Page 2 of White Rabbit

We finally stop outside Ogmore Grange prison and I can feel a chill settle in my bones as I look around at all the gray. I was being shipped out to the suburbs, to where the authorities assumed I'd be too far out of reach to cause trouble. They were clueless. They underestimated who I was. I was the Left Hand not only because I was smart, reliable and from a mafia family, but because I was ruthless. The bloodier, the better. Merciless was often a word used when people spoke of me in hushed tones and I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t owe them an explanation. I didn’t owe them my mercy.

Focusing back on the building, I take in the gray walls, gray bars, gray floors, with gravel and pockets of dying grass poking through the gaps as we approach the main entrance, bravely trying to survive even though it was pointless. Weeds poking through the cracks are my kind of stubborn, even if they get yanked out by the roots in the end.

This shithole was clearly a dumping ground for the dregs of society, for the monsters who couldn’t play nice with others.

I’d never been here before; we always ensured that any of our people were taken care of in Kenfig prison back in Newtown. We ran that place. But this, this was unfamiliar territory.

I was more than capable of taking care of things on the outside, people cowered when they heard my name whispered in the shadows, but prison had its own ecosystem. A hierarchy where my past accomplishments would likely paint a target on my back rather than do me any favors, instead I’d need to think strategically. I needed a plan.

Enemies naturally came with the territory. And Newtown was a large territory, and with The Family running the show, pushing White Rabbit, it was also richer than it had ever been. There were people who watched and waited in the darkness for me to make a mistake like this. They would sharpen their knives ready, all dying to be the one who teaches Elijah Creed, the Left Hand of The Family, a lesson. They would be hungry for my blood, but I had endured worse. I had survived worse. Prison wouldn’t break me.

Being in the mafia wasn’t like how it was shown in the movies, they barely scratched the surface with their gritty glamor. In reality, it was bloodier, dirtier, and the risk of death was higher. And something always smelled. Whether it was a decaying corpse or an interrogation room. The lingering stench of death clung to everything.

Julian Asaro was my boss, and my best friend. A philanthropist, lawyer, billionaire by day, and by night, the handsome model looking asshole ran Newtown mostly undetected and off the radar. He was like Batman… if Batman had been a bad guy. And blond.

Jules hid in the shadows of the city that never slept, like his father and his father before him. Their whole lineage had served The Family in one capacity or another for generations, but Jules was different. He wanted something new for The Family, and as his Left Hand I supported him and his batshit crazy wife, Rosalyn Gambino. She was a mafia princess gone wild, and not in a ‘topless partying in Cancun’ kinda way. In a ‘cut hearts out and send them via special delivery’ kinda way. The bitch was all kinds of crazy.

I should have known things were progressing too easily for us. After a failed coup from within The Family, we’d been bringing everyone else in line and apart from a few minor bumps in the road, it had been smooth sailing. That should have made me wary, instead I’d obviously become complacent. But that changed today. I would not sit around and wait for this shit to resolve itself.

We move through security and check in quickly. More people put their hands on me than I would prefer, but it is what it is. I can’t fight it, and there’s no point causing trouble before I’ve even made it to my cell. Solitary confinement is not for me. I’m much too social to be left alone. Besides, I might make a few acquaintances and pick up a thing or two if I’m in with the general population.

They call it processing as they pat me down for the umpteenth time, but I prefer to think of it more like checking into a cheap, nasty hotel with shitty neighbors. I won't be a guest here for long but needs must for business. I have to get to the bottom of what the fuck was happening here and to do that; I need to get into the sewers to catch myself a rat. Remaining silent, I’m stripped, searched and stamp my fingerprints on a piece of paper before being assigned to cellblock F.

Chapter Two

AVA

Iswallow down the last dregs of my coffee before placing my mug down on the table with a soft thud. Biting the inside of my cheek, I resist the urge to roll my eyes as my friend Tiffany continues moaning about my job while Chad and Jeremy listen and Orla rolls her eyes.

The noise of the coffeeshop is steady, filled with chattering, laughter and machinery as the scent of freshly ground coffee fills the air. Our little group had managed to snag a table near the window, and I’d been watching people walking by, going about their daily routines before the topic had inevitably switched to my job at Ogmore Grange prison.

Tiff sighs, obviously picking up that I’m getting bored with the subject. “I’m just saying, I don’t understand why you work there.”

Her perfectly dyed blonde hair is slicked back in a long ponytail that she toys with as she blinks her large brown eyes up at me. She’s wearing a fitted red dress, and it looks good on her, almost like it’s painted on. She’s a yoga teacher and a nutritionist when she isn’t busy building up her followers on social media.

Her easy glamor always makes me feel a little out of place, and today is no different as I’m sitting opposite her in my Chucks, a pair of worn, faded mom jeans and a black jumper. I’m pretty sure there’s a hole in my jeans, and I forgot to brush my hair before I left my apartment this morning. I’m even wearing my old sleep bra because I didn’t see the point in wearing something under-wired with my jumper, it’s not like I’m overly blessed in the chest department. Not like Tiff.

I raise an eyebrow, offering her a sardonic smile. “Because I enjoy it?”

“I think you’re trying to prove something to your dad.” She shrugs, but I don’t miss the way her eyes narrow at me as she reaches for her iced tea.

Yes, my father was a major influence in my career choice and maybe in the beginning a small part of me thought he might be proud of my choices, but he let me know at every opportunity he thought I was making a mistake.

Ogmore Grange wasn’t my ideal workplace, but I liked my job. I enjoyed thinking that I was making a difference, no matter how small, to someone else’s life. And okay, so working in a correctional facility had never been on my radar back when I enrolled in university to study art, but life rarely turns out how you expect.

Orla laughs. She’s wearing a fitted navy suit, looking every inch the powerful lawyer she is as she joins us on break from her office two blocks over. “We don’t all have daddy issues.”

I don’t know why I agreed to come here this morning. I typically hate making plans when I have to work in the afternoon. It makes me restless and throws off my normal routines. Usually, I like to spend my morning with a quick run or maybe a session at the gym. If I wanted to make myself feel crappy, I would have stayed at home.

If I wasn’t running, sometimes I worked in my small art studio downtown. It was part of a building I’d inherited when my mother died and while I rented out the ground floor to a florist, the first floor served as my apartment with a small workshop space for my own pieces. My family had wealth, but I personally wasn’t rolling in money. Between work, rent from the florist and selling the occasional art piece I managed to hold my own.

The building and my art were my last connections to her.

A warm hand lands on my thigh and gently squeezes, bringing my attention back to the conversation.

Chad. That’s why I’d come. My boyfriend. Something about the word boyfriend makes me wince internally. We’d been together for four years and had been talking about marriage recently, but I wasn’t ready to say yes just yet. I couldn't even commit to moving into his three-bedroom apartment, let alone binding myself to him legally.

“But…a prison. Aren’t you scared of being raped or attacked?” Tiffany’s partner, Jeremy, leans in and asks with a solemn expression. He was some hotshot financial adviser, but every time we talked about jobs, he acted as if I was wading into some sort of criminal orgy, where there were dicks coming at me left, right and center.

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