Cat's Paw - Chapter One

​Cat's Paw is the first book in the Veritas series. For those who love romantic suspense/thrillers, this one hits all the buttons.

Red hot danger, white hot romance!

This book was originally published in 2016 using under the Chandler Steele pseudonym. I decided to reissue the books under my name, along with new covers. I'll be posting the first five chapters so you can get a sense of the story. I truly hope you enjoy it! 

The book description can be found here: Amazon

^^Content Warning: This is a contemporary, adult novel with profanity and sex. There is a reference to attempted rape. Also, a pet dies offscreen during the story.^^

Cat's Paw
​​Chapter One
​

September 17th
Louisiana State Penitentiary

His nerves on edge, Alexander Parkin carried his tray to the long dining table lined with other inmates, his final breakfast in prison. He’d eaten 1,825 of these in Angola. Maybe fewer, given the time he’d spent recovering in the infirmary. 

Last day. Last chance to kill me. 

Muted conversations flowed around him, some between men who had become his friends, some between his enemies. Alex had long ago accepted that some grudges wouldn’t die until he did. 

It wouldn’t matter that he’d been marked “off limits” by Grigori Danshov, the nephew of New Orleans’s notorious drug kingpin. Or that the Russian had recently reissued that warning, in case someone thought to settle scores before Alex’s release. Even Mikhail, his cellmate, had remained close over the last week, a deadly deterrent. 

The room fell into abnormal silence at his arrival, as if the others heard the same clock ticking down. When the attack finally came, Alex would be ready. In fact, he would welcome it. 

He nodded at a couple of his fellow prisoners and set his tray on the table, his senses on overload. Everything was heightened now: the smell of the food, the heat, the funk of too many men in one place. Mikhail had just begun to ask him a question when Alex felt the air shift behind him. Before his friend could bark a warning, he was on the move. 

Spinning, he grabbed the brown, muscled arm as the shank drove toward him. Leveraging his weight, Alex yanked the prisoner down, ramming his wrist against the edge of the table. The audible snap of bones filled the room, followed by a shriek as the shank tumbled free. He followed up with a knee to Jesus Martinez’s nuts, which turned the shriek into a high-pitched scream.

The blood beast rose within Alex, the one that demanded this bastard die. Make him and his kind pay for the hell Alex had endured all these years. A quick stab in the chest, and it’d be over before the guards could interfere.

His hands shook now, eager to take the next step, to strike back. To prove he wasn’t helpless. That he wasn’t the man he’d once been.

“Nyet! Not worth it,” Mikhail called out.

God, he’s right.

Alex released his grip and the would-be assassin collapsed to the floor. No way I’m taking the heat for this. He made sure to nudge the shank close to Martinez’s writhing body. 
Breathing heavily, hyped up on adrenaline, he turned to find every eye on him.

“Who’s next?” he said.

There were laughs, a few frowns. The show over, those who’d risen resumed their seats. Martinez’s pained cries abruptly cut off when one of the guards jammed a boot in his side.
“Can it, asshole. You started it,” the man said. He scrutinized Alex now. “You hurt?”

“No.” 

What if they blamed him for this brawl? 

“Had to know it’d be Martinez,” the guard continued. “I wondered when he’d take a crack at you.”

It hadn’t surprised Alex either. The wiry gangbanger was a member of Los Impíos, and they hated him. When he’d been with the DEA, he had cost them some major bucks every time he’d confiscated one of their loads. 

“I just lost twenty-five bucks,” the guard added, shaking his head.

Mikhail had told Alex there was a betting pool as to his survivability. 

“What are the odds now?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Hundred to one that you wouldn’t clear the front gate on your own two feet,” the man responded matter-of-factly.

Better than Alex had expected. When he’d first arrived, it’d been a thousand to one. Martinez stifled a cry when he was hauled to his feet. He spat at Alex, outraged Spanish filling the room. Alex murmured an insult back and Martinez went crazy, trying to tear himself out of the guards’ arms, his shouts following him out of the dining hall.

“What did you say to him?” the head guard asked.

“I told him his mother is very pretty.”

The guard raised an eyebrow. 

“Well, something like that.”

The man laughed. “Good thing you’re leaving today, Parkin.”

“Can’t be soon enough.”

There had been times when Alex had believed today would never come. His “welcome” to Angola five years before had been brutal, a wake-up call. A trio of drug dealers he’d sent up during his time at the DEA had delivered that welcome. They’d made sure to crack four ribs, bruise his kidneys, rip open his neck, and break his left arm. Would have done worse if they hadn’t been stopped as they’d pulled down his pants. 

