Chapter Thirteen

Prescott sat on the concrete floor in the corner of an otherwise empty jail cell, his elbows resting on his bent knees, his thick forearms folded over each other. He had his total focus on the iron bars that were keeping him locked away from what he wanted most. His shoulder ached, a reminder of the bullet wound he’d sustained two years earlier. The doc who’d worked on him had reassured him after everything healed there’d be no residual pain, so he attributed the occasional twinge to his subconscious desire to never forget his past.

As he had countless times before, he lowered his head until his forehead was resting on his arms, then brought to mind images of his boys. He focused on each one in turn until he got to the last one: Seth Fisher. The sounds of chains clanking and soft whimpers filled his head.

He had no reason to worry about a cellmate gawking at him as he recalled those beautiful memories of being with his boy. Since he’d been transferred from the state penitentiary back to the county jail, they’d put him in a cell alone, one that usually accommodated up to ten men. The guards at the jail didn’t trust the other inmates, not with so many of them wanting to take down the newest arrival who’d been prominently featured on the news for the past two years. The “pervert” who most thought needed far more than an ass kicking.

He’d once been a decorated firefighter who’d rescued twin girls from a burning building. Now he was a criminal. Tried and convicted in court, and in the media long before that.

His attorney, Lauber, said they had an excellent chance with the appeal of his case after the combined trial of all the charges brought against him. Especially with the way the cops had blundered everything about the investigation, starting with not knowing the lead detective in the disappearances, Conrad Henderson, had been Prescott’s childhood friend who’d been covering for him for years.

During the trial, the judge did the unthinkable and admitted evidence that Henderson had been in charge of, evidence that never should’ve been allowed in the courtroom. Or so Prescott’s attorney had assured him.

All Prescott thought about whenever he heard his former friend’s name was that he was glad the son of a bitch was dead. Henderson betrayed him in the worst possible way by trying to kill one of his boys. And this after Prescott had once saved Henderson’s life when they’d been kids. For that act alone, he deserved better.

He should’ve strangled Henderson years earlier.

At least now, Conrad Henderson’s mistakes were helping with the appeal. Although from what Prescott’s attorney had promised since the beginning, the appeal wasn’t his only hope.

“No matter what, you’ll never spend your life in prison.”

Which meant Prescott couldn’t care less what people thought of him or which cell they stuck him in. He would one day get to be with the ones he wanted to hold, to care for, to love. He just had to be patient.

“Psst. Prescott.” A soft voice interrupted his thoughts and pulled him back to the present.

After all this time, he still hated that name, hated how it made him feel, but he could never refer to himself as the Protector again. Not after he let his boys get taken from him, after he failed them.

“Prescott.” The name was said with more force, but it still came from a timid voice.

Prescott gave in and raised his head. The old man with the books was back. He stood outside the cell, wearing the same orange jumpsuit as Prescott. Although the old man looked so frail there was a good chance his jailhouse ensemble would slide right off his body at any moment. He had a bony, wrinkled hand resting on the handle of a metal cart that was loaded with boxes of books. The cart seemed to be the only thing keeping him standing.

“Would you like a new book to read?”

Prescott got off the floor and went to the bars. The old man watched him move with wide eyes, but to his credit, he didn’t so much as flinch as Prescott’s massive frame came in close. He never had.

“I’ll take one.”

“Got a preference?”

“Fiction. Nothing light or funny.”

“Hmmmm.” The old man searched his cart. “How about… Ah, yes.” He slid out a tattered paperback and grinned up at Prescott, reverently clutching the book in his hands as if it were his “get out of jail” papers. He was missing two front teeth. One on the top and one on the bottom. The two black holes and the surrounding chipped, yellow teeth created a checkerboard effect. “How about a mystery?”

“Perfect.”

The old man went to hand Prescott the book but stopped short when an inmate in the crowded cell across the aisle groaned in annoyance.

“Hurry it up, old man.”

Prescott swore under his breath at the interference. He hated impatient people, hated the arrogance and entitlement. Everyone in today’s world was unbearably selfish and downright rude. Apparently that phenomenon didn’t bypass inmates in the county jail.

