Another round of stomach-churning anguish rolled in. Fighting a bad case of the shakes, J. J. bit down on a moan and prayed for oblivion. Numbness. The mind melt of unconsciousness. It didn’t come. Neither did relief. To be expected, she guessed. Agony was the only reasonable outcome after surviving the beat down Daisy had delivered. A badge of honor in many ways. Other inmates hadn’t been so lucky. Or lived to tell the tale.
She only wished the honor didn’t involve bruises, split skin, and the throb of a broken ankle encased in a plaster cast. Those injuries, though, were nothing compared to the stab wounds… as in multiple. One sliced across her right forearm. A second slashed over her collarbone on the way to meeting the curve of her shoulder. While the third? That gash was the real kicker. A true testament to Daisy’s skill with a blade.
A shiver worked its way down her spine.
God, it had been close. Way too close. Had she hesitated at all—been a millisecond slower—she would be dead. Stabbed through the heart. Laid out in an autopsy room. Not alive to feel the burn of the knife wound running along her right side. As violent as the woman who’d inflicted it, the gash dipped beneath her breast before cutting inward over her rib cage. A terrible injury, every last inch courtesy of a homemade prison shank wielded by a homicidal manic. Now sutures held her together, train-tracking over her skin, a testament to the surgeon’s skill and her will to live.
J. J. let her eyes drift closed. Lucky. She’d been so damned lucky.
Strange to think of it that way. Especially after being attacked. But despite the stitches, all the bruises and broken bones, she couldn’t help but be thankful. She’d survived. Beaten the odds and made it out alive. So forget crying. Screw the circumstances along with the pain. The fact she felt anything at all was a blessing.
A straight-up miracle when she considered who wanted her dead.
Officer Griggs. Prison guard extraordinaire. Nothing but a thug with a badge at the Washington State Corrections Center she called home.
Ignoring the pulse of pain, she shook her head. Oh, the irony. Four and a half years on the inside. A total of fifty-four months without so much as a paper cut, and now, here she lay… bashed up and hurting. Another casualty in one of Griggs’s nasty power plays.
One called obsession.
Had his infatuation been with her, J. J. could’ve found a way around him. Outsmarted him at his own game. Screwed with his head. Manipulated without mercy to save her own skin. Too bad it wasn’t that simple. It never was with her sister in the mix. Tania meant the world to her. Was the only person she called family and cared about, so… no question. The second Griggs fixated on Tania—harassing her when she visited her at prison, trying to use J. J. as leverage to force Tania to sleep with him—he’d gone from just another prison guard to inmate enemy number one.
All that, though, had been about to change. Griggs had known it. So had she and Tania.
It started and ended with one thing… the arrival of a letter. One issued by Washington State Corrections and stamped with parole board letterhead. Call it karma. Call it luck. Call it a reward for good behavior and time served. But whatever the universe labeled it, hope was the principal message. J. J.’s throat tightened. God, freedom. A second chance at a real life. The opportunity to make amends, to help others and give back somehow. Maybe even ensure other girls didn’t make the same mistakes she had.
All she’d needed was a month.
A measly thirty-one days and she would’ve been safe. But oh no, that had been too much to ask. A pie-in-the-sky dream with Griggs breathing down her neck. The weasel liked to snoop, and the instant he found the letter in her file? Game over. He’d come after her with both barrels, sending Daisy and her crew to corner her in the library. His objective had been simple: hurt her, hurt Tania. An excellent strategy… with nasty consequences. Ones that left her with the obvious—life-threatening injuries and a truckload of pain. But worse, at least for her? No one else knew about his part in her attack. And she couldn’t prove it.
Daisy wouldn’t talk. A lifer doing time for triple homicide, she’d kept a lid on things. Refusing to cooperate, after all, was an inmate’s specialty. The less the warden and guards knew, the better. Which meant the truth about Griggs would never get out. Not while he played favorites: promising inmates perks on the inside, threatening those who didn’t toe the line, manipulating the system without mercy. And what did that make J. J.? Screwed six ways to Sunday, that’s what.
No proof. No credibility. No way out.
Twenty-four hours ago, she might’ve had a shot. But oh my, how the tides turned and fortune shifted. J. J’s throat tightened, making her chest ache. It wasn’t fair. She’d been so close. So very close. Now the chances of her walking out the prison gates a free woman were slim to none. The warden didn’t tolerate fighting. Was no doubt in investigation mode already, putting J. J.’s appointment with the board on hold as she decided who to blame for the incident. And whether charges would be levied.
All without J. J. there to defend herself.
Sorrow circled deep, making her eyes sting. Even knowing the warden wasn’t an idiot didn’t help. Logic—and the reality that drove the corrections system—dictated the path and required a certain amount of pragmatism. Hope wasn’t something she could afford. And luck? She huffed. Right. Fortune was as fickle as fate. J. J. never knew which way either would throw her—into something good or straight into the middle of a whole lot of bad.
The latter seemed more plausible. Especially after what she’d done.
Murderers didn’t go free. Society believed in the principle, and so did she. Second chances belonged to other people, not her. Never her. And as regret circled and guilt piled on, J. J. recognized the futility. Damned if she did. Damned if she didn’t. Her abusive ex-boyfriend had put her in that position, forcing her to choose between her life and his. A no-brainer all things considered. Self-preservation didn’t negotiate and always won out in the end. Truth stacked upon truth. From the moment he threatened to kill her if she didn’t stay, the choice became simple and the path clear…
Pull the trigger. Take him out of the equation or end up in a body bag.
Unfair? Certainly. A necessary evil? Absolutely. Her fault? Without a doubt.
She’d dug her own grave. Made one bad decision after another. Trusted him too quickly and gotten involved with a violent man willing to use his fists to keep her in line. Her mistake. A heavy cross to bear. Absolution would forever remain out of reach. God would never forgive her. J. J. didn’t blame him. She’d never forgive herself, so—
A sharp pop sounded above her.
Startled, J. J. flinched. Sore muscles protested, jabbing her with invisible needles as she glanced up. She sucked in a breath. Different guy. Not the same soft-spoken orderly who pushed her out of the recovery room a while ago. And in his place? A tall stranger with broad shoulders and big hands planted on the head of her bed.
Rimmed by black liner, blue eyes met hers. “Hey, you’re awake.”
She blinked. Her injured eye squawked, tearing up as pain jabbed her temple. Squinting, she forced her vision into focus and… holy moly. A spiderweb tattoo with an ugly red spider at its center was inked on the side of his neck. Her gaze bounced back up, landing on the metal stud piercing his nostril. The black steel glinted beneath the overhead light, winking at its twin just above it, the one calling the guy’s eyebrow home.