Page 42 of White Rabbit

He looks to the side, grunting. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

“I want the answers. I can handle it.” Taking his chin in my hand, I lift his face to mine, placing a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. I’m not fooling myself, I know who he is and what he does. I should be running away, keeping a distance but I can’t. If I hesitate then doubts will begin to creep in and I’ve already decided to jump in with both feet. “I don’t know what I have to do to convince you, Eli but I’m here. With you.”

“We’re done here for today, Officer Bishop. I have maintenance duties.” His words are bitter as he tries to shut me out.

Biting my bottom lip, I give a stiff nod. Helping me carefully off his lap, he hands me some tissues from the box on my desk and I get to work trying to fix my clothes so that it doesn’t look like I’d just been ravaged by a wild beast.

As I’m fastening my shirt buttons, he places his large tattooed hand over mine. Dark eyes burn into me, begging silently for forgiveness, but there isn’t anything to forgive. His father is obviously a sensitive subject. “This conversation isn’t over, Rabbit. This just isn’t the time or place.”

Chapter Twenty-One

ELIJAH

This thing with Ava Bishop had happened hard and fast. When I first saw her, I wanted to manipulate her, use her for information on her father, but she’d become so much more.

She was mine. I was caught up in her web and I didn’t know how to fight my way free. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to.

There had been relationships, meaningless flings with women falling at my feet, but this was different. I could never be myself with the others. They wanted the flash life the mafia bought but didn’t care how dirty my hands got as long as they had the bags, shoes and diamonds, never asking about the real price or the toll it took on me.

They got a glimpse of the dark side, the monsters in the shadows. Then they would plead and beg me to change because they were scared. Scared of the life I lived. Scared of me.

But Ava Bishop wasn’t afraid.

I’ve always been possessive of my things, but with her, those feelings reach another level. From having cameras installed in her apartment, to debating with myself on whether I get someone to break into her home and replace her birth control with sugar pills. She is like a poison, slowly consuming me until nothing exists but her.

I had to leave the classroom, because sitting with her on my lap, my dick still nestled inside her, I would have given her anything. Everything.

She’d passed my petty little trust exercise with flying colors, even facing Rosie. Rosalyn Gambino was a psycho. A pretty psycho, but batshit crazy all the same. That Ava was still alive in one piece to deliver the little plastic balls said a lot.

But Rosie could fuck off if she thought she was pushing her way into this relationship. She already has my best friend. She wasn’t laying claim to my…girlfriend? Future wife? Lover? My everything? I’d told Chad, the useless cumstain, that I was going to be her husband. I hadn’t even thought about it—the words just felt right. Fuck, Ava Bishop was it for me. I was going to put a baby in her belly and tether her to me forever. There was no escaping for her now.

As she had dressed, I could tell my tone upset her. Trying to reassure her, I’d said we’d talk about my father later, but how do I explain I hate even the mention of his name? He ruins everything, even from beyond the grave, tainting it all with the memory of him.

Sighing, I rub my face. I need to focus on finding who was involved in putting me behind bars so I could finally get out of here. This trapped like a wild animal schtick was getting old, fast.

Leaving the small toys on her desk, I took the plastic balls, pocketing them while her back was turned. Kal could always use them in his little smuggling business and I have something I need from Kal. It’s a win-win in this shithole.

In the corridor Office Foxx scowls at me, but I offer him a smug grin in return. Whatever reason he has for working with The Family, it must be pretty important for him to put up with me loudly fucking a woman he’s interested in the next room.

“Come on, Inmate Creed. It’s dinner time.” He walks close behind as we head to the chow hall, but doesn’t dare lay a finger on me.

Whistling as we walk, I’m on a sex high. I’ve got the girl, and now I need to get the rat. My mind clicks into gear the closer we get to the other inmates, as I start thinking through my exit plan. Once I was outside of these walls I’d need to tackle the small issue of Judge Joseph Walters. Why did that prick hate me so much?

Yes, I was a criminal. A murderer. A bloodthirsty beast.

But I’d never done anything to the honorable Joseph Walters. He’d even enlisted help from The Family a time or two over the years. After all, who else could’ve had enough pull to put him in a position like his?

We ran Newtown and Joseph was simply a guest in our domain. A guest who’d clearly started getting ideas beyond their station.

Something about Ava’s feelings towards her brother weighs on me, sitting uneasily on my chest. I continue to mull it over as grayish colored slop is dished onto my dinner tray.

“Yo Creed, Kal says he can get what you want,” Beans whispers in hushed tones as he slides into the empty seat next to me. I’d asked him to feel out Kal, work out if what I wanted was even possible. “Also, Sanchez said he ain’t going to touch you, so run along and tell ‘your master’ he’ll play nice. Does he mean your master? Or was that my master? As in you’re my master? I dunno, man.”

“Don’t do drugs kids,” I chuckle under my breath. “It scrambles your brains.”

The Cartel was agreeing to leave me alone? How kind of them, considering I had already consolidated my position as a power player in this joint.

Thanks to Kal and his fear of me, along with the goodies I had access to, I now controlled the contraband. Control the luxury items, the booze, the drugs and the nice toothpaste, and everyone would eat out of the palm of your hand. It was simple prison mathematics.

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