Page 57 of Don't Hate Me
We were sitting at a table in the visitor’s room on Sunday. I was allowed one visitor a week, outside of legal counsel, and Ash and George had decided to take turns. This was Ash’s first visit, and it burned in a way I hadn’t expected.
It hadn’t bothered me when Entwhistle had visited, which he had once, just to check in with me. Or George last week. But sitting across the table from Ash seemed sacrilegious. Like her breathing the contagious, toxic air around here would send her into an asthmatic fit.
“No,” she said, stubbornly leaning forward but careful not to reach for my hand. There was no touching allowed during the visit. A hug at the beginning and end of the visit only. Anything else, guards got suspicious contraband was being passed.
Not that I needed anything. Ash made sure I had access to all the money the commissary would let me keep in my account. The second I used it to buy anything, it was replenished.
I bought cigarettes, even though I didn’t smoke, just to have jail currency. Not that I needed it. There wasn’t anyone in this place scarier than I was. Given my surly attitude and the anger I walked around with daily, I was probably the most badass of the criminal suits.
Most of the men in here looked lost. Wandering around trying to overcome their cell phone withdrawal. Talking only about how they were going to recover the money as soon as they got out.
Hell, I was getting more tips for investments from inside jail than I had working at Landen’s hedge fund.
“No?” I repeated. Like that was some kind of an answer.
“You can’t be ashamed because you did nothing wrong.”
“I took two thousand dollars out of an account,” I reminded her. To what end? Our marriage, according to Sanderson, was null and void. Now she was married to that bastard and there was nothing I could do about it.
“It was your money. You earned it and you know it. Besides, you did it to save me.”
“Yeah, how is that working out for you?”
I winced at my tone. I sounded bitter and angry, which I was. But while I was serving my time with a bunch of white collar criminals who couldn’t hurt me if they tried, she was serving her time with someone I knew was violent with her.
Although he’d lied to me about wanting to fuck her. It was the first thing Ash had assured me of in her letter. He had no sexual interest in her at all. The marriage was nothing more than cover for him.
But a cover for what?
“You don’t have to do this,” I told her. “It’s not like they can do anything worse to me in here. The guys I’m serving time with wouldn’t know how to make a shank if their lives depended on it. Call his bluff, divorce his ass and get the hell out of there.”
She shook her head, her gaze looking toward the windows on the one side of the visitor room. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I don’t think any of this would have been worth the effort if it was that simple.”
I barked out sharp laugh. “Or it’s just that simple, Ash. Your father was in deep shit financially, and Sanderson knew it. He had control over your father. Which, in turn, made him think he had control over you. They both needed a scapegoat. I offered myself up to your father and became an easy target. Nothing too complicated about that. That’s what I’m saying. We don’t have to play their game. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Her face changed in that moment. Stilled. It was like I didn’t know her, and that wasn’t possible because Ash was theonlyperson I did know. Fully, completely, intimately.
But this woman, sitting across from me, knew something about life I didn’t. Something about her life I didn’t understand.
“I don’t think Evan is used to people telling him no,” she said, as if speaking to herself and not me. As if she was trying to work out in her own head how big the threat was. “He’s told me before, if I run, he’ll find me and bring me back. I believe him. I also believe if I push him to that point, he’ll soon find me expendable.”
I closed my eyes and tried to reject what she was saying. This wasn’t fucking happening. Not to her. Not to me. A couple years ago we were two fucking teenagers planning our futures, learning how to drive, thinking about getting accepted into Princeton. Wanting a normal life. And now we were caught in this drama because of her sick fucking father and that psychopath Sanderson.
“Ash…” I started, then stopped myself. I wanted to ask her if she truly believed she was in danger. If she actually thought this guy was going to hurt her. But there was no point in asking the question. I knew the answer.
“It’s that simple. I’ll start by breaking every finger on her right hand, and if that isn’t enough to convince you, I’ll cut one off and bring it in here to show you.”
I’d also believed him.
“You do what you have to do to survive,” I said with some urgency. “You understand me?”
She nodded. “That’s what I’m doing. You’ll survive this, too. This isn’t going to end us, Marc. Right? Tell me you don’t hate me for this. Tell me you’re not sitting there resenting the shit out of me and that’s really why you don’t want me to come visit. Because you can’t stand to look at me.”
Fuck the guards. I reached for her hand and linked our fingers together. “Look, I’m not going to let this asshole Sanderson, or your father, ruin your life. Our life. We’re going to find a way out.”
She nodded again, and when the guard started in our direction, she pulled her hand back and placed both of them in her lap as if to show what a well-behaved woman she was.
“I should go,” she said. “There’s a function I have to attend tonight. Our first as a couple. You might see things on the news or read things. I don’t know what you have access to in here, but you know not to believe anything, right? Don’t believe anything you don’t hear directly from me.”
