Chapter Fourteen
Poetry and Principals
Menace
“You’ve got mail, inmate,” Larissa taunted, tapping the envelope against the bars.
I opened my eyes with a groan and focused until I could clearly see what was making the sound. I reached for it, and she let envelope feather against my hand before jerking it away again.
“Who is the lucky girl?”
I narrowed my gaze at her and the letter dropped back into my palm. She grunted and walked off without saying another word.
“Asshole,” I mumbled, placing the envelope on my chest.
I closed my eyes, having every intention of going back to sleep, when the alarm sounded and the lights in the hallway began to flash.
A slew of curses sounded from down the hall as my fellow inmates took note of it. We all understood what it meant. Another incident in the general population, which meant more time on lockdown for all of us. It wasn’t such a big change, if you weren’t aware of it, as I’d learned the last time we were placed on such restrictions.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes before pulling the contents from the envelope. If they started shaking down the cells, I’d risk losing it to the chaos and rubble. Judging from the sounds of the adjoining unit, that was exactly what they were getting up to.
Menace,
Sorry I was such a bitch at first. I guess you caught me with my claws out. I’m usually not so combative. I feel bad turning that energy on someone who already has nowhere to unleash the chaos and everything they’re carrying around with them daily. It wasn’t fair of me to add to all of that. I appreciate you reaching out to me. No one except my brother and my bestie knew that I was home.
It isn’t that I resent my dad or have animosity toward him. Rather, that he and my mother can be overwhelming together. I was looking for the right time to tell each of them that I was home for good, but Sauce took the liberty, and I ended up facing off with both of them last night as a result of his loose lips.
I don’t know you. All I know of your patch is the title my father threw at me when he intercepted your last letter. I’m not even sure what it means, or what a person with such a title could have done to warrant prison time. So, what did you do? I mean– what are you accused of doing?
I don’t dislike bikers. I disliked growing up as the daughter of the president of the Dirty Savages. Trying to find a job in high school was a joke. The guys at school wouldn’t look at me twice. They’d all been warned. Everyone knew I was off limits. I never even had a guy ask for my number until I was in the military. It took two promotions and a few thousand miles before anyone could look at me without the shadow of my father and his club impeding their vision.
I resent that.
I’ve included two pictures for you. One is a desert sunset. I swear you can see the heat despite the late hour in that one. The other is me and another recruit in Chicago. It was taken the day we completed basic training. I was so happy in that picture; I was sure the accomplishments of that day guaranteed I’d never end up back here.
Yet, here I am.
Blah. Enough of all that. I have a procedure scheduled tomorrow that will leave me laying around for a while. Send me a distraction, would you? How old are you, Lennox? You write a lot, do you read? Do you have an ol’ lady?
Sammy
I’d have paid good money to have seen Ziggy’s face when he confiscated that letter. I paused when I read about it and smirked, envisioning the scene. I felt for her, but– damn.
He kind of had one to the nuts coming for leaving me like this.
I folded the letter, forcing myself not to place the blame of shit on Zig. I was a man. I did what I did. It just sucked that he hadn’t given me a chance to make shit right or explain myself outside of cuffs.
I didn’t have to wait long to explain myself, since we were only on lockdown for three days. Exactly thirty minutes after the status was lifted, Larissa appeared at my cell.
“What the fuck did you do?” she whispered, her eyes round with excitement and her smile wide, despite the seriousness of her tone.
I whipped around on my bunk to stare at her.
“The fuck you on about?” I mumbled.
“You fucked Jolene Nash, didn’t you?” She hurriedly shoved the key into the cell.
I slowly stood up, confused as hell by the confrontation and more than a little disturbed by her suggestion. It was her opening the cell without another guard present that alarmed me most, though.
“What’s going on?” I panicked.
“I ain’t never seen Ziggy that fuckin’ mad. He looks like one of them animals they puff up before a fight. I’m telling you what– Even the visiting room officer is on high alert. He refused to leave Zig’s side. Just standing there like he’s guarding a national threat.”
She threw the door open, and I stepped back.
“What are you doing?” She laughed. “Do you want your visit or not?”
