Page 4 of X's and O's

Evil lurked there.

I tried to get out a scream, but it was muffled down to a squeak by the cloth he slapped over my face. The toxic smell of whatever chemical he’d soaked the rag in filled my nostrils, burning the insides of them.

But the darkness that came with it was a relief.Because in the dark, I could pretend I was anywhere else in the world.

Including in the dark with one man I knew would never hurt me.

The man who wrote me letters.

2

LEVI

The prison was obnoxiously loud at all hours of the day, except for any nightLove Islandwas on TV. Those nights, the cells cleared out, and anyone who was allowed access to the rec rooms went. I couldn’t exactly work out what it was about that show that had the entire prison in its grips, but they were addicted, and I wasn’t complaining.

I craved that one hour of peace, when my cellmates were all hooting and hollering about pretty people hooking up on a screen across the other side of the facility.

Rowe, one of the few prison guards I actually liked, leaned on the open door of my cell in the minimum-security wing I’d called home for the last six years.

He knocked, like he didn’t have every right to just walk on in. “Figured I’d find you here. Just wanted to say goodbye.”

I put my pen down and glanced up at him. “Don’t jinx me.”

Rowe shook his head, a warm smile settling across his lips. “Nothing to jinx. Your parole hearing is tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I run into you on the outside, you’re just going to call me Rowe, right?”

“We won’t run into each other.”

Rowe cocked his head to one side. “I’ve got friends at the Slayers MC. You know that. We run in the same circles, so we probably will. We go to barbecues there pretty regularly in the summer.”

I clicked the top of my pen in irritation at the mention of the Slayers. “I’m not going back to them. So that won’t be an issue.”

Rowe raised an eyebrow. “You’re not?”

I scoffed, “After doing six years for them, I’m not exactly in the mood for a reunion.” Surely he could understand that.

“Anyone tell you their prez died a few years back?”

I shrugged. “Heard it on the grapevine. War took over from his old man.”

“He’s a good guy—”

I shot the guard a sharp look.

He chuckled and held up his hands. “Not that I’m trying to convince you to go back to them or anything. If you’re out, you’re out. Good for you. What are you going to do though? You got family? A wife or kids or something?”

In the six years I’d been here, no guard had ever asked me about my family. That wasn’t what they did, and I understood why. They couldn’t be our friends.Pritchard was only asking me now because he thought I was leaving.

I gazed back down at my notepad and traced over a word I’d written earlier. “No family. No girlfriend or kids. The club was the only family I knew.” I underlined the word and then looked back up at the guard. “But it’ll be different when I’m out.” I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “IfI get out, that is.”

Rowe studied me carefully. “Miss Donovan—”

I grinned at him, stifling a laugh at his formal choice of words when the whole prison knew he was shacked up with her. He might not have come right out and told us, but there was no denying the sort of chemistry the two of them had. It was a hell of a lot more than anyone onLove Island. “You mean your missus?”

He ran his tongue over his teeth, but he was hiding a grin. “Miss Donovansaid you’ve been participating in the pen pal exchange for a whole year? Writing weekly letters to practice the spelling and grammar you’ve been learning in her class.”