Page 46 of Auctioned to the Prisoners

With their confessions hanging heavy in the air, Hyde pulls me closer, his breath warm against my skin. Kinkaid moves in, pressing his solid, powerful body against my back, his heat seeping into me. Hyde's intense green eyes bore into mine, like he can see through to every secret I keep hidden. My heart races, vulnerable under his gaze, but somehow, more alive than ever. Rock’s rough hands slide up my legs, gripping me with a possessive strength that leaves me breathless. Caught between three dangerous men, surrounded by their raw intensity, there is no escape—and I don’t want one. Not anymore. I’m in too deep, willing to risk my heart, because being held by them feels like the only place I belong.

And yet, a part of me still wonders about the warden’s debt to them—the secret that binds these men together. Whatever it is, it’s something big. Something powerful enough to destroy them all. But deep down, I’m not sure I ever want to find out.

17

HYDE

A STORM IS COMING

When the security keypad to the door begins beeping, I come awake so fast that my head spins. A quick glance reveals we’re all still where we were last night, crashed out on mattresses. Lory’s sleeping in between Rock and Kinkaid with her shirt tucked up around her waist and her bare ass pressed into Kinkaid. He has his dick buried inside her while they sleep, something he craves as much as I hunger for her sweet nipple in my mouth. They stir, and as I scramble to the door, they lurch awake.

We’re hungry, and the warden has been absent for too long.

I’m praying I’m going to be faced by the warden and not Wilson or one of the other asshole guards. When the door opens, it’s Grady on the other side carrying two bags. His usually beefy face is hollowed, with dark circles ringing his eyes. His skin is grayer and rougher.

“Where have you been?” I snap, grabbing the bags from his outstretched hands. The absence of food has made me grouchy. I lower them to the floor while he scans the place.

“My sister’s in the hospital. She tried to—” He drops his eyes to the floor and runs his hand over his face. “She took too many pills.”

His sister. The one whose daughter was kidnapped and abused by Whitaker.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, remembering the spill of blood over my fingers as I shanked the fucker. Death by a thousand cuts. That’s what we decided. Except it didn’t take a thousand. Just a few from each of us to be certain he was too sliced up to stitch back together, to be certain he’d bleed out all his evil andnever be able to inflict it on anyone else. And we’d never know for sure whose cut was the one that ended him. Grady thinks it was for his niece. He’ll never know that Whitaker was my demon first or that there’s technically no debt for him to pay. Getting revenge was a gift I took for myself, and the only way for me to swab the filth out of the wound he caused me. When my friends supported me, it bonded us forever.

“Wilson was supposed to bring you supplies.”

That shocks me. When did Wilson become part of this arrangement? I wouldn’t trust that cocksucker to walk a dog, let alone play a part in keeping a risky secret. “Well, he didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re trusting him now?”

“I don’t have a choice. He knows. He’s the only one who knows.”

“Maybe,” Kinkaid says. “Or maybe he’s already told all his buddies. Maybe, all the screws in this place know. Maybe he’s shooting his mouth off it in the pub after work.”

“She can’t stay the full month,” Grady says suddenly. Lory, who approaches with Kinkaid and Rock, inhales a shocked breath.

“She’s staying,” I growl. “You trying to back out of our arrangement?”

“What choice do I have? This is too risky. For all of us.”

“I want to stay,” Lory says quickly. “Please?”

She shifts, tugging the hem of the shirt lower to protect her modesty, and I stare at her with disbelief. She wants to get out of this place. How could she not? Her sister is on the outside, and she has no reason to stay incarcerated. Freedom is everything.

My heart pounds at the thought of her being taken away and sweat trickles down my back. I’ve been counting the days, dreaming about all the moments we’ll have together over the time we have left. Now, it’s going to be taken away. Tensionpushes like darkness from the edges of my mind, tightening my jaw and bunching my shoulders. I’ve been so balanced with Lory around I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to plummet.

“Lory, you must understand that if you’re discovered here, everything will go to shit. I’ll lose my job, these men will have black marks added to their records, more time, and you could be charged with any number of offenses.”

Those are all reasons Grady shouldn’t have risked this in the first place, but he was high on the relief of Whitaker’s death and desperate to find a way to repay us. So desperate, he was blinded to all the ways this could go wrong.

“No,” Kinkaid says. “Nothing is going to touch Lory. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

“I need to speak to Wilson. Get a measure of where his head is at. He failed to carry out my explicit instructions about meeting your basic needs. It can’t be good.”

“We want more time,” Rock says. “We need more time.”

There’s a roughness to his voice that sounds a lot like emotion catching in his throat. My fists ball at my sides, violence brewing. My hands tremble, but Lory’s soft hand wraps itself around mine, holding it still and tight, and the rising tension leaches out of me. If I let her experience the violence in me, maybe she won’t want to stay. If I let out the side that earned me my nickname, she’ll beg Grady to pull her out of here.

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