The Reaper (Eastward Prison)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER

THREE

HANNAH

Hannah felt herself shaking as she walked down the corridor.

Not just her hands. Her whole body, her whole soul.

The corridors of the prison that had seemed so familiar to her, now she felt she was walking along them for the first time. She’d worked there for years, it had become her second home. More familiar to her than the box of a flat she rented. That felt temporary, somehow the prison felt eternal. She could swear sometimes she heard the walls talking. People said it was talking. People said, stone remembers. She wasn’t sure whether she believed what they said. But the sense of strangeness was throwing everything off. Were prisoners genuinely whispering as she walked passed? It wouldn’t have been the first time someone was to be facing a moral dilemma within these walls. And she wouldn’t be the last.

What would those whispering transcendent voices advise her to do right now? The ghosts of the past, prisoners held here, their hopes and fears and life and souls lingering still. She liked the company. She worked in the infirmary, yes, but she did some cell visits, and was familiar with the interview rooms, the visitors area. And this big event happened, throwing everything off, tipping her world upside down. It made the prison walls seem colder. The lights were harsher. Her footsteps on the floor echoed louder.

She licked her lips, trying to hide the panic she felt. There was a line between thrill and panic, she was realising, and this whole situation wavered between the two, constantly flicking, like a needle on a pressure dial, flicking under and over, thrill and panic and thrill and panic. Excitement and dread. Her heart raced.

They’d moved him into a smaller ward of his own. The other hospital inmates had been moved. Scotland Yard and MI5 had waved their magic wands. He was being held under special custody. Jack hadn’t liked it. But they couldn’t move him to another secure hospital, due to the nature of his head injuries and his Reaper’s affiliation. He was better left here, and they had decided she was fine to carry on working. They’d thought her presence might help his memory return. It seemed everyone had questions about Jack. Even Jack.

She was on her way to being interviewed, Scotland Yard Detectives, men in suits. This was serious. They would ask her all about him, their relationship. And she was going to have to lie through her teeth.

What was she doing? This was madness? She should just apologise, say she made a mistake, that the man, Jack, looked like her ex and she got confused in the trauma of the moment, she had a temporary black out due to the nature of his injuries… or something like that. She couldn’t actually go through with this, could she? This had been a totally spur of the moment decision, a slip of the tongue really. She had wanted to enter a parallel universe, she’d prayed for a miracle.

He had answered her prayers.

Pretend that he was her boyfriend, and she’d be immune from Roper’s threats. The Bratva and the Reapers MC were enemies. Roper and his Bratva debts couldn’t be paid while a member of the Reapers MC was in the vicinity. Maybe even Reapers MC property. She gulped, knowing that she was making up something that had to stand up in such a serious situation.

She bit her lip. Maybe she should use this opportunity to actually just report Roper. But what if the corruption went higher, like he said? She’d be in a whole load of hot water. Reporting Roper was not going to be the best course of action here, she didn’t know anything about these detectives, she couldn’t trust them.

She thought about Jack. The tattoo’s. The warmth. The strength. She gulped. Imagining those hands holding her. Her body. Her naked body.

Why her mind had gone there was beyond her, but it felt taboo. It felt elicit and yet intimate. It felt right.

She was nervous now, she was scared, she wasn’t sure what she was doing. Yes she was lying, yes he was suffering because of his injuries. But she was also thrilled, she’d slipped across that line and into a parallel world and it felt right.

A hand roughly grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back.

She gasped, feeling suffocated though the hand was not near her neck. She felt the hairs on her neck rise. She felt a little wave of fear.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind. Roper.

And he did not look happy.

“Hannah, Hannah,” he said, shaking his head condescendingly. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

She wanted to bolt, she wanted to rip him off her skin.

“If I’d have known you liked it a bit rough and ready, I’d have had a lot more fun in the bedroom-”

“Fuck off, Paul.”

“This has forced my hand, you know that, don’t you?”

She shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I told you, I won’t do it.”

He got nasty. “And I told you, you don’t have a choice. I owe the Bratva money, I promised them I’d get this done-”

“That’s your concern, Roper, not mine, You want the wrath of the Reapers MC coming down on you if you upset me or in any way lead to the poor care of Jack?” she said, coolly.

He snarled, “Just because you opened your legs for one of them, doesn’t mean they’ll protect you, Hannah, you’d probably nothing to him-”

“Want to test that theory?” she asked, holding her chin in the air, not wavering. Imagining Jack’s arms around her body. His hand around her throat. It was all the fire she needed to hold her nerve right now.

“All you have to do, Hannah, is sign the fucking delivery slip, just let the boxes come in and out-”

“Smuggling drugs into the prison, Paul, that what it ultimately is and it’s wrong-”

“Just a few bits and bobs going missing, some over-ordering, nothing worth worrying about. They’d be coming in some other way-”

“It’s wrong-”

“Hannah, I owe them! Fuck, you are such a goody-two-shoes.”

His hand dug into her wrist. It was cold, it tugged painfully, nothing like the warm firm grasp from Jack earlier.

It was too late, she’d decided her course of action, she couldn’t change now. She wouldn’t. Her fate was tethered to Jack, as his was to her, though he didn’t know it.

“I don’t think the Reaper’s MC would be too happy if anything happened to one of their men’s girlfriends while he’s staying under her care at Eastward Prison. Do you? I can’t imagine what they’d do to the person who harmed her…” She played her card, held her breath and waited.

He hissed, but his hand released on her arm.

“This isn’t over Hannah, you know what I can do to your family, how I can destroy their business, how your daddy depends on that income for his medical care, how your brother has mortgaged his house to the hilt to pay off the business’ debts-”

“Fuck off, Paul. You can’t scare me.”

“Oh, Hannah, has your new Reaper boyfriend taught you a thing or two about standing up for yourself? I could have given you a bit of rough, you know. He probably treats you like the slut you are-”

She pushed. “I’m obviously not doing anything with Jack lying in my care in the hospital ward, Paul. You know that would be ridiculous. While Jack is here, the Reapers MC are here. And that means if you bring Bratva drugs into this prison, you won’t be alive the next morning.”

“Oh, tough talk from a naive, silly, little girl-”

“It’s true though, isn’t it? So just fucking back off.”

His desperate snarl in response told her everything she needed to know. She was right. By claiming the Reapers MC member as her boyfriend, she had dodged a bullet. She no longer needed to smuggle drugs into the prison for her crooked ex, PC Paul Roper.

She was seeing Roper in a new light. Not just a former charming boyfriend who was now just a jealous, bitter ex. A jealous ex who needed her to do something bad. The baddie to beware of, because he was dangerous. The enemy.

But someone else was dangerous, too. Jack. And Jack was hers now. He was a strong, mysterious, dangerous man. She felt it in his presence. The doctor had said there might be mental changes, whether permanent or temporary, they said paranoia was likely at this stage, but there was no doubt in her mind, he was dangerous. He could go toe to toe with Roper, and she was confident that Jack would win. She had a secret weapon. A handsome, strong, boyfriend who, by his very position and gang affiliation, looked after her and ensured she was safe. It thrilled her. She tried to quash it, but she felt it in her core. The warmth, the heat, the safeness. She felt like she was coming home.

Yes, there was no way she was turning this down. She wanted Jack. In whatever way she could get him. She wanted to beat Roper at his own game.

Jack was her trump card, she’d played it early, a strong, bold move.

But she played to win.