Prison Promise (Prison Saints Book 1)

by Demi Vice

  “Wallace thought of me like the son he’d never had, even though he did have a son, Michael. But to be fair, Michael was a gutless man in need of some balls, but thank God he was a damned good lawyer.” I chuckled. “Wallace liked me, a lot, and I liked him, but I knew better than to get attached. So, I kept my distance. When my contract ended, Wallace renewed me in a heartbeat, but this time it was different. He pampered the shit out of me, claiming it was a bonus for doing such a good job my first year. I got paid one point five million, got a free small one-bedroom apartment in Boston, and a car, Wallace’s old Lexus.”

  “That was one of my favorite years. I didn’t kill anyone, and I had two titles. Jack the Bodyguard/Entertainer, and Jack the Photographer.” I let out a soft laugh, but my smile faded. “Unfortunately, that was also the year I went to prison. I might’ve not killed anyone, but that didn’t stop Wallace.”

  Ahri came closer to me. She sat in between my spread legs and rested her head on my inner thigh. I smiled at my precious girl and played with a lock of her hair as she looked up at me with her big onyx eyes.

  “What did Wallace do?” Ahri spoke softly, her cheek pressed against my leg.

  “The dumb bastard fell in love.” I took a deep breath, rubbing Ahri’s golden hair between my fingers. “I was going to his mansion in Rhode Island for his rehearsal dinner. It was my little tradition to go to his mansion early when there was a party to make sure everything was clean and ready, as well as getting first dibs on the black caviar appetizers. My job description that day was bodyguard/entertainment. I went in expecting the usual. Wallace would get bored of the party around the two-hour mark, then I would rescue him, telling him there was a problem or some bullshit like that. We would go downstairs to his bowling alley and play a game or two while we smoked some weed and joked around.”

  I looked down at the first job I did with Wallace.

  “Age: 24. Contract: Protect Wallace at a strip club while he gets down and dirty with some ho.” I sucked on my tooth. “He divorced his wife after the day I escorted him to the strip club. Wallace was supposed to marry that specific ho the day after the party, but they never got married. He found her fucking his pool boy on his kitchen counter before the party started. And he killed him.”

  I let out a heavy sigh and licked my lips in frustration. “The second I stepped inside his mansion. Something felt wrong. It was as if someone had muted my life until the sound of a knife hit the marble floor. The ping filled the whole mansion with an echo, turning my body inside out as I mindlessly followed the noise. The white marble kitchen floor was coated with the pool boy’s blood as it spread closer to the knife Wallace had dropped. The ho was on the floor, passed out from shock, but Wallace just stood there, shaking with fear and disbelief at what he had done.”

  “When I snapped Wallace out of his trance, he yelled at the top of his lungs, clearly seeing the full effect of his rage and jealousy. The guests were coming in an hour, and there was no fucking way I could’ve cleaned up the blood or made everything better. I couldn't make the crime invisible like I’d done hundreds of times in the past, so we came up with a plan. A plan that involved me, a nobody, a peasant to a rich man, taking the fall. We woke up the ho, and I made her choose between ratting us out or her life and money. She made the right choice. She called the cops on me, and that’s when our little lie began.”

  “I only got seven years with the help of Michael while Wallace paid for my happiness. He took my savings and turned it into a grand total of twenty-six point five million dollars. All of it legal. On top of that, Wallace showered me with expensive gifts like this penthouse, my car, and a few other things. The money he gave me was nothing compared to what he had, but it was all he could do to relieve his guilt. He tried to buy my forgiveness, and he did a damn good job of it. I know he still hates himself for what he did, I still hate him a little, but I forgave him…” I looked around my closet with a smile. “Obviously, I forgave him.”

  Ahri blankly watched me. Just looking at her made my heart feel as if it was expanding.

  “Y-you’re that rich?” Ahri spoke softly.

  “I told you I had some money.” I chuckled.

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Ahri grunted like a zombie. Her eyes bouncing between me and the legal pad. “How many men have you killed, Jack?”

  I sucked in the air as my teeth dried out. Shaking my head, I flipped through all the pages, the red ink representing kills.

