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What was wrong with me? I allowed myself to walk right into that annoying conversation.
He’d come here to jerk me around.
Fucking asshole.
He wanted a reaction from me, and he got it.
Sophia, do you ever learn?
This was all bullshit mind games.
I knew better. I was a damn Morelli. I needed no one. I could do this on my own.
My lips trembled.
But could I? This wasn’t like anything I’d ever encountered before.
A beep sounded on the electronic lock of my cell, and it slid open, making me sit up.
You will not let him see your tears, Sophia. You will not let him get pleasure from your fear. Keep it together.
Taking my internal chant as a bolster to my confidence, I decided if that dickhead came back, it would just let my anger free and deck him. At least then, the dumbasses could charge me with something I’d actually have done. Attempted assault on a police officer was at least believable considering my past actions as opposed to murder.
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t going to do shit. I wanted to get out of here, not make it my permanent residence. And with the DA ready to make me pay for something Dad had done to him in the past, there was no hope for any leniency whatsoever.
After a few seconds and no one arrived, the uneasiness weighing on my shoulders grew to an almost unbearable level.
These guys were seriously jerking me around today.
I scooted further up the uncomfortable bed and tucked myself on top of the nearly flat pillow and into the top corner where the two walls of the room joined. From there, I could see every angle of the cell before me.
At least the one good thing about years of never allowing myself to let my guard down was that I could utilize that skill while I was here.
A few officers passed outside my cell with other prisoners. They shot me a quick glance and then moved on.
It felt like being a bird in a cage on display for them.
Shifting my focus, I took in the room around me. Cement blocks made up the walls, with layer upon layer of peeling paint in various shades of blue-gray over it.
I sighed. In the grand scheme of jails, at least I could say, this was a hell of a lot better than the places I’d found myself in during my younger years.
God, I still remembered the hell Lucian had given me when he picked me up from county lockup after I’d spray-painted the words “serial rapist” on the side of the brand-new BMW XM of a prick who’d gotten off on another assault charge because his rich daddy golfed with the right people.
Yeah, I’d only been eighteen then and hadn’t mastered avoiding surveillance equipment. When the cops approached me about the incident, I acted like it wasn’t a big deal and told them it wouldn’t have been an issue if they'd done their job.
It hadn’t gone over well with the male officer. However, the female seemed to understand my beef. She convinced her partner to take me into holding for an overnight visit.
The other time I’d spent the night in lockup was after one too many lemon drop martinis. I saw this asshole beat cop harassing a friend of mine for jaywalking. She was only trying to avoid an ex who wouldn’t leave her alone, so she crossed the street to avoid him.
Well, the officer couldn’t have cared less and was just verbally abusive, so I jumped in and gave him a piece of my mind about manners and how to speak to citizens for better cooperation. He gave less than two shits about my argument, and my girlfriend and I ended up at the precinct. The charges went from jaywalking to underage drinking since we were a month shy of our twenty-first birthdays.
Luckily, Lucian had the charges dropped within two hours, and outside of an ass chewing, a night at his place to sober up, and a good meal, we’d come out of it unscathed.
It impressed me that Lucian kept those antics quiet from everyone, including the press and especially our parents.
I could admit I’d been a bit self-destructive when it came to preserving my reputation. But then again, what reputation was there to keep when Keith Randolph had destroyed it with his lies? He’d turned me into a tabloid sensation.
Yes, I was a well-coveted fashion model with her pick of any show to walk in, and I could decide which campaign I wanted to represent. But I would have given all of it up if I’d had one thing from the very beginning, for Bryant and Sarah Morelli to question the rumors about me that reached their ears.
