“Not for several years. I was too busy trying to get myself D.O.A.”

“D.O.A. is dead on arrival.”

“I know.”

She slowed for a traffic light. “You were suicidal?”

“Not in the classic sense. Just self-destructive, fatalistic. I was looking for trouble, and I expected the trouble I found to be the kind that would put me out of my misery for good.”

“It wouldn’t be easy to deal with being falsely imprisoned.”

“I was consumed by rage.” His hand curled into a fist. Obviously the rage hadn’t left him. But if his mother and uncle had betrayed him as badly as it appeared, he had every right to feel angry. Peyton couldn’t think of anything that would cut a child more deeply. “Is that when you joined The Crew?”

“Yes.”

The light turned green, so she gave her SUV some gas. “Why’d you pick them and not some other gang, like the Aryan Brotherhood?”

He stared out the window, toward the whitecaps of the sea. “The Crew is an offshoot of the AB. My first cellie was a member.”

“Thanks to the Hells Fury, The Crew doesn’t have much of a presence at Pelican Bay.”

“I know. You’re lucky. They’re worse than all the other gangs.”

“I doubt any gang could be worse than the Hells Fury. They live for violence. But I’ll take your word for it.” Peyton found herself less than eager to reach the motel. “So did your cellie actively recruit you?”

“He didn’t have to. He knew, once I’d had enough ass whippings, I’d come to him. And he was right. After a few months, I was burning to take out a few of the bastards who’d jacked me up. The Crew seemed the perfect network to help me do that.”

“The other inmates were giving you trouble?”

“That’s a euphemism if ever I heard one,” he said with a laugh. “I was getting the shit kicked out of me almost every day by big gorilla-like guys who were at least a decade older and had been pumping iron for years.” His lips slanted in a bitter smile, as if he was picturing it all. “That was quite a rude awakening after attending a nice suburban high school. But it wasn’t until one guy—a deviant called Bruiser—tried to make a bitch out of me that I actually joined The Crew.”

Making a “bitch” or a “punk” out of him was basically turning him into a sex slave. His youth and good looks would’ve made him particularly vulnerable to such “daddies,” and every prison had them—men who used sex to punish or control. Peyton did her best to keep that type of behavior out of Pelican Bay. The entire staff did. But she knew it went on despite their efforts. Too many inmates pretended that whatever relationships they had were mutually agreeable. Reporting the abuse could get them maimed or killed, so they refused to take the risk, which made it very difficult to punish the offenders. Virgil was telling her that, at eighteen, he’d chosen to die fighting rather than become someone’s “bitch” or “punk.”

They’d arrived at the street where she had to let him out. “The ‘blood out’ thing didn’t bother you?”

“I thought I was going to die either way. And I was getting used to blood, mine and everyone else’s. Being able to fight was all there was to take pride in. Once I learned how, I decided to be the best, the one everyone else feared. I didn’t think about the future. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have one.” She stopped when she reached the corner and he opened his door. “I wish I’d considered what my actions would mean to Laurel. But I was so…in the moment. Venting my anger and taking revenge—that was all that mattered.”

Now that he’d matured and calmed down, he’d do anything to change that; she could tell. But even if he could go back, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to take a different path. Not with his temperament and determination. “You’re still here, right? The Crew must’ve given you the protection you needed.”

“They did at first. But after a while protection wasn’t the point. My reputation was enough to keep me from being ambushed. It was the friendships I enjoyed. They were my only family for fourteen years. That’s what I’ll miss.”

If he thought she’d be shocked to hear him speak kindly of men who belonged to a violent criminal organization, he was wrong. She knew why gangs formed, how close they could become. It wasn’t always for nefarious reasons. Some poor souls simply had nothing else, nothing better, anyway. “What will they do when they realize you’re out?”

“It’ll be a hell of a lot worse than a B.O.S., if that’s what you’re thinking. I know too much.”

“A B.O.S.?”

“Beat on sight. I’ve been gone almost a week. They’re probably already on my trail.”

Peyton let the car idle. “Some people don’t understand how you can love someone who does terrible things. They don’t understand the complexity of human nature, on both sides of a relationship like that.”

“Most of the men in The Crew are the worst people I’ve ever known. I hated them then. I hate them now.” He put on the hat and glasses, even though he was unlikely to run into anyone who’d be able to see him clearly enough to identify him later. “But there were a few others—” his voice changed, grew soft “—men I admired and considered my brothers.”

And yet even these “brothers” would very likely kill him if they ever found him. Which meant he’d be betrayed by his family again.

He closed the door as if that was that, but she lowered the passenger’s side window. “Virgil?”

When he turned back, she nearly told him that she’d seen contradictions like the one he’d mentioned and empathized with the conflict he must be feeling. But he didn’t need her empathy. If she couldn’t allow herself to be a closer friend—or whatever—to him, she’d only become another contradiction, one more person guaranteed to let him down.

“Never mind. I hope you enjoy your dinner.”

He studied her for a moment. “It was nice just looking at you,” he said.

Peyton waited for him to laugh or shrug or indicate in some other way that he wasn’t quite sincere, but he didn’t. She was pretty sure he’d paid her a legitimate compliment, no censure or challenge or sarcasm involved. But by the time she believed it, he was too far away for her to respond.

Shifting the transmission into gear, she drove off but kept one eye on her rearview mirror until she could no longer see him. “You’re an interesting man, Virgil Skinner,” she murmured. A small part of her—maybe even a big part—wished she could’ve been irresponsible enough to sleep with him.

But she hadn’t become chief deputy warden by being irresponsible.

The last thing Rick Wallace wanted was to fly back to Colorado. Thanks to the long drive from Crescent City, he’d spent only a few hours with his wife and kids. But he needed to make sure Laurel Hodges and her children remained safe. If anything happened to her, Skinner would lose his motivation, and if Skinner lost his motivation, the whole operation would fall apart.

Mercedes, his wife, walked into the bedroom carrying a basketful of laundry and frowned when she saw him. “What are you doing in a suit?”

Having just showered and dressed, he straightened his tie. “I’m heading to the airport.”

“What?” She dumped the laundry onto the bed. It used to be that she had all the housework done by the weekend, so she could devote her time to him, but that’d changed. Nowadays when he asked her about the state of the house, she said there wasn’t much reason to keep it perfect when she and the kids were the only ones who ever saw it. She said even when he was home he walked past them as if they were inanimate objects and not real people, always thinking about his work.

Hoping to finish getting ready before she could really lay into him, he slipped into the bathroom. He didn’t like it when Mercedes was upset. That nasty edge to her voice ground on his nerves, making him wonder why he’d ever married her. If not for the kids, they probably would’ve split up years ago. But since they had children, that wasn’t an option. Growing up, he’d suffered through the divorce of his own parents and had promised himself that he’d never make the mistakes they had. And he wouldn’t. Especially considering the financial consequences….