News 2 Orlando broadcast:

Good evening, Orlando. We start off tonight’s broadcast with an update in the Mick Davison case, or as he’s come to be known, the Disney Springs Shooter.

Word came in to the studio around 4 p.m. this evening. It appears Mick won’t be making his court appearance tomorrow as scheduled after all. He was found unresponsive in his cell, and police reports are saying he died by asphyxiation. Whether it was foul play or done by his own hand is yet to be confirmed.

Updates to follow.

Day two hundred and eleven locked away from the world.

Time goes by different in here. Everything is different in here.

Organized.

Planned.

Guarded.

What gets me in the nuts? The coffee is shit. I’d kill for a decent cup of joe. And the eggs? They’re the fake powered kind. If I want bread, I have to work the line down in the bakery to earn it.

Earn it.

Fuck, I’ve never had to earn anything in my sixty-two years roaming this earth, and I’m not going to start earning it now.

Earn it my ass.

If I want to watch an hour’s worth of evening TV, I have to earn it.

All this earning it shit is for the birds.

I used to have guys to earn shit for me, before the FBI brought down my whole operation.

I’m Vincent Martinelli, and I’m about to show these bitches what earning it truly means.

“Mail call!” one of the guards—Saltzman, I think—yells down the hallway. Normally he passes by my cell, but this time he stops and tosses two envelopes my way.

Who the hell is writing me? I’ve been jailed nearly seven months now, and this is the first correspondence I’ve received. Hmm…

Hastily, I open the first envelope. Scanning the contents of the letter, I see it’s from my lawyer, informing me whatever money I had left in the estate has gone to my traitor of a son and his whore. The FBI took the rest of my money. It seems fitting for my bastard son to get the remainder. Fucking prick. I’ll sleep better tonight if I know there’s nothing more than mere pennies left. On the last page, I hit pay dirt.

$2,457,889.07

Scanning the contents several times won’t heed a different result, but I do it anyway. My fucking bastard son became an instant millionaire.

Instead of opening my other piece of mail, I write something of my own—not to my no-good traitor son, Brant, but to a person they didn’t arrest: my wife. I’m ordering her to burn the portrait of Brant in my office, to get rid of any trace of him. Once the FBI allowed her back inside, she took her clothes and left, but I know, I know the painting is there taunting me.

It must go.

Day two hundred and twelve has to be a better day.

As I gaze across the crowded restaurant, I know one thing for certain: I’m the luckiest bastard alive. My girl sits at a table near the center of the room, covered in the glow from the candles spread throughout the dining area. She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.

Tonight, I’m asking Tessa to marry me, to join me on this crazy rollercoaster for the rest of our lives, because my life without her is not one worth living. She’s become as essential to me as the air I breathe.

Pulling my chair out, I take my seat across from her.

“Everything all right with Rhys?” she asks.

She thinks the phone call I staged was Rhys calling for some idiotic reason. It wasn’t; it was nothing but pure Michigan air on the other end. I paid our waiter to place a call and stay on the line for a moment until I stood up and walked away from the table. He did, and I gave him the ring.

Yeah, I know it’s cliché to have the ring dropped in her glass of champagne, but it works for a reason. It’s classic, and deep down, I’m a classic sort of guy.

As the waiter approaches with the bottle and glasses, I move down to one knee. She gasps in surprise.

“Oh my God…Ace, seriously?”

“I love you, Tessa, because you’re feisty and strong. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. You could live a life without me, and you’ve proven it, but I couldn’t live without you. Will you do me the honor of marrying me and becoming my wife?”

Holy shit, when did it get this hot in here? It feels like I’m sitting in the belly of an oven.

“Yes, I’ll marry you, Ace. I’d marry you tomorrow if we could. For the record, I can’t live without you either. Pretty sure that’s evident since I gave up my store—not to mention my pandas—and moved here to Michigan to be with you. I love you, Brant.”

Standing, I pull her up and kiss her senseless as the restaurant breaks out in applause.

I’m the happiest man alive.

I am Brant Vincent Ashley-Martinelli, and this is my truth.