Page 52 of Unlock My Heart

Sienna, smiling at me with so much love it makes me ache.

Sienna, bloody and lifeless.

Rock-hard to flaccid in a split second.

With a growl, my fist connects with the cinderblock wall.

“Gonna be one of those days, huh?” Kirksey calls from the bottom bunk.

Yep, it’s gonna be one of those days.

Tucking my limp cock in my pants, I roll out of my bunk and begin my morning pushup regimen, ignoring my busted knuckles.

One. Two. Three.

Sienna’s husband is now out of the way, and I’m going to earn her forgiveness.

Four. Five. Six.

How? Fuck if I know. She’s stubborn as hell on a good day.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

And I bet she hasn’t had a good day in nearly a decade, married to that piece of shit Michele.

The fact that I couldn’t be the one to kill that motherfucker makes my blood boil. A God-awful bellowing I can’t contain has me hammering out pushups.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

“Shut the fuck up,” someone in our cellblock yells. “Some of us are trying to sleep around here.”

“Is this fitness, or self-flagellation?” Kirksey muses from his bunk.

“You heard the man: shut the fuck up,” I growl, my arms and shoulders screaming at me as I pound out three hundred pushups.

“For a man who got what he wanted, you don't seem happy about it,” Kirksey muses, referring to his hitman pulling off a successful hit on Michele.

Falling back on my haunches, I wipe my sweaty brow. I’ll be happy when I’m out of this God-forsaken place, with my rightful wife by my side.

Just as soon as I figure out how to convince Sienna to marry me.

Chapter Sixteen

Sienna

The present

“Mrs. D’Amico, rest assured, we will deliver your loved one’s ashes to the funeral mass.” The crematorium director extends a box of tissues, and I grab one.

“And while I appreciate that, I would like to spend just one more day with my beloved husband.” I make a show of dabbing my eyes. “He was devoutly Catholic, you see, and his ashes must remain interred in his mausoleum after the gravesite service.” Please. Michele was as devout a Catholic as he was a loving husband.

“Well, the problem is⁠—”

“That I’m not leaving here without his remains,” I say firmly.

“Yes, Mrs. D’Amico.” The man scurries away, returning with the urn.

“Thank you. And hello, darling,” I greet Michele’s ashes as “we” exit the building.