A Bullet (Ruby Rose fanfic)

FOUR (RUBY POV)

The pretty Spanish lady holds the bag of ice against her jaw while keeping her eyes fixed on the table, she looks sad and very tired, and ignores the girls that are talking nonstop around us telling other inmates what happened in the bathroom and how Iselen has broken the nose of that Corona bitch. My hand moves like it has developed a mind of its own and touches her face gently before moving away the bag of ice carefully to check if her jaw is okay: she'll have a bruise for a few days and her lip is swollen but not split. My girlfriend looks back at me with puppy dog eyes and I can't help sliding my hand down and rub her shoulders and back trying to reassure her while we wait for our breakfast. I'm sorry she has to go through this but it's necessary if she wants to survive here... she's a delicious bite for those psycho bitches.

Iselen doesn't belong here, it's pretty obvious. Her sweet face, the way she moves, her kindness to the girls, her lack of arrogance every time she thanks them for what they do for her, her elegance even wearing a dull uniform, her lack of vanity despite she's beautiful and took the breath away of half of this penitentiary when she walked out of the shower, she has a large vocabulary even if English isn't her native language... a girl who has studied at college and who is a genuine good person... She doesn't look like a criminal and I can't believe they thought she'd be able to shoot a man in cold blood. She could do it to defend Adara, probably, but she'd try to hit him with something first... I don't know, I can't picture her handling a gun skilfully. I'm happy that I'm here for her...

When the prison governor asked me to go to his office a week ago, I felt really disconcerted... Usually, we avoid any contact and keep playing our roles; the few occasions when he needed to talk to me was because we were too obvious with our smuggling business, an inspector was coming and we had to be ready to make him think everything worked properly here or because there were rumours of a riot among a group of inmates and wanted to ask me how to stop them: commotions are bad for our businesses and we both take very serious the task of keeping things calmed. Mr. Mason has a few years left to retire and my boss promised to sell him a gorgeous house in Florida at a reasonable price for him to live with his wife and their grandkids during vacations. The only thing he wants is to arrive to the office, sign bills, schedule the guards' shifts and no complications. In addition to this, our ranking score among the best country penitentiaries is pretty high, he's getting lots of compliments and prefers things to stay this way.

I make it possible... with Owen's help, who has hired a compliant doctor and guards that earn a good living in exchange of turning a blind eye. They all work here happily and inmates understand that they get lot of privileges if they behave: even the most psycho get relaxed in Bayview. There're always exceptions, of course, and some of them spend a few days alone in the hole from time to time but life is easy for them here in general. Everything was okay so far and I didn't understand why he wanted to see me in his luminous office on the top floor, beautifully decorated. Guards have their own break room and rumour has it that they got a coffee machine that would kill an Italian barista of envy, besides the best bakery of the city sends donuts every week. This prison is the place where most officers dream to retire.

"You have a call. If you'll excuse me, I need a coffee..." Mr. Mason nodded serious and left his office immediately like the devil was chasing him. That worried me, if Owen needed to get in touch with me in such a way it meant something bad was happening and he wanted to talk to me clearly instead of using our secret code: the governor's calls are the only ones not recorded in prison.

"Yes?"

"Hi, niece... I need you to do me a favour..." And he told me the story little by little, the true story. Of course I already knew about Adara, my boss had her under surveillance while she attended class and dated that stupid mama's boy. We used to have a close relationship when we were children but our paths diverged later when I got involved in the day-to-day businesses, the real businesses that allow members of the Company to earn a living, not those weird and complicated financial operations Owen seems to love in Wall Street. Of course, his money supports us in case we need liquidity injections and he always watches our backs thanks to his connections with big businessmen, politicians, judges and attorneys, but I prefer to walk the streets, have fun with my friends and enjoy the excitement of closing deals hidden from police officers. I didn't want to live in a golden cage like Adara did, wearing designer clothes and going to ridiculous parties... but when Nessa died and my cousin left us, I realized Adara wasn't happy with the situation at all and I felt happy for her. She needed to live freely.