“Come on, you old fart.” The shithead across the aisle gripped the cell’s iron bars in both hands. His hair was slicked back with his own body’s grease, and his oily face needed a serious scrub. He was likely one of the men whose stench had permeated into Prescott’s cell.

The grotesque man’s complaints grew louder. “Hurry it up or I’ll make you suck my dick for keeping me waiting.” He laughed. His cohorts in the same cell followed suit.

That did it. Prescott jabbed a finger through the bars in his direction. “You. Leave him alone.”

“Or what? You gonna kill me with your finger from all the way over there?”

“You know why I’m here?”

“Yeah. Cop killer.” The man scoffed. “Sick pervert faggot too, I hear. Kidnapped guys. Raped and tortured ’em. Fucked ’em up good. You are one messed up son of a bitch, that’s for sure.”

Prescott kept on staring him down. “If I have no qualms killing a cop who happened to be a friend of mine, what the hell do you think I’ll do to a guy like you?”

The man glared back at him but kept his mouth shut. He knew the score. He was far from close to Prescott’s size.

Prescott gestured to the old man with the books. “You so much as touch one hair on his head or even speak to him again, and you’re going to personally find out how sick I am.”

The inmate held still. Then he waved his hand through the air as if neither of them were worth the trouble. He backed away from the bars into the darkness of the cell.

The old man held out the mystery he’d selected. “Chapter thirty-three’s my favorite. That’s when the bad guy almost gets away.”

Prescott took the book. “Let me know if that asshole, or anyone else, gives you any more shit.”

The man smiled at him, then shuffled off down the aisle, pushing the cart before him.

When he was gone, Prescott turned away and crossed the cell, dropping the book on the thin mattress as he passed by. With his back to the far wall, he eased his large frame down and returned to sit on the floor.

They could put him in jail with trash, send him to prison for the rest of his life, take away everything—everyone—he cared about, but they could never take away who he was.

A protector.

He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and let the images of his boy slide into view once more. He pictured Seth in his cage. Naked, quivering, waiting. Gorgeous. No one had ever been as responsive, as attentive to Prescott’s every move.

Prescott dropped his head and rested his forehead on his folded arms as he’d done earlier. This time he imagined them together, not as he remembered, but how they’d be one day. In a little cabin he’d build, nestled inside a dense forest, far away from civilization, nothing but the sound of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl.

And of course, the sound of Seth. Those little whimpers and cries he always let out.

God, he wanted him back.

Rolling his head to the side, Prescott reached for the book the old man had given him. He flipped to chapter thirty-three. A folded piece of paper lay between the pages. He opened it.

Yesterday Seth Fisher walked out of his apartment alone. He hasn’t made it out of the building yet, but he’s getting closer.

Prescott sighed with tangible relief. After months of surgeries, infections, setbacks, more surgeries, complications, and countless hours of hounding by the cops, his boy was going to be okay.

He let that thought wash over him and ease his anxiety.

Then he studied the final words of the note.

Someone will approach you with an offer. Take it. Hang in there. You’ll see him soon.

There were times when he’d doubted it, times when he couldn’t allow himself even a glimmer of hope, moments when he knew for certain he’d never be happy again, never be at peace. But now…

A smile spread across his lips as he imagined all the things he’d once again get to do with his boy.

Soon.

He’d be with him again soon.

* * * * *

Sitting behind his grand executive desk, the man tightened his grip on the printed financial reports until the pages were crumpling along the edges, but it wasn’t the figures defining the recent struggles and failures of his various businesses that held his attention. Instead he was focused on only one thing.

A memory.

A day he’d spent with his son when the child was ten years old. They’d gone on a trip to Cedar Lake, rented a cabin in the woods, and spent a week there as a family. They swam, rowed out onto the lake in a canoe, built a fire, and told ghost stories. Taking such an extended stretch off from his work was a rarity for him, but it had become necessary. His son was losing his way.

That was before their rift, before his son had taken off, leaving him and his mother brokenhearted and alone.