  “Triple digits. I stopped counting after a hundred and focused more on the DPM. Dollars-per-men.” I stopped at a page where it was almost all red. Ahri tilted her head to the side as she bit the inside of her bottom lip. She wasn’t expecting that many bodies. “I’ll never regret my kills, Ahrianna. I know what I did was inhumane, but I’m greedy. I wanted my fucking dream, and I wanted it bad. I did anything and everything. I busted my ass to get here, and it was worth all the blood, bodies, and cleanups. And I’ll never regret it.”

  I stroked Ahri’s cheek and dimple, her skin as soft as velvet and almost glowing from all the sleep she’d had the past two days. My cheeks turned rosy as my grin got wilder.

  “When Wallace killed the pool boy. I didn’t get it. I thought Wallace was a fucking moron, a fool, to kill for love. Out of all the emotions in the book, love was never a reason to kill. Not in my eyes. I didn’t understand.”

  I bent down to Ahri’s beautifully parted lips and kissed her passionately.

  “I understand now,” I spoke softly.

  Ahri lightly gasped and looked back to her journal.

  “I’ve been Jack the Maid, Jack the Hitman, Jack the Thief, Jack the Blood Donor, Jack the Photographer—I’ve been it all. But now, I can add Jack the Arsonist to the list.”

  Ahri’s eyes filled with tears. “I-I-I thought—I thought you just got the journal…” She sniffed. “You-you killed him?”

  “I told you I would do anything and everything for you, baby girl. I would kill and die for you.”

  Ahri let her tears of joy stream down her face as she jumped on me so hard she knocked the wind out of my lungs when I fell back into my ottoman. She hugged me so tight I thought she wanted to earn the title, ‘Ahrianna the Suffocator.’

  “Thank you, Jack,” she cried and mumbled into my neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—” Ahri stopped and sat on my hips. “Wait—you’re gonna get caught, aren’t you. That’s just my luck.”

  I got up to my elbows and pulled Ahri by the back of her neck to steal a kiss. I whispered, “I never got caught for my crimes, remember?”

  I held my universe in my arms, and I held it tight. Ahri cried and thanked me countless times, begging for more details about my final kill. I told Ahri I finished the job she started, but she begged for all the details, and I caved. I told her he suffered for all his crimes and everything was safe and sound. Ahri was safe and sound.

  “So, then you got your whole dream. You got your penthouse, your clothes, your car, and your retirement.” She sniffed, rubbing her tears away.

  “You forgot I also get my wife and kids too.” I winked.

  Ahri pushed on my chest to keep her distance. “Yeah, I haven’t fully forgiven you, Jack. You need to slow down that fantasy.” She giggled nervously and rubbed the back of her neck.

  “Nah, I’m good. Spoiler alert: I’m a man who gets everything he wants…minus my retirement,” I grunted.

  Ahri pulled on an expressionless face. I explained to her about the delay in my retirement plan due to Daddy Emilio.

  “Jack the Babysitter.” Ahri let out a laugh as she walked toward her notebook and picked it up. “Did you read it?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  She flipped through the pages, going into the past until she spotted something that made her smile. She gave me the notebook and pointed. “Read that.”

  “I would fuck James—” I stopped and looked up at Ahri with an expression that read: Really? Are you serious? “I don’t want to read this, Ahrianna.”

  “
Keep reading, jealous boy,” she said dryly, her face as cold as stone, but her eyes were full of passion.

  I clenched my teeth and slowly read, “I would fuck James. I would kill Frank (attempt to kill him). And I would marry Wade. I would rather have all three, but Luke made me choose. If I could combine the Wolverine, the Punisher, and Deadpool. I would.”

  Ahri sat down next to me and dropped her head on my arm.

  “I’ve only ever loved three men,” Ahri confessed. “The Punisher; a brutal, vicious man, who never hurt innocent people. Not a woman or a child. The Wolverine; a fighter, and a fiercely loyal man with a good heart. And Deadpool; a wild, sexy, arrogant, and unpredictable mercenary comedian with a big mouth.” Ahri looked up at me. “You’re all three Jack.”

  “Wow, I’m dating Fidget.” I let out a hearty laugh while Ahri slapped my gut. I rubbed my stomach until I realized something. “Wait, was that your way of telling me you love me?”

