Beauty and the Bodyguard
Author
Lisa Childs
Reads
18.5K
Chapters
31
Prologue
How the hell had he survived? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible...
But the proof was in the photo. Sure, he looked different. Then again, who wouldn’t, after what he’d been through? He’d been tortured to death. At least Derek had thought he’d killed the man...
Cockroaches were like that, though; they could survive the most extreme extermination attempts. The only thing they couldn’t survive was getting crushed.
The picture crumpled in a big fist. He better be enjoying his last moments of life—because he wasn’t going to stay alive. And this time when he died, he would damn well stay dead.
Derek Nielsen hurled the wadded-up photo against the bars of his cell. An alarm rang out. He hadn’t set it off—directly. But indirectly he had. The alarm was sounding because of him, according to his carefully orchestrated plan.
This was it—his escape.
With a buzz and a clank, the cell door slid open. He slipped through it like other prisoners stepped through theirs. They were confused, though, standing in the hall outside their cells. Derek hurried past them. He knew where he needed to be: the laundry room. He had only minutes to get to the vent leading out from one of the commercial dryers. After his efforts, it was big enough now for him to crawl through and escape.
Derek would be out soon to the vehicle that waited outside for him. The one that would slip through the gates and bring him to freedom.
Derek wouldn’t be returning to prison, although he fully intended to commit another crime. He was going to kill the man responsible for sending him to jail.
