Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
Um. The element of confusion.
—Coffee cup
Romeo
Apollomijames@noname.com
Subject: The Great Escape
* * *
Romeo,
I hope this email finds you well. Your sister is doing really great—greater than great to be honest—and her one wish in life is that you will breathe free air again.
I know that you think that you’ll be in there forever, but you won’t.
In fact, starting next week, you’ll have a new lease on life.
I can’t wait to officially meet you without glass and chains being involved.
Follow the yellow brick road.
Also, watch out for the crazy weather.
Your future brother-in-law.
To say that I was confused by that email would be an understatement.
I’d met my sister’s soon-to-be husband several times now, and in no way, shape, or form did he sound like this in person.
Maybe he was a few screws loose?
Just as that thought occurred to me, another email popped up.
I hesitantly clicked on it, wondering what I would find in this one.
It was much easier to follow and straight to the point.
Apollomijames@noname.com
Subject: You think too much
* * *
Romeo, you’re about to be set free. By me. I guess I’ll have to be blunt since you look so gloriously confused.
Be ready to go next Wednesday at midnight. There will be several power failures. Your cell will be unlocked when the clock strikes midnight. Your cellmate will also be receiving a hefty dose of sleeping pills to ensure he sleeps through the night.
When I open doors, you walk out of them, capisce?
Also, don’t mind the dead body you’ll be walking over. He’s going to be a great distraction.
Apollo
P.S. These emails will disappear in the next thirty seconds.
He was right.
Just as I was going to click on the last email to see if I could decipher a little bit more information, the email thread disappeared, leaving me with an email opened from my money market account manager.
This email was even more confusing.
According to the financial advisor I’d once used, I now had six million dollars in my bank account.
I hadn’t seen the likes of it before in my life.
Earlier, before the emails from Apollo, this email did nothing but make me angry.
Because why would I be happy about having six million dollars when I couldn’t spend the money?
Now, I seemed to have a completely different mindset.
Apollo had hinted at breaking me out.
If anyone could do it, my future brother-in-law, and resident computer genius, could make it happen.
But I hadn’t thought he was serious.
I mean, why risk the possibility of getting put into jail?
I certainly wouldn’t be doing it for anyone.
Though, I think I might do it for my sister.
I’d do anything for Dru.
“Rossi!” the guard bellowed from the door. “Your time is up!”
I looked at the clock on the computer screen and saw that I still had well over fifteen minutes.
But I got up anyway, logging out as I did.
It wouldn’t matter if I logged out.
The prison system could look at all of my online activities if they wanted to.
But the next inmate who used this computer would definitely have an advantage.
“You’re in the yard,” the guard said. “Your cell was chosen for a random search.”
Of course it was…
“Yes, sir,” I grumbled as I moved past him.
He tried to shove me as I got close to passing him, but I didn’t go anywhere. Which only pissed him off.
He didn’t like not having the upper hand when it came to his job.
I, on the other hand, had spent my entire teenage years turning myself into a person that didn’t take shit from anybody. Not even prison guards that could make my life miserable if they wanted to.
He shoved me in the back again, and I hurried faster.
If this motherfucker wasn’t careful, he’d see just how far he could push me…
One
Petition to change Thanksgiving dinner from turkey to brisket. No one likes dry bird.
—Mable to Cody
Mable
“Mother!”
“What?” she asked innocently.
I didn’t believe that innocent “what” for a second.
“What is it, exactly, that you wanted me to do here?” I pushed.
“I wanted you to join Birdee and me for lunch,” she said demurely. “Is it too much to ask to want my two girls together?”
Yes, yes it was.
Mostly because I couldn’t fucking stand Birdee. I wouldn’t sneeze on her if she was on fire.
I certainly wouldn’t choose to have lunch with her when I wanted nothing more than to bend her over the table and smack her head against the fine china a few times just to make her cry.
My mother had said that it would just be the two of us today, but, like always, she’d lied.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if my mother forced us to spend time with each other because she genuinely wanted to mend the breach—as if it could ever be mended—or if she was just trying to rub it in.
I was betting on the latter.
My mother was never that nice of a person.
Or, more accurately, my stepmother.