Page 73 of Great White
Dove
I hatewhen Lopez puts his filthy hands on me.
“You and your boyfriend not getting along so well?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s nobody.”
“Nobody who carries a badge and visits you in the middle of the night. Maybe he’s nobody and maybe you're somebody.”
“I’m nobody either.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
The last thing I want is Lopez sniffing around. Whoever put together these meet and greets clearly chose the wrong officer to escort me around at three a.m.
This is exactly why I want Tate to stay far away from me. I’m a target. I know Raffi is gunning for me now. There is no other explanation. And you know what happens when you're a target? The people you care about get hurt. As long as I’m locked up, the only person he’ll come for is me. Not Stefania or Tate. Just me. And he can send all the assassinchicanashe wants. It’s going to take more than a crappy shiv to get rid of me.
Lopez leads me to a secluded area of the prison. That little stunt earlier garnered me some time in solitary confinement. I get attacked, and I end up getting punished. No wonder the world is so fucked up. There’s no true justice for victims. Inmate or not.
Before we reach my eight-by-eight room I’ll be spending twenty-three hours a day in for the foreseeable future, Lopez pulls me aside into a small, dark corridor. He pushes me up against the wall, my cheek smashing into the cold concrete. I feel his erection immediately, and my stomach turns. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I have been expecting this. Solitary is his perfect excuse. His perfect opening. He knows all the ins and outs. I heard him commenting earlier how there were the least amount of cameras in this part of the prison.
“One day soon, I’m going to find out how toughLa Tiburonareally is.” He touches me like he owns me, because at the moment, he does.
I want to lash out with a smart comment, but I keep my mouth shut. Something tells me he likes the feisty ones. The ones who fight back. Makes him feel more like a man when he puts them in their place.
“What’s the matter? Afraid to show your teeth?”
I stay silent while he baits me. I won’t break. He can do whatever his perverted heart desires. It’s nothing I haven’t lived through before and couldn't be any worse.
Lopez laughs darkly in my ear. “Not tonight,Tiburona. I’ll come for you when you least expect it.”
He’s trying to terrorize me. It’s not going to work, because I’m not scared. But I am disgusted. By him, and his use of my moniker. He doesn’t say it the way Tate does. Not with desire or reverence or respect. He defiles my name. He violates it. I’m nothing to him, just like I was nothing to all the other men in my life. It’s a sick pattern I can't seem to break.
Lopez yanks me back into the hallway and places me in a windowless room with a perverse smirk on his deceptively nice-looking face.
People often forget the devil was once an angel and can disguise himself as anything, even the most beautiful creature. That’s why I stopped looking at what’s on the surface and started looking beyond. At what lies beneath a handsome face and some pretty words.
That’s why you fell in love with Tate, my stupid subconscious sneers. But she’s right. Tate is beautiful inside and out. And I know that, as much as I hate him right now.
17
Tate
You knowwhen something just doesn’t sit right with you?
You get a feeling. It starts out small, the size of a grain, and just grows and grows until it becomes a field of unbearableness you just can’t ignore.
I was supposed to go home.
After meeting with Dove, I was supposed to leave, but I just couldn’t bring myself to start my car and pull away.
So, I sat, the rest of the night. Until the sun came up and the shifts changed. Then, I stalked. I stalked Lopez as he left the prison, got into his car, and drove away. I followed him as he grabbed a breakfast burrito from a taco counter, then ran his pickup through a carwash. And when he pulled down a side street that’s way too shady for any legit cop, I knew the feeling in the pit of my stomach was right.
Once he’s finished with his early morning off-color business, I trail him to his apartment building, which is surprisingly nice for a corrections officer’s salary.
After he parks and goes inside, I sit and wait, again.
Next time he comes outside, he’s mine.
