Lenny's pov

"I'd better not see you around here again," the warden scoffed, handing me a plastic bag containing my mortal belongings. "Won't you miss me?" I teased lightly

Wrinkles lined her face, "I mean it, Willow. Keep your head down and stay away from the reason you got sent to this hole in the first place. Especially since he didn't bother reaching out to you once."

The smile on my face shrank to a tight line.

"He was in a tight spot, and his grandma had no one else to take care of her. I'm sure he was just too ashamed to call me," I whispered, my head dipping downwards.

She looked at me, her facial muscles caught between frustration, annoyance, and the worst of all-pity.

"Men like that are always in a tight spot, that's all I've got to say to you. If you don't listen then I guess I'll be expecting my chess partner back,"

I perked up hearing that, "Ahah, so you will miss me!"

"Out of sight, Willow. Before I lock you up again!"

Not a chance.

In a second I took in a rib lift of air and almost burst into tears, freedom tasted so good.

Five long years and I'm finally out. It feels like it's been forever.

My eyes swivel around, expecting to see my man; tall, bearded, lanky, and dressed like he just rolled out of bed. I'll admit he was a mess, but he was my mess and unlike my dad, I didn't have to fish him out of the gutters in the evening, so it was a win right?

I began to sway after the first 10 minutes of waiting, 10 extra minutes past and still nothing. Did he forget? I adore my man but he'd forget his legs going out if he could.

Taking out my phone from the plastic bag, I called him.

It rang... "grmmmmmm x5"

No response the first time... Or the second, but hey like they say third times the charm.

He picked it up his deep voice lifting my mood instantly.

"Who's this?" The ground beneath felt like it parted.

I swallowed hard but it seemed the saliva seemed to ball up in my throat.

"Stop with the jokes, Rico... It's me, the absolute love of your life, Lenny!"

The way I said it, it was as if I was trying to convince either him or myself.

There was a long silence that seem to stretch on forever then I heard rustling.

"Len, how...how have you been? When did you get out?" The question sounded distant, like something you'd hear from an acquaintance and not the man you went to prison for.

Rico had accidentally run into a middle aged banker 5 years ago, which coupled with the minor misdemeanors in his past, was going to send him away for a long time.

"Lenny, I don't know what to do! My Nonna will be all alone! I'm all she has left...if only I never went out that night!"

He said, falling apart. Guilt hits me like a freight train. He had gone out that night to buy me a last minute gift for our anniversary.

He was shaking, cursing at himself and that blasted night.

Seeing the man I loved crumble write in front of me the words came out before I could hold you back.

"What if we keep the cops thinking you weren't the one behind the wheel?"

In that moment he looked at me as if I was the moon the stars and everything in between.

" Lenny.. are you saying... Do you really mean...no I couldn't let you,"

He did and I don't regret it.

I'd do it all over again for the guy who pulled all nighters with me, the guy who picked every part-time job he could to make sure that I could study for midterms without worrying that the roof above our heads would be taken away, the guy who looked beyond my daddy issues and said 'I love you'.

...And now after all these years, I'd still say 'I love you' back.

"Yeah, have you moved?"

We really felt like strangers when I didn't even know where I lived.

"No, still the same old place,"

I smiled, knowing that I'd be hit with familiarity made me feel more settled.

In the blink of an eye a cab had took me to our old apartment complex. It was even more eroded than I remembered.

My heart pounded with excitement as the elevator lifted me up to our floor.

I came to the door I hadn't seen in years, expecting a warm welcome but a chill hit when I picked up that the door was open, about three inches ajar. After swallowing a deep breath I calmed myself, this isn't prison. I need to let down my guard.

Strolling in I still caught myself checking corners, I froze up in the middle of the sitting room as I heard moans coming from the kitchen.

My heart dropped... It couldn't be, to everything precious please let this be.

Feet stumbled into the kitchen and... stopped.

There was my dearest Rico.

Pants pooled to the floor and his intimates connected as far as they could into a woman with wavy platinum blonde hair as she braced herself into the counter.

He kept pummeling into her as I watched with horror pinned to the floor until his gasping release, gripping to her hips.

"Rico.." I said sounding like broken glass.

It took him to look around.

His eyes locked with mine.

"Sh*t, you weren't supposed to see this,"

He pulled the woman up, his shirt barely covering what he'd left on her behind and she grumbled, "What the hell Rico?! I haven't-"

She saw me and her eyes turned to slits.

"Whose whore are you?"

I'm going to be sick, what kind of nightmare is this.

"It's business, Sofia baby, go to the bedroom. I'll be done in a minute,"

She gave me another warning look, then she smirked deviously and wrapped her arms around him pulling him down to meet his lips with her shattering the last bit of hope that has kept me going for the last five years.

