Author's Note: I thought you all would like to know that my email inbox is full of notifications from your favorites and follows. I shall keep them forever and raise them as my own children. Is that weird? Oh! Someone's calling me. Gotta go! Bye!
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.
Washington State Penitentiary
Present Time
EPOV
Erasing him from this plane of existence would guarantee my imprisonment for the rest of a lifetime. Hurting him enough to rethink his lifestyle choices would leave me buried alive in the hole for three years. Despite my jumbled thoughts, the effect of turning away from the situation led me to believe that I would be granted enough time to be released from this torture, but for how long? His connections were strong enough to make an entire prison look the other way and I had no doubt that he was capable of finding a man in any corner of the world. I wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating Royce King again. On the other hand, what would be the outcome of playing into his delusions and giving him whatever he wanted? Whatever, it just wasn't fucking happening.
A hit to a mans pride is not to be taken lightly and although it took every atom in my body, I made the decision to walk away. Emmett made his own choice and stood behind Royce with the same shifty eyes as always, only this time, they wouldn't reach my face. Truth be told, I felt a little sorry for him. He'd only been locked up a couple of months and it could not have been easy to agree to the alleged son of a mafia family when he comes asking you for favors. And if the movies gave any indication, once you're in, there's no coming out.
The bored look on Royce's features twisted into a pleased smirk once his makeshift bodyguard quieted down and remained where he belonged. His cocky gaze swivled onto me and I had to chant a mantra in my head over the deafening roar that was demanding for his blood to be splattered across the walls. It had been years since I felt the warm, slick coat of blood on my hands and although I never allowed myself to lose all inhibitions, every man had his breaking point. Too long I watched this sick fuck abuse men until they lost all hope and either killed themselves or were never heard from again. Too long I stood by and did nothing as he treated this place like his own personal fucking playground.
"Two days and three nights. Two days and three nights. Two days and three nights," for some reason the words I tossed around in my brain morphed into the voice of a girl I hadn't thought about in years. It was not the time to lose my shit and as hard as it was, I mentally blocked her out and refocused on the situation at hand.
Royce moved from behind the bench press and walked towards me with his black eyes locked on mine. The intention of killing him overcame my senses for a split second when he stopped in front of me with his chest two feet away from mine. He moved his left hand upwards to hover over the flesh of my cheek. It was close enough to feel the heat of his palm on my face. "Your skin looks so soft," he whispered.
All it'd take is a head butt to shove his nose into his brain and no one in the world would miss him.
Yeah, except that would mean spending the rest of my life here.
You could just kill yourself?
Oh, fuck off.
"What do you think he'd do if I touched him, Emmy?" Royce didn't look away from my mouth as he spoke and instead of going to town on his head with a 90 pound weight, I scowled and took a step back. Getting the fuck out of there was the main objective. As difficult as it was, I inhaled through my nostrils, counted to five, released my breath, shook my head, and walked away from him with tense shoulders and clenched fists. The mental picture of my family standing at the doors cheering me on kept me going.
Turning around and seeing the look on his face would have made it all worthwhile but I refrained from making the wrong choice. Noises of a struggle were within earshot and it was possible that Emmett was holding Royce back from doing something stupid like coming after me. Just a few more steps and I shoved my body against the double doors that granted me access to the hallway. Since the weasel interrupted my workout, I hardly built up a sweat so I skipped the showers and made my way to the lumpy mattress I called a bed for the past five years.
There was less than an hour to kill until the clock signaled it was time to grab dinner and even though I wanted to invest all of my pent up energy in the gym, there was no way in hell I could go back there after the stunt Royce pulled. It's not nice to tempt fate, or so Esme always said. Instead I lied back in my cot and stared at the bars underneath the top bunk. Memories from when Jasper and I were younger and shared a room with bunk beds came to mind as I reached up and curled my fingers around one of the cool metal rods.
