Chapter One
Ayden
"On your feet, A. K., special delivery." The guard kicked the cell door to punctuate his loud announcement.
"Why can't you call me by my last name?" I asked. I took my time sitting up. "Every other prisoner is called by their last name even though there's like a hundred Browns in here."
"Ain't no way I'm calling you by your last name, your majesty," the guard pulled open the cell door. "Now get up and get your suit before I drop it. Wouldn't want you all wrinkled for your release."
"That's not my suit.” The garment bag was of finer material than I had seen for fifteen years. I balanced the hanger on one finger and dangled the suit far from my body. "I'm gonna put this on and find out you got it from a morgue or something, aren't I?"
"Cause I got a lot of time to plan pranks on you. Move along, A. K., we ain't got time or space for you anymore," the guard said. He tossed a shoebox on the floor and slammed the cell door. "You got ten minutes to change and gather your things before you walk."
"It’s okay to cry, Jenkins. Just let it out," I said. "I'll miss you too."
The guard paced away down the cellblock with his middle finger displayed over his shoulder. I unzipped the garment bag, tossed the suit on my bunk, and crossed my arms. Despite being a black suit befitting a funeral, the damn thing was a marvel. I could see the quality of the fabric, the sharp tailored cut, and the expensive brand name. Fifteen years inside had not kept me unaware or immune to the finer things in life. That suit was better than my entire life up to that point.
A note stuck out of the breast pocket. I pulled it out and laughed.
Suit up and give me twenty.
Instead of our football coach's gruff voice, it was my buddy Jace's impression that I heard in my memory. It had been our signal to go all through high school. He'd call it out, and we'd skip class, or I'd say it and we'd ditch out on a lame party and find some trouble.
I folded the scrap of paper neatly and slipped it back in the pocket. After seeing that note, I could not hesitate anymore. It was time to go.
I pulled on the crisp light blue shirt and yanked the suit off the hanger. The fresh, clean scent made me dizzy. My heart hammered in my chest, but I focused on what I was doing. Just a mundane task, just getting dressed. Inside the shoebox, I found a black leather belt and oxblood leather shoes polished to a mirror sheen. The pants were loose in the waist, so I tightened the belt. Other than that, the suit fit perfectly; wide in the shoulders, narrow in the waist, and long in the legs.
I looked in the scuffed mirror above my stainless steel sink and held my breath. There was a man there I had never seen. I wanted to be him, but I held up the black silk tie and felt like I was still an eighteen-year old kid. The last time I had tied a tie, badly, was at my sentencing.
My chest burned as I knotted the silk tie and bullied it into place. My father had never bothered to teach me how to tie a tie. The bailiff had redone it for me before I entered court. Then I was sentenced to fifteen years. No need for a tie inside.
"Heads up, A. K…" The guard opened my cell door and tossed a plastic bag at my head.
I caught it just as a ragged paisley tie slipped out. The rest of the rumpled, brown wool, hand-me-down suit I had worn at my sentencing was balled up inside the plastic bag.
The second bag Jenkins hurled at me held my wallet and keychain. The longhorn mascot dug into my hand as I caught it mid-air.
"I get that you're upset, Jenkins. Don't worry, I'll write.”
"Your gate money's in your wallet. Hundred bucks says I'll see you back here in a few."
"No bet." I slipped the wallet in my back pocket and tossed the keychain in the garbage. I would never go home, and I would never be back.
"Opening 211!" Jenkins boomed.
My cell door slid back all the way. I was free to go.
"Shit, look at that suit. A kid walked in and the devil's walking out." The old man in the cell next to me crossed himself.
"No need to pray for me any more, old timer," I said.
"Gimme that suit and you can have my soul," the next prisoner said.
"All you need is to finish your computer class. See you on the outside.” I kept walking.
Jenkins moved me like a prisoner despite my suit and new status. The rest of my goodbyes had to be sneers or nods. Men I had known for half my life acknowledged me with a glance through their bars. Thinking about it turned my legs to lead, so I concentrated on the door.
Doors. One from the cellblock, two through processing, and one through the main gates. The final door to the outside world was an ordinary gray metal door with a scuffed handle.
Jenkins laughed when my hand hesitated. "Better hope luck is on your side now. You're gonna need it."
His mean sneer fell away when I opened the door, and we both saw the limousine. The black shine of the sleek vehicle defied both the dusty white road and faded denim sky. The graying concrete of the Federal Correctional Institute at Three Rivers cast no reflection on the limousine. It was untouchable.
