She took him down, down past the more hospitable holding cells where unfortunates waited for bail or lawyers, down farther to the much less hospitable where more waited for transport to other cages.
A guard opened a security door to let them through.
“Who you going for, LT?”
“Magdelana Percell. Quick visit.”
“Down four, on the left. That one offered me a bang if I let her out.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. Even if I weren’t gay? I mean, step back.”
“Write it up.”
“You know, it happens.”
“I know, but for this one, write it up.”
She walked Roarke back to where Magdelana sat on the cot in the cell. And stood slowly when she saw them.
Eve stepped back, nodded to the guard.
The electronic bars slid open. Roarke stepped in and heard them close behind him.
Magdelana leaped toward him, threw her arms around him.
“I knew you’d come. Oh God, Roarke, thank God for you. What they’ve done to me! I was a fool, I admit I was a fool, but I trusted…”
She pressed her face against his chest, trembled, wept.
“You’ll get me out, I know you will. Pay whatever needs to be paid. That woman.” She lifted her face now, tears delicately spilling. “She attacked me! Again. Look at me, look what she did. She struck me. Help me get out. Help me get away from her. I think she’s going to kill me.”
“Take your hands off me, Magdelana, or I’ll take them off, and you won’t like it.”
“Roarke.” Stepping back, she pressed her fingers to her lips, brought out more tears. “You can’t blame me for what happened between us before. I love you. I only wanted—”
“Be quiet, and listen to me. Listen very carefully to me. You’ll get no help from me. Not now, not in any lifetime. Be grateful you have a life to spend in prison. You tried to kill my wife.”
“No, no, no. It’s a lie. I never—”
“Be quiet!”
It wasn’t the sharp, commanding tone that silenced her, but the look in his eyes.
And that brought a kind of visible terror.
“I know what you did, all you did. You helped kill a man who leaves a wife and children behind him. For that, I’d never help you. You set a hit man on my wife, and for that, but for her asking it of me, you wouldn’t draw the next breath.
“No,” he murmured. “No, not true. You live because she’s shown me there’s a right way, a just way, and a wrong and selfish way.”
“You can’t mean—”
“I do. Know I do. I never loved you any more than you me. But I cared for the woman I thought you were. I warned you before to stay away. You chose otherwise. Here’s the price you pay for it.”
“I could’ve ruined you. I didn’t.”
“You tried. Some of the eyes and ears behind the glass were mine. You failed, and you always will there. I owe you pain, Magdelana, and I’ll hold that in reserve should you try to come at me, and twice that and more pain if you try to come at her.
