.
“Good. And as for the laptop, don’t fuck around and get one at the transitional house. She’s relentless. She will look everywhere. You’ll have one at the karate studio and one here. That’s all you need. I know you want to go see your mom. But I think it’s smart to wait until Nancy’s first drop in is over. We will make sure she is out of town, and then you can head out.”