Page 1 of In Hiding

1.

Prison should have changed him, but Jake Langley couldn’t say for sure if it had. All he knew was that his time stuck behind these walls was coming to an end and freedom loomed. It scared him half to death.

Returning to his cell, he sat on his bunk and leaned against the cold brick wall. Murmurs and whispers floated through the bars, but nothing distracted him from his thoughts. Not now. Not today. For the most part, he’d managed to keep his head above water. A miracle for the likes of him, really. Trouble was drawn to him and he to it. It found him the minute he stepped behind bars but since then, he’d kept his head down and his ass free of a target. Perhaps sharing a cell with a man reputed for grievous bodily harm might have had something to do with it.

He shook his head in wonder. Eyeing the bunk on the opposite side of the small cell, he still marveled at their pairing. He should never have been put in maximum security, not with the likes of his cell mate, and yet, here he was. Almost enjoying the protection when he probably should have been watching his back.

Luck?

Coincidence?

Or something else?

He had no idea but in less than a month, he’d be rid of these shackles, these walls, and these folks. He’d always likened himself a bad boy and he’d done enough to prove he was no angel, but maximum security? A day into his sentence showed him he didn’t hold a candle to the men in the yard, not when, on day two, he woke up in the infirmary. It took them no time to try to teach him a lesson, but after almost a year of being the tiny fish in the big pond with all the sharks, he felt no different. He wanted to know why.

What the hell was it going to take to break him out of his bad habits?

Movement caught his attention, but he needn’t have worried. It was only the Danish man whose cell he shared. The big guy stood in the doorway. At six-six and over three hundred pounds of pure muscle, he embodied strength. Long brown hair had been fashioned into a ponytail that hung halfway down his back, and the shaved sides of his head gave him the appearance of a Viking. Tattoos adorned both sides of his exposed scalp. Two more decorated his right temple.

“You’re back.”

Jake nodded as the tall beast settled onto the cot opposite. “I am.”

“Do you have a date, yet?”

“Three weeks from tomorrow.”

The Dane smiled. The gesture made his forehead wrinkle and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes crinkled. It made him look older and more formidable than he already was. “Who else knows?”

“You.” And the guards who’d eavesdropped, no doubt. “Me.”

The inmate grunted as the smile faded. “It’s for the best. You should never have been put here.”

“No arguments from me. Serves me right for listening to a duty lawyer.” But he hadn’t had the means or the knowhow to hire someone with more scruples to represent him.

“Meh, we live and learn. Until then, you keep your head down, you hear?”

Jake laughed. “Haven’t I always?”

The deep green eyes that appraised him from six feet away hardened. “You listened, you lived. It’s that simple.”

The man everyone called the Great Dane spoke the truth. Jake had never disobeyed the giant’s instructions and it had served him well, but it didn’t escape his attention that in twenty-two days, he wouldn’t have big Erik Christensen to watch his back or steer his rudder. He’d be tossed back out into the world with little more than the clothes on his back and no one to guide him.

The prospect threatened to loosen his bowels.

He’d always answered to someone. His army drill sergeants. His unit commander. And now Christensen. Once he returned to civilian life, he’d have none of them.

“It scares you, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. The ability Erik had to read his mind comforted him as much as it unnerved him. “Where do I go?”

His old life was out of the question. Familiar as it was, it wouldn’t serve. Not now. Not after the things he’d done under the instruction of the Sergeant. Across the cell, Erik sighed and glanced at the open doorway. He pulled a face, looking almost indecisive, before reaching into his pillow cover and pulling out a small square of paper.

Quiet as a mouse, the large Dane leapt to his feet and knelt by Jake’s bed. “Can I count on you?”

Jake nodded, but judging by the look in Erik’s eyes, it wasn’t enough.

Erik pressed the small slip into his hand and curled Jake’s fingers around it. “You know only part of my story, friend. I want to share the rest, but it might mean asking something of you that will get you thrown right back in here.”

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