One Chance, Fancy (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 5)

I flicked my gaze back to Diane to see her green around the gills now. Oh, and she was slowly making her way to the door.

I wasn’t the only one to have caught the action, either. Phoebe and Rome both noticed and were also slowly easing toward the door.

“I wasn’t supposed to say anything, but Jesus Christ, she said that whatever happened, I wouldn’t have to deal with you!” He started to cry then, and I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and pointer finger.

“Fix him up, Phoebe,” I said softly. “Then we can send him back to gen pop.”

“That’ll get his ass kicked,” Rome pointed out. “O’Rourke is pretty popular. Plus, he has the backing of a few of the baddest of asses out there. You send him out, he’s going to die.”

I growled low in my throat. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

Kickey flinched.

I got even more pissed. “O’Rourke is twice your goddamn size. What the fuck were you thinking?”

O’Rourke started to laugh.

I turned a glare on him.

“He’s fat! How was I supposed to know that he’d have a right hook like an anvil?” Kickey grumbled.

I groaned. “Take him back to his cell. He can spend the next week there while I think about what I’m supposed to do with his stupid ass so he won’t get killed.”

Rome nodded. “There’s nothing really wrong with him, though. Just a broken nose and those can’t be fixed.”

I walked up to Kickey and inspected his face. Then lifted my hand and roughly yanked his nose back into place, causing him to scream.

I nodded once at Rome. “Okay, he can go.”

Rome gave me a look that said ‘what about her?’ and I shrugged. “I’ll handle it.”

Rome moved toward Kickey, and Diane made a run for it.

Phoebe stuck her foot out and tripped Diane, causing her to fall to the floor.

“Oh, shit.” Phoebe sounded almost genuine in her words. “Are you okay? I didn’t see you there.”

Diane groaned and rolled over, trying to scramble up to her knees.

I stopped her by walking up to her and standing over her head. “Don’t bother getting up.”

Then I dropped down and threaded a pair of handcuffs around her wrists, then propped her up so that she was leaning against the wall. “Now, explain.”

Diane sniffled. “I don’t have enough money!”

I frowned at her. “For that reason, you decided to start selling drugs to my prison population?”

Diane looked away. “I needed the money, and somebody offered it to me. Who was I to say no?”

“Who?” I asked.

She licked her lips. “Someone.”

“Someone…who?” I paused. “And think very carefully here. I can get you into a place where this prison seems like a cakewalk. I know plenty of people being who I am.”

Diane swallowed. “A woman. She hates you. I don’t know her name. She pays in cash. She has a kid, though. Looks exactly like you. At least, she did. I haven’t seen that kid in a while.”

My eyes lifted up and met Phoebe’s on the back side of Diane. She was thinking the exact same thing that I was.

Ilsa.

Son of a bitch.

“Anything else?” I asked, trying to come off as neutral as possible and doing a terrible job at it.

Rage was a live thing inside of me, and I wanted nothing more than to unleash it on the woman in front of me, and the woman that was plotting to fuck up my life behind my back.

“N-no,” Diane stuttered. “Nothing else. She texts me when and what to do, and I do the stuff on my end.”

I stood up stiffly, then pulled my phone out of my pocket and called the cops.

Castiel arrived with two more cops an hour later, and by that time we had Little Miss Fuck-My-Life-Up on the front stairs with about thirty pissed off family members that’d been hoping to see their family today and were pissed that they couldn’t.

“You can thank her,” I wanted to say to the family members. Instead, I kept my expression neutral and waited for Castiel to get Diane in the squad car before I said, “Come to my office and I’ll tell you what happened.”

I was eyeing the family members that looked like they were getting more pissed by the minute.

“Hey, do you realize it took me three hours to drive here?” someone called out.

“Yeah, it took me four!” someone else bellowed.

I turned to gaze at the crowd. “I have the right to take away family day just like you have the right to come visit the inmates. I’m sorry that an unplanned prison fight in the family room area happened today, but it was out of my control.”

“I’m calling the newspaper,” came another reply. “Maybe they’ll want to know what you’re doing here.”

I ignored him and started up the walk, Castiel at my back.

“Loitering is an arrestable offense. I suggest you move along by the time I get back out.” He paused at the top of the stairs. “Book her, Danno.”