Long gone were the bubbling feelings of happiness. What if Royce decided he wasn't done with me yet and paid off the warden to make me stay? What if I wasn't strong enough to walk away from him next time? What if he convinced Emmett to hold me down so that Royce could do whatever twisted shit he would come up with? Muscles like those were impossible to ignore and no matter how much mass I've gained in the time that I've been here, you'd never find me taking Emmett on in an arm wrestling contest. All of these worrisome thoughts were scattered in my head and for the first time in years, it seemed as if the possibilities were endless. Royce on his own would never have been cause for concern. Hell, even with McCarthy, I'm sure I would have found ways of leveling the playing field. With a crew behind him, well, that's where things got tricky.
A couple of days and I would be guaranteed my freedom, but at what cost? The consequences that would possibly follow my return home were unsettling. If King could find me in Forks, what he could do to those that I cared about made the idea of sleep practically nonexistent. All of the gangster movies I'd seen played on fast forward behind my closed eyes as I imagined my family in the place of dead actors. Destroyed businesses, shot up houses, and mangled bodies were all tainted red as I swallowed the lump that built up in my throat. Unacceptable. It was time to come up with a plan.
x
xx
xxx
xx
x
Seattle, Washington
Two Weeks Ago
RPOV
"He's my son," James King said with a tone of finality. With the intention of saying no more on the matter, he turned his back on us from the opposite side of his massive oak desk.
"Mr. King, as your adviser, will you not heed to the counsel I give you?" Victor pleaded for the boss to see the grave mistake he was making. Just as he was about to give up on the matter, Victor and I noticed the downcast gaze of Mr. King and the way his shoulders seemed to sag against the weight of the decision that we all knew had to be made.
Organized crime, the mafia, whatever ludicrous name the general public decided to bestow upon us as of late, it was all a bunch of bullshit. In reality, it was nothing like the movies or the stories you heard when you were younger. Running around with your toy guns and playing cops and robbers, that was as exciting as it got in this business. Once you're sworn in, your life becomes nothing but one long ass meeting cooped up in an office wearing business suits made out of material you cannot even begin to pronounce. Gone were the days of living life on the edge and making it through the day by the skin of your teeth. Now, getting to the top meant getting your name inscribed onto a gold plaque in a corner office with wall to wall windows overlooking this pathetic excuse of a city.
You're goddamn right I'm bitter. James King had the potential to have it all. Instead we were living like accountants. All thanks to the redhead on my right, Victor Byrne, who proposed the idea of relocating this organization onto the legal side of the spectrum. Which I just couldn't understand. King was tall at 6'3" and weighed at least 250 pounds. He was smart, lethal and had the entire north western side of the United States eating out of the palm of his hands. I still heard stories about the old days that you would not even believe. Now here is my question. Why weren't we snorting coke off strippers asses and rolling around in money we did not even know how to spend? Yeah, yeah, I know. I am laying it on thick, but a man was not built for sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day and getting fatter than Santa Claus at a milk and cookies conference. It is not the job I pictured when I signed up for this life and damn it all to hell, at least I could have my fantasies.
"Riley," Victor hissed.
"Huh?" I snapped to attention, embarrassed that I had been caught drifting off into lalaland again.
"Please tell Mr. King what occurred the other day," Victor grated through a clenched jaw. Great, he's going to get on my ass for this later. Just what I needed.
"Yes, sir," I cleared my throat and ignored the pointed looks Victor was shooting at me. "It was nothing good, boss. Two nights ago I took my wife to La Bella Italia for our anniversary. We were enjoying our dinner when Aro very nervously approached the table and asked to speak with me in private. The disrespect caught me by surprise, if I do say so myself, but it seemed urgent so I agreed to his request and followed him past the kitchen to the alleyway behind the restaurant. Two of Royce's crew, Dallas and Johnny, sped off in a car as soon as I rounded the corner and saw the scene. Aro explained that those two had beaten one of the cooks into oblivion because he did not pay them what he owed. After talking to the cook, it seems they have been dealing with heavier substances than we initially thought, sir. I cannot be certain for how long exactly this has been going on, but it has become apparent that he has taken every opportunity to expose this company and drag everything you have built straight into the ground. In my honest opinion, he can no longer be trusted."