She left and Rico turned to me

"Look, Len. I can explain."

Lenny's POV

"Explain?!" I spat out, throwing my plastic bag at him. "How the heck are you going to explain this?"

He dodged-he always had surprisingly fast reflexes-and groaned, pulling up his pants and buckling swiftly.

"Sofia is a friend,"

"I'm sure she is," I seethed as he approached me. He had the audacity to wear 'that' smile, the one that usually had me melting in a puddle and swallowing any half-baked apology he had to offer.

Not this time... or ever again.

"Len... look, I'm a man," he gestured to himself like it wasn't obvious enough, "I have needs. Sofia is just a distraction." He sounded so convinced with himself that if I had any less self-respect, I would have actually believed him. I dragged my palm over my face, the tears already beginning to bubble in the corner of my eyes. I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask next, but I did so anyways. Perhaps a vain hook still lived somewhere in my heart as it crumbled into pieces. "Why didn't you call me even once? Why didn't you come and visit me at all? I waited all those years. I waited for you and nothing-not even one single call."

He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, then suddenly his voice went up.

"What the hell? You barge in and you're only talking about yourself. What about me? Do you know what I've had to go through in the past 5 years after your screw up?" The ground was suddenly spinning under my feet. I marched up to him. "My screw up? You're the one who ran someone over!" I stabbed my finger on his chest, my sadness boiling into rage.

He looked at me, his expression becoming strangely blank.

"Well, that's not what your confession says... or the court." My knees turned to water, and it took everything inside of me not to buckle and collapse.

"Rico, you sick-"

"It doesn't matter what you think of me now." He bent down, picked up my plastic bag, and threw it back at me. "The person with a criminal record right now is you, not me."

A bucket of invisible cold, icy water splashed over me. There was no hint of shame or guilt when he said it-just pure smugness.

I wanted to walk away; the sound of his voice alone was twisting my stomach, but he grabbed my wrist and forced me to look at him.

"Where do you think you're heading off to?" he said, a shift in his voice and tone making my skin bristle with unease.

"Away from this insanity... Away from you! I'll take back my life savings and-"

He laughed hard, a loud throaty sound that sounded as pleasant as garbage going down a chute.

"Just how stupid can you be?!" he snickered. "There's nothing left of that so-called savings of yours. I've spent it."

This time I collapsed, or at least I would have if he wasn't still holding me with that iron grip.

"Rico, you know how I got that money..." I said, shaking all over. I'd worked myself into exhaustion day in and day out, picking jobs that other people wouldn't touch with a 6-foot pole. I starved myself, eating just enough to keep my body in motion.

All of that couldn't have been for nothing. I can't accept it.

"I mean, there's some of it left..." He finally released me, went to the kitchen, and looked through some cabinets before returning with an envelope. "You got like 8k in there."

It was 7.

"How do you bring $200,000 to this?"

As though I was still gripping to hope, I asked him, "Was it for your Nonna's care?"

He chuckled.

"You really are stupid. I've never even met my Nonna!"

He sounded so proud of deceiving me, and I was just spiraling in my mind, thinking of all those times I'd lent him money, those late nights I was all alone because he was catering to her...

And when I took the fall.

Thinking I was keeping the family together, that I was saving a bond that I could only ever dream of.

I'd asked to meet her several times, and there was always an excuse.

Of course she wasn't real.

His hands found my shoulder. "Look, baby, now that I've been honest, let's put that all behind us and-"

He couldn't finish before I delivered a hook to his jaw. He was bigger than me, stronger maybe.

He staggered back, hitting the counter he'd just used to cheat on me, holding onto it as blood coated his lips.

"What the-"

"Pain wasn't the only thing I got from prison, you know," I said, holding the envelope. My eyes explored the apartment that was basically collapsing in on itself. Looks like my life savings had been squandered into the air.

In that moment, my whole body was an earthquake of emotions threatening to crush me.

But I gathered what was left of my strength... and my dignity.

"I wish I never met you, Rico. You're a vile, awful man and I curse the day I met you."

I left before he could see my tears, mourning for a love I never had.

That day I wandered around the streets of Florida aimlessly until night fell and the air felt oddly cold and sticky against my skin.

In my hand was an envelope that was a mere crumb compared to what I once had.

The man I've loved for eight years was nothing but irredeemable scum.

All the dreams I had of us-of a future, of the family life never let me have.

Where do I go from here?

I just want to quit... Nothing ever works out for me.

Lost in my thoughts, a flood of light hit me in the face. I heard the screeching of tyers, and yet I couldn't will myself to move.

The lights covered my vision and in a snap...

Darkness.

Vincenzo's POV

"I swear I'll get you the money! I wasn't running... I wouldn't dare...!"

