Filthy F*ckers: The Complete Series Box Set

by Hildreth, Scott

  I tried to look away, but his hazel eyes were just as irresistible as his handsome looks. He met my gaze and I couldn’t help but grin.

  “Any word on your hearing?” I asked.

  “Postponed it again.” He gave a slight shrug. “Second time they’ve done it.”

  “Maybe their case is weak.”

  He chuckled a low-pitched but genuine laugh. “I had a gun in one hand and a guy’s neck in the other. Not much to prove, Officer Madden.”

  I straightened my posture and lifted my chin. “Stay positive.”

  The advice sounded juvenile, and I wished I hadn’t said it. Stay positive. What kind of advice was that? Ridiculous advice, that’s what it was.

  “I’m only looking at five years,” he said as if a five-year prison sentence was nothing but a walk in the park. “I can sleep through a five-year bit. It’ll be over in no time, and then I’ll be riding my Harley down the PCH to Oceanside.”

  “Are you still going to ride with the motorcycle club when you get out?”

  His gaze hardened. “I’m not in this place because of the club. I’ve got no plans to abandon my family, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Every time I talked to him, it seemed I said something I later regretted. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut, but I found him too easy to talk to, and impossible to ignore.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said in an apologetic tone. “I was just asking.”

  “Those men are my brothers. I’d much rather ride with them than alone.” He picked up the tray, gave the oatmeal a stern glare, and then looked at me. “When I get out, I’ll look you up. We’ll go on a poker run or something. You’ll see. They’re a good bunch of fellas.”

  He often joked about what things would be like if we’d met on the street. Truthfully, I wished we had. Even if I wanted to spend time with him, doing so would be impossible. Corrections Officers were prohibited from having any contact with the inmates beyond the limits of the institution.

  There was nothing in the handbook about daydreaming, though. It was a good thing, because I did plenty of it. “Sounds like a good plan.” I smiled and wondered if it looked cheesy. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

  After passing out the food to the remaining inmates, I returned to the observation station. Officer Perry’s attitude met me at the door.

  He was pacing the floor at the far end of the office, swinging his keychain in his hand as he walked. It was his only means of exercise. When I entered, he paused. Halfway through a lap, he looked at me and scoffed. “I don’t know when you’re going to learn, Madden. Probably take having one of these dip-shits slip a shank between your ribs to convince you that they’re not good people.”

  I sat down in front of a row of monitors, shot him a quick glare, and then turned away. “Jesus, Perry,” I spat. “Nobody’s getting shanked. All I did was ask him if he had a trial date scheduled yet.”

  “Keep talking to him like he’s one of your old classmates,” he warned. “Crazy bastard will hunt you down when he gets out of prison – if he gets out – then him and his biker gang will take turns with you and leave you for dead in the alley behind the fish market with your panties dangling off one of your ankles.”

  “What the fuck?” I gave him a look. “Graphic much?”

  He shrugged. “Happens all the time.”

  “It does not,” I snapped. “And, he’s not like that.”

  Gazing blankly into the cellblock, he brushed his comb-over across the top of his head with the palm of his hand. The long strands of orange hair flattened against his pink scalp, leaving the top of his head splattered with four one-inch wide stripes of hair.

  “They’re all like that,” he seethed.

  I gave a half-hearted nod and wagged my eyebrows. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He turned toward me and rested his forearms on the top of his belly. “You need to be invisible to these guys,” he explained. “I’ve been here long enough to know the importance of that.”

  Perry had been a corrections officer for ten years, which was nine years and nine months longer than me. After retiring from the military at thirty-eight years old, he started his career as a corrections officer. Balding, and just south of fifty years old, his attitude was as long as his horrible comb-over. He’d spent 20 uneventful years behind a desk in the Navy, and had never seen a moment’s action within the walls of the jail.

  To hear him talk, however, he was a seasoned veteran.

  He yearned for the opportunity to either beat or pepper spray an inmate, but that day had yet to come. More proof that no one was getting shanked between their ribs in the federal holding facility.

  The small wing we worked in housed only the federal inmates. Although they were as threatening as the state controlled population, there were far less of them. It made guarding them – and controlling them – a more manageable task.

  “He seems different,” I said.

  “That’s because he wants you to see him as different. Believe me, he’s not. He’ll crawl inside your head, get you to lower your guard, and then he’ll stick a sharpened spoon handle in your gut.”

  I gazed blankly through the glass and into the cellblock. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Keep up with that dismissive attitude. They’ll be hauling you out of here on a stretcher with a punctured spleen.”

  I swiveled my chair to the side and met his stare. “How long have you been here?”

  “Ten years, three months, and fourteen days.”

  “In that time, how many officers have been shanked? Here in the federal holding center?”

  “None,” he said. “Because we don’t fraternize with them.”

  Officer Perry may have had more experience than me, but I knew people. And what I knew about people told me that Tate Reynolds wasn’t going to shove a spoon handle in my gut.