Mr. King's eyes dropped with disappointment the more I spoke. It was only a matter of seconds before he launched into a speech about the good old days when Royce had all A's in high school and made it to the varsity team in his freshman year. True to my word, he started.
"Where did I go wrong?" King wondered as he paced the length of his desk. "Is this what it comes to in this life? Never could I have imagined the day where my own son would double cross me. First the damn petty thefts and the underage girls, now he's making moves against his own father? I told him to stay away from the ecstasy. That shit puts holes in your brain. Oh, he was such a good boy. Royce had straight A's in all his classes, he was an athlete, and he could have the world on a silver platter if he was so inclined. He never had to lift a finger."
It went on, but as you can imagine, I already tuned him out once again. Truth be told, Royce is a ballsy motherfucker who took whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. That was not something I could ignore lightly, in fact, I sort of respected it. His vision could lead this organization into the fast lane that it demanded to be in. As a younger guy, I thought I would be initiated into his crew, but imagine my surprise when I was told that I was going to be trained to be an adviser for the family under Victor fuckin' Byrne. Whatever the case, this was the most action I have seen in years and I would give anything to be the one to kill Royce myself.
x
xx
xxx
xx
x
Twenty minutes later Victor and I made our way down the hall with a new game plan devised by the boss himself. Ultimately, it was decided that we would have Royce get roughed up in his jail cell as a scare tactic that would hopefully result in getting his hat on straight. I could not help but think that if it had been anyone else in our organization disobeying James, they would have been in a body bag by now. The number one rule to never bring unnecessary attention to the press was simple enough and it's only a matter of time before the words "gang activity" were in the headlines. With any luck, Royce would assume there would be an oncoming turf war over the product he was pushing and get himself killed in the process of retaliating. It would have to do for now.
"If you don't pull your head out of your ass, Riley, I swear to God I can make you disappear with the push of a button. Do not fuck with me, kid." Victor was talking my ear off and I wanted to be anywhere else in that moment. Easily enough, I ignored him as I poured myself a cup of coffee without any additives and nodded absentmindedly as he continued on with his little speech. There was no doubt in my mind that the old man could take me out, but when he passed out death threats like tic-tacs, well, they tended to lose their charm.
"Reach out to Brent and fill him in. Wire some money and tell him to pick out a couple of guys that fit the description otherwise this little plan is going to go to shit. If you fuck this up then you can forget about making it anywhere, kid." Victor was still huffing and puffing by the time my coffee mug was empty and I wrapped up our little meeting after assuring him I could handle it. We would have been there all afternoon if I gave him the chance.
As soon as I sat down at my desk and got comfortable there was a knock on my door and I barked at whoever it was to come in. Peace and quiet were all I wanted at this point in the day, but no, instead I got my ear talked off by an old man and more paperwork than I knew what to do with. The bitterness on my face must have looked comical as it fell flat by the sight of my assistant Carmen Denali sauntering in my office with what I'm sure was a useless file in her hands. The girl could not tell the difference between a printer and a water cooler but none of that mattered as she sat on the edge of my desk wearing what I'm sure could be considered the sluttiest professional attire known to man.
Carmen was like a porn star fresh off the set with her blood red blouse on the verge of bursting open to reveal her D cup breasts and the black skirt she wore hugged her ass in all the right places. Her heels matched the color of her shirt and her blonde pin straight hair was a just a couple of inches shy from reaching her hip bones. The memory of her impaling herself on my dick in this very chair was enough to get me at half mast, but as she reached over to adjust my tie and give me a view of her chest she had me standing at full attention.
