The Alpha King Call Boy
Chapter 138

Alexander

"You sure you don't want me to go in with you?"

I shook my head at Kayden. "Don't bother. I'll need to talk with him alone in there anyway."

Highland Prison was a square brick building surrounded by high, double-lined and barbed wire-topped thatched metal fencing. It really was in the middle of nowhere - the last twenty miles of our drive cut through nothing but barren, fire-scorched farmland that had been abandoned for many years.

We were idling just outside the front gate, under the watchful eyes of multiple security cameras and two hulking guard towers that rose from either side of the prison's sole entrance and exit. A guard appeared at the base of one of those towers and began walking in our direction.

I removed my seatbelt and opened the passenger door. "I'll keep this as quick as possible."

Kayden nodded once and put the SUV in reverse. After I hopped out, he eased backward onto the crumbly two-lane highway. I watched him roll down the road about hundred yards and pull over to park under the partial shade of a lone, half-bare tree. The world outside the brick and concrete walls of the prison may have been quiet, but once I passed through the front doors of the visitor entrance, reality descended into chaos and everything was noise. It was distant at first-I heard it through the walls. But each step forward turned the volume up louder.

"Welcome to the dog pound," said a stout, baby-faced Corrections Officer wielding a metal-detecting wand. "Personal items in the bin."

I shook my head. I'd already emptied my pockets in the car. All I had on me was my identification, which I handed over; it was passed to another CO, who looked up from the card to behold my person and went round-eyed at the sight of me.

The young CO then instructed me to stand with my feet apart and arms to the sides, and he waved me down with the wand. It made high-pitched electronic zipping sounds as it passed over the buckle of my belt. Then the guard led me through a second metal detector-I had to duck under the top of the full-body scanner-and then we went through a steel door and entered into the prison's main lobby.

The noise in there was deafening.

Intake holding cells lined every wall. There was a nonstop, rhythmic banging, the sound of an inmate throwing his feet or fists or head or body into a metal door over and over; shouts from bullpens where multiple men were being held together, screaming profane threats and insults to each other; wild-eyed prisoners peered out the plastic windows of solitary holding cells, calling out drug-addled nonsense or barking and howling for attention.

Finally, the CO walked me down one last hallway and into an empty, cinderblock walled room. After I stepped inside, he closed the door behind me and left me there alone.

In the center of the room was a metal table. It was chained to the concrete floor and had a metal fixture on one side of the tabletop, a flat padlock to which an inmate's handcuffs could be attached.

I took a seat in a metal chair on the other side of the table and waited.

Fiona

Nina was waiting for me in the parking lot of the nursing home, her car vibrating with heavy bass from the music she was playing inside.

I rapped my fingernails on the window before opening the passenger door, alerting her to my presence in case she didn't see me coming; Nina had her head bent over her phone, was staring at something on the screen. I suppose I'd also been asking her to turn her music down, because she did that in response to my light knock.

"Hey pretty lady," she said as I got comfortable in the passenger seat. "Wanna go for a ride?"

"Oh, sure, why not?" I eyed her phone, which was now in the center console cupholder. "You texting someone, too?"

"Ah." She flashed me an innocent smile. "Wish it was something more fun, but it's just one of the girls I dance with. I was letting her know I wasn't going to be in the studio this afternoon."

"I'm sorry to disrupt your schedule like this, Nina."

"Girl, no. No worries at all. I can practice any time, but you? I only have limited opportunities to hang out with you, and I'll take them whenever I can."

I was very grateful Nina was willing to cancel her other plans and spend the afternoon with me on short notice. Because I really did not want to spend the rest of the day alone at the palace while Alexander was out on his trip. I would not be able focus on work or reading, not while sitting quietly in a room that smelled like him and wondering how things were going on the road or at the prison.

"You doing okay, Fi?"

"Yeah. Why?"

She shrugged. "Looked like you were thinking really hard about something."

"Hm. Guess I was." I looked down at my left hand. "Do you think it's weird that Alexander and I are engaged, but I don't wear a ring?"

Nina looked at my hand. Then met my eyes for a second. Then looked forward at the road.

"I don't know," she said. "Do you think it is?"

All I could do was shake my head. "Anyway. Alexander's off doing something... I don't know, stressful... today. I need you to distract me. Keep my mind off it." "Stressful, hm?"

I told Nina the story. What I knew of it, at least (which was very little).

"Wowza," she said when I finished.

"I know."

"Well. He's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

"I know that. I just... worry about him still, I guess."

"I know you do, babe. But he'll be fine. And I'll keep you busy till you hear from him after he's out of there, okay?"

"Okay." I reached over and petted what I could reach of Nina's soft white hair. "Your hair's so pretty like this."

Her lips curled into an amused smile. "Funny. That's what they were saying at work. They want me to keep it like this for a while, for the run of performances we start this week."

"Ooh. Keeping the same hair color for several weeks. Are you even physically capable of doing that?"

She made a loud PFFT sound. "Honestly? I'll probably f**k around with it a bit but replace a way to keep them happy enough. I still like it for now; we'll see what happens when I start getting bored." Alexander

The door swung open and in stepped a tall, thick man in his fifties. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and was handcuffed in the front. Behind him paced the young-looking CO.

James was dark haired and pale complexioned. The hair on his head was long, thick and wavy, brushed back neatly and tucked behind his ears. His jaw was heavily shadowed by a stubble beard that went bare over a shiny, well-healed scar on one cheek. The scar was neat, a straight, thin line about three inches long. The slashing work of a small, sharp blade like a razor.

The inmate paced forward into the room and turned, looking like he'd practiced this dance step before. He held his wrists out and the guard, to my surprise, unlocked and removed the handcuffs, dropped them into the breast pocket of his uniform, met James's eyes and nodded. The officer then retreated from the room again, closed the door and locked it behind him.

James took a step forward. He dragged the other chair back from the table noisily, making the metal feet screech on the concrete floor. All the while locking his dark, deep-set eyes on mine. Finally he took his seat.

"Been expecting you for a while now, Alpha Alexander," he said, and his lips crawled up the unscarred side of his face into a twisted smile.