by Korry Smith
My hands shot up in the air without hesitation, interlocking my fingers behind my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Alex's fist tightened around the phone, squeezing it into obliteration. He dropped the plastic pieces to the wet concrete and raised his arms.
"Turn around and face the wall."
They were all descending upon us, circling, and closing in, making escape impossible. As we followed their demands, I caught a glimpse of Alex's eyes, fierce and resistant. He was a renegade, always wanting to fuck the world up, and I was thankful the guns were with Peter and Adriana, long gone from there. I knew either he or I would do something stupid to get ourselves killed.
"Sorry, baby," Alex whispered, leaning his forehead against the wall, unable or refusing to look at me.
"Me too," I whispered back.
"Shut up!" the fed snapped, pulling my hands down from my head and cuffing them behind my back.
He patted me down and read me my rights. They were doing the same to Alex. It made sense that it should happen this way. We rode together, and now, the law arrested us together, side by side.
They swung us around and pushed us towards the waiting unmarked FBI SUVs, but there was a fork in the road, where he went right, and I went left. They planned to transport us separately.
When Alex realized this, our hearts getting further away, he struggled in the fed’s hold and shouted over at me.
“Don't you fucking tell them anything, all right? Nothing! Do you got me?"
"I got you!" I shouted back.
"Madison Rose…" His eyes, desperate and filled with remorse, searching out mine. "I fucking love—"
And that was where it ended as they threw him in the car and slammed the door shut, cutting off my lifeline.
"What? No," I said, shaking my head, unable to process what was happening.
The engine roared to life, deafening to my ears, and my eyes watched in terror as the SUV rolled forward. The pull that tied me to him was quickly slipping through my fingers, fading into nothing.
I fucking lost it.
"ALEX!" I screamed, moving to run after him but the fed thrust me back and kept me in place. "Let go of me!" Bucking my hips and thrashing my head back, I hit the fucker in the nose.
He cursed. Tightening his grip on my arms, he lifted me off the ground and tossed me in the back seat. It wasn’t gentle, and the impact busted my bottom lip open. I scrambled to get up, catching a brief glimpse of the man's face before the door closed with a heart-wrenching finality.
Two steps sealed my fate.
Two steps were all it took for them to murder me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Three feds yanked me out of the SUV and marched their prize through the Federal building. They tossed me into a room and closed the door. The lock clicked over, and I stood there, massaging the soreness out of my wrists. There was nothing in this sardine can, besides four walls, a table, two metal chairs, and an overhead camera in the far corner. The red light was blinking. The assholes were watching. I didn't care. Fuck them. They weren't getting shit out of me.
I promised Alex.
"Don't even agree to take water from them," he had said. "That's how they get you."
It seemed absurd to deny a simple amenity, but he explained that the first one was free, but after that, everything had a price. There was sense behind his logic, no matter how off the wall and paranoid it made him sound.
The absence of him was growing stronger with each passing second, and it was tearing me apart from the inside out. My grief amplified by the depressing effect of the coke as it circulated its way out of my system. I felt anxious, flicking my tongue on the roof of my mouth, and shaking my leg, jittery and uncontrolled.
My thoughts were wild, hovering between violence and despair. In one aspect, I wanted to curl up into a fetal position and cry my heart out, but then the fighter in me, fantasized about ripping out every one of these fucking cops' throats. Sometimes these contradicting thoughts happened simultaneously. Anger and sadness was all I knew, and it was drowning me. A slow, agonizing pull into an abyss of madness, and it was only going to get worse.
As minutes turned into hours with no one coming in to question me, I wondered how they caught us.
Did the senator find out we were in his house and alert the FBI?
We're they watching us, and if so, for how long?
None of it made sense.
I was sure, almost overly confident, along with Alex, we would get away scot free.
We should be on a beach right now, with our toes in the sand, kissing and making love in the surf. That was the plan, wasn't it? A happily ever after? That was what he fucking promised me.
Damn him!
Why couldn't we just run off to Mexico with his family like I wanted? Why did he have to be so stubborn with this stupid vendetta against his father—and for what? Nothing!
Look at us now, Alex, they arrested us, and you're gone! I can't hear your voice or see your smile or kiss your lips. The heat of your touch has faded, and I'm going crazy without you. Remember what I said? You’re fucking air to me. I need you just to breathe!
These walls were confining and restrictive.
Everything around me, so suffocating and isolating, and I was gasping.
Alex, you bastard, can you fucking hear me? How could you let this happen to us? How could you let them take you away?
God, it hurt.
So fucking much.
I was dizzy and nauseated as my world spun wildly out of control. Falling into the nearest chair, I pressed my forehead against the table's hard, cold surface, and wrapped my arms around my waist, hoping to suppress the aching pain. I needed to compose myself and expel Alex from my brain. I can't freak out and lose my head. I was stronger than this.
Fucking keep it together, kid.
Clenching my fists and embedding my sharp nails into the skin, I sat up as the door opened. A fed walked in, one I'd never seen before. He was older, tall, and a woodsy man with heavy facial hair. The navy suit he wore was stiff and pressed.
