The Warden Read online

  Table of Contents

  Epilogue

  The Warden

  Nene

  Cohen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Titles By M.C. Cerny

  The Warden

  A Novella

  M.C. Cerny

  Copyright © 2017 by M.C. Cerny

  Edited by: Red Quill Editing LLC

  Cover Design by M.C. Cerny

  Formatting by M.C. Cerny

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1979095549

  ISBN-10: 197909554X

  First Edition:

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cerny, M.C.

  The Warden/M.C. Cerny – 1st ed.

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  Contents

  The Warden

  1. Nene

  2. Cohen

  3. Nene

  4. Cohen

  5. Nene

  6. Cohen

  7. Nene

  8. Cohen

  9. Nene

  10. Cohen

  11. Nene

  12. Cohen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Titles By M.C. Cerny

  The Warden

  Convicted.

  Imprisoned.

  At only nineteen.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse...

  I met him.

  Cohen Shephard.

  The Warden.

  With his sexy eyes, controlling demeanor, and badass attitude,

  I was his for the taking.

  And he wants me...

  To help him.

  In return, he’ll clear my name.

  After all, I’m Benedicta Cruz.

  And I’m innocent.

  To an extent.

  But I want more.

  So much more.

  One

  Nene

  “Benedicta Alejandra Cruz, you are found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to…” I stopped listening when the verdict was read. I’d never experienced depression, but I was sure my parents had to be rolling in their graves. Their only daughter, their hope for the future, was about to be shackled in silver, skin biting cuffs and sent to prison.

  In all of this chaos, the reading of the verdict was the first time I lost my last shred of hope. The grain striations of the wooden table where I sat looked more interesting than the man in robes yammering on about my debt to society. What about the debt society owed me? This wasn’t a fair trial. It was a speedy trial with an easy conviction because I fit the bill, not because I was guilty.

  Circumstantial evidence, my ass.

  The judge continued speaking to me, but my eyes had glazed over. “…at least five years in prison and not more than ten as per the Texas statute. Given your youth and the likelihood that this act was committed out of provocation for your safety, I have no choice but to remand you to the state correctional unit in Colby. You will stay there for the duration of your incarceration until your parole hearing. Since your arrest, you have accumulated four months of time served.”

  And then there was my lazy ass lawyer who was more interested in trying to bone me in the back of his powder blue 1991 Caddy Seville than getting the evidence to prove I didn’t do it. My anger simmered and with it my jaw clamped shut. Freaking out now would only give the entire courtroom justification for the sentence. No need to show them my crazy Latina side.

  I clasped my hands together to keep from punching my thighs or slapping the table in anger while the judge droned on. “That time will be credited to your remaining sentence. Do you have anything you wish to say?” The judge graced me with a fatherly glance before giving a deep sigh that marred his weathered face with a frown. He was gruff, and no nonsense, looking me over as if he waited for my meltdown and only hesitated a moment for my response, which wasn’t forthcoming.

  My face flamed, hot and shamed, but not with guilt for the crime I’d been charged with and found guilty of, but because there was nothing for me to say. People who knew me would have said I was full of fire, but today, it felt like a torrential rain had beaten me down to sputtering smoke and ash.

  “May she burn in hell! Puta!” Damp air speckled my cheek from the spittle that flew in my direction from just a dozen feet away.

  “I make her suffer too! An eye for an eye is my vengeance!” A pencil hit my cheek, grazing the skin, and I ducked down to avoid further abuse. The prosecutor stood up defensively as I sat there numbly taking the verbal insults. My hands were high over my head in surrender.

  “”Enough! Sit down, Mrs. Espina, or I’ll hold you in contempt! Bailiff!” the judge fired back, because hey, what’s a blanket threat when I’ve already been convicted? Bailiffs standing against the wall took one step forward in a languid attempt to hold her back from the first lunge at me. She managed to knock papers and glasses of water over, spilling the liquid on my lawyer in her effort to hit and slap me. I knew better than to touch her when the judge slammed his gavel down repeatedly urging those lazy guards to break it up. She got lose able to reach me and my cheek rung with the violence of her backhand. I nearly toppled from my chair, my shoulder and arm up to protect me from a second strike.

  Anything I did now would have been self-defense, not that this court understood that at all. After all, she was the mother of the man I’d supposedly killed almost five months earlier. Grant’s mother thought I deserved what I got. It’s kind of hard to convince the world you’re innocent when your fingerprints are all over the tire-iron that bashed his head to smithereens.

