Chapter 90
PART V
90
Lars
Four weeks after I was stopped by the police…
Several hours after I received my sentence…
And 30 minutes after I talked to Gunnar…
I left the purgatory of the jailhouse and started my official descent into hell.
The cops led me in shackles to a prison bus. Inside was a door made of metal bars to separate the prisoners from the guards. I didn’t know why the guards were so concerned; they were the ones with shotguns.
There was only one other guy on the transport with me – a hulking brute with a shaved head and a bloody skull tattooed on the back of his neck.
Charming.
The bus drove us to San Vittore, the prison in the center of Milan where I would spend the next five years.
I found out later by walking its halls, but San Vittore was like a monstrous octopus with only six arms. Multi-story wings radiated out from the central hub.
From a distance, though, it was just an ugly collection of yellow buildings behind a 20-foot-tall wall topped with barbed wire.
The bus passed through a heavily guarded gate and parked near the hub of the prison. Then the brute and I were escorted at gunpoint to a processing station.
One of the conditions I asked for in exchange for my guilty plea – which the court agreed to – was I got to witness Rachel’s engagement ring being put into San Vittore’s storage vault. I watched like a hawk as the property guy cataloged all my belongings on an official list: wallet, burner phone, passport, 5000 in euros, all the clothes from my duffel bag… and the necklace and ring.
I doubted the money would still be there when I got out – but the ring had better be, or I was going to immediately go back to prison for murdering the son of a bitch who stole it.
I made a promise to myself: once I got out, I was going to find Rachel.
I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that Gunnar would find her in a database somewhere, but I figured I might have better luck in person. Once I returned to London, I would stake out every restaurant and café we ever went to until she showed up.
And then… if she hadn’t already moved on with her life… I would get down on one knee and propose.
I’d had a shot the Sunday before I’d left, and I’d blown it with a pointless fight.
As a result, I’d waited –
And now I might never get another chance.
ALWAYS take the shot, I repeated in my head like a mantra. If you’ve got the shot, ALWAYS take the shot.
If I ever got another chance, I swore it would be different.
Even if she said no, at least I would ask.
I would take the shot, no matter what.
I saw the prison clerk write down anello di diamanti after he inspected the ring. When he finished cataloging everything, he gave me the paper and a pencil. I circled anello di diamanti three times, staring at him menacingly as I did it, then signed my name at the bottom of the list and slid it back across the counter.
The clerk swallowed, put all the smaller items into a manila envelope with the cash, and stowed them and the clothes in a cardboard box he carried into the back.
The box, like me, was going into a tomb.
But five years from now, we would both emerge…
And I would go back and propose to the woman I loved…
No matter what the fuck I had to do to make it happen.