Attest (Centrifuge Duet Book 2)(6)
With idle hands and a panicked mind, I let my morbid curiosity get the better of me. What if there’s something in my parole that holds the key to foiling this? A tiny speck of hope builds within me as I turn the first page and start reading.
It’s a more in-depth evaluation of the situation she so brazenly outlined on the handy little set of cliff notes stuck to the front cover of the folder. B is offering me the once in a lifetime opportunity to escape my life sentence in return for becoming her hired assassin. This came along with the promise of $3,000,000 for “expenses incurred in the process of fulfilling the outlined duties and the ability to start a new life away from the scene of my crimes”. Honestly, this bitch has crazy in spades. I can feel her snarky delight at my predicament coating every word I read.
The same theme continues on the following pages. A detailed list of the order in which I will dispatch of the people she views as hurdles, suggested places and times to undertake the deed, and one terse mention that I will need to provide photographic evidence of each kill before I am sanctioned to move onto the next. If I didn’t already feel tainted beyond redemption by my incarceration, this document would have done a number on me. I hold in my hand the manifesto that heralds the end of the deadly Centrifuge drug before it can make its way into vulnerable people’s lives—except it comes at the price of six not so innocent lives, three pure souls, and the promise that I let two of the main players disappear scot-free. My hands will be soiled, my honour disintegrated, a life sentence of a different kind placed on my head, and that’s if the psycho pulling the strings follows through on her promise to let me live after I’ve done her bidding.
A bell rings. It breaks the stranglehold the dark thoughts have on my harried mind. I flip to the final page and try to scan the words before my cell door is opened and I’m freed for dinner.
On the last page, I finally encounter the “methods of persuasion” B mentioned back in the visiting room. There’s three bullet points, each one more menacing than the next.
Contact with anyone not privy to the conditions of the proffered parole, steps to null and void the terms of this agreement, and any harm coming to Jaxon Ray will result in swift and incremental punishment:
Foreclosure of the house mortgaged by Dexter and Maryann Barrett and the immediate ratification of all debt held under those names, including, but not limited to, all 401K holdings before subsequent forfeiture of their lives.
Ringside seats to the immediate and painful disposal of the woman currently known as Amber Ray.
The withdrawal of all parole rights and a transfer to Hindmarsh Correctional Facility where you will be held for life in circumstances that suit my pleasure.
The three penalties send shards of ice to my bloodstream. For a second, I wish that they would pierce my veins, so I could bleed out all over the damn floor to escape this madness. I was never under the illusion that B was playing around, but the consequences outlined are too much. Targeting the only four people I care about proves that she has done her homework—she knows my weaknesses.
And, because of this she knows how to turn me into a puppet that will dance to her tune.
First, she takes out my family and leaves my ten-year-old orphaned nephew penniless and alone in the world, then she has Amber killed, and locks me away for life in the worst prison in the state.
It seems like there is no escape for me. My death won’t stop Amber and her children from being hurt—of that I’m certain—while my participation can’t save them either. My eyes move like miracle-seeking missiles over the words, re-reading them over and over in the hope that somehow, they will change.
I can’t seem to catch my breath. My chest is too tight to expand. A jackhammering sensation pounds through my skull. I think I’m on the verge of having a panic attack until five words toward the top of the page pull me out of my meltdown.
And, bingo, there it is.
The chink in B’s armour.
The key to my victory.
My cell door is opened, and a guard fills the void.
“Move your ass, Barrett.”
My legs feel like jelly when I stand, yet there’s also a spring in my step as I exit my cell. I lift a questioning hand to my nose and wince after the guard raises a querying eyebrow at my busted face. In my determination to find an answer to my predicament, I’d forgotten about my injuries.
Here’s hoping I can channel that willpower into the fortitude needed to defeat my brand-new “parole officer”.
THREE
Prison has a strange way of separating people into groups that they would never consider being part of in the real world. I don’t know if it’s the lack of outside influences or the absence of the judgment you would receive if you were known to associate with these people in your real life, however this environment can create some strange bedfellows.
Take me, for example. I’m sitting at a table filled with neo-Nazi’s, breaking bread—or whatever the hell you want to call the hockey puck-like substance that sits on my tray in lieu of a bread roll—with an easy comradery that makes it appear that we share a similar world view.
Would the man I was known to be on the outside have done this? Not a chance. Yet in here, I was forced to find a clique of some kind that would accept me, or I would have been labelled a loner and subjected to everything that tag brings. Beatings from all the other groups. Targeting by any of the guards who liked to use their strength on lone prisoners to compensate for their own shortcomings outside these walls. Sexual advances from the inmates who didn’t care where they satisfied their craving for human contact.