Virgin (The Henchmen MC 16)

To go through with my plan.

To, likely, head back to jail.

Possibly for life.

It had been so long. I had forgotten how it felt to love and be loved. Under the daily drudgery of prison life, I had somehow lost these parts of me. The ones that knew humor and food made of love and the touch of affection that wanted nothing but to soothe, to make things better.

As I sat across a little round table loaded down with more food than I had seen in years, made with flavor and familiarity, listening to my brother talk about the men in his 'rotation,' and telling me about all the things he had planned to do with me now that I was home, I wasn't sure how I could do it.

Give it all back.

Give it away.

Willingly, this time.

It wasn't just about me, either. It wasn't about all these soft, warm things I would be refusing for myself. It was about my brothers. It was about what I would be doing to them. With purpose. Fully aware of what I was doing to them all over again. Making them worry about me. Knowing they would continue to fill my commissary even if I told them not to. Having to deal with the back flack that would inevitably come from having a family member spending the rest of their lives in jail.

Could I do that to them?

Be that selfish?

As Thaddeus rubbed red lipstick on my lips, fluffed my hair, then moved me in front of the mirror, I was almost sure I couldn't.

The woman who looked back at me was a me I didn't recognize, a me that hadn't looked back at me in a mirror in a decade. This was a woman who had people who loved her, who wanted to spend meals with her, go to movies. This was a woman who had places to go, people to see, a future to make.

Thad was true to his word. He chopped off the shoulder-length, dried-out hair I had been abusing for ten years, shortening it to just under my ears, the tresses falling in bouncy, yet loose curls, giving it the volume it had been needing to set off my cheekbones, he cut somehow making my eyes more of a focal point. Mascara darkened and lengthened my lashes. My brows were perfectly tweezed. And my lips were a bold shade of red that I never would have chosen for myself, but found myself loving.

"And that, beautiful, would be Benny with your clothes," Thad announced when there was a knocking on the door with what seemed like the tip of a shoe.

Benny, as far as I remembered from the somewhat lengthy list, was not part of Thad's rotation. Just a friend. The one who let him borrow the salon chair in the first place.

The next few hours were a whirlwind. I was plied with wine that made me both light and heavy at the same time, making my head feel floaty, but my heart feel slow and sad as I was stripped down to my panties and dressed, undressed, and redressed while being inspected by the keen eyes of both Thaddeus and Benny who debated each piece of wardrobe as if the fate of the country depended on them being the right shade for my skin tone and the right style to accentuate my waist and behind while making it seem like I had more up top than I actually did.

By the time I was shuffled to bed wearing a silk camisole and short set in a sweet soft yellow color that felt buttery soft on my skin, staring up at the white ceiling fan whirling around lazily enough not to even rustle the sheer drapes on the windows, I understood one thing.

If I had to continue this path, if I chose to let the rage simmer and overflow, if I took out long-sought vengeance, my brothers would never forgive me.

I'd have to give them up.

I'd have to be okay with having no family left, never knowing warmth again.

And, quite frankly, I wasn't ready for that yet.

I wondered if I ever would be.

If I could live with myself if I didn't make him pay for what he did to me, what he stole from me. If I could face myself every day for the rest of my life knowing he was out there with a clear conscience, getting off Scot-free. If I could ever truly move on from a youth stolen, trust annihilated, happiness ripped away.

I didn't, as it turned out, get a restful night sleep.

While the world around me might have been silent for the first time in years, the voices in my head screamed louder than anyone else possibly could.TWOVirginThere were, by my count, eight kids running around the compound.

Freeze tag.

Simon Says.

Cops and robbers.