Chapter 12
D evi got off the bus at the stop closest to the prison. Then she started walking.
Rohan didn’t like her coming here. Claimed it was too dangerous.
But she didn’t see how.
And she wasn’t leaving her brother to rot in a prison without visitors. Besides, she wasn’t just doing it out of the goodness of her heart.
She missed him.
Hugely.
And she needed to see him. It felt like everything in her life was a mess right now.
Their father was missing again. Off on a bender, but who knew when he’d come home. She hadn’t seen Vega again, but there were times when she swore that she felt eyes on her.
Maybe she was just imagining it.
It was always at night, when she was returning home from a shift. So, of course she was jumpy. She never knew what she was going home to. And the idea of bumping into Vega . . . yeah, it was always on her mind.
Maybe you should tell Hayes about him.
What the heck? Where had that thought come from? Why would she tell Hayes?
Hayes was a customer. Nothing more.
Sure, sometimes she thought about how good looking he was. And how amazing it might feel to have him touch her, hug her, kiss her.
But she thought that about other people . . . she just couldn’t think of who. However, she was certain she’d been attracted to other men at some time. Maybe a customer in the café or bar.
Maybe.
That had nothing to do with telling him about Vega. Why would he want to know?
Sure, he seemed weirdly focused on her safety. But that didn’t mean he wanted to know every time there was a threat to her.
Heck, in that case, she’d have to tell him about her father.
And she tried to avoid ever talking about that asshole.
Nope. Vega was her issue. And at the moment he wasn’t actually a threat. He’d probably just tried to freak her out last week when he said that he’d been seeing her around.
She still didn’t know why he’d helped her father home. The next morning, her father had no memory of it. That was nothing unusual, unfortunately.
Devi went through the process of being allowed to enter the prison and waited at the small table. She saw the moment he entered with a guard but didn’t get up until he was close.
Devi kept her movements slow. She’d learned that from the first time she’d visited when she’d flung herself at him and got into trouble with the correctional officer.
It had been a disaster that had ended with her in tears. Thankfully, a different correctional officer had taken pity on her and helped her out, talking to her about the best practice for visiting an inmate.
So the next visit had gone much easier. Even if Rohan had plainly told her not to visit again.
That wasn’t happening.
She hugged him tight. He seemed to have gotten bigger. Muscular. At least he seemed to be eating. She’d been worried when he went to prison that he might starve.
She didn’t know why, but she’d figured they didn’t serve up nice food in prison. Devi was mostly worried about him being picked on, though. Everyone knew how dangerous a prison could be.
So she was glad that he was getting bigger so he could protect himself.
“Devi,” he murmured. “I thought I told you not to visit again.”
“You always say that,” she said as she reluctantly pulled back when the guard cleared his throat.
She didn’t want to stop hugging him.
But she smiled at the guard in thanks. Clearing his throat was a nice way to warn them. She was aware that there were some not-so-nice ways that he could have split them apart.
“And you always ignore me.” He shot her a stern look.
Devi shrugged. “I’ve never listened to you before, why would I start now?”
He snorted. “That’s true. And you’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble that I usually had to get you out of.”
The trouble wasn’t usually her fault, though.
“Devi, what’s wrong? Are you in trouble?” Rohan asked.
“What? No. I’m not in trouble.”
“Devi. Don’t lie to me. What is it?”
“Our father,” she blurted out. Drat. She hadn’t meant to say anything. There was nothing Rohan could do in prison except worry about her. “He’s out on another bender.”
Rohan grimaced. “Christ, I had hoped he’d get his act together. Is it bad living with him?”
“I can handle Derick.”
“Are you sure?”
No, she wasn’t.
“I know what I’m doing when it comes to dear old dad,” she said confidently.
In reality she had no clue.
“You seem bigger,” she told him.
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that your way of telling me that I’m getting fat?”
“Uh, no. Of course not! Sheesh. I would never say that!”
“Because it seems like you’re getting too skinny.”
“Rohan!”
“Yes?” he drawled.
“You can’t comment on a woman’s weight.”
“But you’re not a woman. You’re my sister.”
“I’m still a woman,” she told him.
“You’re still gonna be the girl that I had to give the birds and the bees talk to. And help her with her first period.”
She grimaced. “God. Can we not talk about that? Although I’m still amazed you got that period book for me.”
