He had no idea it could be such an ugly place.

Thoughts would creep in uninvited, wafting in as sinuously as smoke and choking him just as quickly: Jake making a poor decision that would cause the business to go under; Leah growing bitter and resentful—seeking solace in another man’s arms; Gram getting sick and dying before he was released.

Various horrors would flash through his mind like a slide show, over and over until he couldn’t reason through them anymore. He couldn’t determine what was real and what was fabricated, what was speculative and what was a guarantee.

Three weeks. Eighty-eight more to go.

He had no idea if this was part of the transition or if it would always be this way. Maybe his mind would eventually run out of nightmares. Maybe he’d just grow numb to them.

Or maybe his thoughts would wear him down until he couldn’t remember who he was before this.

His lawyer had told him this place would be tolerable. Since the judge hadn’t deemed Danny a danger to society, part of the plea agreement stated he could serve his sentence in a minimum-security prison, and Danny had lost count of how many times his lawyer assured him minimum-security prisons were more like dormitories than correctional facilities.

He wished he’d never heard that goddamn comparison—or at least that he hadn’t been foolish enough to believe it.

There was nothing tolerable about this place. Nothing uplifting. Nothing redeeming. Nothing but the torturously unhurried passing of time.

He didn’t give a shit if there were no barbed-wire fences surrounding the property. It didn’t change the fact that he was living his life away from everything and everyone who mattered to him. That he didn’t even feel like his own person anymore. That every move he made had to be approved. Every decision, every step he took had to be sanctioned by authority.

His lawyer had failed to mention that the lack of perimeter fences wouldn’t compensate for how incredibly degrading it felt to be treated like a child twenty-four hours a day. The absence of sharp shooters in towers couldn’t make up for the constant misery of not being trusted.

Danny couldn’t resign himself to the fact that most of the people in charge had no reason to view him as trustworthy or honorable or decent. Most of them viewed him as a fuck-up. A criminal who raised suspicion, someone who had to be watched and questioned at every turn.

There were a couple of exceptions—those guards who managed to make him feel somewhat human even while doing something like frisking him for contraband—but most of them spoke to the inmates like they were shit on their shoes.

At first, Danny tried to rationalize their behavior with the fact that these men spent their lives surrounded by people who had broken the law—some worse than others and many more than once. He reasoned that after years and years of witnessing a revolving door of crooks and felons and delinquents, their tolerance must have worn pretty thin.

Still, it didn’t make him feel any less shitty—or any less angry—when he was on the receiving end of that intolerance. Eventually he gave up trying to justify their behavior and accepted the fact that everyone had a role to play; they were the judgmental pricks on a power trip and he was a piece of shit criminal, and that was that.

Three weeks, and they had already managed to get inside his head.

Maybe he was never as strong as he thought.

Danny lifted his head off the pillow and looked at the clock on the wall. Any minute now, she’d be here. They were going to call his name, and he would make his first trip to the visitor’s center, and Leah would be standing before him.

And it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Because instead of excitement, there was dread. Instead of eagerness, there was panic. And instead of relief, there was shame.

He was so afraid she’d be able to see it—that he was already different. That they’d both given him too much credit.

He didn’t want to let her down. He didn’t want her to wonder what would be left of him after another nineteen months if three weeks had already affected him.

It was all so fucking humiliating.

He didn’t know how to keep the darkness of his thoughts from her, and if she saw it, what would she think? Would she pity him? Be just as disappointed in him as he was in himself? Begin distancing herself from him?

The thought alone was enough to incapacitate him, because he realized she would probably be better off leaving him at this point. He would be destroyed, completely and utterly gutted, but that seemed to be the path he was on anyway.

Leah didn’t have to be subjected to this.

Danny rolled his head to the side as Troy walked into their cell dressed in his grays, one of two authorized outfits inmates were permitted to wear. A gray sweat suit was the required attire for the rec area or the gym; for everything else, there was a khaki jumpsuit.

“You working out?” Danny asked.

“Nah, just got back,” Troy said, sifting through the small locker in the corner of the room. He pulled out a pack of tortillas, some dried pepperoni, and a little bag of shredded cheese, and Danny knew Troy was about to make what he called a “bootleg stromboli.” He’d taught Danny how to make them during his first week at Fort Dix, after he’d already grown tired of the shit down at the mess hall.

Troy knew a bunch of resourceful tricks like that. He’d been down for thirteen months for possession of drugs while on probation, and he still had another three years to serve. But with good time, he could be out in just over two.

“They post the call sheet for tomorrow yet?” Danny asked.

“No, but I better be on it for the damn doctor. My knee is killing me.”

Danny lay back on his bed, blinking up at the ceiling. He hadn’t been down as long as Troy, but still, he knew there was no way Troy would be on the call sheet for the doctor tomorrow. Unless someone was bleeding or dying, he was basically forced to tough out whatever was ailing him. It had been one of the first things Danny had learned about this place.

Troy rolled up the stromboli and shook his head. “Wish I had some fucking soda,” he said, pressing it together with his thumbs to make it stick.

“When’s your commissary day again?”

“Thursdays,” he said.

“I’m on Monday. I’m good with most of my shit for now, so I can get some when I go.”

“Thanks, man,” Troy said, licking his finger before pressing the tortilla down again. “I’ll owe you.”

Danny nodded.

Troy sealed the bag of cheese before he walked back to the locker. “Isn’t your girl coming today?”

Danny wet his lips. “Yeah.”

Troy shoved the bags of food in his locker before bumping it closed with his elbow. “If Shaw or Brighton are on duty, watch your ass.”

“What do you mean?”

Troy walked back to his plate and pressed down on the tortilla again. “They’re real dicks about everything. Touching and shit.”

Danny sat up on his bed. “I can’t touch her?”

Troy shook his head as he tucked in the ends of the stromboli. “You can hug her when she comes in, but that’s it. And keep that shit respectable. If you get flagged, they’ll take her off the list. And if you keep getting flagged, you lose visitation all together.”

Danny ran his hand down his face.

“Shaw and Brighton, they’re fucking hawks, man. Anything that looks like you might be passing shit back and forth and you’re done. If Hanover’s on duty, you’ll get a little more leeway.”

And just like that, his earlier fantasy splintered into a million pieces before it disintegrated like powder; in its wake was the image of Leah sitting across him, her hands folded obediently in her lap as the guards monitored the three feet of insurmountable space between them.

He wished he’d known this beforehand so he could have given her some type of warning. Now, he’d be faced with the task of pushing her away. It didn’t matter that he could immediately follow it up with an explanation of the rules; he was still going to have to endure the initial look of shock and hurt on her face as he denied her affection.