  Ahri blushed. “In a terrible nerdy way…yes.”

  I tackled Ahri to the soft carpeted floor, my large hand covering the back of her head. I kissed her hard, stealing all of her air.

  “Say it,” I growled. “This time say it. Say that you love me.”

  “I love you, Jack, but you’re still not forgiven—”

  “Shut up.” I attacked her lips once more.

  We made out for a while until my body collapsed next to hers. It’s been too long since I’d slept. We laid in silence for a while until Ahri got up and grabbed the legal pad. She came back, taking a seat on my stomach as she rested her back on my bent knees.

  “Age: 18. $900: Sold hair to wig company.” Ahri laughed.

  “I don’t think I have to explain my, ‘anything and everything’ motto. It’s pretty straightforward.” I ran my hand up Ahri’s bare thigh and playfully pinched her.

  Ahri laughed at some of my petty crimes. The one time I stole a taco truck when I was high as fuck and sold it the next morning. Or the time I broke into some guys house to take his cat which was actually his ex-girlfriend's cat.

  Other crimes Ahri wanted more details about. Like the time I went to a strip club, kidnapped the owner, and threw knives around his body as a form of torture, so he didn’t miss his next payment to who-the-fuck-cares. Or the time I had to go all the way to Montreal, Canada, to kill a man who’d fled the country. That one took me a while since I needed to get a passport, which I was reimbursed for, and was now expired.

  I let Ahri read all my crimes as I went into my room to grab a pen.

  “Wanna do the honors?” I handed her the pen as she nodded with a crazy happy smile.

  Yep, Ahrianna Lore was my crazy other half.

  Ahri wrote: ‘Age: 33. $0: Death to Him by fire.’

  “You happy?” I asked.

  “Extremely,” she said with no hesitation.

  “Do you wanna be even happier?” I cocked my eyebrow.

  Taking her notebook and mine, I headed toward the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels from my bar, a pack of paper matches, and a pack of cigarettes.

  “I’m not in the mood to drink.” Ahri gave me sass.

  “Who the fuck said we’re drinking?” I threw the notebooks in the sink and poured the Jack Daniels on the pages. “Anything that can take you away from me. Gone. Anything that can take me away from you. Gone.”

  I slammed the bottle of Jack Daniels down on the counter and slid it across until it hit the wall. I went over to Ahri, picked her up by the waist and placed her on the white marble island across from the sink where I joined her to watch our little show. I lit a cigarette and gave it to Ahri for a hit, but she denied it.

  “I only smoke when I’m stressed,” she said with a deep dimple as she kicked her legs in the air and watched the sink.

  “Not stressed?” I smirked.

  “Not even close.” Ahri pulled on the white shirt that made her look like my angel on a white marble pedestal.

  “Good,” I said before taking one more drag and flicked the cigarette into the sink.

  Never had I ever seen something move in slow motion like that cigarette flipping in the air. The cigarette lit up the sink. The confessions of our sins blowing up in a ball of fire before the flame went steady. The fire was a beautiful rage of darkness and life.

  “Love is a spirit all compact of fire, not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.”

  “Shakespeare?”

  “Always.” I dropped my head down on Ahri’s hair.

  “What’s it mean?”

  I laced my hand with Ahri’s. We watched small flecks of burned paper particles rise from the heat.

  “To me, it means: Love is the spirit of fire. Filled with excitement, strength, and hope. It will not sink or weigh us down, but instead, it will light up everything it touches as the ashes ascend. It is brutal and beautiful, powerful and pure, chaotic and calm. Fire is light. Love is sunlight, a necessary source of survival.”

  Ahri squeezed my hand and sighed. “I’m going to have a lot of fun learning about you, Jack.” She smiled against my shoulder.

  I chuckled. “This is where our real lives start, Ahrianna.” I kissed her soft lips. “I’ll make sure you get everything you want. It’s the least I can do when I got everything I need.”

  AHRI

  Jack was fully reclined in his red leather seat. He got comfortable the second we parked, taking off his boots and setting his long legs on the dashboard while he did more research on all the people who lived in Golden Ridge. He was still trying to find Link, but no luck. I, on the other hand, sat stiff as a board, staring the entrance of the prison I should’ve entered two hours ago.