  My lawyer, Zeke Walls, Esquire, is a smug shit for brains public defender who tried to grope me the last time I saw him two months ago. He promised I wouldn’t get any time for the crime. I could see he really worked hard to save me since I turned him down cold. His greasy hair looked like a puddle of motor oil, and the first time he spoke to me it was in broken Spanish. Apparently, he thought all Hispanic looking people speak Spanish. I hadn’t been back to Mexico since my grandmother died a decade earlier.

  Dad insisted we become American and banned speaking it inside the house. Even my poor mother had to do without her beloved soap operas in the native tongue she loved. This farce of a trial was over and done with and this was the consequence a woman with no financial means faced when nobody gave a shit. My parents brought me here as a precocious three-year-old, enrolling me in every state funded program they could until I got my citizenship while they worked four jobs between them. All that effort wasted because it was obvious I would never be treated equally. The irony wasn’t lost me.

  Lies.

  All of it had been lies, and now I was on my way to a woman’s prison that would make the television show look like the Hilton. My tender ass would be fucked six ways to Sunday, no doubt about it, as
my county cellmate often remarked cruelly.

  The judge, a man in his seventies who’d likely heard and seen it all gave me one last look before taking in the negative shake of my head. The uncontrollable cries from Grant’s mother echoed as she fought the restraining guards waiting for the formal sentence.

  “Very well Ms. Cruz, you are now property of the state of Texas, and will be given an inmate identification number upon your intake at the Colby Meyers Unit.” I mean, really, what could I have said? Thanks for letting her not kill me? Thanks for assigning me the public defender who barely graduated law school with pot dust and cocaine under his nose, but still ended up with a law degree to practice? Yeah, thanks were wasted around here.

  The bailiff came and clasped a large hand around my arm, pinching the lean muscle to bone, leading me away through a set of reinforced metal doors to a holding cell. Mr. Wells followed behind me, crudely adjusting his cock more than once looking me over. He shoved wet papers into his briefcase, as he smoothed down his stained jacket and crooked tie.

  He shuffled my file around on the holding cell table, making small talk. They gave me a new set of clothes to change into and a paper bag for my belongings that would transfer with me. Orange and black block letters identified me as an inmate of the Texas prison system. The next four years and eight months—if I was lucky—were sure to be a blast.

  My period was due to come, and I was afraid to ask Zeke the Creep about getting a box of tampons or pads; heck–I’d take anything sanitary or rolled up toilet paper like I had the past four months in county. I figured if I bled everywhere, maybe the guards would take me to the medical unit and out of my crowded bunk room with strange new roommates. I learned pretty quickly I was more alone inside here than I ever was on my own outside.

  More paperwork was filled out and my stomach cramped waiting for the first, but probably not the last, drop of my blood to be spilled. My skin felt tight, and my mind was jumpy while waiting and handcuffed to a hard bench seat. I wondered what would happen to the alley cats I fed scraps and dry bits to behind my shitty apartment building while I was gone. Who would fill in at the bar where I waitressed? How would I finish my college courses behind bars? My mind was going to have a lot of free time to wonder and wait. I leaned my head back against the window, likely the last time I’d be this close to the outside world as I breathed the hot humid air through the cramping pain that threatened to bend my body to the floor. Right now, I would have taken anything for a chance at oblivion, but an over-the-counter pain reliever would have graciously fit the bill.

  My thoughts were interrupted when a woman with long, ropey dreadlocks sat down across from me. “Hey, so what the fuck you do to get in here?”

  Dark brows slashed her forehead while a colorful tattoo peppered her neck against smooth ebony skin. She was a contradiction in beauty and rough patches that made her unapproachable at first glance. Taking a breath, I thought about my answer, there was another woman on the bus. She was quiet, eye fucking me up and down as I’d heard other county inmates describe the particular look. A shiver coursed through me wondering what had her looking so pissed, nothing good came out of being a target. I wondered if the rumor that Grant’s mother had paid someone inside to get me was true or another scare tactic to torture me.

  Nervously I pushed the thoughts down breaking eye contact. I was a prison virgin. Shit, I’d never even had a parking ticket prior to this. I’d heard the stories in county lock-up after my initial arrest. Apparently, because my parents had immigrated here, I had been a flight risk for the border, and there was no one who would pay the bond and guarantee I wouldn’t flee when given the chance. As if I had any desire to go back to a country I didn’t know and meant nothing to me. I knew what would happen to a girl like me, and I was not looking to become some woman’s prison bitch or anyone’s bitch for that matter.

  I turned, looking her in the eyes, trying to not shake as I let the lie slip easily from between my dry chapped lips. “I killed a man.”

  Not really, but once the words left my mouth and I watched her eyes widen a fraction, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I could have been honest, said it was all a mistake and that I’d been shawshanked, but that hadn’t won me any favors so far. Maybe I could use the charge to look tough and save my ass from a pounding.

