him off, made him mad, and ultimately started the anger that never seemed to go away no matter how much I tried to distance myself from him.
What made it even fucking worse was the fact that we always ended up at the same damn place.
Seriously, I swear to God, it was like Brees was being placed in my path to test my patience.
Then Blaise Mackenzie had lit my world on fire.
All it’d been was one phone call from a friend—keep an eye on her.
Wanting to make sure that I gave that to her, I started to take an interest. Showing no favoritism, but also just keeping an eye open to ensure that she was okay.
And she had been. Until I started to look at her as something altogether different. Started to stare a little too long. Started to want her in ways that a superior officer shouldn’t want someone lower rank than him.
See, the Army seemed to frown on things like that.
Until Brees had realized my obsession, things had gone well.
Then he’d started to treat her badly. Doing things that he knew would provoke a reaction out of me.
And shit had just degraded from there.
“Don’t make us break up a fight between you and another inmate again, or you’ll have to visit your cell for longer than you’d find comfortable,” the other guard with Blaise ordered.
She was tough-as-nails. I knew that without being told.
But she was small, like Blaise.
If the men in this prison really wanted to, they could overpower the both of them very easily.
We might not get anything out of it but shot dead, but we could easily take them down had we really wanted to.
Which made my heart lurch.
I didn’t like the idea of Blaise being here.
Not. At. All.
“Watch over yourself, Mackenzie,” I urged.
The other guard took it as a threat. But Mackenzie took it as it was. A worried man needing to make sure that she watched over herself when he couldn’t.
Then, before I could do anything stupid like pull her to me and kiss her, I walked away.
But not before I heard the other guard say, “Was that a threat?”
I slowed to hear Blaise’s reply. “No threat.”
That’s right.
I was never going to be a threat to her.
Even if it made me really goddamned stupid.
CHAPTER 2
I either drink coffee or I say bad words. You choose which one you want.
-Sin’s secret thoughts
SIN
Six months later
“Who’s that?”
I didn’t have to turn around to know who my brother was talking about.
“That’s Blaise,” I said, knowing without looking at her that he could tell that something had changed. “She right behind me?”
Bronx’s eyes flicked up to the woman I could practically feel at my back, then back down to me. “No. But she is leaning against the wall, eating you up with her eyes.”
I felt my stomach dip. “She’s the reason I’m here.”
My brother could probably guess.
I mean, it wasn’t like I’d kept why I’d gone to jail a secret. Then again, anything would be impossible to keep a secret from my overprotective brothers.
I had seven brothers in total, and all of them knew what was wrong and what had gone down within two hours of it happening. One, because most of my brothers were military or former military, meaning they still had enough connections to hear about the shit that went down with me fairly quickly—as I did with them.
Two, because it made national news—me kicking some guy’s ass to the point of near death.
Too bad I hadn’t finished the fuckin’ job.
If anyone deserved to be dead, it was fuckin’ Brees.
The prick.
Now he was off, living and happy and being a dick to other people, while I had to live in this hellhole and Blaise had to live with the knowledge that her attacker was still out there.
Now he lived with a permanent seat in a wheelchair, loss of function in both of his hands, and no military career just like me.
Though, if anyone deserved to be dishonorably discharged, it was that asshole.
“You’re the reason you’re here,” Bronx countered. “You never could deny the pretty little blonde fairies.”
I rolled my eyes. “She’s not a fuckin’ fairy.”
“She is,” Bronx disagreed. “She may be able to hold her own—at least for a small amount of time—but she’s a fairy nonetheless.”
Bronx’s comments might as well have come out of my own damn mouth.
Because that was the exact way I felt.
This place? This penitentiary that held murderers, drug dealers, rapists, pedophiles, and hell, even vengeful innocent people? This place was a hotbed for