Peyton’s chest seized the second Virgil threw back the shower curtain and hauled her toward him. She twisted her ankle struggling to stay on her feet despite her high heels, but the scream that built in her throat never escaped. He had her on the carpet outside the bathroom with a knife to her throat so fast she could barely whimper.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” he growled, pinning her beneath him.

Snippets of the many nightmares she’d had since starting work in corrections flashed through her mind as she stared helplessly up at him. He’d just been released from ADX Florence, could be as dangerous as anyone at Pelican Bay. She halfway expected him to slit her throat, but he cursed and threw the knife to one side instead.

“What the hell are you doing in my room?” he asked again, only this time, in many ways, it was a different question. There wasn’t an edge of menace in his voice anymore. He was irritated and angry, yes, but she no longer felt that her life was in danger. He got up and backed toward the wall, but once he realized she didn’t have the strength to stand, he came forward again and offered to help her.

Shaking too badly to reach up, Peyton waved him off. She doubted she could put any weight on her ankle even if she could get to her feet. “I was…” She managed to shove herself into a sitting position and almost finished with, I was sure you were going to kill me. That was all she could think, over and over, as if she’d hit her head instead of her shin when he’d dragged her from the tub. But why repeat the obvious?

In an effort to make sure she didn’t, she closed her eyes and kept her mouth shut, too.

“Um, don’t freak out, but…you’ve got a little cut,” he said.

Peyton wiped the moisture from her neck and stared down at the red on her fingertips—blood. “Who are you?” she whispered. “Who are you really?”

He didn’t answer. He went to get a washcloth, then bent down next to her so he could press it against her injury.

The scent of his aftershave filled her nostrils, much stronger now that he was so close. And the beauty of his eyes was even more riveting. “Why are you in Crescent City?” she asked, taking the washcloth so he could let go.

He went into the bathroom and came out holding the letter she’d tried to retrieve.

“If you’ve read my mail, you know.”

Propping herself against the wall for support, she tried to decipher what was going on. “Virgil Skinner? That’s your real name?”

He walked over and pulled the groceries inside so the door could close. “Yes.”

As she’d guessed. “Are you…on parole?”

“Sort of,” he admitted.

Sort of wasn’t enough. “After sixteen years in corrections, I’ve never heard of anyone being ‘sort of’ on parole.”

“I was exonerated in my stepfather’s killing.”

Take another deep breath. “But…they have something else on you.”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“What I did on the inside.”

Oh, hell… “Are we talking murder?”

When he didn’t respond, she knew she’d guessed correctly and the thought of that made her queasy. “I see.”

“No, you don’t.” Bitterness oozed through those three small words, but he didn’t attempt to justify or explain his actions. He acted as if it would be futile to even try, that she wouldn’t believe him no matter what.

He was seasoned, all right.

Pulling the washcloth away, she studied the size of the red streak to determine how badly she’d been cut. Her injury wasn’t life-threatening, but it stung. “How long were you really in?”

He guided the cloth back to her neck. “Fourteen years.”

A lot more than six…. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

Four years younger than she was. “That means you went in when you were…eighteen.”

“Like I told you before.”

“So it wasn’t all lies.”

“Not all of it.”

He’d spent nearly half his life in prison. The tragedy of that didn’t escape her. Neither did the fact that he’d gone in as an innocent young man, wrongly accused, and been shaped into a killer. How was that for proof that the penal system wasn’t working?

Her skirt had bunched up around her thighs. She smoothed it down, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Why did Wallace say you worked for Department 6?”

“He used them on another investigation, and he knew they were mostly retired military with some trained civilians. He figured it would make a believable background. I certainly don’t look like a regular cop.”

“No.” She had to clear her throat to boost the volume of her voice. “But…I still don’t understand. Why all the lies?”

His thigh muscles contracted as he crouched in front of her. He had so much physical strength—but that wasn’t the only thing that made him intimidating. Anger, determination, even resentment, rolled off him like sweat. And, come Tuesday, she was going to be responsible for his safety and the safety of those she put him in contact with….

He was answering her question. Yanking her gaze from his thighs, she struggled to pay closer attention.

“We’re trying to protect the only family I have left.”

“Your mother?”

“I don’t claim her.”

“Then your sister.”

He chucked the envelope onto the desk. “Yes.”

“Why? What do you need to protect her from?”

“From the gang I joined when I was inside. When they realize I’m walking away, they’re going to make sure I pay, and if they can’t get to me, they’ll kill her, maybe even her children.”

“So you’re debriefing.” Debriefing meant disassociating and divulging everything he knew about the gang to which he’d belonged. It also meant agreeing to testify.

“Not exactly. I have nothing to say about The Crew. I’m merely trading my services for a new identity—for myself and my sister.”

“You’re using what you learned about gangs by being a member of one to infiltrate the Hells Fury?” Where he had no loyalties.

“Basically.”

She searched for the knife he’d held to her throat and saw it lying in the corner of the room. “But…Wallace doesn’t trust me? Or Fischer? He felt he couldn’t confide in us?”

“Trust entails a certain amount of…risk. I don’t take risks. Unless I have to,” he added begrudgingly.

“So you insisted on a new identity.”

“That’s right.”

Apparently they cared so much about his request, and felt so beholden to him for endangering his life, they’d slapped together a “résumé” that hadn’t even fooled her. Nice of them… “So what makes you think you can be successful?”

“The Crew isn’t that different than the Hells Fury. I can get in.”

Peyton’s head was starting to hurt as badly as her ankle. It was the stress. And she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Sometimes she just got too busy. “Prison gangs are racially based. Does that mean you’re a supremacist, a racist?”

“I’m a survivalist.” The wryness in his voice told her as much as his words that it’d been a practical decision. Joining a gang often had nothing to do with believing in the ideology. It was about having protection when you needed it, about living to see the next day in a racially charged environment where survival would be nearly impossible without allies. In prison, you either conquered or were conquered.

She knew which side a man like Virgil would choose to be on. He’d conquer or die trying.

He, more than anyone, would know the stakes involved in what they had planned. And yet he was going back inside—as an informant. He couldn’t possibly put himself in a more untenable position.

Then Peyton remembered the letters she’d found in his bag and the suspicion his sister had conveyed about being watched and everything became a little clearer. The Department of Corrections had found a man they could bend to their will because he had someone he hoped to protect. If he managed to gather the information necessary to bring down the Hells Fury, he and his sister would get new identities—for real—which would also give him a clean slate. Apparently they hadn’t charged him for whatever he’d done on the inside. Maybe they couldn’t; maybe they didn’t have the evidence they needed for a conviction. But they were still holding it over his head.