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organized crime, I was a nobody. The fact that Constantine sent me
his team of lawyers was amazing. I could only assume that Mrs.
Constantine might have had some influenced in his decision. The
few times we had met, she had treated me rather well for being her
husband’s mistress. I had even received Christmas presents from
her and the children.
I got eighteen months for obstruction. There was no mention
of the kidnapping by the Federal authorities, or the use of drugs to
try and coherence a confession or a plea bargain. Why should I say
anything? Half of the time, I’d been the one sealing the deal on
someone’s destruction. Constantine might have killed physically,
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but I’d been just as bad. I’d murdered with paper and ink. I was not
innocent in keeping Constantine feared. The guilty verdict was
rather fitting, so I thought.
When the hammer came down it rang out the end of a horrid
lifetime. What I’d be walking into was just as bad as a brothel, or
maybe even worse. The clock had struck midnight, and Cinderella
was forcibly escorted out of the ball. I had my client face on, along
with my five thousand dollar, grey pinstripe suit. I looked every
inch a slimy accountant from my five hundred dollar shirt, to my
two hundred dollar tie and my custom made Italian shoes. The jury
found it hard to feel sympathetic for someone who had so
obliviously benefited from human misery. They just didn’t know it
was also my own.
Dad, Emily, Sarah, Tanya and Erris were there to hear the
verdict. Emily broke down and wailed as I was handcuffed. She
rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me. “I didn’t mean
for this to happen to you, Bran-flake. I wanted you free from them.
I wanted you to come back home.”
“Don’t you ever repeat that in public anywhere. They’ll kill
you.” I hissed back at her. “Don’t let all my sacrifices be in vain.”
Dad dragged her off before the bailiffs could get to her. I
heard her crying. Tanya and Erris were staring at me, and I could
see the confusion and pain in their eyes. They really didn’t know
me. I’d been out working on my back when they were going
through their informative years. It might have been easier to let
them believe that I had just run away when I was a kid. They might
have hated me, or at least felt indifference towards a brother who
had simply vanished from their lives. But Emily and Dad had told
them the truth. Whoever said, ‘the truth shall set you free’ never
had to look into the teary blue eyes of little girls who didn’t know
how they should feel. Their brother had sold his ass to keep a roof
over their heads and send them to good schools. Erris opened her
mouth to say something, but I turned on my heel. I didn’t want my
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That’s What Brothers Do…
last memories of my sisters to have tear-filled eyes. I started this
whole mess so they wouldn’t have to live in perpetual misery.
I didn’t look back into the courtroom as I was led out. I
couldn’t look back, because I didn’t want to confirm that Wilber
never came to my trial. I’d sat in jail for the first six weeks waiting
for my trial date, and the only one who’d visited besides the
lawyers was Loretta. The lawyers mentioned that the Feds had
barred my family from coming to see me, thinking that they could
break me through extended isolation. It was actually a healing
balm to my confused heart and soul as well as my body. I had
asked Loretta once if Wilber knew what was happening to me. She
just pressed her had to the thick plexiglass window which seemed
like an epoch then nodded yes, he knew.
He just didn’t care.
The agony in my heart had been worse than the pains that
lingered in my stomach. They’d given me doctor’s prescription
meds, so I’d taken my meds, sat in my cell all by myself and done
nothing as I waited for the trial to start. It got easy, this not caring.
I don’t think the Feds had planned on keep me in isolation the
entire time was waiting for trial. At first, they had tried to scare me
into squealing on Constantine by releasing me into the general
population. It didn’t take long for word to get around that the
infamous “Cinderella” was in the block and never got any visits
from the Master, showing that my status had fallen and that I was
up for grabs. Or so they thought. I had made up my mind that I
wasn’t getting raped ever again.
Wilber had me learn to shoot once I started working for him at
the loans office. Constantine had me learn martial arts after I got
kicked in the face on a business trip in Singapore. Randall had
taught me the knife because I was too damned pretty to be
defenseless. I remembered those lessons with Constantine and only
had to defend myself once in holding. You teach a lesson once and
only once. The lesson? I was nobody’s bitch. If I had gotten
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