Chapter 3
Gatsby
One year after sentencing
“Let’s try this again, Dumas,” Hawkins clipped, and I glared at him from my seat, unable to move. I drummed my fingers on the arms of the chair I was handcuffed to. The psychiatrist laughed and raised the crinkled news article to his face. “This is what has you so worked up? Enough to try to assault a guard? Tsk, tsk .”
A low growl rumbled from deep in my throat, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Emile,” he warned, his eyes flickering to the mask covering my mouth and cheeks. “Would you like me to read the article aloud so we can deconstruct why this upsets you so?”
My chest heaved as I tried to steady my rage. I didn’t want him or anyone else to know a damn thing about me. Everyone just wanted to dissect me, figure out what made me tick.
Figure out why I did what I did.
“ Prima Ballerina’s Proposal Steals the Show: Ballet Royalty Engaged to Heir and Owner of Famous Theater ,” he read the article’s title. “There’s a photo attached. She’s quite pretty.”
Like I didn’t know that? I knew every line of her face. I dreamed about her every night. Her dark caramel eyes, her long, shiny hair so dark it looked black until it hit the sunlight—in which it turned a beautiful brown, her dimpled smile. All of it was forever ingrained in my memories.
Not getting a good enough response from me, Hawkins continued on.
“Following a performance of the ballet, Coppélia, Max Stanton, ran onto the stage and publicly proposed to Prima Ballerina, Daisy Lovelace.”
I clenched my jaw, and for the first time since I’d been given the muzzle, I was grateful for it. He couldn’t see my reaction to the painful words.
She’d changed her legal name.
I almost felt that a good shanking would be less painful than what he’d just read off. I’d gotten the article slipped into my cell this morning, and I was still struggling to fully comprehend what the paper was telling me. My Daisy was getting married. To someone else. To this Max guy. Who the fuck was he?
“Max Stanton is the oldest son of the influential and wealthy billionaire, Alfred Stanton. Alfred grew his wealth through investing in real estate in the 80’s. Having recently retired, Alfred (65) has left all of the Stanton business to his son, Max (22).”
My breathing must have gotten louder, because the shithead paused and looked over. “Maybe it’s not her that triggered you but him.”
Bingo.
“Do you not like Max Stanton? This rich billionaire? I mean, it would stand to reason, considering your last victim.” He wasn’t talking to me, but at me. If I wasn’t so furious, I’d laugh at him. Hawkins claimed to have a degree; he had the pretty paper hanging on his wall and everything. I didn’t believe for a second it was real. I could do his job. He set the paper on his desk and leaped up.
“Yes, that’s it! You grew up struggling for money. Your mother said so in her tell-all book. Which, by the way, was an instant bestseller. Not that you seem to care. I got a signed copy.” He picked up a book and waved it. I turned my head, but not quick enough to miss the photo of my mother and me from 15 years ago on the cover. My stomach twisted, and I swallowed the vomit down.
I didn’t want to throw up with a mask over my nose and mouth. Sick or not, they wouldn’t be removing my muzzle until I was back in my cell. Hawkins didn’t pay any attention to my reaction to the mention of my mother. That would have told him more than the article he was focusing on. I snickered, thinking about it.
What a fucking moron.
“You take ‘eat the rich’ literally,” he said in a very matter-of-fact tone as he went behind his desk to scribble it down. While I hated the fucker, I could admit that it was a good tagline. I could see the YouTube true crime channels popping off with it.
It was way better than Emile ‘make-a-meal-out-of-you’ Dumas.
I’d been given a lot of nicknames, but there was only one that mattered to me.
Gatsby .
A loud, firm rap sounded at the door, prompting Hawkins to look up from his notes, bored. “I’m done.”
Two guards, Verveen and Parati, barged in as if they were expecting me to have gotten out of my restraints. They quickly unlocked my handcuffs from the chair and linked them together, leaving me in two pairs. They fixed my feet shackles as well so I could walk back to my cell.
“Anything else?” Verveen asked the psychiatrist.
Hawkins looked at me, and I glared back.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say, Dumas?” Hawkins goaded.
Give me my paper back , I thought, but chose to not say anything. If I did, he’d light it on fire in front of me. I couldn’t risk that. I’d find a way to get it back later. It had her picture on it. Without another word, I was escorted back to my confines.
