I hoped that, despite my reasoning for bringing her here, she integrated well. Oh, and decided to keep the name change and change her appearance and possibly create herself a new life far away from the freaks that were her family.
And not draw attention to herself.
“It’s all set up and ready to go,” Apollo said. “She left yesterday in my boy’s truck. No way for anyone to track it, either. She did us a favor and cleared out her bank account. I was able to finagle it with the bank that they gave it all to her, and none of it will be able to be traced. They were non-sequential bills. And all of the money was moved in such a way that there’s no way to trace it. Bank manager only knows he helped someone. He doesn’t know who that someone is. I have a couple of guys following her out. I don’t want that money stolen or her to be hurt.”
When I’d first asked Apollo to get Sage out, I’d originally wanted her to be as far away from me as possible. But Apollo had pointed out that it was kind of hard to create a secure area for people without having safeguards in place. And that I was asking a lot of him by not making it easy for him.
The man did have a point.
I blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know why I was doing all this.
Hell, I didn’t know why I’d gotten her name—or a nickname of her name—tattooed on my chest.
I didn’t know why I worried about her every second of every day.
Didn’t know why I dropped that damn dog off with her the day before I was sent to prison.
I didn’t know what it was about her that made me fucking care.
I just did.
“Thanks, Apollo,” I repeated sincerely. “This means a lot to me.”
“I fuckin’ hate when people try to intimidate the little guy,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
I never thought of myself as a “little guy” until I saw what money did for the “big guy.”
It bought everything.
And fuck everyone else that got in their way.
Four
Live. Laugh. Toaster Bath.
—Or whatever that sign said
Sage
The news of Gentry’s death hit me like a physical blow.
I was in shock.
For seven years, he’d been safe.
No news was good news, according to the prison warden.
Then, all of a sudden, the hospital where I was working in was shook.
Inmates were on their way to the ER, and everything was being shut down because these inmates were the worst of the worst.
I’d been terrified that I’d see Gentry there among the wounded.
Apparently, the biggest riot that any prison in the United States had ever seen happened there and it was a mass casualty incident.
During the incident, there’d been several escape attempts, and along with the ones who were dead from the riot, several other escapees had also perished.