Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Thank you for dinner, Carmine. Despite everything, I had an okay time tonight.”
“I’m glad you did.” She walks to the door, but I grab her arm before she can go. She looks like she wants to cut my hand off. “You might still hate me, but you’re not going to forget tonight, are you?”
I let her go when she doesn’t answer. She pushes open the bathroom door and disappears.
I remain behind and start to count to twenty.
Chapter 6
Brice
The limo bumps along the uneven pavement. Sara looks at me and I do my best not to squirm. Her dark eyes are intense, her pretty face is pinched, and I know what she’s thinking.
I’m about to break down and start crying at any second.
But she’s wrong about that. I feel hollow and empty right now, like taking a limo to a minimum-security jail is totally normal, like going to visit my father behind bars is just another Tuesday afternoon. I’m numb, sterilized and cauterized, a white room of nothing.
That’s why I brought Sara. She’s the steadfast one, the serious one, the person I call on when I need shit to get done without endless conversations about feelings. When I need to talk about my emotions, I reach out to Robyn or Cassidy, but Sara?
She’s my ice queen. She’s everything I need.
It also helps that she’s a high-powered lawyer that doesn’t take bullshit from anyone.
“Do you know what to expect once we’re inside?” she asks casually when the jail comes into view.
Huge fences with barbed wire. A two-story building made from red brick like a high school. There are cars in the parking lot and a security officer sits in a car parked near the entrance, looking at his phone. He barely glances up as the limo parks and Sara shifts to face me.
“I researched online,” I admit and start to tug at my hair anxiously, but stop myself. That’s not how a Rowe behaves. I sit straighter and compose myself. “But walk me through it.”
And she does, without asking how it makes me feel. When she’s finished, I exit the limo and make sure the only things in my pocket are my ID card and my phone. Sara comes with me, and our heels clack on the pavement as we walk up the steps and into a small waiting room.
There are old plastic chairs bolted to the floor along the windows. Straight ahead, a tired-looking woman sits behind a tall desk with a computer and a phone. She doesn’t bother looking up. There’s an older couple sitting on the chairs, looking miserable. The floor’s grimy, black and white tiles. A metal detector looms to my right and a locked glass door is on the left.
The security guard checks us in, takes our IDs and our phones, and instructs us to wait. Sara sits next to me and puts a hand on my thigh when it starts to jostle. “Do you want me to wait out here or should I come back?”
I hesitate for a moment. “Come back with me.”
“Your father might not like it. Are you sure?”
“You’re my lawyer. I need you present.” I try to smile but it doesn’t feel like anything at all. “Mostly I just need you.”
She nods, face serious, and squeezes my knee. “You’ll be okay. He’ll be okay too. This is minimum security, a local jail. He’ll be safe here.”
“Right, okay, good.” His safety hadn’t even occurred to me and suddenly I can feel myself starting to spiral. Daddy’s in jail right now, he’s rotting in a prison cell, thrown in beside rapists and murderers and thieves—but I guess Daddy’s a thief now too. He embezzled so much money from the company and used it to start a crypto coin, and when the entire crypto market tanked, his coin disappeared in a puff of smoke, losing all of his money and a lot of other money besides.
Daddy ruined thousands of people. He lost regular folks their life savings in some cases, all because of his stupid crypto obsession. I should hate him like lots of people do online—there’s a whole cottage industry of people that get off on enjoying the pain and suffering of anyone with a big bank account—but he’s still my daddy. He raised me after Momma died and was always there for me; even when he had other obligations, he always made time for me. Rowe Oil was never more important, his shareholders never mattered, Grandpa’s opinion was second. It was always me and him.
I miss him so much it kills me, and I don’t understand why.
Another guard comes through a door beyond the metal detector and calls our names. I get up and Sara follows. We pass through the detector, down a short hall, and are deposited into a room divided in half by a huge plastic mirror. A shelf in front of us is scratched and nicked and marked by dozens and dozens of families. The chairs are ancient metal and scrape across the floor. Sara settles herself serenely.