“Is it wet?”
“It’s always wet for you, baby.”
“How are you playing with your pussy?”
“I put my juices on my clit and now I’m rubbing it slowly, listening to the sound of your voice.”
“Imagine me sucking that motherfucka into my mouth and flicking it with the tip of my tongue.”
When she whimpered, I was done for.
The phone ringing on the nightstand dragged me out of my sleep. Thinking it was my personal phone, I reached for it, but the blank screen was dark and the piercing ringing was still making me cringe. Then I realized that the prepaid phone wasflashing. I sat up quicker than I meant to, causing my head to spin.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“Hello?” It was an older dude that was talking clipped and careful. “This is Harold Denton.”
I grinned sleepily. “Morning, Harold.”
He went quiet. I could only hear him breathing and a chair creak. “Why would … why would you make an offer to clear my debt?” he asked finally.
I swung my feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. Outside of the floor to ceiling windows, I could hear the city outside starting up. “Because I need Solae Carter released from your prison as soon as possible.”
His breath hitched. “You’re… you’re asking me to risk my job. I can’t just let her out. I have to route this through the proper channels. It has to be clean and credible. If it looks like someone pushed it for the wrong reasons, it won’t move.”
“I know what you can and can’t do, Harold. You’re Deputy Warden of Programs. You sign off on recommendations. You move names through the reentry pipeline. You put a file on top, and it gets eyes. Just make it look like the system did what it was supposed to do.”
He hesitated. “If I do it, it has to look legitimate. She has to qualify. I’ll verify her record and pull her reports. If she’s a model inmate, I can put in a recommendation for consideration. It doesn’t mean automatic release, but it moves her up. I can do that.”
“Do whatever it takes. Make the recommendation. Push it where it needs to go.”
He cleared his throat. “She has a clean prior, doesn’t she? No violent history, no recordbefore—”
“She’s clean, and she’s been a model inmate. Get my baby out of there.”
“I need the debt paid now. Those folks are on my ass,” he said nervously. “Getting her out will take at least a few weeks. If I don’t pay that debt, I’ll be dead before then.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay. Thank you,” he rushed with relief.
“Don’t tell her we’re working on this. Let it be a surprise.”
He went quiet again, then groaned as if he were fighting with himself. “I’m risking my professional career on this.”
“Your job or life, Harold. Choose one. Do this right, you get the debt handled, save your life, and I get my girl out. We all walk away. Nobody’s gotta to know how it happened.”
He was quiet for a long second. He obviously needed some assurances. “Listen, you make this happen and you’ll be straight. You don’t, and you’ll still owe them thirty racks…andyou’ll owe me. And Harold…owing me can’t be cleared with money or fingers. It carries consequences that lead to slow singing and pallbearers.”
I could hear him swallow. “I understand.”
I grinned. “Good. Call this number with updates.”
“Understood.”
I let him go first.
When the burner clicked dead, I lay back for a second and watched the ceiling. I couldn’t shake the guilt of not being able to pull the kind of strings that could’ve kept her out of prison in the first place. At the end of the day, I was just a nigga hustling in Chicago, not some cartel boss with political reach. But I swore I’d do whatever it took to make sure my baby was free as soon as possible.
