Just one day left until the release date for Permanent Damage. Ten stories. One last  teaser to whet your appetite, give you a hint of the plot and the feel of the stories.

This time, meet a security expert who hasn’t been hired to keep thieves out — but to keep something in . . . .

MELT THE BULLET, BLUNT THE KNIFE

On the screen, the young man began taking off his clothes, setting them aside. “What, uhh — what exactly am I looking at?”

“Shh. You will see.”

Rory was getting a little uncomfortable watching this. “He, uhh, he certainly has a lot of tattoos,” he said.

“Ahhh. Yes. My son, he still believes in the old ways, yes? To the vory v zakone, these tattoos, these are a man’s whole life.” He tapped the screen, finger tracing an eight-pointed star on his son’s chest. “Everything he’s done, everything he is. That’s how the world knows you, how they know to show you respect, loyalty, dedication. Honor. Fear.” His eyes flicked sideways, taking in Rory’s expression. “It’s a commitment, you see. In prison, the tattoos are done with needles or guitar strings, razors, inked with urine and soot. Infections, they happen often, and sometimes people die, all for the sake of these marks. Everything you are, you wear in the skin. But suppose you could change the skin. You would change the man, wouldn’t you? Change the man into something else.”

The young man on the screen was untying something bundled up in rough paper with twine. Something dark.

“Change him, perhaps, into something more than a man.”

______

“Permanent Damage” — Available Monday!

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