A voice interrupts my thoughts with, “Seat taken?”
Across from me, perched over the opposite side of the table, stands a large man in his forties. He’s got a tough face that’s seen far too many long days, and a head of hair that’s thick and thinning in all the wrong places. I’ve seen him hanging on the bleachers in the prison quad with the D Street Outfit crowd: the gang that used my father up and sold him down the river. I don’t recognize this goon from my days of working with my father, but it doesn’t matter. My hatred for D Street doesn’t discriminate.
The guy doesn’t wait for my answer, just lifts one of his legs over the bench and settles in across from me. “Ronny Justi.” There’s no handshake with the introduction. “Don’t worry, we already found out who you are.”
His use of “we” prompts a thick, hard lump to form at the top of my throat. I’m not surprised D Street put two and two together, obviously—it was only a matter of time before one of those goons got wind of who I am, and what I supposedly did to land myself in here.
I just thought I’d be under the Shaws’ protection by the time they put it together.
“You’re Richard Danfrey’s son.” Ronny leans over the table, mock-whispering, like we’re just a couple of chums sharing a secret. “A bunch of us heard the guards talking about you in the yard this morning. Didn’t know we had a celebrity among us commoners.”
I turn back to my iridescent carrots and start picking at them.
“What, cat got your tongue?”
I steady my voice. “Just not in the mood for conversation.”
“Loner type, eh? I can respect that.” Ronny leans in closer. “But it’s a funny thing I heard those guards talking about, turns out. Some of them were saying you were in here for running magic contraband.” He keeps up with his mocking tone, that dance between chummy and threatening. “But I thought, that can’t be right. Because any son of Richard Danfrey would be smart enough to check in with his daddy’s D Street keepers before distributing any inventory around.”
Daddy’s D Street keepers. As if my father was just a D Street pet, or a joke. And the worst part, the part that bugs me more than anything else, is that at the end of the day, this thug’s right.
But I don’t want to show Ronny that he’s getting to me, so I don’t even look at the bastard. I keep my eyes on my lunch, imagine becoming bigger, stronger, like I’m transforming myself into steel and nightmares, something Ronny can’t touch.
“Fact, we’ve been over there talking about you since this morning, friend,” Ronny adds. “A big debate on what we should do with you.”
The mess hall has gotten a little quieter, as we’re right in the middle of the room, like a goddamned circus stage. So without having to look, I can bet that Howie’s table is listening. I can practically feel the Shaws’ eyes on me.
But maybe that’s not a bad thing—Christ, maybe this is the chance I’ve been waiting for, to show Howie where my allegiance lies, and where it doesn’t. It’s a risk, a huge risk, antagonizing this D Street gangster in the hopes of catching the eyes of the Shaws—but I’m running out of time, and out of options.
So I force myself into the deep, dark water, and plunge in. “‘Keepers’ is sort of a misnomer, isn’t it?” I say slowly, finally meeting Ronny’s eyes. “Because ‘keepers’ implies that someone’s watching out for you, and taking care of you. And your D Street operation let my father get sold out to the Feds. He’s in for three decades, friend, maybe more. So ‘keepers’? That’s a joke.”