  Grant was still dead and would stay that way, beaten to a pulp with a tire-iron that came from the back of my rusted out Honda Civic–that much was true. I had used that same tire-iron to fix my flat tire a week earlier after driving home from the bar late one night. Of course my prints were all over it like a kid’s hand in a bag of candy. My conviction couldn’t have been easier won and the prosecution probably danced and drank themselves to oblivion with the win.

  If only I had paid more attention to what Grant was doing in his free time besides screwing around. If only I had known he was a low-level gangbanger for Hector Rivera, a man he pissed off by skimming money off the proceeds of the drugs he sold. Hector’s street gang knew how to screw a person over big time, and they definitely got two birds with one stone by killing Grant and framing me for it. Leave it to me to pick a boyfriend messed up in the shit I was trying to escape. Not only would I never get out of the shitty Dallas neighborhood I was raised in, but now I was going to rot in Texas for a lot longer by going a dozen steps backward in the fast lane straight to Colby Meyers Women’s Correctional Unit.

  “Woo! A real lady killer. What he do? Fuck you up, sista? I don’t blame you. Men are all cocksuckers.” She popped her lips for effect, and my stomach rolled.

  She kept up her dialogue, “You have anyone to visit you?”

  “No, I don’t.” Part of me was glad because I couldn’t be disappointed by the few acquaintances from school or friends from the bar where I worked when they never showed up.

  “You get lonely, you let me know if you want Sharee here to wet your puss down real good. I got some ins with the Red Tribe even though my girls are the Sunshine Sisters.” She looked me over, licking her dark pink puffy lips, nodded, and stared out the window. Not even there, and already I had an offer from one gang. I wondered if this was the dark equivalent of pledging a sorority? I didn’t know how word got around quickly and maybe not knowing was best at this point. I had just about five years to contemplate this and the many other great questions of life ahead of me.

  City buildings seemed to shrink, and cattle farms lined the highway mile after mile. I didn’t particularly want to know what Sharee had done to get a ride on this bus. I wasn’t exactly feeling social, but I did have other pressing needs.

  Clearing my throat got her attention, and she smiled, waiting for me to speak. “I don’t know who the hell the Red Tribe is, but I’d settle for a contraband tampon if you can get one.” I didn’t know if we got sanitary supplies each month, or if that was something you had to buy at the commissary. There hadn’t been time to prepare or do research for this sort of thing and even months later, I was still overwhelmed by the speed with which the state had prosecuted me. I wasn’t about to ask a guard; they looked about as friendly and as helpful as a DMV employee with a down computer.

  Sharee grunted, nodding before looking at me sympathetically. I may have killed a man, but my ignorance about what happened to you inside prison walls was obvious.

  “You got it girl, regular or super?” I didn’t realize I still had a choice, grunting a shrug because any would do. It would be a miracle if I didn’t get shanked in the next four years, seven months, and twenty-nine days.

  “So what do they call you, Chiquita?” It took a bit of convincing that I wasn’t into munching carpet once Sharee told me what that meant. That was a new turn of phrase for me. I definitely wasn’t into girls. Not if the one sitting behind us had it out for me, that was for sure. I’d barely gotten into boys trying to survive getting out of Dallas. I wanted to be left alone.

  “Nene is my nickname, short for Benedicta.” Sharee backed off my pussy, offering to be my bitch once she learned I
’d killed a man, and I wasn’t going to correct her. Sometimes lies protected you better than the truth and I needed all the protection I could get.

  Two

  Cohen

  “Cohen–you sure about this?” I looked over to my NARC unit commander as I slipped the suit jacket over my shoulders and adjusted my silver linked watch. The large crystal face covered the blue metal surface and silver roman numerals. I hadn’t worn a watch in years doing undercover work and the heaviness felt stifling against my wrist bone. Funny how this job with a monkey suit felt like a slow strangulation while the ticking watched only served to lengthen the endless wait to finish. I adjusted my tie, a figurative noose in this job.

  “If there was any other way to do this, then sure, but fuck it, we haven’t gained any ground, and Hector’s gang is fucking shit up all over the place, drugs, armed robbery, prostitution, you name it.” Dallas had become a hotbed for gang activity, which ravaged communities with limited law enforcement resources, earning it the nickname North Mexico City.

  “After all the hard work I did to get you a desk job, and this is the assignment you and Maris put your cap in for.” He shook his head, smiling despite his disappointment.

  “To be honest, it was her idea. The Red Tribe is connected deep to the cartel–hence Hector’s little street gang. There’s only one way to get recruited, and that’s from the inside.”