Read About That Night for Free Online

tried sprinkling some talcum powder on it, but all that had gotten him was a white mess that left him smelling like a baby. And if there was anything a committed bachelor in his thirties didnot need to smell like, it was babies. A woman got one whiff of that and suddenly all sorts of biological clocks came out of snooze mode and started ringing with a vengeance.
    But, as Kyle knew full well, a man could have worse problems than chafing and baby powder. A man could get arrested, say, and be indicted on multiple federal charges and end up in prison. Or a man could find out that his stubborn, pain-in-the-ass twin sister had nearly gotten herself killed while working with the FBI as part of an agreement to secure his early release from said prison.
    He still wanted to throttle Jordan for that one.
    Kyle checked his watch and picked up the pace for the last half mile of his run. According to the terms of his home detention, he was allowed ninety minutes per day for “personal errands,” as long as he stayed within a ten-mile radius of his home. Technically, he was supposed to use those ninety minutes for food shopping and laundry, but he’d figured out how to game the system: he ordered his groceries online and had them delivered to his front door, and he utilized the dry cleaner located in the lobby of the high-rise building in which he lived. That gave him ninety minutes a day outside his penthouse, ninety minutes when life seemed almost normal.
    On this evening, he made it back to his building with eight minutes to spare. He may have been gaming the system, but he wasn’t about to test it. God forbid he got delayed with a leg cramp and an alarm was triggered from his ankle monitor. All he needed was a SWAT team storming the beach and slapping him in handcuffs just because he hadn’t stretched properly.
    The rush of warm air that hit Kyle as he entered the building felt stifling. Or perhaps it was just the knowledge that his return through those doors meant he would be trapped in his apartment for the next twenty-two hours and thirty-two minutes.
    Only three more days to go
, he reminded himself
.
    In little more than seventy-two hours—he’d started thinking in terms of hours ever since his prison days—he would officially be a free man. Assuming, that is, that the U.S.Attorney’s Office upheld their end of the bargain, which was a big assumption. It was safe to say that he and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were not on the best of terms these days, despite whatever deals they’d made with his sister regarding his early release from Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal prison where he’d served four months of an eighteen months’ sentence. They had, after all, called him a “terrorist” both in open court and directly to the media, and in Kyle’s book, that got people a one-way ticket onto his shit list. Because a “terrorist,” as any moron with a dictionary knew, was a person who engaged in violence, terror, and intimidation to achieve a result.
    He, on the other hand, had just engaged in stupidity.
    Miles the doorman checked his watch as Kyle passed by the front lobby desk.
    “Can’t even give yourself a break on a Saturday night?”
    “No rest for the wicked,” Kyle said with an easy grin.
    He caught an elevator and pushed the button for the thirty-fourth floor, the penthouse. Just before the doors shut, a man in his late twenties wearing jeans and a ski pullover scrambled in. He blinked in recognition when he saw Kyle but said nothing as he pushed the button to the twenty-third floor.
    They rode the elevator in silence, but Kyle knew it wouldn’t last. Eventually, the other guy would say something. Some people cussed him out, others high-fived him, but they always said something.
    When the elevator arrived at the twenty-third floor, the guy glanced over before stepping out. “For what it’s worth, I thought the whole thing was pretty funny.”
    One of the high-fivers
. “Too bad you weren’t