Page 1 of Captured By the Convict

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5:55 A.M.

VALENTINE’S DAY.

FEDERAL PRISON.

JUST OUTSIDE BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

XAVIER

Best Valentine’s Day of my entire miserable life.

A tight smile cracks open the cut on my lower lip. The metallic tang of blood fills my mouth, and I swallow hungrily, my empty belly rumbling after three days in the hole without food and only just enough water to keep me alive.

But I am alive, despite that Boston Irish asshole’s best efforts to put me down like the Italian-Spanish mongrel I am.

Fuck yeah, still alive.

Alive, and almost free.

“And then I’m coming for you, Padraig Kieran,” I growl softly as I crawl through the dusty old ventilator shaft that probably dates back to the damn Revolutionary War, when the British Redcoats locked up American rebels fighting for their freedom just like I’m fighting for mine.

Of course, the fighting itself didn’t take that long. Thankfully Kieran isn’t connected with the larger Irish mob, and the inmate he sent to kill me was slow and sloppy, no match for a wild dog like me who grew up fighting for his life on the hard streets of South Boston.

I broke his arm in three places, twisting his elbow backwards and sticking that screwdriver-shank right back between his own ribs, sliding it into his left lung, feeling the fleshy air-bag collapse with a shuddering sigh. He was already drowning in his own blood when I got him in a chokehold and broke his neck quick and clean.

And quiet.

Quiet enough that the thick walls of the solitary-confinement block covered up the sound of my assassin’s gurgling gasping last breaths. My solitary cell had apparently been unlocked by a crooked prison-guard sometime during the night so my assassin could sneak in, do the deed, then sneak out. They’d have written it up as a suicide or an accident or some combination. Didn’t matter if the evidence didn’t match up with the report. If the Feds all agreed that JFK was killed by a single magic bullet, what chance does a convicted killer like me have in either the court of law or public opinion?

About the same chance a snowball has in a hot oven.

Except this unexpected attack did suddenly give me a chance at something.

Escape.

It’s almost incomprehensible after four years in this shithole, locked up with savages like myself, all of us animals fighting for survival in a human jungle a thousand times more dangerous than anything nature has to offer.

But I survived. My mixed Italian-Spanish blood got me in with the Sicilians and the Italians, the Mexicans and the Dominicans. Sure, I had to prove myself to all those various prison gangs, which almost got me killed several times over that first year. But I proved myself to be a valuable fighter and—more importantly—a shrewd strategist.

Because prison society is more sophisticated than you might think. The various factions have their own territory, their owneconomies, their own politics. It’s like a miniature model of the outside world in a way.

A savagely violent way, but not so different from how nations interact. We have wars, make peace, trade with each other. We form alliances, cut deals, negotiate settlements of debts—sometimes in cash, sometimes in blood.

And Padraig Kieran has racked up one serious fucking blood debt.

Like they say, you aim at the king, you better make the shot count.

Because there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded predator that’s now hunting you like I’m going to be hunting Kieran.

But right now I’m still hunting for a way out of this maze of old ventilator shafts. My elbows are scraped raw from crawling through what feels like miles of old tunnels in this ancient building. I’ve already had to backtrack three times after hitting blocked-up sections of the old cobblestone-era ventilator shafts. I have an almost supernatural sense of direction, and after four years I know this prison better than a rat knows his hole. But I’m hopelessly turned around after crawling back and forth for what must be going on three hours now.

No idea what time it is, but I figure we’re getting close to dawn. Soon that crooked prison guard will check back to make sure I’m dead. He’ll find my Irish assassin in a puddle of sticky dark blood. The guard will sound the alarm, and the prison will go on full lockdown.

And I need to find a way out before that happens.

Now I get to a three-way junction in the labyrinth of old tunnels that twist and turn through this repurposed old building. I pause to take a breath, squinting into each of the dark tunnels one by one, looking for some sign that one of themleads outside. I can’t see a damn thing, am about to just pick the leftmost tunnel and try my luck, but then I smell something.

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