"Is that a tear I see, Jenkins? Pull yourself together, man. Here, fix your face for gods sake." I crumpled up my ugly old tie and tossed it at him.
"That's not for A. K., is it?" Jenkins asked the guard at the door.
"Waiting for one Ayden King," the guard said. He shrugged and pulled the door closed. "Good luck, King."
"Don't call him that, man," Jenkins snarled.
Then the guards were gone, locked away inside FCI Three Rivers, and I was on the outside.
"Well, look at that. You really can polish a turd," a large man lumbered out of the limousine. "Yeah, you look like the shit, but you're just a shit. Remember that."
"Least I'm not shaped like one. Looking a little lumpy, there short stuff," I said.
Jace Knight was only two inches shorter than me, but he was at least fifteen pounds heavier with the powerful build of a running back that carried the ball straight through the tackles. He punched me on the shoulder before he pulled me in for a tight hug. I felt his arms and chest constrict, but I pushed him away before he could say anything.
"Thanks for the suit, Jace."
"Damn, my tailor's good. All I did was send him a picture. That's some magic, am I right?" Jace asked.
"Magic is seeing you out here." I rocked back on my heels. "What's with the ride?"
"You think I'm letting you take the bus to San Antonio? Get in the limo, King."
Jace dove in and knocked on the divider. We pulled away before I even sat down. I sat with my palms down on either side of me and resisted the urge to stroke the soft leather. The luxury interior was climate-controlled to erase the hot Texas afternoon. I noticed fiber optic stars shining in the ceiling and smiled. I felt like I had fallen off the planet and this was definitely another world.
"Seriously, man, it is great to see you." Jace smiled and rubbed his hands together. "I know I didn't come to visit enough. I should have been there every week."
I gritted my jaw against the guilt I heard in Jace's voice. "Nah, man. You were there often enough on the rec room TV. The real thing you need to apologize for is retiring before I got to see you in action. How am I supposed to brag about my NFL buddy now?"
"You've never bragged about me," Jace studied my face. "You've never bragged about a thing in your life."
"Family tradition," I muttered.
"Speaking of family, I wondered if your father would be here to pick you up. How often did the old man visit?" Jace asked.
"He came the first week. I think my lawyer made him."
"And you haven't seen him since?" Jace balled his large hand into a fist.
"Here and there but it’s been what, five years since the last drop-in," I said. "I kinda wondered if he was dead, but one of my buddies inside checked around online, and I hear he's still breathing."
Jace opened a hidden mini fridge in the limousine and tossed me a cold can of beer. I turned it around and around in my hands. It was the same cheap old brand that was at all the parties when we were in high school.
"We can't pick up right where we left off, but at least you can finally have that beer," Jace watched me with an expectant smile.
"You mean my first?" I asked.
My friend slapped both hands on his bald, white head, and dragged his palms over his face. "I'm not going to get over it, man. This is killing me. You've never had a beer before?"
"In between only being eighteen years old and getting sentenced to fifteen years in federal prison, yeah, I kind of missed the whole drinking a can of beer thing," I said.
Jace looked out the window and let fly a string of swearing that would have made the prison guards blush. "You were always such a good kid."
"I wish Jenkins could hear you say that. He'd shit his pants," I said. The thought of the prison guard's narrow eyes widening in disbelief made me laugh.
"It's not funny, Ayden. Damn."
"Oh, come on, it’s already embarrassing enough." I cracked open the beer and took a frothy sip. "And definitely not worth the wait."
"We'll get you some good beer at my place."
"I see how it is. Give the ex-con the watered down piss and save the good stuff for yourself," I complained.
Jace finally smiled. "Nah, man. I don't drink. I need to stay alert."
I looked around the secure cocoon of luxury that the limousine created around him. "I'm pretty sure you can relax."
"I got a lot of people that want things from me," Jace said, "and you know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. If I'm not paying attention someone slips hundreds of thousands of dollars out from under my nose. It's exhausting."
"I get it. You've got a lot to lose."
"Unlike you." Jace's smile curled with mischief. "All you seem to have is this plastic bag the guard tossed in here."
He held up the bag Jenkins had balled my old suit into. I had hoped to leave it behind at the prison, but the guard had tossed it in the open door of the limousine while I was greeting Jace.
"Let's just take a look-see, shall we?"
I grabbed his thick wrist and twisted. Jace dropped the plastic bag into my waiting hand, and I tossed it down the limousine away from him. "That's mine."
"Ouch, Jesus, yeah, I get it," Jace said. "Want to let go now?"
I wanted to let go but it took a minute. The iron grip I had on Jace's wrist was used to turning harder. By now I was usually snarling some warning in a punk's face. My fingers would not respond to my brain. Jace was incapacitated and I held him there.
