As I approach his cell, I hear the click of the lock and see the door open slightly. As quietly as I can, I go over, and he’s standing there staring at the door.
“Come with me,” I tell him, but he doesn’t move. Instead he narrows his eyes.
“Why should I trust you?” He opens his hands as if I should look around. “If I try and break out and get caught, I lose all of this. And I have no chance of ever getting out.”
“You don’t have a chance of that happening even if you don’t try to escape,” I explain as I look over my shoulder.
“Maybe, but if I’m stuck in here for life, why should I give all this up?” He sighs and shakes his head. “I can’t risk losing any communication with my daughter.”
“Leo,” I say, stepping closer to him. “This is your one chance, our chance. I’ve spent the past two years undercover so I could get to you.”
Anger flashes in his eyes as squares his shoulders. “Who are you?”
“Right now, I’m a rogue FBI agent.” His eyes widen, and I try to quickly explain. “I was part of the investigation into putting you behind bars. But when the evidence came through it didn’t add up. We watched you for years and couldn’t get a single scrap of evidence, no one would turn on you.”
“My men are loyal, especially to rats like you,” he spits at me, and I shake my head.
“No, not like me. I got into the feds as a means to an end. I’m ex-military, and they used me like a weapon. My parents died when I was in college, and after I graduated, I was recruited by them. They put me through training and sent me on missions. I didn’t have anything left to make me question it, but the deeper I got, the more I saw the corruption on the inside.”
“No shit,” he hisses.
“The investigation into you was my last. I was retiring after your case, and then I saw the dirty evidence. It was planted, and I had everything to clear your name.”
“So why didn’t you?” His eyes are burning through me, but I don’t flinch.
“Why do you think I'm in jail?” His eyebrows pull together as he tries to process this. “As soon as I tried to expose the truth, they tossed me in a cell. The feds erased my past because of the work I’d done for them and expected me to rot in here. It took me over a year to get transferred to this prison, and it’s only because I’ve still got a couple of friends left on the outside.”
“I’ve been asking you this from the beginning, but what do you want? Why are you doing this?”
“To make this right,” I answer honestly. “You’re not an innocent man, but you’re innocent of this crime. I can prove it, but I don’t trust that either of us are safe when I uncover the corruption. We need to get out of here before we can clear your name.”
He looks into my eyes and for a moment doesn’t say a word. But I can see when his decision has been made and he nods.
“Lead the way.”
I check the clock on the wall and see we’ve only got seconds before it happens, and I turn to Leo.
“Will you trust me?” I ask, adrenaline climbing my neck.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No,” I answer and push him behind me.
On cue, the alarm sounds and every cell door on A Block opens.
Chapter Eleven
Sienna
I trail the pink ribbon behind me as I walk down the hallway. Tiger bounces around behind me, trying to pounce on it, and it makes me laugh. I scoop him up when I get to the stairs and carry him down before putting him back on his feet to chase the ribbon again.
“I figured you’d show up.” Margaret smiles as she uses the spatula to lift the cookies off the tray and put them on the cooling rack. I go for one, and she warns me like a mother hen, “Careful.”
“I love when you make cookies. It makes the house smell wonderful and gives it a homey feeling.” That’s not here much anymore, and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to come back.
I’m actually starting to hate this place more and more every day. I don’t know if it’s out of resentment because I’ve been kept here alone, or because it’s missing the magic of my mother.
“You’ve been moping around, so I had to do something.” She points at one of the cookies, letting me know it’s okay to pick up.
I take a bite and think that last week I would have said nothing tastes better than Margaret’s cookies, but that’s not the case anymore. Kai now holds that spot, and I have to make a conscious effort not to press my legs together when I remember what we did.