"Carmen, I need you to clear my schedule for the rest of the afternoon and forward all of my calls to my voicemail. Once you are done with that, get your ass back in here, take off your clothes, bend over my desk, and do not move a fucking muscle until I tell you to. Can you do that for me, cupcake?" You would have thought we were talking about the weather with the flippant voice and lack of eye contact I used. Her giggle brought a smirk to my mouth and I nodded at her to get to it. The wife was with her mother all day and I knew I would not be hearing a peep from her until she was back home. Just like that, it seemed like my day just got a whole lot better.
x
xx
xxx
xx
x
Washington State Penitentiary
Present Time
EPOV
Wednesday morning introduced itself in the form of rambunctious activity. Voices were carrying throughout the entire block and I could barely make out any of the words, but before I had too much time to wonder what the hell was going on, the doors to each cell opened automatically. Bodies created a wall past the opening of my cell so I decided to wait it out until they cleared up. Lounging around on the top bunk, my mind came up with a few possibilities for all the noise. Someone could have been killed last night, either that or another man was raped, or maybe someone knocked out a guard for fun again. People around here came up with the craziest stunts to bet on as a means to pass the time. A soft exhale passed through my nostrils mimicking a quiet laugh while I recalled the time someone stole a pack of cigarettes from CO Banner and he went apeshit. He started passing out write ups like it was Christmas morning, I'd never seen him so pissed.
A knocking sound close by caught my attention and Emmett McCarthy took a single step into my cell. My left eyebrow with a scar running through it rose and I felt my body unconsciously tense up in preparation for what was to come. The raucous outside could have easily been set up as a distraction by Royce in order to get to me. I cursed myself out for being such a moron, but suddenly Emmett put his hands up in a motion that could only be taken as, "I come in peace." His large frame was defensive as if he were approaching a wild animal and I almost sneered at him for taunting me. With one fluid motion, I hopped off the top bunk and landed on the balls of my feet gracefully. If he didn't start talking soon, there was no telling what I would do.
"Six, look I'm not here to start nothing," with his hands still raised he backed up half a step. "A few of the Puerto-Ricans, they messed up Royce real bad in the middle of the night. I don't know how they did it, maybe they paid off a guard, but they're taking him away to medical right now."
The look on my face must have encouraged him to keep talking because suddenly I had this monstrous figure of a man stuttering his way through an apology. Perhaps I was having a nightmare and I needed to find a shrink for dreaming about prison while I was essentially trapped in prison. Then again, I'm not entirely sure I was capable of coming up with the image of Emmett McCarthy asking for my forgiveness if it wasn't actually happening so I decided I should pay attention to what he was saying.
"I'm not sure how but he got into my mail and found my girlfriends address and he said he'd get his whole crew to take a turn on her if I didn't do everything he said. Looking the other way became so easy after that, you know? Anyway, the only reason I'm telling you all this is because Royce knew you were getting out Friday and I thought you should hear my piece before you left. And I wanted to say that you dodged a bullet, bro, he was fixed on you. I don't even want to think about what he was gonna come up with for you. So, you know, I hope we're good?" Emmett had the nerve to look almost sheepish with a fearful look in his eyes as if he were afraid I would turn him down.
For the first time since I met Emmett his eyes were focused and set on me. Before reacting to his jargon, I took the opportunity to really look at him. The dark curly hair on his head was fashioned into a crew cut and his honey colored eyes were a strange combination with his pale skin color. A bright red rose was tattooed over his heart from what I could see of the petals peeking out from underneath his white wife-beater. His orange jumpsuit was tucked in at the waist and I could only assume it was for comfort due to his large overbearing frame. A majority of his arms were covered in tattoos yet despite all of that, I got the feeling that McCarthy didn't have it in him to bring harm to another person unless he was provoked to do so. Normally I was a good judge of character and I was looking forward to the day that I would regret this but I nodded at Emmett and said, "Yeah, man, we're good."
Your favorites, follows, and reviews are my inspiration.
Thank you all so very much.