"Sorry." I forced my fingers to let go.
* * * * *
Jace threw on his sunglasses and looked out the limousine window. I should have been soaking up the sights of the outside world, but I studied my fingers instead. Controlling myself was going to be a problem.
"You were a softie," Jace rubbed his wrist. I could feel his eyes measuring me from behind the dark lenses. "A gangly kid who never pushed back."
"Is that why you were friends with me? You needed someone to push?"
"I needed someone with more than half a brain and a bigger vocabulary than football," Jace said. "You fit the bill and didn't take any of my shit. Now it looks like you don't take shit from anyone."
"Yeah, well, while you were out living the NFL dream, I was fighting. I fought to do my work, to earn my college degree, to be left alone."
"They got a lot of gangs at FCI Three Rivers," Jace reminded me.
"I was never much of a joiner."
Jace moved like a lightning strike. He had fast hands, but I swung the can of beer out of his reach and cracked the back of his knuckles with my fist before he could touch a drop. The sharp bone on bone connection hurt, but we both sat back without a wince.
"You're a hard man, Ayden King. Prison changed you."
"That's what it does,” I shrugged. "Doesn't mean I can't change again. I know who I want to be and not a damn thing is going to stop me now."
Jace's bright smile lit up the entire limousine. "Did I hear you say you got a college degree?"
"In business. Though I'm not sure who's going to let a criminal like me anywhere near their capital. Might have to take your old job at the grease fryer. That burger place still there?" I asked.
"Very funny. What's funnier is that place burned to the ground. Grease fire," Jace chuckled. "Though why are you talking about getting a job? I'm gonna take care of you. It’s the least I can do, and I'm gonna do it."
"Let me sit around all day getting fat like you? No thanks.” I eyed his waistline.
Jace rubbed his slightly protruding belly. "See? I need someone on my side to tell me how it is. I'll hire you and that business degree. You can help me keep an eye on my empire."
"I gotta say I'm surprised you still have an empire. Isn't Uncle Samuel helping you out?"
Jace snorted. "I'd be king of a shit crater if that old man had gotten anywhere near me."
"Like your paper route," I reminded him.
"God, what a disaster that was. First off, he stole my alarm clock so he could listen to the football game while he was taking a shit. Then he used newspapers for his muddy boots," Jace remembered.
"And then he used the whole bag of newspapers to start that bonfire in your backyard.” I shook my head, the smell still strong in my memory.
"The one the whole fire department came to." Jace shook his head and swore. "When I got fired, Uncle Samuel told me that all I'd ever be good at was football."
"I'd say it sucks that he turned out to be right but is that a flat screen television?" I watched as the thin television with bright high-definition rose out of a seat back at the touch of a button.
"Yeah. Uncle Samuel used to come to my games and celebrate. He celebrated a lot."
"In illegal ways," I said. "I was surprised I never saw him show up at FCI. Not as a visitor but as my neighbor."
"He probably would have, but he died." Jace punched the button to hide the flat screen TV again.
I finished the beer and crumpled it with one hand. It was not as satisfying as it looked in the movies. Instead, Jace eyed my hand warily, and I realized I would need to smooth out my rough edges if I was going to fit in on the outside.
He tossed me another beer, and I cracked it open. The limousine had turned off the highway and was heading away from San Antonio. I did not say anything because I did not care. I was out and never going back and that was all that mattered.
"You know that fucker never even gave me a proper thank you?" I bit out. "I took the fall for him and for you, and he didn't even come to my sentencing. Least he could have done was visit once in fifteen years."
"I came to your sentencing. Never cried like that again. The look on your face when you realized how many years you gave up," Jace blinked hard and looked out the window.
"For you more than your uncle.”
"If it makes you feel any better, Uncle Samuel died of an overdose," Jace said.
"At least there's a little justice in the world." I sat back and wondered where we were heading.
"I don't see it," Jace grumbled. "I carried those packages for my uncle hundreds of times. The one time you take it, and everything goes straight to hell."
"Did you know what was inside those packages?" I asked.
Jace shrugged the shoulders of his expensive suit. "I was good at not knowing things. My uncle told me I could plead ignorance and everyone up to the Supreme Court would believe me. Not really a compliment."
"Could've been worse. What would you have done if you knew? No way a high schooler's going to stand up to his old man, especially not if he's running large amounts of cocaine for whatever drug ring is in power. You had other things to concentrate on. All those recruiters knocking on your door."