I opened my mouth to remind her she was supposed to cuff me from outside but decided to flash a smile and turn around instead.
“Guess I did it now.” I cleared my throat, trying to act like her familiarity meant nothing.
It meant everything if another inmate saw it, or her superiors. If I was in prison, I might have analyzed it further. Did she trust me? Have some romantic interest? Was she just being flighty for the sake of a drama rush?
I stopped worrying about her when Ridgeway finished searching me and I finally saw Zig’s face for myself through the door before it buzzed open. I could feel the restrained rage rolling off of him, twenty-foot distance, and industrial grade, correctional-style windowpane be damned.
So could everyone else. It was written in his every feature. From the pinched, dark brows to the hate-filled hazel hues that were narrowed on me. His upper lip curled like he hadn’t quite decided on a low enough curse to bless me with, and it stayed that way for more than fifteen minutes.
The tension in the room became so thick it could smother. I didn’t push past that lump of discomfort in my throat either. I knew if I did, I’d come across that table and I’d never struck another club brother. I didn’t want to start with our president. I really did respect him, even if those intimidation tactics he was employing made that primal side of me tickle with a visceral need to answer it.
“Ten minutes, y'all. Visiting hours end at six,” Larissa reminded the room.
She and Ridgeway had remained with the two guards assigned to the visiting room. A woman I didn’t know was working behind the desk, her partner was an older man who was still lingering to Zig’s right just as Larissa described.
“You felt like an afternoon eye-fuckin’ and decided to swing through, or you got something to say to me, Ziggy?” I abruptly sat forward and broke the silence.
He swallowed, the veins in his temple brushing to the surface as that temper of his popped. “I knew you were getting reckless, and Ioved you still. I kept you in position and patch, even when I knew better. That’s why I didn’t call for your permanent out when that decision bit me in the ass. I had no one to blame for your unchecked recklessness.”
He shrugged, his eyes glistening wildly with restrained emotion.
“But– brother, if you think I’m going to idly sit by and watch you tangle my Babygirl up in whatever mess you’re hellbent on making of yourself, you’re fuckin’ crazy.”
If any son of a bitch in the street asked me what sitting across from Ziggy Nash would look like, the day Zig found out that bastard had interest in his daughter, this is exactly what I’d have predicted. Any of us would have. We all knew him. Zig was a predictable mother fucker. He really was. He was dependable. Durable.
And he was a member of my club telling me I wasn’t good enough for his daughter. The fact that I hadn’t asked after her didn’t make a fuck of a difference. That little fuse inside of me sparked under the pressure and audacity.
For Sammy’s sake it would have been better if I’d leaped over the table. I could have gone back from that.
I wasn’t a man of many principals, but he’d just lit a fire under the short supply I had left.
A smile split my stubbled features as I saluted him with my chin and balanced my weight on the stool without an ounce of concern in my posture, “I ain’t called Menace for nothing, brother. You know that. So, where do we sit? You and me? Are you gonna be a snake and use a club vote to put me down now that you’ve put me out bad over your– Babygirl?”
I injected a bit of condescension into the last word, and laughed, before taunting him further, under my breath “You gonna put me down in here, Zig?”
Zig snorted and his mouth twitched into a smile, “No, Menace.”
He calmly shrugged, knocking the humor out of me at once, “I’m a savage, not a fuckin’ snake. I’ll wait until your out date and then I’ll put you down myself, son.”
“That’s time,” the guard at the desk announced.
“Bet.” I tapped the table and stood up, not breaking eye contact with him.
Zig nodded and started toward the door.
Fuck.
It wasn’t like I could call him to sit back down and talk it out like brothers. It wasn’t like I could beg his forgiveness, even if I wanted to placate.
Man, I hated being locked up.
The door swung shut behind Ziggy and the visitors as they were led back to the front of the county jail.
Fuck it. If there was one thing every inmate excelled at, it was locking things down through pen and paper. I hadn’t meant to sell her dreams or set out to tangle her up in a situationship, but Zig wasn’t leaving me a lot of options.
Principle demanded I use her as a personal fuck you at this point.