Giving in to the memories, the man ditched the reports, picked up his phone, and opened the photos app. The picture of his son had been taken at the lake that week. At such a young age, it had been hard to tell if his boy was going to match his father’s six-foot-three frame and muscular build, or if he’d be slight like his mother. In the picture, the boy was seated in the canoe. He held an oar in both hands, ready to take off on their next adventure, a dopey grin on his face. He’d smiled like that the entire trip. Which had only confirmed for the man what he needed to do: toughen the kid up, make him into more of a man.

And yet, somewhere along the way he’d failed.

Well, no longer. He was not letting his son down now.

A knock reverberated on his office door.

“Enter.” The man’s own fractured voice startled him. He swallowed down the emotion and repeated the word with more force.

The door was gradually pushed open. A young man dressed in a business suit too sizable for his lean figure stepped into the office. “Sorry for the interruption, sir, but would you have a minute?”

Sighing in frustration, the man behind the desk sank back in his chair. “We’ve talked about this, Jarrett.” He paused for emphasis. “Never apologize to anyone. Ever. Not even me.”

“I know. But it feels wrong, sir. It wasn’t how I was brought up.”

“Why don’t you give it a try? Just once.”

“All right. Next time?”

The man studied Jarrett Gates. It had been two years since the younger man had signed on as his newest assistant. Yet Jarrett still couldn’t get this one rule down, despite that he’d done everything else asked of him. The man knew it was, at least in part, due to his own standing as head of the corporation. He intimidated people without trying. He’d be considered old to someone of Jarrett’s age, but he didn’t look it or carry himself that way. He’d been fit and toned his entire life, classically handsome with a square jaw and broad shoulders.

As he strode through the office on a day-to-day basis, he watched his underlings whisper and scurry from his approach. Not Jarrett. Despite his obvious nervousness and low self-confidence, he’d walked right up and introduced himself, his hand out. At the time, Jarrett was just past thirty, working in the corporation’s mail room. That day was one of the reasons the man had selected Jarrett for the coveted position as his special-assignment assistant.

Jarrett didn’t sit at a desk outside the man’s office, greet visitors, or answer the phones. He completed confidential and personal tasks that had nothing to do with the man’s businesses.

The man liked Jarrett. He was smart and loyal as sin, and his determination reminded the man of himself when he’d been younger. Only Jarrett was more of a nervous sort, a people pleaser. The man blamed that on Jarrett’s father. He’d probably spoiled Jarrett instead of giving him the tools he needed to foster positive self-esteem, to gain the discipline and confidence to succeed at anything in life.

So the man took it upon himself to mentor Jarrett, offer him the authoritarian influence he hadn’t received as a kid, give him what the man had tried so hard to provide to his own child.

He’d always hoped that one day his boy would give up on the alternative path he’d chosen in life and would return to his side to learn about the business. But that was never going to happen. His wife had been trying to tell him that for years. They’d lost their son when he was a teenager. There’d been glimmers of hope when his boy had met with him on several occasions, even taking an interest in the business and in pleasing him. But then, they lost him again.

Now all the man had was the plan he’d so painstakingly put together.

He flipped to another photo on his phone. This one more recent. He’d gotten a copy from a detective friend who accessed the case file and took a snapshot of the picture for him.

It was his son. Lying on a gurney. Bruised, damaged, broken. His child, his flesh and blood that he’d never stopped loving, no matter how disappointed he’d always been in him.

Which brought him back to the other reason he’d moved Jarrett into the coveted position as his assistant.

Jarrett was a member of the Haven, had been for a couple of years.

The man set the phone on his desk and refocused his attention on Jarrett. “Now would be best.”

“All right.” Jarrett stood straighter, his confidence building. This time he skipped the apology for interrupting. “I have a message for you.”

That had the man smiling. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He pointed at Jarrett. “Now, what have you learned?”

“Everything’s in place. The men you hired said they’ve got what they need and are ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Perfect.” He held the smile for a moment, then gave Jarrett a hard look. “I want you to stay on top of every detail. Nothing can fuck this up. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. I’m on it.” Jarrett turned and scurried off.

The man picked up his phone and returned to the picture of his boy. He wouldn’t fail him again.