Never Have an Outlaw's Baby (Deadly Pistols MC #3)(84)

I knew it, and I did it anyway, venturing to the huge prison about an hour north from Chicago.

I told myself I was ready to do wild things to jump start my career. A girl with an eye for journalism had to do the exceptional to get her name out there. And nothing was crazier than interviewing Anton Ivankov, the infamous Chicago bomber – especially when blood made us natural enemies.

I'd never met the man in my life, of course. But that didn't change anything.

We Ligiottis were born into rivalry and danger, the price of enjoying all the wonderful things the underworld has to offer. For us, nobody was bigger and badder than the Ivankovs, latecomers to the Chicago crime scene, vicious Russian bastards who made everything my family did for cash look like a gentle Florentine opera.

So I'd been told, anyway. I wasn't really privy to what went on behind closed doors and inside dark alleys to make us rich. Uncle Gioulio saved me from getting too close to the family business, a promise he'd sworn to my late parents.

Honestly, I didn't mind being sheltered. Partaking in the madness, the fear, and the murder didn't appeal to me. Raw, personal history did, and nothing was a bigger coup for me than when the letter showed up last week from Anton Ivankov. It was just a date and a time. Today's, five minutes to three o'clock sharp, plus two crabbed sentences.

ONE HOUR. NO RECORDERS.

By some insane miracle, he wanted to talk after more than a year in the slammer. Hell, he wanted to talk to me. I couldn't stop wondering how I'd gotten so lucky. I'd omitted my last name in my request, and he'd taken the bait.

All he needed to know about me was that I was just another young, hungry girl looking for a story. I wasn't about to f*ck it up by spilling the beans about our families being mortal enemies.

Right place. Right time. Right luck? Well, it was time to find out.

A warden named Charlie walked me down a narrow row of lean, brutal men in their cages. Their rough eyes leered at me from the shadows. I suppressed a shudder, tried to tell myself it was about what I'd expected. It wasn't unusual for men who'd been locked up for a few months to eye any woman the same way a starving man gazes at a piece of prime rib, right?

Damn, if only there was an easier route to the visiting room. But it was an old prison, as Charlie explained, and there was no choice but to lead me through the small section where they kept their overflow creeps, felons, and killers.

“Right here, Miss Ligiotti,” he said, pulling open a heavy steel door. “You've got an hour. Mind if I ask whose balls you busted to make him talk to you?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Call me Sabrina. No balls were harmed making this happen, I can assure you. I just got lucky.”

“I'll say! All right, I'll let the chef keep her recipe a secret.” Charlie's wrinkles doubled as he beamed me a smile and a wink. “Good luck. Try not to rile him up too much – don't want to ship his ass back to solitary. He's only been out a week.”

Charlie closed the door behind me, and I was alone, taking the middle cubicle with the low, worn wood beneath the glass. Perfect spot for my notepad and the crappy marker clenched in my hands, the only things I'd been allowed to bring inside.

I'd read up on prison regulations before the interview, but I still didn't get it. The cameras were on us the entire time, so I couldn't smuggle anything in even if I wanted to. Besides, this glass between us looked thick, like something you'd see holding a gorilla at a zoo.

Bulletproof. It had to be. And if it could stop gunshots, then surely it could absorb the blows from a man's fists?

The door behind the glass squeaked open on the opposite side. When I saw Anton for the first time, I wasn't so sure about the barrier between us anymore.

I wasn't sure about anything.

Imagine a tiger walking on two legs, suppressing its instinct to rip apart the first tender flesh it finds, if only for a moment. That was him. He moved like he owned the place, instead of being its captive.

I doubted the neon orange jumpsuit he wore even came in a bigger size. And there was a lot stuffed into it – so damned much.

The fabric over his torso stretched like it was about to bust at the seams each time he stepped towards me, the tree trunks he had for arms clasped in front of him, held together by flimsy looking chains. It was the only skin he had exposed besides his face. I couldn't begin to make out the jungle of dark, evil looking ink plastered on those granite muscles.

It rolled up into his sleeves in hypnotic waves, serpents forever bound to his skin. His shoulders were broad, making him a man sized battering ram. Damn if I didn't slide my hand forward and press against the glass, checking to make sure it didn't budge.

Nothing. If this mountain of a man went manic, maybe I'd be safe.

Maybe.

Then there was his face. Short brown hair topped a powerful, angular jaw, a face made for taking a big bite out of the world and spitting it out however he wanted. He'd done that with human lives, I reminded myself, the whole reason he was here.

He didn't have the eyes of a killer. The gems in his head were the clearest baby blue eyes I'd ever seen. For a man who'd rigged up explosives that killed twenty people, I'd expected them to be glazed with death, glassy and mad.

The burning blue fire around his pupils surprised me, melted me in my seat. It flickered with a conscious, eager energy that was almost as scary as the intensity rippling through the rest of his face. The fire held me, forced me to recognize its strange beauty, calling me to look and marvel. I barely caught a glimpse of the faded scar going up his right cheek that completed the ensemble before I forced myself to look down.