Chapter 34 Ronan
Thirty-Four
Ronan
It happened fast.
One day, I was facing down seven more years of my sentence. The next, Forrest Perry was in the visitors’ center at San Quentin, telling me I was getting out.
“Frankie recanted,” he said, his eyes lit up behind his glasses.
“He admitted it was Mitch who put him in the hospital.” He rummaged in his briefcase and pulled out a few documents, then held them up one at a time since I wasn’t allowed to touch them.
“Frankie’s affidavit…and this is the judge’s order for your immediate release and expungement of your record.
” He folded his hands on the table. “Mikey Grimaldi has been sentenced to a year for obstruction of justice and filing a false police report, and I’ve already taken the liberty of filing for your restitution. ”
“Wait…release?” I said dumbly. I hadn’t heard much after that. “I’m getting out?”
“Yes, and with some start-up cash to boot. The State of California is going to give you one hundred and forty dollars for every day you’ve been wrongfully imprisoned. Your release is set for eight days from now, which—by my calculations—means you’re looking at roughly $145,000.”
I stared. “I’m getting out in eight days?”
“Yes indeed. I wish it were immediate, but there’s some paperwork. Isn’t there always?” He chuckled until he read my expression. “I’m sorry, Ronan. I know this is a lot to take in. But in eight days, you’ll be a free man and with a nice chunk of cash to get you back on your feet.”
I hardly heard him. The money didn’t mean shit. Nothing mattered except…
Shiloh.
But I’d cut her off so that she’d move on. I’d only served three years instead of ten, but it was still too long to wait, to have a woman like her put herself on hold for me.
Four days later instead of eight, a guard came to my cell and told me to pack up my shit.
I said goodbye to my cellmate, Marcus, and to some of the guys I’d befriended out of survival necessity.
I was walked to processing, where my intake three years ago happened in reverse.
I was given the clothes I was arrested in—jeans, boots, a T-shirt, and my denim jacket.
I changed in a small room, ditching the dark-blue sweatpants and the light-blue shirt that looked like doctor’s scrubs.
The CO behind the counter slid me a small manila envelope.
Inside was my wallet, the keys to my apartment, and the compass pendant Shiloh had made for me.
I slipped it on and put the pendant against my skin, over my heart.
I could keep that at least.
The restitution cash hadn’t processed yet, but they gave me fifty bucks and a bus ticket to Santa Cruz, my last place of residence.
The management company I’d hired to take care of Nelson’s apartment buildings said repairs to maintain the Bluffs complex were too costly and not enough; it was on the verge of being condemned.
I figured I’d handle all that, make sure the tenants at both buildings were taken care of, and then…
I didn’t know what. Start over somewhere else maybe.
You could fall at Shiloh’s feet and beg her to forgive you.
Nope. Too fucking selfish. I couldn’t shut her out and then show up and take it all back. Too late. It was too late…
I stepped outside into a bright April afternoon.
The sun felt different, shining in a different sky than the one we had over the prison yard.
Air, sun, food…none of it was the same on the inside—given in bits and pieces and taken away just as easily.
Suddenly the entire fucking world was available to me.
I’d give it all for Shiloh.
Fuck, I had to shut down these thoughts. My entire body ached for her, my heart screaming for her. But even if I wanted to undo it all, she probably hated me. Hopefully she did exactly what I wanted and moved on.
There was a sleek black SUV in the prison visitor parking lot. Two guys in dark sunglasses—security, by the size of them—stood at the front and rear. A driver sat behind the wheel, but the tinted windows darkened the back.
I started to walk past but stopped short when a door opened and Miller Stratton stepped out. My chest tightened so quickly, my eyes stung. He looked good. Bigger, healthier. He wore his usual jeans and T-shirt, but they were money now.
He slammed the door and leaned against the car, arms crossed. “You asshole.”
“Hey to you too,” I said, keeping my voice hard and pretending I hadn’t missed the fuck out of him.
We faced each other in that parking lot like gunslingers about to draw.
Miller opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He jerked his chin at the SUV. “Get in.”
“What for? You kidnapping me?”
“If I have to,” Miller said. “To make sure you get where you’re supposed to go.”
“I know where I’m supposed to go. I got shit to handle in Santa Cruz, and then…”
“And then? Does this shit that you need to handle include seeing Shiloh?” He read my silence and scowled. “Fuck that, man.”
