ATONEMENT | MAFIA ROMANCE | SMUT

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Now, I sleep in a dank prison cell, on the top bunk, the portly inmate, snoring from the bed below. I eat meals with an uninventive combination of ingredients, such as unbuttered mash potato, stodgy pasta bake, fish in watery parsley sauce and spicy vegetable patties. I shower with an audience, too many oscillating cocks and hirsute backsides. I watch daytime television alone while listening to prisoners bicker over supply and possession and prison commissary. I returned to bed, alone, wishing my wife was sleeping by my side.

Although I had become acclimated to new surroundings, I laid awake at night, thinking about life beyond four walls and all the things I took for granted. My loyal subjects, for example. I'd kill each and every inmate for an afternoon with Brad. He knew how to handle me, in all situations, come rain or come shine, against all odds, at any sacrifice, through thick and thin, come hell or high water.

He's not my right-hand man for nothing.

I chose him because I saw myself in him.

Granted, I mightn't admit innermost thoughts aloud, but I missed the son of a bitch. I missed his blissful jubilance, his amusing eccentricities and his unapologetic smugness.

I did not frown upon leisurewear. In actuality, I owned plentiful designer tracksuits at home. However, I preferred formalwear, leather shoes, business suits, matching vests, dress shirts and a panoply of ice diamonds. Instead, excluding court visits, I lived in grey tracksuits. I slept in grey tracksuits. My only purpose in life was to roam halls in nothing but those godforsaken grey tracksuits.

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of unsatisfactory impoverishment.

Carl stood next to me. "Mr Jones insisted that Alexa was fine."

"My wife looks unwell." In the courtroom, she feigned smiles and dressed accordingly. She sat tall and elegantly imperturbable, but no amount of makeup, glitz and glamour concealed the truth in her sad eyes. "I worry about her."

If I am sentenced, if the jury gives a guilty verdict, I will not be there to look after Alexa, to protect her, and it is debilitating, physically and emotionally. Yes, I entrusted the men with ensuring her safety. Still, it was not enough. No one, not even the elite, will defend her honour better than me.

"It's almost time." He repacked the suitcase. "Do you need another cigarette?"

I stepped away from the window. "No."

Carl seemed to stare for longer than necessary. "May I ask a question?"

I smiled blandly. "If you must."

He was taken aback by my cooperativeness. "Are you guilty?"

"Which offence?"

"All of them."

The false report of rape is slanderously unforgivable. Even if exonerated and proved innocent, the stigma of such allegations will forever tarnish my reputation. I am not prone to public ridicule or emotional harm, but my wife will have to bear the vitriolic repercussions of those who choose to believe, with or without acquittal, that I am guilty of sexual offences. "I am not a rapist."

He squeezed my shoulder. "I believe you."

I might need a cigarette, after all. "You know what I am."

His head dipped. "Yes."

"Then you know I am more than capable of murder."

"But the Colt does not belong to you." He stifled irritation. "Why did you admit to someone else's murder."

"Not someone else." I'd rot in jail for eternity to protect Alexa. "My wife."

"Shit." He overanalysed. "You incur blame for yourself and others."