White Collar belongs to Jeff Eastin etc.

There's some Neal whump in this chapter so be warned.

Chapter 2

He assumed he'd be safe in his cell. With a pencil and paper, he could always find escape in his drawings. He sketched the FBI offices, remembering how simple life was, and how he ruined it all.

He ran it all in his head, this was never going to end happily. Ever since the warehouse explosion, there was no going back - it was either escape or ending back in prison - and he should have made preparations for escape from prison. A mistake on his part. He was a con and is still a con - he was never going to change, no matter how hard he tried to deceive himself.

But Neal had to turn to the situation at hand - staying alive was the game plan and he needed contacts to protect himself. Mozzie. And then there was the matter of escape. A year is a long time to be living in fear.

A call to Mozzie's burner phone left Neal with an encrypted message: "I can't help you Neal. I'm being watched."

He was on his own to get himself out of this mess.

It was all hopeless now.

WCWCWCWC

Neal wasn't going to let fear stand in his way - he would stand up to Wilkes, bluff his way through like he always did and hopefully live peacefully ever after for the next 12 months.

As Neal made his way to the dining hall, he was jumped by Wilkes and his gang.

"Neal Neal Neal. I was beginning to think that you were avoiding me. You're going to have to make it up for me." Wilkes whispered in his ear, followed by a strong kick to his stomach.

"Please, Wilkes, I just want to make peace." Neal begged.

"Now why did you ever peg me as a saint. I'm the devil and you know it. As I said Neal, I'm going to make your life a living hell."

"I've got money, treasure, anything you want..." His voice was breaking with fear, surrounded by the larger men.

"And I've got a life sentence... so that's of great use to me on the inside." Wilkes sneeringly replied. "Your pain is all I want. Begin." He signalled to his cronies.

He attempted to shield himself from the all blows impacting on him body, from their punches and kicks but it was all in vain. It seemed to last for an eternity. His screams for help were silenced by a blow to his jaw.

"Now you be quite Neal, otherwise I'll disfigure that pretty face of yours. And I'd hate to do that."

He started crying. It never seemed to stop. He fainted from the pain.

The guards didn't want to know anything about the attack - too much paperwork for someone who had already added so much more rules to their job. It was easier to just carry him back to his cell and say he had an early night. Every night.

Neal was a proud man. But every man has his breaking point.

Thanks everyone so far for reading. It's my first fanfiction so the chapters are a bit short - ideally, I could just merge them all but I like the idea of building suspense through chapters - sorry to leave you hanging! But there'll be some angsty action next chapter so hopefully you hang on until tomorrow.

I initially wrote this story with a certain plot in mind, but ended up getting too excited writing this back story to it, that it's now become a story on its own, and what I wanted to write has now become the sequel (which might end up being an one-shot anyway).

Addressing some concerns about the prologue: For those not interested in just another post-countdown story, I just used the post-countdown as a starting point for this story - in my mind, this could've happened at any point where Neal went behind Peter's back (through probably after Front Man haha). Also, maybe I'll explore the tense post-Countdown Neal-Peter relationship in another story, but for now, I sort of just overlooked it and it's definitely a bit generic with the trust issues. So rewriting the prologue is definitely on the cards :)

P.S I love Neal. Haha. Needed to declare that. It hurts me to hurt him :(

Thanks for reading!