  During the few moments we shared each day, I felt appreciated. I realized he was incarcerated, and that talking to him may have been risky, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

  I wasn’t a twenty-something one-hundred-pound twig of a girl with a thigh gap someone could watch television through. I was a thirty-something with thighs that chafed from rubbing against each other when I walked. I ate salads and did two hours of cardio a day so I could refrain from abandoning my status of seriously overweight and morphing into obesity.

  I found society’s labels ridiculous, and often wondered why if I was comfortable with myself, society couldn’t become comfortable with me?

  “As long as he treats me with respect, I’ll do the same with him,” I said. “If he shanks me with a spoon handle, then you can say I told you so.”

  “Believe me, I’ll say it,” he said with a crisp nod. “While I’m mopping up the blood.”

  Chapter Two Hundred Seven

  Tate

  He checked his watch and then reached for his briefcase. “I’ll need a response. I can’t proceed without your direction.”

  Being handcuffed to a steel table while I met with my attorney did little to support the innocent until proven guilty facet of the law. I tugged against my restraints and then met his curious gaze.

  His bronze skin resembled leather, and it went hand-in-hand with his sun-bleached blonde hair that he wore carefully combed into a ducktail.

  I held his gaze and slowly cocked an eyebrow. “Your best advice is for me to plead guilty?”

  He looked me over as if I were filth. “You are guilty.”

  “You’re supposed to provide me with a defense.” I tried to remain calm, but it didn’t come easily. “That’s what I paid you for. It’s your job.”

  He adjusted his tie, and then gave me a smug look. “It’s my job to give recommendations based on the facts of each case.” He looked away. “It’s difficult to defend someone who was caught red-handed.”

  I was ready to fire the condescending asshole. Being patronized was high on my list of pet peeves, and having a man with his experience do so ma
de matters that much worse. I clenched my jaw, inhaled a long breath through my nose, and then exhaled.

  “If I plead guilty, I go to prison for five years. If I go to trial and they find me guilty, I go to prison for the same five fucking years,” I explained. “There’s no risk in going to trial, only the possibility of reward.”

  He gave me a confused look. “I don’t follow your logic.”

  “You know, I’m really not surprised,” I said with a dry laugh. “If I take this case to trial, some juror might side with me and hold out on a verdict. Then, the case ends up in a hung jury. The judge thanks everyone for their service and declares a mistrial. In the end, I go free. I’m not pleading guilty. I’m going to trial. Maybe you’ll get a sympathetic biker on the jury.”

  “Trials cost the taxpayers money,” he said flatly. “A guilty man going to trial is frowned upon by the system.”

  I tried to keep from laughing. “Frowned upon?”

  He gave a pompous nod. “Looked down upon.”

  “I know what it means, asshole. You act like taxpayers are a separate entity of people. I’m a fucking taxpayer. It’s rare that I get anything for all the money I pay, so I’m going to spend some of my tax dollars on a God damned trial.”

  “I suggest the contrary.”

  “I made note of that,” I said, stone-faced. “Earlier. When you recommended that I plead guilty.”

  He clutched his briefcase against his chest. “I’m not prepared to take this case to trial.”

  I looked him up and down. “You better get prepared, motherfucker. If you don’t, I’ll file a motion for Ineffective Assistance of Counsel.”

  He gasped. His briefcase lowered to his lap in the process. “I--”

  “You what? This isn’t my first rodeo, counselor. Remember, I’m a felon in possession of a firearm. That means I’ve already been down this road at least once. I’m not pleading guilty. I made the mistake of doing that last time. We’re going to trial. I suggest you either get prepared or return my fucking retainer.”

  He stood and then brushed the wrinkles from his suit. “In an effort to save the taxpayers tremendous cost, and the court tremendous time, it’s my professional recommendation that you consider pleading guilty.”

  “Considered, and denied.” I looked up and met his gaze. “We’re going to trial.”

  He let out an exhaustive breath and then shook his head in clear disgust of my decision.

  I lifted my cuffed hand until the chain went taut. “Remind that wad of shit standing in the hallway that I’m in here, will ya?”

  He pushed the door open and then glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll let the prosecution know we’re taking this to trial. They’re not going to be happy.”

  “I’m locked in a 6-foot by 12-foot cell for 23 hours a day,” I said, my tone beginning to convey my anger. “I’m not very fucking happy, either.”

  The door closed behind him.

  The charges in my first criminal case weren’t what most would expect from an outlaw biker. While rolling through a neighborhood looking for a gas station, I happened upon group of people who had gathered to protest the shooting of a black motorist by a white police officer. Having previously seen the video footage of the shooting on the news, I was sympathetic to their cause. In complete support of the protest, I pulled my motorcycle to the curb and watched in awe while the people waved their signs and chanted.

  I leaned against the seat of my bike and raised my clenched fist as they marched past. When the cops arrived, I was arrested along with many others who had refused to stand down when directed to do so. Because of my smart mouth – and the kutte I was wearing – I was segregated from the group.

  Later that night, I was charged with inciting a riot.

  I viewed the crime as a joke, but the prosecution certainly saw it differently. At the recommendation of a public defender, I pleaded guilty under the assumption I would receive probation for the criminal infraction.

  Instead, I received 27 months behind bars. Because of my gang affiliation, they sent me to the same prison as if I had robbed a bank.

