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Ever since he was a boy, he’d loved the one with the auburn hair, but when he tracked Joel down three years ago and they’d reignited their friendship with some…added benefits, that love had only gotten stronger.
Joel had always been meant for him, of that Henri was sure now, and after seeing what kind of life he could have out there in L.A., Henri knew the only way that was going to happen was if he left this life behind for good.
When he reached the sign-in desk, an officer thrust a clipboard in his direction, and Henri did a quick scratch and scrawl as he handed over his ID. Once he was cleared, he made his way to booth thirteen, the one farthest from the guards, and took a seat as Victor was ushered into the room behind the soundproof barrier, and then shoved down into the seat opposite him.
He looked like shit—not that Henri expected much else, considering this was one of the most violent prisons in America—but the last time he’d been there, around six months ago, when Victor had sent for him, he hadn’t been sporting the scar above his eye, and he’d looked a lot heavier.
Right now, Victor looked like he could do with a meal or three. His head was shaved, his cheeks were sunken, and his eyes looked flat and pale. Nothing like the intimidating enforcer of Big Jimmy that Henri remembered as a boy.
As the guard walked off, leaving them alone, Henri reached for the handset, and Victor did the same. “What the fuck are you doin’ here?”
Yeah, that seemed about right. No greeting. No acknowledgment of any type. Just straight to the point, so Henri thought, What the fuck, and did the same. “Just thought I’d come tell you face to face—well, face to Plexiglas—that I’m done. I want out.”
Victor stared at him through the grimy barrier but said nothing, so Henri continued, not about to be intimidated by a sickly old man who couldn’t do shit to him anymore.
“I’m done with you, and all the other fuckers out here who you seem to think I need to deal with on your behalf. It’s over. It’s time for you to find a new dog to kick, you get me?”
Victor’s eyes narrowed as he looked Henri up and down. His expression made Henri’s skin crawl. He’d seen and heard the atrocities the man sitting across from him had committed, and for years had been told to do as Victor said or he’d wind up dead. But as Henri stared at the frail fucker on the other side of the security barrier, he wondered why it had taken him so long to wise up.
Victor and Jimmy were locked up, had been sentenced to life so many times over that there was no way on God’s green earth they would ever see the light of day again. So why was Henri still letting them control him? Why was he letting them manipulate him? He was smart, he was resourceful, and even if it meant he had to disappear off the fucking grid, he would do it to be with Joel.
“I get you,” Victor all but spat into the handset. “But why now?”
“What?”
“Why you want out now? Has to be a reason.”
“Other than I don’t want to wind up in the cell next to you?”
Victor’s face remained impassive, impossibly cold, almost like that of a corpse. “You’d be dead in one night if you wound up in here. You hate pain; you’re too soft. A disappointment all round.”
Henri ground his back teeth as he shoved his chair away from the table and got to his feet. “I’m a disappointment? What the fuck do you think you are?”
Victor said nothing, just stared, and Henri wished he had the ability to be that cool. The ability to have no emotional response. Maybe then he wouldn’t have given in and felt the need to do the things he’d done over the years to not wind up on this motherfucker’s bad side.
“You found him, didn’t you?” Victor said, the sneer to his lip just making him uglier. “That little fucker you pined away for all these years.”
Of all the things Victor could’ve said, that was the one that drew Henri up short. It was so unexpected and terrifying that his father knew that piece of information, and Henri froze in place as though ice had just formed in his veins.
Victor leaned back in his chair as though he were sitting in a board meeting instead of a jailhouse, and as his eyes darkened with a sick kind of joy, Henri felt a shudder race up his spine. “Did you think we wouldn’t know? That Jimmy wasn’t already keeping tabs on him?”
Henri said nothing, refused to give anything away just in case Victor was bluffing.