I disliked him instantly.
"Hello, Madison," he said, waiting for me to say something, but I kept my mouth shut. He took a seat across from me. "My name is Agent Garrett. I'm here to help you any way I can, do you understand?"
I stared at him, unmoving and not at all amused, but on the inside, I was laughing.
Help me? Really? Doubtful.
Pulling out a manila folder from underneath his arm and opening it on the table, he took out several photos and splayed them in front of me. I glanced, not looking down, but recognizing them. They were the same ones Nyx showed me last week of the senator and a mob boss named Petrolia, Pecora…or something.
He stuck a finger out and pointed to the black and white image. "Do you know these men?"
I shook my head.
"Are you sure?" He drew out the last word, knowing that I wasn't hundred percent truthful. They caught Alex and me red-handed, stealing the money and assuming the alias the senator and the men in the pictures had concocted.
But I refused to give in. I crossed my arms over my chest and slouched down in the chair.
He was frustrated. I could see it in his eyes as he asked me question after tedious question. Some I knew the answers to and others I didn't. He tried to persuade me to talk to him for about an hour, using various tactics, like dangling my freedom in front of me or making empty promises—none of which, I was willing to partake.
He was a chatty man, and during that time, I'd learned about how they caught us…or not us, per se. It was the senator and the mob bosses they were looking to snag. The FBI had been investigating them and their involvement in organized crime for a long time.
After many years of having the NSA unmask them in their phone conversations, and stake-outs from afar, they finally got the break they were looking for with an informer. A man with close ties to the senator had contacted the FBI. They told them about the secret bank accounts, the laundered money
, and the controlling of the polls.
It was by dumb luck they were watching our bank on that specific day, waiting for the senator to withdraw the stolen money. They were closing in on him and knew he was going to run.
Instead, Alex and I showed up, trading one crook for the other. They were aware of our activities, from the assault on Terry to the string of robberies. It wasn't until the extortion with the senator did they start looking at us more closely.
They caught this generation's Bonnie and Clyde by accident, taking this morning's investigation into a whole new direction.
"Look," he said with a tired sigh, gathering the photos, and slipping them back into the folder, "I know the game you're trying to play here, Madison. Clam up and refuse to answer my questions. It's a good plan. Smart one, even." He leaned across the table. "I bet he taught you that, didn't he?"
My heart pounded, and I felt the air being sucked out of me. The mere mention of Alex impacted me in a way I hadn't expected. My demeanor changed, and I was alert, my eyes wide and attentive, glancing at the door and the wall next to me.
He was close, I could feel it.
The next room maybe.
All my promises and rules went out the window.
"Where is he?" I blurted out.
Agent Garrett startled by my voice, hearing it for the first time, feral and threatening, and it took him a moment to respond.
"He's here, being questioned, just like you."
"I have to see him!” I jumped to my feet and charged the door.
They locked it, and I jerked at the handle, frantic to see him, to feel him. The tears were rising to the surface, and the gnawing, hollow throbbing pain my chest intensified to a level that made me dangerous.
Fuck! Let me out!
"Madison." Agent Garrett placed a hand on my shoulder. "You can't see him right now. It's not possible. Just come back and sit down."
“NO!" I shouted, shrugging off his condescending touch. "I need him. You don't understand!”
"You think this is love that you're feeling? I've been doing this job for a long time, and I know guys like him. They see a pretty and young, impressionable girl, like yourself, take advantage of her trust and get her into all kinds of trouble."
I shot him a scowl, drilling an imaginary hole into his lopsided skull. "I'm not a victim."
"No, you're not," he said. "But you deserve better than what he's got to offer."
That bullshit was the same conversation the cop in Phoenix had with me, and if it didn't set me straight back then, it wasn't going to work now. My irrational and deadly love for Alex had multiplied to an insurmountable and insane level since that night.
No one could convince me to give him up.
"I'm going to be honest with you," he said, gaining my attention. "I don't need a confession. We have enough evidence to convict you both."
The thought of Alex in a cell for the rest of his life killed me.
I rested my forehead against the bitter wood, so depleted and forlorn. "Arrest me, please. Just let him go."
"You're willing to trade your freedom for his?"
"Yes."
"You're eighteen, Madison—a God damn child! You haven't even begun to live.” He pointed at the wall on my right. “And you're telling me that some piece of shit is worth spending the rest of your life in prison for?"
"He’s not a piece of shit!" I snapped, narrowing my eyes in contempt. "And you have no fucking idea how much he's worth it to me."
There was a tense moment between us, the good guy and bad guy, going head to head and coming to an impasse. He wasn't going to get what he wanted out of me, and he knew that. I was a lost cause, corrupted into a life of crime with no intent on turning back.
He saw me for what I was now.
A hardened criminal.
"How about I give you some more time to think about the rest of your life.” Agent Garrett grabbed my hands and cuffed them behind my back, cinching them tight. He dragged me away from the door and forced me down into the chair. "In the meantime, would you like some water?"