  What little respect I had for the judicial system dwindled to nothing. I did my 27 months without incident, and returned to society with the label of a convict.

  Fast forward five years, and I was in trouble again.

  While having a few drinks in a bar in Los Angeles with a new prospect for the MC, we saw a fight break out no more than twenty feet from where we were sitting. A lop-sided affair, with one man standing up against four, it was difficult for me to witness without intervening.

  So, I intervened.

  A flurry of fists, feet, chairs and teeth went flying. Then, at some point, a knife was pulled. The prospect handed me a gun to even the odds. As fate would have it, two undercover ATF agents were in the crowd, and I was subsequently arrested.

  Having already seen the ways of a public defender, and now facing five years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, I opted to hire an attorney. A very expensive attorney. It frustrated me that his desire to defend my case was measurably less than my desire to stay out of prison.

  The door opened and Officer Perry stepped in. He was the jail’s senior officer, and an absolute asshole. When he walked the cellblock, he always reminded the inmates that he was the one in charge, and we were the lowly filth who he was hired to protect the innocent from.

  He was a man who obviously masked his own insecurities by being a prison guard. What deficiencies he had in the real world were left at the entrance of the jail, and for eight hours a day, he could be the man everyone had to answer to.

  “Hands on the table,” he growled. “Palms up.”

  “Hands down, palms up.” I shifted my eyes to the floor, paused, and then met his gaze. “That reminds me of what I tell your wife when I see her. Kind of. Head down, ass up is her cue. Ironic how they resemble one another, isn’t it?”

  “Keep up with the smart mouth, Reynolds, and I’ll toss your ass in segregation.”

  I believed in treating people with respect, but only if they were respectful to me. Officer Perry was a disrespectful fuck if I’d ever met one. Therefore, he got my ugly side.

  He unlocked the handcuffs, slipped one through the restraint loop, and then secured it to my wrists.

  “If I keep it up, and you toss me in the SHU…” I looked right at him. “Can she come up there and give me a handy through the bean slot?”

  “I mean it,” he snarled.

  “So do I,” I said flatly. “I wonder if I could get my cock through that thing.”

  “One more remark…” he warned.

  Normally, I would have given him – or anyone who challenged me – two more remarks. Hell, maybe a dozen. Doing so would land me in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, and I’d be on lockdown for 24 hours a day.

  I’d been tossed in the hole plenty of times during my tenure in prison, so his threat fell on deaf ears. The thought of not seeing Officer Madden, however, prevented me from proceeding with my torturous comments. Talking to her for a few minutes each morning was the highlight of my day.

  Had we met under any other circumstances, I wondered if things might be different. Without a hung jury or a miracle, the only relationship I’d ever have with her would be a continuation of our five-minute-long conversations through a two-inch-thick piece of glass.

  I seriously doubted I’d get a hung jury. So, I pursed my lips, flattened my hands against the table, and prayed for the miracle.

  Chapter Two Hundred Eight

  Bobbi

  Perry’s comments came to mind as I pushed the cart to Reynolds’ cell. The thought of him shanking me with a sharpened spoon handle was laughable. I had, however, realized I knew absolutely nothing about him.

  I unlocked the slot and reached for his tray. “Reynolds, it’s time for breakfast.”

  I peered into his cell. On the floor doing sit-ups, he turned his head to the side. “Ten seconds.”

  He did two more and
then stood. “I hate stopping short of a set. I feel like it’s cheating.” He looked at me and smiled. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Oatmeal. Eggs. Coffee.”

  He grabbed the tray and set it on his sink. “Sounds filling.”

  “I don’t know how you do it,” I said.

  He arched an eyebrow. “Do what?”

  “Keep up your positive attitude. You’re consistently happy.”

  “I’m not happy. I’m content. There’s a difference.”

  “Okay. I don’t know how you stay content.”

  “I don’t like it here,” he said. “No offense, but this place is a shit-hole. But. You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I can’t change the fact that I’m here. I can either accept it, or I can sulk. I choose to accept it.”

  “I like your way of thinking.”

  He leaned toward the door, looked me over, and then straightened his posture. “I like your hair. It looks nice.”

  I had it highlighted the night before. So far, he was the only one who noticed. It made the money I spent getting it done seem like it was worth it. “I just got it done,” I whispered. “$150. It makes me sick what they charge.”

  “Money well spent. It looks great.”

  Officer Perry was wrong about Reynolds, I was sure of it. Well, pretty sure of it. I glanced down the cellblock and let out a sigh. There were six more cells to go, and if I took too much time talking, the remaining inmates would start banging on their cell doors.

  I shifted my eyes to Reynolds. “Can I ask you a question?”

  He crossed his arms. “Sure.”

  “Other than riding in the motorcycle club, did you have a job? You know, before you were arrested?” I asked, hoping not to sound too intrusive.

  “I do. Or, I did. Kind of. It was unconventional, but a job nonetheless.”

  I wanted to know more about him. I needed to know that he was the person I perceived him as being, and that Perry was wrong about him.

  “What did…what did you do?” I stammered.