“I stole it from the library.”
“You didn’t!”
He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t have money to buy one.”
“But . . . but a library is free! You could have signed up and borrowed it.”
“Um, yeah, I was seventeen and thought I was so cool. No way was I going to sign up to the library and then borrow a book about periods.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I see your point.” No seventeen-year-old boy wanted to be seen with a book on periods.
“What’s going on, Devi,” he murmured. “You look tired, you’ve lost weight. Is it all about the old man?”
She ran her hand over her face. “I’m fine. I’m just tired. It’s seven weeks until my showing.”
A big smile filled his face. “Dee-dee, that’s great. Have you got enough money for transporting everything?”
She nodded happily. “Yep. I paid the deposit and the rest is due on arrival of my stuff at the gallery. I’m really doing this. I’m going to make enough money to get away from him.”
“Good. You listen to me. You take that money and you move as far away as you can,” he told her fiercely.
She shook her head immediately. “That’s not happening. I’m not leaving you.”
“I’m in this place for another ten years at least. Maybe more.”
It wasn’t fair. It was a waste of his life. And for what? A bungled fucking trial.
He’d only been in here for three months . . . how were they both going to handle him being in here for another ten years?
Devi felt tears well up, but she forced them back.
“It’s not fair. You didn’t do this, there is no way you would ever kill Marcus.”
They were best friends and they had been since they were little. She knew that her brother would never harm him. But the cops hadn’t cared about that. All they cared about was making a quick arrest.
No one else believed in his innocence. No one but her.
“I was found at the scene with his blood on me,” he pointed out.
“You were trying to stop the bleeding.”
“It didn’t look that way to the cops.”
“Because they’re idiots! They saw you standing over the body and decided you must have done it.” Agitation filled her. “They didn’t even bother to look for anyone else.”
“I’m not just anyone, little sister,” he said soothingly. “I’m in a gang.”
“We both know you didn’t do it.”
“Yeah, but you can’t blame the cops for thinking that I did it. I was there. I had blood on me. I didn’t see anyone else around. And the text that I received from Marcus somehow disappeared off both his phone and mine.”
Yeah. That was the real issue with his explanation. He’d gotten a text from Marcus that he was in trouble and he’d sent him a pin where he was. But when the cops checked both phones the messages were gone.
She didn’t understand how that could happen. How could those messages just disappear?
“Someone set you up,” she said quietly.
“I know. But there’s no way to know who.”
There could be. She just had to put her mind to it.
“Don’t,” her brother said firmly.
“Don’t what?” She gave him an innocent look.
“I know that look, Devi. And you made me a promise, remember?”
Drat. He’d made her promise not to interfere.
“We never go back on our promises, do we?”
Devi swallowed heavily. “I can’t stand you being in here. You did nothing wrong.”
He just shook his head. But she knew what he was thinking. That he had done some bad things. That he deserved to pay for them. But she knew him . . . desperation had drawn him to join the gang.
However, he’d never kill anyone. He’d never harm anyone who was an innocent. And he’d definitely never kill Marcus.
But neither of them could say anything. Not there.
“That quack lawyer should have gotten your sentence reduced,” was what she said instead.
Sixteen years. Ten without parole.
At least it wasn’t life without parole. The cops couldn’t prove a motive, and she was certain the lawyer could have used that to get the sentence reduced further.
All right, all of her law knowledge came from television, but it wasn’t hard to tell that asshole, Stein, hadn’t done the best job for her brother.
Rohan shook his head at her. “I know you want to believe the best in me. It’s your job. But I’m not a good guy, Dee-Dee.”
“Of course you are.”
He sighed, looking exhausted. “Prison changes you. The things you have to do to survive, they aren’t things I want you to know about.”
Her stomach tightened. She’d love to destroy that Alan Stein. She didn’t know how Sondra could be married to him. Sure, she was a bit self-involved but wasn’t a terrible person.
“You are not to go looking into any of this. It is not your job. You are not some amateur sleuth. Your job is to make gorgeous pottery and sell it to rich people for obscene amounts.”
“Oh, is that my job description is it?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood. She got to see him so rarely and she didn’t want this to become just doom and gloom.
“It is. Get free of this life, little sister. I couldn’t, but you’re a much better person than me.”
“You’re a good person too.”
“I think the fact that I’m in this place proves that statement to be untrue.”