his nose. “Fine, sorry. I just...I don’t like the thought of you wasting your life in here.”
“It’s not a waste,” I say, looking up at him. “I met you, didn’t I?”
His breath falters, intensity burning in his eyes at my words.
“Fucking gag me,” an inmate groans.
“I’ll make you fucking gag on your cock if you don’t stop interrupting!” I chirp back sweetly.
Rook chuckles and shakes his head at me. “You have such a filthy mouth.”
“You like it,” I tell him, and I love the way his eyes flicker with heat.
“I do,” he agrees quietly. “Now behave yourself. I won’t see you for a couple of days; I have a rotation in a different part of the prison.”
He grabs hold of my chin and pulls my face near his, planting a quick kiss on my lips before pulling away. Leaving me tingling, he gives me one last heated look and then turns and walks away. I shake my head and then smirk. Sucker didn’t even notice I switched out his name tag again. Double the dicks as last time. Totally fitting.
10
“You’ve got a visitor.”
I look up from my new business venture that I’ve been busy with and look at the prison guard. It’s Sandbag—the same jackhole who escorted me to see my mat and pat before. “No thanks, I’m all booked up at the moment.”
I hear my cell door clang open, and he glowers at me, taser gun in hand. “I wasn’t asking.”
I frown at him and put down my project, setting it on my bed. Just the sight of the taser makes my skin prickle in all the places I was hit before. Those marks took forever to go away. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your spanx in a twist.”
Following him out, I psych myself up for round two with my mat and pat, but when I get pushed into the visitor’s room and see the person on the other side of the glass, my steps pick up instead of drag. I plop down in the metal chair and practically rip the phone receiver off the wall in my hurry.
“What are you doing here, Dinah?” I ask the female cockatrice who happens to be one of my best friends from my lounge.
Dinah grins back at me from the other side of the plexiglass. Her bright purple pixie cut looks plummy under the bad prison lighting as her deep set hazel eyes take me in. “Damn, Sinclair. Look at you.”
I look down at the gray uniform and shrug. “I know, I know. It’s not exactly doing my figure any favors, but it’s basically like wearing pajamas twenty-four-seven, so it’s kinda worth it.”
She chuckles, but it’s forced, and I can see the tightness around her eyes that immediately sets me on edge. “What’s wrong?”
Her smile dims slightly, and a million worst-case scenarios reel through my mind.
“We’re in trouble,” she tells me stiffly, like the words are climbing out of her mouth despite her efforts to keep them inside.
“Who, you and Tark? Did something happen to Verity?” I demand, picturing Dinah’s purple pigtail clad three-year-old and her mate. I’m half crouched over the metal chair I was just sitting in, like if Dinah just says the word, I’m ready to bust out of this place and do anything I can to help her.
“No, Sin. They’re fine,” she assures me. “Verity’s wings are getting so strong and so fast. Tark and I found her almost five inches off the ground the other day in the backyard. Scared us to death. It also made us proud as hell,” she tells me, beaming.
I smile at the thought, both of us lost in the beauty of her feisty little girl for a second.
Dinah shakes her head and blows out a breath. “It’s the lounge, Sin. Matriarch is pretending like everything is fine. But I don’t think it is. You know Stur, Cena and Mack’s son?” she asks, and I nod. “He went missing last week.”
My brows dip with concern. Stur’s mom, Cena, is pretty frail, and he helps take care of her. He’s not the type to just run off.
“When his parents reported it to Matriarch Denali, she didn’t seem surprised by the news. She also didn’t seem like she was in a hurry to figure out what happened to him. She just kept saying that she was sure he’d turn up.”
I sit back down in my chair and try to think through why my mat would have reacted so out of character. She doesn’t allow anyone to