  “Ahrianna.” Jack’s voice thick and cut, his eyes still on his phone.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled.

  “Ahrianna,” he said in a firmer tone.

  This was the thirty-second time he’d said my name since we parked.

  “Yeah…” I peeked to my side to see Jack with an eyebrow so high I thought it was going to come off his face.

  This was also the thirty-second time I’d said, ‘yeah’ since we parked.

  I had been stalling to meet Luke. I should’ve met him last Saturday, but I wasn’t feeling well. I had killer period cramps which I’d never gotten in the past.

  Jack and I ended up staying on the couch all day, watching all the movies I hadn’t had time to watch because of lack of hours in my day and Jack hadn’t seen because of prison. We ordered anything covered in cheese or chocolate from The Bayne restaurant, and we ate like pigs. Jack had to bribe the head chef, Mateo Flores (again) so I could have my special grilled cheese sandwich.

  I wasn’t the only one that was feeling down that day. Jack was too. Not because we couldn’t visit Luke, no, Jack was upset because he’d failed to knock me up. I’d never seen him so down. He plopped on the couch in his black briefs, his head on my lap as he stared at my stomach with a pouty sad face. He rubbed my bloated belly and kissed it, making it feel better. Jack let out heavy sighs here and there saying, “You wouldn’t be in so much pain if my little Jack’s swam faster.”

  Yeah, sure. Did you forget about the pain of labor, Jack? I thought.

  Jack had some high hopes for his ‘little Jack’s,’ but so did I. The idea of being pregnant with Jack’s baby put a huge smile on my face, warmed up my heart, and made me feel whole.

  I’d moved in with Jack right away. But it’s not like I had a choice, nor did I want one. The day after our kitchen bonfire we went over to Wazowski’s, grabbed all my things, paid the early termination fees, and left.

  I quit my jobs at Maddy’s and Diablo’s that same day and said my goodbyes to the only two people I was going to miss. Gomez and Felicia.

  Gomez was upset with the idea of saying goodbye, but Jack and I would still visit him. I would miss the bar too much, and Jack couldn’t pass the chance of pissing off Gomez, bringing Papi Gomez out to play.

  Felicia, on the other hand, was thrilled that I was finally quitting, mostly bec
ause she was leaving too. She was moving to California. Yep, out of the blue, but that was Felicia. She did this a few years back when she moved to New York because she was bored with her life in Chicago. When her money ran out, she came back to live with her parents and repeated the process.

  “Ahrianna,” Jack mumbled, this time looking at me.

  Thirty-three.

  I dropped my eyes to my highlighter yellow shirt and tugged on the hem, covering more of my loose jeans.

  I sighed, “Yeah.”

  Thirty-three.

  My eyes focused on the missing button on Luke’s jacket. I figured wearing his clothes would be a good icebreaker. I could only hope. Jack, too, was wearing Luke’s clothes—the Waldo shirt. Jack thought it would be a good way to show off Luke’s clothes on a new sexy model and a good way to mess with him.

  “Ahrianna, it’s time.” Jack grunted, sitting up and moving his seat back into position. He slipped on his Docs and tucked in the shoelaces before he got out of the car for a cigarette.

  “Yeah. I know,” I spoke to myself, this time choking the handle of the door.

  Jack stayed by my side the whole time we walked the long journey to the visitation area. The guards we passed tensed up when they saw Jack. I’m sure they weren’t expecting to see Jack so soon.

  We got to the front desk where we had to show our ID’s. I was allowed to go in without any trouble since I was family, but Jack had to pull a few strings. Strings that involved money, persuasion, and connections—Emilio. Jack technically wasn’t allowed to be inside the prison nor did he have the right paperwork, but something tells me he was going to get his way.

  “Hey, why don’t you go inside. I’ll come in when I get this figured out.” Jack kissed my forehead and pushed me towards the door.

  I followed the guard who escorted me into the visiting room, my gut knitting into a tight sweater as I walked passed the orange jumpsuit inmates who were glaring at me. I took a seat at a metal table meant for four and fidgeted with the last button on my jacket, hanging by a thread. I waited patiently and anxiously as I watched the white chipped door inmates came out of.