Attest (Centrifuge Duet Book 2)
Kylie Hillman
PROLOGUE
I’d always thought everyone had a conscience. That even the worst type of people had one—they were just adept at ignoring it. However, the past couple of years have forced me to reassess this.
Why? Because I no longer have the nagging voice in my head or that hollow feeling in my gut that I used to get when I did something wrong. The two things that I associated with my conscience are gone. Poof. Like a puff of smoke, they up and left me sometime between the first time I was arrested two years ago and tonight, when I watched a man I didn’t know bleed out over his desk after I’d slit his throat. While I was inside prison, it was easy to ignore how much I was changing. It’s my newfound freedom that’s driven home exactly how much I’ve lost. My conscience. My morals. My innate goodness that doomed me to always be one of life’s losers.
Once upon a time, I believed that the good guys always one in the end. Nowadays, I don’t believe that enough people possess a conscience for that to be true. There’s too many people willing to throw their own granny under the bus for a dollar for me to hang onto the idealistic view of the human race that I cherished for the first thirty-two years of my life. In this current incarnation of the world I inhabit, a conscience is no longer the asset I need if I want to win.
It’s a liability.
ONE
Ever wanted to see the love of your life getting fucked six ways to Sunday by the asshole she chose over you?
Nah, me neither.
Unfortunately, I don’t get a say in the matter. Not when each afternoon at precisely three o’clock, I’m hauled out of my cell, dragged down a long, white hallway, and handcuffed to the table in one of the dank smelling private visitation rooms provided by the prison. The flat-screen TV mounted high in the corner of the room is turned on and I get a ringside view of my fiancée being reamed by her new husband.
I say “reamed” not because I’m being a prick. I say it because that’s exactly what it is. He drives his cock into her like he’s trying to brand her from the inside. Hard. Fast. And, furious. He’s always fucking furious. There’s a deep rage burning in the gaze that Dr. Jaxon Ray always manages to send straight down the barrel of the camera. If I was prone to flights of fancy—which I’m definitely not—I’d say that he does it deliberately in some sick determination to let me know that he knows how I feel watching them.
It’s a clear message anyway.
I won. You lost.
She’s mine.
*
Keys rattle in the door of my cell. They herald the start of another free porn show. Bile rises in my throat, the sickening churning in my gut commencing like clockwork.
Here we go again. Another epic fucking day in the freak show that is currently my life.
“Barrett.” A cursory glance in the direction of the man who speaks tells me that the guard is not one I’ve met before.
I ignore him and remain lying on my back on the lumpy mattress, one arm behind my head in an attempt at a laisse fair posture while the other is hidden by my side with my fingers curled into a fist ready for whatever this change in guard’s may bring. The flaky grey ceiling above me has two distinct dark shadows on it. One is mine, unmoving and unwilling. The second is the guard. The latter black blob moves toward me, the handcuffs he holds jingling ominously with each step he takes.
“Move your ass, Barrett.”
“Fuck you.” My response earns me a boot to the gut. I hear the second guard enter my cell, his chuckle of enjoyment giving away his identity. It’s the prick who usually escorts me. The one who likes to wait with me and narrate the carnal display as it unfolds on the screen. My nostrils flare when pain blooms from the connection of the first guards foot with my stomach. I roll into a ball. My mouth is shut—my lips sealed through sheer willpower.
I’ll swallow my tongue before I give them a reaction.
“I’m not kidding.” The threat precedes a follow-up kick that has me rolling away until my knees hit the wall at the far side of the bed. “Your visitor doesn’t like to be kept waiting. I’d move my ass if I was you. This might be your only chance to get out of here.”
The pain in my stomach leaves immediately. I struggle to sit up, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed once I’m facing them. Apprehension pumps through my veins when I meet their smug gazes.
“Visitor?” The raspy quality to my voice is less than optimal. Clearing my throat, I try again, this time with some authority in my tone. “What visitor? I don’t have anyone approved.”
The closest guard—Mr. Chatty Porn Lover—answers first. “No shit, Sherlock. Who said anything about her being approved?”
His companion shrugs, then holds the cuffs out to me. “She might not be approved, but I think you’ll want to see her.”
My heart lurches in my chest, skipping a beat before it settles into a frenetic pace that has me sweating like a fat kid at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Amber’s here?
A glance in the direction of the guards tells me that I won’t get any further answers out of them. I swallow my growing curiosity and the overwhelming desire to knock out the two pricks who separate me from the woman who owns every functioning cell of my body. I know acting on my urgency will only slow the damn process so I force myself to cooperate.