The Monarch Read Online Free Page A

he found was an empty box. Fed up, Jonathan tossed the towel into the sink, stomped into the living room, and opened his laptop. While it booted up, he poured himself another drink to drown out the little voice in his head whining about his promise.
    â€œCome on!” he said a little too loud, wincing both from the headache and the idea he might wake Natalie up. When silence prevailed and the throbbing subsided, he opened a browser window and logged on to a Web site he hadn’t been to in years.
    The page resolved and asked for his log-­in name and password, no logo or text displayed to show the identity of the site. It made sense, since the site didn’t know his real identity either.
    Jonathan logged in with his numeric username and password, memorized long ago. Another minute of account fetching and the details of his bank account in the Caymans displayed. When the account balance popped onto the screen, it eased his frustration somewhat. Nine-­figure numbers tended to do that.
    â€œEnough is enough,” he said, keying in a transfer to his local Tallahassee account. He wouldn’t take much. No sense in that. A hundred thousand should suffice.
    Jonathan licked his lips as he hovered the mouse pointer over the commit button. This would change everything. No more crappy photography. No more insipid clients. No more cutting coupons or counting change. No more stealing gas money from the swear jar.
    He looked up at the faces of Samantha and Natalie staring down at him from the mantel, the diffused lamp light making them seem at once disappointed and angry. On her deathbed, Samantha had made Jonathan promise that he would never allow his old life to come anywhere near their daughter. He’d easily agreed, but then she’d added that she also meant his old life’s bank account. Jonathan didn’t like it, but he understood. She wanted Natalie raised as normal as possible. And while his money wasn’t technically stolen, it was the result of less than lawful activities. A mere moment of looking into her eyes made him promise without reservation. But that was then.
    After a long, self-­deprecating moment, he slammed the lid of the laptop closed, drained the rest of his drink, and fell back on the sofa, a familiar lump where a spring had slipped digging into his back. He shook off the despair and chuckled.
    â€œLook at it this way. It can’t possibly get any worse.”

 
    3
    FCI Yazoo City
    Yazoo, Mississippi
    9:00 P.M. Local Time
    â€œH AVE A SEAT,” the warden’s secretary said with a smirk. Lewis Katchbrow shuffled over to one of the empty plastic chairs against the wall in his ankle chains and wedged his six-­foot, two-­hundred-­twenty-­pound frame into it as best he could. He winced as his hands, handcuffed to the chain around his waist, were squished against the chair’s arms. Lew heard the secretary chuckle, but ignored him.
    That’s how Lew had spent most of his two years in Yazoo, Mississippi’s Federal Correctional Institute—­below the radar. Minding his own business. Most, until today, that is. He still couldn’t believe what had happened in the past few hours.
    The cafeteria door had slammed shut, leaving Lew and about twenty inmates hungry, pissed, and milling around in the afternoon rain. A man used to regulations, Lew had planned on just heading back to his cell to wait for dinner, but somebody else’s plans got in his way.
    Lenny Dyson, an older inmate who used a cane to support a bum leg, stepped out of line and started shouting and swinging his cane around. Lenny normally wasn’t violent, which was the reason he could have a cane in the first place, but his shouts grew in intensity until finally he flung himself to the ground and writhed around like he was having a seizure. Everyone, including Rory Dupont, the assistant warden, who was trying to calmly herd the hungry men back to their cells, walked over to