* * *

Ice lay back on his mattress, staring up at the ceiling.

“Did you sign up for the class?” Jackal’s voice from the doorway drew his attention.

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah, so did Max and Buzz.”

Ice nodded, sitting up on the side of the bed. “Find out who’s teaching the course.”

“Already did. Seems like she’s taught here for a while. Older woman, the men here seem to like her. She’s helped several prisoners get jobs once they were released.”

“That could work to our advantage. Get me some personal info on her. If we decide to use her, I don’t want to be scrambling the last minute for shit I should already know. I don’t want any surprises, Jackal.”

“Will do, gotta go. Rita’s here to visit me.”

Ice laughed. “What did she tell them?”

“She’s my sister.”

“Again? How many sisters do they think you have now?”

“I come from a large family,” Jackal mocked. “I’ll eat a slice of pizza for you.”

“Fuck-wad.” The visitors could purchase food for the prisoners while they visited. Jackal managed to eat the whole time he was there.

Ice watched his sergeant-at-arms leave, going to the common door to wait for one of the guards to escort him to the visitors’ room. He had sent a message that he didn’t want anyone to visit him. As the president of the Predators, it would put a target on her head. At the clubhouse, he had always been careful to make sure he had never singled out any one woman. He himself had used women as weapons against other clubs, so he knew not to have that shit turned around on himself.

He stood, stretching. It was beginning to wear on his nerves being unable to ride his bike. The last four months already seemed like a fucking lifetime of being cooped up in the small cell. The court seemed to think the next four years would make him a changed man, and the time stretched endlessly before him.

He had no intention of seeing the end of his sentence. The woman who would be teaching them the basics of computers was going to be their way out. She just didn’t know it yet. And when she did, it would be too late.

Chapter 2

Ice walked into the classroom followed by several other prisoners. Surveying the room, he picked a computer desk close to the window. Jackal took the one by the door, Buzz took the one next to him, and Max took the desk in front of him.

Ice drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk, looking out the window into the recreation yard. His eyes narrowed at seeing the Church with his band of followers pass in the hallway, on their way outside. The muscle-bound fucker called himself the Church because his word was supposed to be God’s. If you didn’t do what he wanted when he wanted it done, then either he or one of his brain-dead minions would punish you. He ruled the prison by fear, and so far, no one had stood up to him. Ice had maintained his distance, and Church kept his.

Ice knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and they clashed. There was only room enough for one boss in the prison. If Church didn’t make sure Ice was a follower, which he wasn’t, then he would have to confront him or lose respect. The loss of respect could be a dangerous thing for a man of the Church’s power. Ice hoped to put off the confrontation as long as possible, seeing no need to upset the hierarchy of the prison if it didn’t affect him.

Three guards were placed strategically around the room: one in the back, one by the door, and one at the side of the room toward the front. The clock on the wall showed the teacher was five minutes late.

“Damn, am I seeing things?” Max’s voice drew Ice’s attention to the door. He barely managed to keep his mouth from hanging open when he saw a woman cautiously enter the room.

The lithe blond was tall for a woman. Ice gauged her to be around five-nine. She was wearing a plain, black skirt with a jacket on over a black top. Ice’s lips twitched. She looked like she was attending a funeral—her own.

She hesitantly walked toward the front of the room, placing a briefcase on the desk. When she turned to face the room, Ice sucked in his breath.

The woman was a fucking looker. The prison was crazy to let in a woman who looked like that around men whose dicks hadn’t had a woman in months, if not years. Ice knew the men would be beating off to the memory of the woman staring at the room of prisoners with a carefully blank face. She wasn’t as unafraid as she appeared, though.

Ice’s life had depended on reading people since he was a kid, and this woman was terrified. He had no idea how she had ended up teaching this course, but it was the last place she wanted to be.

“Good morning. My name is Grace Andrews. Ms. McAllistor has met with an unfortunate accident, so I will be taking her place this semester.”

Ice and Jackal shared a look. All the intel they had done on the previous teacher was now useless. Jackal nodded in silent communication that he would get the new information they needed on the teacher who was talking at the front of the room, describing to them what they would be able to accomplish on the computer by the end of the semester. Ice had news for her: he wouldn’t be here by the end of the semester, and she wouldn’t, either.

* * *

Grace rubbed her sweaty palms against the side of her skirt, feeling the eyes of the fifteen men in the classroom on her. She made sure her gaze didn’t linger long on anyone in particular; each one seemed to be scarier than the previous one. So far, the one she had caught sight of as she entered the classroom was the most frightening. That was, until her eyes were caught and held by the one sitting by the window.

His brown hair was long, almost to his shoulders. The beige uniform he wore was tight over his broad shoulders and across his chest. He was sprawled lazily in his chair, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, which he didn’t. The state was picking up all his expenses.

Grace dragged her eyes away from his compelling gaze to open her briefcase and pull out a stack of papers. That was why she had been late; a guard had gone through her case, pulling out her tiny, bejeweled stapler and throwing it into the trash as well as the metal clips she had used to sort her paperwork. Everything inside was a jumbled mess now.

Gathering her control, she managed to find the paperwork she was searching for, pulling out the diagram of the computer they would be working on. Going to each desk, she laid a paper before each man. When she got to the man by the door with the scar running down his cheek, she laid it down and quickly moved on to the desk by the window. If she had to guess his name from the list of students she had been given, she would say this was Ice.

Staring into his ice-blue eyes, she laid his paper on the desk as she had the others when he reached out, taking it from her, his fingertips brushing her hand. Jerking away from his touch, she stepped forward to the desk in front of him. The large man at the desk gave her a flirtatious wink and smiled as he picked up his paper.

Grace quickly walked back to the front of the classroom, turning to face the roomful of convicted felons.

“Let’s begin.”

For the next hour and a half, she led them through the basics of the computer, giving small tasks to find out how proficient their skills were. She would evaluate the results tonight and decide if the syllabus needed to be revised. Her nervousness dissipated as the class wore on. She lost herself in the task of helping several of the men complete the work. When the time was up, the guard at the front motioned to her.