Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I slam my hands down on the table. “A hundred and eighty days!”
“I told you this is serious. Plus, a man died after you pistol whipped him.”
A new thought occurs to me. Fuck…
“And I’m not supposed to have a firearm.”
She exhales sharply through her nose. “Give the man a gold star. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I think I was protecting the woman I love. Those two men trespassed, came onto my property. Threatened me, threatened Savannah.”
“I can make a case for that. But here’s the problem. You’re an ex-convict. You confessed to manslaughter eight years ago.”
“And you and I both know I didn’t do it.”
“You think that matters? You served eight years. You confessed to manslaughter, and then you got more years tacked onto your sentence for contraband.”
I grit my teeth. “And I’d either be dead or maimed if I hadn’t had that contraband.”
She waves her hand at me. “Hey, I get that. You’re preaching to the choir here. But you and I both know there are some rules you’re going to have to play by. You didn’t make the rules, and neither did I. Do I want to see you go back to prison? Hell, no. You didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.”
“I had my reasons.”
“Which I hope you will one day open up about. But the fact of the matter is that as far as the system goes, you’re an ex-convict. An ex-convict who violated parole by missing meetings and by possessing a firearm.”
I open my mouth but she gestures to me again.
“Yes, we’ve been through it. It was self-defense, defense of another. And they were trespassing and they were armed. I will do my best to make that go away, and we certainly have a case to get you out of a manslaughter charge. But you’ve violated your parole.”
I rake my fingers through my hair. “Sitting down with some idiot was the last thing on my mind for the last two weeks. And the guns are mine. I own them.”
“I get that. I do.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know what was going on with Savannah, Lola. She was taken by the McAllister family, and she was going to be forced into marriage to Miles McAllister.”
Lola’s eyes widen.
“Yeah, Savannah is a member of the Bianchi family.”
“Damn.”
“Right? I wasn’t going to let that happen. He was about to rape her when we found her.”
She takes a deep breath then slowly exhales. “I’m sorry, Falcon.”
“If you want to arrest somebody, get someone thrown in the slammer, go after Miles McAllister.”
“He and his family live in Austin.”
“So? Get them investigated.”
“I work for your family, Falcon. I don’t work for the state of Texas.”
“I know that, but how have they been able to exist? Get away with this shit?”
She shrugs. “The same way organized crime has been existing for the past several centuries, Falcon. They buy people off.”
“There should be some kind of punishment for all that.”
“When the DA can catch them, there is. They go away for a long time. But these families are experts at laundering money, experts at buying off cops and judges. It shouldn’t happen, but people aren’t perfect. They see money, and they take it.”
“Is it money? Or is it the barrel of a damned gun?”
“Sometimes it’s both.”
“It shouldn’t be allowed to happen. This isn’t Chicago in the twenties.”
“No. It’s a hell of a lot easier for these people to operate now,” she says. “With the Internet, the dark web, all the technology they can use to protect themselves, they’re virtually impossible to catch.”
“I’ll testify,” I say.
“You can testify, and the two guys who trespassed—make that one, because the other’s dead—will probably go down. But if that man is important to the family, they’ll find a way to get rid of the witnesses.” She narrows her gaze at me. “That’s you, Falcon.”
I cross my arms. “No one will touch me. No one touched me on the inside, and no one can touch me on the outside.”
“There were rules on the inside, Falcon. You were able to figure them out and learn to play by them, make them work in your favor. But this is the real world. You and I both know that. And as far as these families go, there are no rules.”
I shake my head. “I can’t go back inside. I need to protect Savannah. I can’t do that from the inside, Lola.”
She shuffles through some paperwork. “I’ll get the parole revocation hearing scheduled as soon as I can. But I can’t get you out of jail right now. You’re a convicted felon, and they’re not going to release you on bail.”
“So I’m just going to sit in here? Rot with these other miscreants?”
“You’ll be moved to a different cell. And I can at least fix it so they don’t send you back to prison. You’ll be held here in the county jail until your parole revocation hearing.”