"You had other things to concentrate on too," Jace said. "The only one I knew who passed those tests for college without retaking them a half dozen times. You had a whole plan. You should have stayed home that night and studied. It’s all my fault."
"Are you kidding? I would have been stuck at home listening to my old man complain if it wasn't for you," I said. "One conversation with him was a lot harder than doing time."
Jace smiled, but it was sad. "You were such a damn good kid."
I shrugged. "It wasn't about me, it was about him. It’s gotta be hard when all that high school glory slips away and you end up fat, single, and working a job you hate. He wanted me to relive his best days, so he could watch that instead of his life heading into the shitter."
"Wow, I don't like any of that. What'd they do? Send you to a therapist in there?" Jace asked.
"Something like that." I looked out the window and realized I would see prison walls everywhere I looked for a long time. "There's a lot of guys in there with fathers like that, a lot of guys that are fathers like that, and a lot of guys with time to form opinions."
"Sounds better than therapy," Jace said.
"Whoa, wait. Are you saying you've gone to therapy? Shit, was it my comment about glory fading away?" I raised my eyebrows at him.
Jace sat up and smoothed down his suit. "Do I look like my glory is fading? Nah, I'm glad I'm retired. No more long work- outs and hard hits. But I did talk to someone about what happened to you. They said I had a version of survivor's guilt."
"Well, if I'm going to work for you, then you gotta let that guilt go. I knew what I was doing that night," I said. "I told my dad that night that I'd made second string. He yelled at me for an hour about accepting failure. He said I would never amount to anything and in his house second string was an embarrassment. I left that night intending to never go back."
"So that's why you took the package from me? That's insane. You could have just left, gone anywhere, and instead you decided to go to prison." Jace flexed his big fists again.
"You know as well as I do there were only a few ways out of our Texas town. You had one of those chances with football scholarships, and I sure as shit wasn't going to let you lose it," I said. I forced myself to look at Jace, the way I could not on the day of my sentencing. "I knew what prison would get me."
"You just didn't know it'd be fifteen years." His eyes had a bright sheen that we both ignored.
"That's over now. It got me away from my father, and I earned my college degree." I ground my teeth.
"Fucking Ayden King, you could never do anything the easy way," he said.
"Family tradition."
"So do you have any idea where your old man is now?" Jace asked.
"Why? I finally gave that sonofabitch exactly what he wanted. I proved I was a failure and I amounted to nothing. My reward is that I never have to see him again."
"He never visited you?"
I shifted in my seat and ran my hand over the smooth leather again. "He'd come every once in a while. When some law firm or group of law students thought my case could be overturned. I just wanted to ride out my time, good behavior shaved years off my sentence. So, when my dad realized I would not cooperate and there'd be no settlement money, he would disappear again."
"Does he know you're out?"
"Not unless you find him and tell him," I said.
Jace uncurled his fists and clapped his hands together. The sound was ear-shattering in the quiet cocoon of the limousine, but I smiled. It was my friend's sign that he was putting things behind him and that always meant there was something fun in the future just ahead. My heart gave one painful beat. I was so glad to still recognize my best friend.
I just wanted to start clean over. I was going to put prison, my father, and all the years of waiting behind me. Jace was my one tie to my old life, but as I looked around at his first class world, I knew it would be easy to never look back.
"Alright, it's time. I'm gonna say it and I'm gonna only say it once on account of your attitude and all," Jace said. "I owe you everything, and I am going to make it up to you. Whatever you need, you've got. Whatever you want, you'll get. This is the whole reason I threw myself into investments. You know all that money talk gives me a headache, but it turned out alright because now I've got way more than enough to set you up for life."
"Glad you're only saying that once. Are you done now?"
"I'm serious, Ayden. You have to let me do this for you."
"No, I don't." I gave him a hard stare. "I need to earn my way. I need a real job that takes work. I can't coast, Jace, or all I'm going to think about is those walls. I've been sitting on the sidelines for too long, and now I need to get in the game."
"Alright, alright. Are you done?" Jace asked. "You can earn your way, but I can be the one to get you a legit job. You can pay rent, buy groceries, budget, and do whatever the hell else you want. But you're not getting rid of me. I'm your fucking guardian angel."
I laughed. "Nice language, angel. Holy shit. What is that?"
The limousine had pulled into a private airport. The opening and closing of the chain-link gates made my stomach give a sick flip. A sleek white jet with a long nose and wings that turned up sharply at the end stood on the tarmac.
"Our ride to Vegas. Life's given me a lot, Ayden, and I plan to share. Hope you're ready."
After fifteen years, I thought I was ready for anything.