“Stay out of my business, Stratton,” I said and started to walk.
He moved in front of me, put a hand on my chest, and shoved me.
“That’s not going to work anymore,” Miller said, getting up in my face. “You always kept your shit to yourself, and I respected that. Same with Holden. But he disappeared, and you shut everyone out for three fucking years.”
“I had my reasons.”
“They’re shit reasons.”
“What the fuck do you know about it?” I asked, shoving him back, my voice rising.
“You know what it’s like to spend three years in a place like this?
” I stabbed a finger behind me. “To be locked up like an animal—with animals—the guys who actually murdered or raped or beat the shit out of their victims? When I wasn’t on constant alert for a shiv in my back or a beatdown, there was the fucking humiliation of it all.
Maybe you’d have visited once or twice, but when the years on my sentence really sank in, you’d see it too.
That I wasn’t an actual person anymore. I was Inmate #339033. ”
“That’s not what would’ve happened,” Miller said, his voice low.
“No? Until four days ago, I was in for ten fucking years—”
“And I’d have stuck with you, no matter how long it took,” Miller raged back. “You don’t fucking get it, man. You and Holden, you’re my brothers. You don’t get to take a time-out from my life. I need you in it. I fucking need you.”
I hated how his words were seeping in through the cracks of the walls I’d built in prison. You don’t survive one minute on the inside unless you pack yourself in cold, unfeeling armor that is miles thick. Ten minutes free, and Miller was already tearing it all down.
“And Christ, Shiloh…” Miller shook his head, and something in his expression scared the shit out of me.
“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”
“She’s okay, but I’m not saying another word,” Miller said. “You want to know how she is, then you go see her. You have to see her. I’m not fucking around.”
“She’s not going to want that.”
“As if you would know?” Miller scoffed, then his voice softened slightly. “Come on. Get in the damn car. My security is going to think we’re having a lovers’ spat.”
“You sound like Holden.”
“Someone should.”
“You haven’t heard from him at all?”
“Nope. But he wrote a book. His first book, so naturally it hits number one on every list and wins every award under the sun.”
“Good,” I said. Not for the awards but because it meant he was still alive, somewhere out there. He hadn’t disappeared completely.
At the SUV door, Miller stopped. “You good? I mean…San Quentin can’t be a fucking cakewalk.”
“Not like selling out arena tours.”
He snorted. “They got TMZ in prison?”
“You’re a big deal, Stratton.” I smiled a little. “No one doubted that but you.”
Miller met my gaze for a moment and then put his arms around me, clasping me tight. It was the first time in three years I’d had physical contact with anyone that didn’t have violence lurking beneath it.
“We gotta get going,” Miller said, pulling back. “I’m under strict orders to deliver the package straight to Shiloh.”
“Whose orders?” I asked as we climbed into the leather interior of Miller’s car that reeked of money and was configured like a limo with seats facing each other. “How did you know I was getting out today?”
“Selling out arena tours has its privileges,” Miller said, taking a seat across from me.
“And that’s all I’m saying. Whatever you need to know about Shiloh, you have to hear it from her.
” He handed me a beer from the car’s mini fridge and popped one himself.
He clinked his bottle to mine. “Happy birthday.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“You turned twenty-one in there,” he said as the car rolled smoothly out of the parking lot. “You’re legal now.”
I’d had three birthdays in prison, but it could’ve been ten. I was twenty-two years old and free instead of almost thirty. The first cold swallow of beer hit my tongue. I nearly groaned.
Miller smiled. “Good?”
Good didn’t begin to describe it. I was free, sitting with my best friend, drinking a beer.
“Doesn’t feel real.”
“I can’t imagine it.”
“You look good,” I said. “Healthy.”
“Took a while to get there,” he said and told me all about his life postgraduation.
“You’re moving back to Santa Cruz?” I asked when he’d finished.
He nodded. “Until Violet finishes her undergrad. Then I’ll go wherever she wants to go for medical school. San Francisco probably. She doesn’t want to leave the Bay Area, and I’m not leaving her, so…”
He shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world. I toyed with the label on my beer bottle.
“Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”
I shook my head. “I did what I thought was best for her. And you.”
“I know, but you screwed up, Wentz. What’s best for us is you.”
***