All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(30)

North’s fingers dug deep into his shoulder blades. “I’ll be out soon. Don’t worry. And don’t forget . . . look up that little nurse while you’re out.”

He stiffened and stepped back. “Yeah, not a stalker.”

“Whatever. You saved her life. She just might want to thank you properly for that.”

He rolled his eyes and reached for his bag. “I’ll settle for one of the regulars at Roscoe’s. Maybe look up an old flame that isn’t married with a few kids yet.”

“Man, you’re making me jealous. Go eat some chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes at Millie’s, too.”

Reid snorted and waved his hand. “I’m outta here. What a lifer doesn’t want to hear about is all the chicken fried steak and ass you’re about to score.” Before he departed, he leaned in close to add, his light-colored eyes, a color caught between green and amber, scanning Knox’s face meaningfully, “You need help when you’re outside, I’ve got people. Just say the word.”

“Thanks, man.” Knox nodded, but hoped it would never come to that. He knew some of those guys. A few had served time with them in here. They weren’t men that would ever be clean, and Knox was planning on doing just that. He was going to walk a straight line. Take care of his family. Never f*ck up again.

Alone with his brother, the enormity of what was happening pressed down on him. Emotion thickened his throat. “I’m sorry, bro.”

“For what?”

“For landing you in here. And now leaving you.”

“Man, you didn’t put me in here. We did that together. That night . . . you weren’t leaving me at home. I wasn’t having it. I was there beside you every step of the way.”

He wasn’t going to argue with his brother that it had been his idea. His plan. He should have thought to the future and what could come of going after their cousin’s rapist. The outcome seemed so obvious now. He should have considered what going to jail would do to his aunt and uncle, and to Katie, who was already so fragile after the assault. He should have thought of Mason Leary’s family. They didn’t deserve the grief his actions put them through. Only he hadn’t thought. He’d been young and angry and stupid. And he would pay for it all his life,

A guard appeared at his open cell door. “Let’s go, Callaghan.”

He looked a final time at his brother. He didn’t move in for another hug. They’d said all they needed to say. No use dragging this out. For either one of them.

The pretty bastard grinned that smile of his. The one that was still disarming and full of life—that said he wasn’t beaten and that wasting his youth in this place hadn’t ruined him. “See you on the other side.”

He nodded, the lump in his throat preventing him from saying anything more. Turning, he walked out of his cell with his small bag of items, every one of which he would probably burn once he was free of this place.

He passed a blur of steel bars and faces as he left the cell block. Only one face crystallized from all of those staring at him.

Reid watched him from a table on the bottom floor surrounded by the usual crew. Reid’s words played over in his head: Don’t ever f*cking come back here, you understand?

An ugly sensation twisted through him as it sank in that Reid would never have that. He would never get out. Sure, he had done bad things. He was a bad man. No one was really innocent in this place. Reid deserved to be in here like the rest of them, but Knox knew that without Reid, he and his brother would have been f*cked from the very beginning. In every meaning of the word. As far as he was concerned, Reid was blood.

Reid nodded and sent him a wave, his lips lifting in a half smile of derision that told him he was at that very moment thinking about the chicken fried steak and ass he thought Knox would be getting.

Knox sent him a single nod, knowing this was the last time they would ever see each other.

The guard led him out of the cell bock, buzzing him through doors and down halls until he was in the admin wing and moving through the same processing room he had first arrived in eight years ago.

“Good luck,” an officer he had never seen before said blandly as she directed him to sign his name on the bottom of several release papers. Her expression was bored as she inquired, “You need transportation?”

He hesitated, thinking of his uncle. He hadn’t seen him in five years. They only talked on the phone these days. He and North had demanded that his uncle quit visiting them because he’d hated seeing the old man’s face . . . the lost look in his eyes as he sat across from him. He’d made the demand as much to spare himself as his uncle. No doubt the same reason North was doing it now.

“Bus station’s not far,” he commented. “I can hike it.”

She grunted, clearly not caring one way or another. He doubted he was the first guy to leave these walls without a ride waiting.

She scratched at her chin and slid him his release papers and parole information. He gave it a cursory glance before taking it. Reading material for the bus ride. There would be rules, of course. As guilty as he felt for getting out before North, he didn’t intend to screw up and lose his parole.

“Here’s your account balance.” She slid him an envelope. He peered inside. He had over nine hundred dollars accrued. Some of it was money Uncle Mac or Aunt Alice sent him—despite him asking them not to. The rest was from eight years of bartering.