Never show fear.

It had become his mantra. It would remain so.

His other mantra? Find the son of a bitch who had framed him and make him pay. But first, his last meal here. Now that the action was over, the room quieted. Alex settled on the bench, pulling his plate closer, noting that his hands shook. Mikhail delivered a proud nod from across the table, then went back to eating his breakfast.

“I wondered if it’d be Jesus,” Alex said quietly. “He’s a hotheaded little prick.” 
“Soon to be a dead one,” Mikhail replied, his accent heavy. “Grigori will not appreciate that his orders were ignored.”

“That too.”

Mikhail Yovanoff was a lifer, a contract killer who worked for Vladimir Buryshkin. Mikhail had been the best of Alex’s cellies, and he would miss him. Over the years, they’d forged a friendship as the Russian had protected him, taught Alex his native language. Pretty decent for a stone-cold contract killer who had at least a dozen hits to his credit. He’d probably be the one to put Martinez in a shroud. 

Mikhail took a sip of coffee, his fingers revealing multiple tattoos. “You handled that well, Sasha.”

Sasha was the Russian diminutive for Alexander, and it’d taken a while for Alex to answer to the name. Now he rather liked it.

He nodded gratefully. “I learned from the best. Thank you, my friend.”

Mikhail nodded back. His eyes rose to someone behind Alex, but this time they held no warning. Alex turned, then stood to shake Grigori’s hand. Tall, thin, and blond, he cut a wide swath through the prison. Few would mess with him. Those who did ended up dead, or worse. 

“I shall miss you,” the young Russian said. “Not for long, though. I shall be free myself very soon, God willing.”

“Hunt me up. I’ll buy you a beer. Hell, I’ll buy as many as you want.” 

Some would say that associating with members of the Russian mob when just out of prison probably wasn’t the smartest move. Alex might not want to work for him or his uncle, but he could at least buy the man a drink.

He kept me alive.

“Make it Russian vodka and we have a deal.” 

“You’re on. You finally going to tell me who framed me?”

Grigori shook his head. “Not today.” He leaned over so only Alex could hear him. “‘Voda kamen tochet.’” Even as Alex worked through the Russian, Grigori added, “‘Water wears away stone.’” 

He straightened up. “Be patient, Sasha. Your time will come.”

It was classic Grigori. The man was an enigma, a scholarly Russian who had come to Alex’s aid the night he’d nearly been raped. Grigori had arranged to have Mikhail be Alex’s cellmate to keep him alive. But he was also Buryshkin favorite nephew, so he was deep inside the mobster’s organization.

All this care meant one thing: The elder crime lord wanted Alex alive for some reason and the moment he exited the prison gates, that debt would become due.​

​* * * 
​

“You got all that?” The balding paper pusher handling Alex’s discharge sounded bored, but then, how many of the inmates had he set free only to have them roll right back through the doors down the line?

“Yeah, I got it.” Alex had a portion of the money he’d brought with him to prison, plus some sent by a friend. He’d signed the appropriate discharge papers. At least he wasn’t required to have regular visits with a parole officer. 

“Hope you got good shoe leather. Your ride called. She isn’t going to make it.”

“What? Why?” Alex had made the arrangements with his sister a month ago, and now she’d bailed on him?

The man shrugged. He handed Alex a full bottle of water and grinned. “Go forth and sin no more.”

The opportunity to sin was limited: There wasn’t a bus from the prison to St. Francisville, nearly twenty-five miles away. Which meant he’d have to hitchhike.

Alex swore under his breath.

Ten minutes later, he stood outside the fortress that had been his home for so long. In one hand was a plastic bag with his belongings, all he possessed in this world after thirty-two years. In the other was the bottle of water.

His heart raced and he was sweating, not only because the morning was heating up. The day was clear, the weather as humid as you’d expect for mid-September in Louisiana, a thick blanket that seemed to press down on his body like a dead weight. Another day in the South and his first one outside the wire.

His disappointment was as oppressive as the humidity. This was supposed to be when he reunited with his sister. He’d actually dreamed of this moment. The one day he really wanted Miri to be there for him, and she wasn’t. There would be no chance for them to spend a few hours catching up on their lives, starting over. This was her revenge, pure and simple. He’d fucked over her life, and now she was doing the same to him. 

Alex glanced back at the guard towers, the concertina wire. He was free. Free. The word didn’t feel right, at least not yet. Maybe someday.

Maybe never.

CHAPTER TWO


​​Cat's Paw
​Veritas Book 1
(c) 2016 Jana G. Oliver
 All Rights Reserved.

Available on Amazon