Page 16 of Worth of Waste

“What the fuck?” Todd grumbled, damn near falling out of the bed.

“Nothing,” Dino muttered, pushing off the top bunk. His laceless sneakers hit the cement floor near soundlessly. “Go back to bed, kid.”

Todd didn’t need to be told again, but he did manage to shoot a glare in the guard’s direction before he rolled back over and shoved his head under the flat prison-approved pillow. Dino wasn’t even sure why they bothered to give them the pillows. They were only allowed one, and it was about as effective as sleeping on the fucking floor.

Frankly, he’d slept on the cell floor more than once.

It was more comfortable than the metal beds with their two-inch thick mattresses, the scratchy, thin sheets, and the garbage pillows.

At least a man knew what he was getting when he slept on a cement floor.

Dino hadn’t realized how much he would miss sleeping in his bed.

Actually, that was a lie.

He didn’t give a single shit about his bed.

He missed Karen’s bed.

He missed that—her—a lot.

But since Dino knew where that rabbit hole would lead if he allowed himself to drift into those thoughts, he forced her name and face out of his mind. It was never good to be distracted in prison, he had come to learn, and Karen was most certainly a fatal distraction for Dino, no matter his circumstances.

“Come on,” the guard said after the cell door had been unlocked and opened. “Mike is waiting for you in the private room.”

Dino held out his arms, allowing the guard to cuff him so that he could be safely moved from one cell to another section of the prison for his meeting with his lawyer. When Mike came around, it wasn’t the same thing as another inmate having one of their regular visiting days.

Mike was a lawyer, and that allowed Dino some privileges with the man. Privacy being one thing, but it was probably the biggest and most important thing.

Dino’s meetings and any conversation with his lawyer were not allowed to be recorded or videoed by prison officials because of the attorney and client privilege laws. That meant instead of being shoved in front of a Plexiglas window with phones to chat through while guards sat at their backs and cameras monitored their every move, they were instead allowed a private room where Dino was still shackled to a table, but no one was privy to their conversations.

This would be only the third time Mike had actually come to visit Dino in the prison since he had entered all those many months ago. Mike had done his job as a court-appointed defense attorney on Dino’s case, and once the judge had handed down his sentence, banged his gravel, and Dino was carted off to prison, the lawyer should have wiped his hands clean.

Mike didn’t need to get involved with Dino after the case was closed.

For some strange reason, the man still did. He put money in Dino’s prison account for him to use if he needed something, and every once in a while, he’d put in a request to one of the guards to have Dino call him just to check in on things.

Their relationship should have been limited to the charges and the sentencing.

Dino thought now it was almost … friendly.

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that.

Or Mike, for that matter.

Dino didn’t have friends.

After all, when he had been on the outside, any friends he had made never lasted very long. Ben DeLuca had made damn sure of that.

“All right,” the guard said as another barred and Plexiglas door was opened for them to walk through, “you’ve got thirty minutes, DeLuca, so don’t waste it.”

Dino didn’t bother to thank the guard, but he did give the man a nod as he was shuffled into the private room and then shackled to the heavy metal table. Two bottles of unopened water sat in the middle of the table, and the guard cracked one open, sitting it in front of Dino before he took his leave.

He didn’t touch the water, but only because he just wasn’t thirsty. The thought had been nice, he simply wasn’t in the mood. Fact was, their prison had it a lot better than others in the country did. For the most part, the guards were on the up, and they didn’t do shoddy shit to cause the inmates any sort of trouble. Sometimes, they turned their cheek to a fight, but that was usually because the fool getting his head kicked in deserved it for whatever reason.

But mostly, the guards treated the inmates just fine.

Dino had to respect that.