Behind the pathetic pleading filling my ears, my 8 o'clock class loomed in my mind...I have an essay I've been putting aside. The professor was a pain, but he had a backbone unlike the others in my department, who shrank like snails into their shells when they saw him.

Coming back to the present, I allowed a snake of smoke to slither over my head then pushed back against the relaxing leather seating the begging fool before me had been enjoying before I barged in. The girls who were crawling all over him had sharper survival skills, as proven by how they immediately dipped when they saw me.

He, however, was drunk, his senses blurred. When Luca-a soldier often paired with me-walked in together, he gargled out, "Where are the girls? Tell them to come back... I paid good money for the spot."

"I know," I said far too quietly, sweeping off a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the glass table. "That's funny, because the last time we met, you all but told me that the only thing you had on you were the clothes on your back. And here you are, spending 10K at this club. Funny, isn't it?"

As I said all of this, there was not even the slightest trace of humor in my eyes. The burn of my gaze began to trickle into his consciousness and his eyes grew wider by the second.

"Vincenzo," he called out, his face losing color.

"It's been a while," I said, grabbing his flabby jaw and shoving the bottle between his open teeth. He struggled as the whiskey violently rushed down his throat with burning intensity. He coughed and wheezed, some of the droplets crawling to the sides of his mouth as the rest of it bubbled and more of it kept going down.

By the time I was done, he was coughing harder, his whole body shaking, his eyes red. Now he was on his knees, his eyes occasionally going to Luca guarding the door, hoping the more sane one of us might stop me. Fat chance.

"I'll get the money," he rumbled pathetically, his body drenched in alcohol and saliva. What added to my rage was that some of it had dropped on my clothes, too.

I shook my head tiredly. "You know how we do things around here. Three strikes and you're out."

He looked at me, a fresh, gleaming, disgusting hope written all over his face. "But... but this is my second strike, right? I still have the third! I'll get the money before then, I promise I-"

Before he could finish, my fingers had shot out with the cigar, using his face as an ashtray. I had made him strip off his shirt, and most of his upper body was covered with those small burns. He winced, but had enough sense to keep his screams locked away. There were several other spots where my cigar had gone on his face, and I wasn't satisfied with that.

I was supposed to be catching up on sleep; so far in the past 72 hours, I had been running on only three. I didn't really care what my Capo would ask; some days I felt like reminding him that my position was more important than his being my uncle.

"I don't feel right leaving you like this," I said, picking up that same whiskey bottle again. "You put me through a lot of stress to find you and at the very least I should thank you for that by leaving a parting gift that will make you think of me-and how much time you have left. Which is exactly 10 days. If you think of running again, it will be wiser to start shopping for caskets."

He looked at me with justified horror in his eyes, more pleas rolling out of his mouth, but such things had merely become background noise to me. Pain, blood, murder-I had become numb to it all.

Life was just a series of repeated emotions necessary for the familia; in essence, it meant nothing and everything. Look at me getting philosophical-not what one would expect from a monster.

I shattered the bottle, watching the shards fly and catching the color-infused lights of the VIP room. "Turn around."

He was now sniffling, but he obeyed, knowing what would come if he did not was far worse. Then, casually, I printed the next date-the date that could easily be his execution if he tried me one more time.

I wrote it casually, not minding that the glass was cutting into my fingers as well. Luca had to come and hold him still as he was beginning to shake. Then, as a last thoughtful gesture, I poured some alcohol on his fresh wounds just to disinfect them. His screams exploded through the VIP room and he collapsed. He'd survive; I'd seen men survive worse than that.

I cleaned my hands with his clothes, disinfecting my wounds as well-not like they were actually deep enough to hurt. I barely even flinched as Luca poured it.

Five minutes later, I was behind the wheel and Luca was next to me in the passenger seat. As he closed the door, he sighed. "Thanks for keeping everything PG-13 tonight."

I chuckled at that. Indeed, being by my side, he had seen far worse. I remembered the first time I showed him how easily I could have gone into surgery if I weren't part of the familia.

That was a rather funny joke, though; considering it, I could be nothing without the familia. He hadn't appreciated it then because he was too busy throwing up. Now he had a tougher stomach, and that almost made me forget his job was to watch me.

I dropped him off in our territory at one of his favorite spots-a strip club.

"Come in for a night," he said, throwing out the invitation he had given almost a thousand times. "The girls they have here are always something else. A perfect way to relax, if you ask me."

"Then it's not for me," I responded, putting the engine back in action. "I never relax."

And I meant it. Even in my sleep I was fully alert, ready for the next bullet that would be aimed my way. If I had lived my life in any other way, I would be dead right now.

But maybe just three hours of sleep in three days had worse effects than I expected, because I lost myself for a moment. Then, by the time I was fully awake, there was a woman standing in front of my car-inches away from an impact she could not survive.