After hours of silence and refusing to eat or drink, they had no choice but to charge me with one count of grand theft auto, several counts of armed robbery, three counts of aggravated assault without the intent to kill, and one count of extortion against a US Senator.
Twenty-five years to life without the possibility of parole was what I faced.
Any hope for a deal by giving up information about the senator, the one they truly wanted, squashed a day later when they received a package in the mail, courtesy of Alex Ryan and Madison Perez. They had everything they needed to make an arrest, and we no longer were any use to them.
In one, sure swoop, we'd managed to fuck ourselves twice.
I demanded and shouted at the top of my lungs for a lawyer, on several occasions, but since the charges against us were broad and each state was clamoring over who got us first, it was hard to get a public defender. Eventually, Arizona won that war, and the feds received the order to transfer us there by Thursday morning.
While I waited, they stuck me in a holding cell, but not a typical one I'd seen on crime shows. It was a lot like the interrogation room, except smaller, with a bed and a toilet. I'm not sure how many days I was in there, and with no concept of time with a sunrise and sunset, it was impossible to tell.
Coming off coke in lock-up was the fucking worst. My head was splitting into two with a severe migraine, and I vomited into the stainless-steel-God four times. I felt like absolute shit. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the cot was lumpy and wayward springs were stabbing me in the back. I spent those nights coming down wide awake and sick.
I was on an island by myself.
No calls, no visitors, no mail.
They refused to tell me what was going on with Alex and I was starting to think he never existed in the first place. The only proof I had that he was real was the name tattooed into my skin. It was my beacon home. One day, I told myself, I'll be able to see my name written boldly in black and smell the flesh that kept the ink warm.
On the bright side, and I had to really look for one, a few days into my solitary confinement, I got my period. It was a relief, one less thing for me to stress over. And honestly, I couldn't imagine bringing a child into this world where both parents were locked-up in prison. The stigma that would follow the kid its entire life for being half and half of a fucked-up pair wasn't fair to him or her.
Then again, it saddened me to not have that part of Alex, even for just a second. It was a selfish desire in me to keep something that was no longer attainable.
The love I felt was nothing but a dream now and a figment of my depraved imagination.
I was starting to forget everything about him.
"Perez," Brewster called, another fed in a building of hundreds, unlocked my cell door and shoved it open. He stepped in and gestured for me to stand. "Hands behind back and face to the wall."
It was standard protocol every time they pulled me out of my cell. It was a rare occurrence that they ever moved me out of this hell hole, but today was Thursday, and my transportation to Arizona to stand trial for my crimes was in full swing.
Escorting me out to the elevators, I searched the halls for Alex but came up disappointed. It was something I did to myself, even though I knew better. They weren't going to allow me that courtesy and were smart enough to keep our paths from crossing.
How long had it been now? Six days? Why did it seem like forever?
It was the worst torture, knowing he was close but feeling as though he was on the other side of the world. I've never felt this empty and alone, or heartbroken and fragile. Things were bleak, and I tried to hold out hope that I would see him again, but it was a lie I told myself to keep breathing another day.
When the truth does break through my denial, and it will, my heart will cease to beat.
Brewster and I came to a stop outside the elevators. There were two federal officers in front of us, but I never gl
anced up to get a good look at their faces. My eyes trained on the floor, mesmerized by the tiny imperfections.
"That guy is a fucking mess; did you see him?" one douche said to the other.
"The God damned skinhead in holding cell four?" douche two replied.
Ten cell doors down from mine.
"Yeah, that fucking lunatic. Christ, the first night he was here, we had to restrain him. Did you hear about that?"
"Restrain him?" the other douche asked with surprise. I looked up quickly, and he had a confused expression on his face. "He was that violent?"
"Oh, yeah. That fucker went ballistic on our men, busting Andrew's nose and cracking a couple of Smith's ribs. It took six guys to hold him down."
"Fucking-A, man. What set him off?"
"From what I hear, it's over his girl…"
Brewster cleared his throat, and both douches glanced back. Their eyes landed on me, up and down, they looked, judging, and speculating. The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside, waiting for us to join them, but Brewster held me back and waved them on. They nodded and continued talking in hushed voices, their discussion lost and muted behind the closing of the elevator.
Brewster pressed the 'down' arrow, and we stood there in silence, his grip tightening on my arm.
"They were talking about my Alex, weren't they?"
"Yes," he said, but that was all he was going to give me.
It wasn't much, but I savored every detail, replaying their conversation over in my head. By the time the next elevator came, I was shaking to the point of collapsing. The truth finally hit me with an excruciating vengeance. I was never going to see my heart again. Our brief love affair severed and ripped away from us was over now. No sandy beaches or promises of a happily ever after. That was a fantasy and prison was my reality.
It was about time I got used to it.
The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Brewster walked me into the lobby and handed me off to Garrett, who signed me out and collected all my transfer forms. There was an 11:20 'Con Air' flight waiting for me across town. The one-way, non-stop trip would take a total of three hours and forty-five minutes. I would be back on Arizona soil a little after one that afternoon.