way if it helps. If you die, they’ll frame me, just like they’d planned to do from the beginning.”
Cy wanted out. He wanted to know what life as a free person held for him, but he needed Nicky to fight, and it seemed he was only willing to fight for others. Cy was willing to guilt him into being his champion if it meant Nicky didn’t shut down.
When he didn’t respond, Cy rolled them over, lifting up on his forearms to look him in the eye. His eyes were red and bloodshot, the cut on his face from the other day closed but healing. His gaze was dull, but when Cy dipped down to kiss him softly, he responded. “Please, Nicky. Just don’t give up. Have faith that your friends are going to help you. Help us.”
Nicky swallowed hard before giving the barest hint of a nod. Cy touched their foreheads together. “Hang on for just a little longer.”
“I’ll try.”
Webster slid a tattered copy of Of Mice and Men onto the shelf in the small dank room that was the makeshift prison library. It was the worst possible place for a room full of books. There was a wet smell to the place, a moisture in the air that warped book pages and caused damage to covers. He’d bet money there was mold behind the walls and even in the carpets, but, to him, this place was paradise.
As far as work assignments went, helping out in the prison library was a coveted gig, and he had no idea how he’d scored it when he wasn’t even technically an inmate of the prison. But he refused to question his luck, especially since it meant the only people who could get to him were the guards, and they tended to avoid the library. Webster wasn’t sure why, but he was almost positive it had to do with his unofficial boss, Javier de la Fuenta.
Javier was only a few years older than Webster, but, unlike his other Mexican Mafia counterparts, he didn’t bear the mark of somebody who ran with the major gangs on the outside. He was tall and sleek with jet black hair, a five o’clock shadow, hazel eyes that Webster probably would have fallen into had Cy not taken up permanent residence in his head.
“Hey, guero. Get your head out of the clouds. You got work to do. I don’t pay you to daydream.” There was no malice behind the man’s words. His face split into a grin, revealing perfect white teeth. Yeah, on the outside, Javier would have been another unrequited crush, for sure.
“You don’t pay me at all,” Webster reminded, sliding another book home.
“I gotta get today’s special requests ready. I’ll be back.”
Webster nodded but didn’t say anything else. His job was just to return books to their homes in the morning and wheel a cart around the pods in the afternoon, offering reading material to inmates and accepting the books due to be returned. It wasn’t his job to question what exactly one of Javier’s special requests entailed.
Tig and Iggy said Javier was cool but he was not to be fucked with. He was a high level enforcer for a gunrunner in Mexico, which was why he ran with the Mexican Mafia within the walls of the prison. He wasn’t doing a long stint, but it was apparent from day one that Javier wasn’t just peddling books. He was passing contraband.
Webster didn’t give a fuck what Javier was peddling as long as it got him out of Thor’s sight for eight hours a day. Maybe that was why Javier had chosen him? Maybe he saw the dark cloud hanging over Webster’s head and knew somebody that desperate would keep his mouth shut? Javier was always watching Webster over the tops of books or side-eyeing him as he ‘packaged’ up bundles for inmates. Sometimes, Webster swore Javier even followed him on his deliveries. It was disconcerting, but since Webster just did as he was told, he did his best to ignore it. Truthfully, he’d rather Javier follow him than Thor and his crew. At least, with Javier, his agenda was clear. Keep his pipeline moving and all would be well.
Webster would be lying to himself if he didn’t say part of him was happy that Javier’s import/export business might directly interfere with Thor’s drug running enterprise. While it wasn’t likely to make him anymore popular with the skinheads, it did make him feel more like he had a