They shoved me inside my cell, and we went through the routine of removing my leg shackles, my mask, and then the wrist cuffs.
“You better now, Dumas?” Verveen snickered as he pulled away, his arms full of the restraints.
“Which one of you fucks told Hawkins I had contraband?” I gripped the bars and pushed my face against the metal.
“You keep squawking in here like you did this morning, and we’ll have to take you to solitary. You upset your neighbors.”
“I doubt Chip or Scott are upset. You guys mad at me?” I shouted, pushing my body harder against the cage. The guards leaped back. Their faces paled as I grinned at them.
“Fuck no!” Chip yelled back.
“Why should we be?” Scott replied. “You’re not trying to eat us . ”
“True. According to Hawkins, I’m only interested in the rich,” I quipped.
“Well then, you’ll go hungry here.” Chip cackled like a hyena.
Verveen rammed his baton into my abdomen, shoving me back. “Stand down, Dumas. You step up to those bars again and we’ll put the mask back on,” he warned me. “You’ll only take it off for meals.”
I did as ordered. Out of all the shitty things I had to deal with in here, the face mask was the worst part. It was uncomfortable and hot, although it did make me appear much more terrifying than without.
“Lights out soon.” He waved his baton at the cot. I laid down, putting my hands behind my head, and closed my eyes to wait for them to disappear. It took an achingly long time for them to shut the lights off and do their night rounds, but finally, I had some privacy. Sitting back up, I dug under my bed, running through the pile of legal papers until I found a piece of notebook paper I’d written on this morning. Word for word, the article that Hawkins had taken from me. I went to the window to read the article by moonlight.
Lovelace and Stanton have been dating for the last year, so the public proposal was no surprise. According to undisclosed sources, this proposal came shortly after Stanton purchased a 10,000 square feet mansion on Lake St. Claire. It is presumed that he purchased the multimillion-dollar home as an engagement present to Lovelace.
I ran my tongue over the front of my teeth, absorbing the information. He bought my Daisy a mansion. Did he think she wouldn’t be interested otherwise? Maybe it was my own wishful thinking. That she didn’t really love him, but the money he came with. But the article stated that they’d been dating for a whole year, contradicting what I’d wanted to believe.
I read the dates again. Did she agree to date him after I was deemed guilty?
One could only hope.
Daisy is no stranger to wealth and fame, either. The Prima Ballerina comes from a long line of ballerinas. Her parents were esteemed dancers before their untimely, separate deaths. Magdalena Lovelace was murdered by a fan when her daughter was an infant. Daisy’s father, Juan, committed suicide five years later, after a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. She was raised by her paternal grandmother, Lolita Lovelace, another former professional ballerina.
“Ballet is in my blood,” Prima Ballerina, Daisy, says. “There was never any other option for me. My soul was drawn to it, like Gatsby was drawn to the green light.”
I remained by the window and closed my eyes, resting my forehead against the stone wall. I could almost hear her voice. Dance was in her blood, correct, but did it have her heart? No.
I did.
The last sentence of the article told me everything I needed to know. She was calling to me. I knew it in my bones. That quote wasn’t for the news. It was for me and me alone.
She was still my Daisy; and I was still her Gatsby.
I returned to bed and slid the paper back between the others under my cot. I ran my hand under the frame and pulled my box of contraband from where it was taped. Silently, I went about assembling my tattoo machine. I flicked the switch, and it hummed to life. I said a silent prayer to a god I never truly believed in and dipped the needle into the ink .
Fucking die already, Dennis.
I dragged the makeshift machine against my flesh, slowly, carefully. I had nothing but time to perfect the art form, and had grown to crave the pain of a new tattoo. One day, I’d have real equipment, and a real shop, with real clients. But for now, I only had my own skin to work with. With only the moonlight to guide me, I worked through the night until I was satisfied that it was perfect. Putting everything away and hiding it once again, I lay back in my cot and breathed a sigh of relief, calm for now. The moth resting on a tiny lantern on my thigh would serve to ground me to my goals for now until I saw her again.
Until they put the final needle in my arm, I’d never give up on us.
I still believed in the green light.