Page 103 of Into the Blue

How did I let it get this bad?

There’s families here to visit loved ones that are incarcerated. There’s elderly visiting young men. And here I sit, waiting for Redd.

He is the last person that any of us could have guessed would be locked up. The least violent, usually choosing to hack your shit into oblivion or whatever the fuck it is that he does on his computer.

He may have been the one to teach me to fight and still continues to teach now, but it’s very rare to see him doing anything outside of the gym.

Well, he won’t be doing anything for the next eighteen months. He screwed us all over when he took those shots in broad daylight with too many witnesses. They’ve got to make an example even if it is a far shorter sentence than he deserved for premeditated murder.

I can understand his motives, but I don’t have to agree with them.

Creating an understanding with local law enforcement when I first started making enough money to warrant serious consequences was important. Those alliances allowed me the kind of leeway to broker a deal that could ensure that my best friend wouldn’t be spending the rest of his life in this hell hole.

Finally, Redd sits with his neon outfit and generic slip-on shoes. “Orange truly doesn’t suit your colorin’, know that?”

“Shut up,” he says, flipping me the bird and making his cuffs jingle.

My next quip dies on my tongue as I realize that there will still be many months where I won’t have my friend around. Even with the best I could do, he’ll be serving time. This is the life, but it’s been so long since any of my men had to take a fall for anything.

“Man, wipe that look off your face. I knew what I was doin’. Was prepared to sit here for way longer. Lew can rest easy knowin’ his brother got that fuck back.”

I nod, jaw clenched. “It fuckin’ sucks bruh.”

“I’ll make it until it’s time to get out this bitch.” Then he thinks for a moment. “You know what would make it better?” I sit up a little straighter, prepared to do anything else I can for my best friend.

“Tell Steph to write to me. They allow that shit here. Know they read ‘em and shit, but it’ll probably smell like her.” I just look at him dumbfounded. Of all the things he could have asked for. “You know it smells like ass and jockstraps back there.” He nods his head toward the hall that he came from. “A letter from her desk with that posh ass letterhead and everythin’… You never did tell me what perfume she wears.”

Throwing my hands up, I ask, “How the fuck would I know that?”

He shrugs, jingling again. “So, you’ll tell her?”

“Yea,” I say. “I’ll do what I can.” Redd takes my response with the kind of acceptance that is more weighted than I would expect for a letter. It’s just a letter. One that I don’t think Steph will write but I’ll do whatever he asks of me at this point.

“What you gonna do about Diamond?” Heasks.

“Not doing shit. Took an L and now I’m moving forward.” A massive L that I don’t know when I’ll be able to recover from but a loss is a loss.

Confusion is an unwelcome emotion on his face. “Why are you so bent on not working with her?”

“You know why,” I snap.

“And that is? She’s runnin’ the Fayes now. You know she has her shit together. Fuck, she single handedly served us our asses all under your roof. She’s capable as fuck.”

“Keep your voice down,” I growl. “She didn’t hand us shit.”

“Why are you so butt hurt then? Imagine what she could do working with us.”

“You want to line up with somebody so spineless?”

Redd’s brows pinch, still confused as ever. “How is she spineless?”

“She was at my house—”

His head tilts to the side. “You took her there.”

“She lied to me for months—”

“Technically, she answered everything you asked her. You didn’t ask any of the right questions and that falls on you.”It did fall on me.I failed Dupont. The L I’m taking, I earned. As bitter of a pill as it is for me to swallow, I couldn’t deny that she bested me.