Love Locked Down: Love Locked Down, #1

By Candace Mumford

Part 1 of a 2 part series. Both parts of this series are available for download. 
Dana Majors is an up and coming fashion designer with all eyes on her. The best thing about it is she hasn't even finished design school yet, and she never will if her fathers new girlfriend has anything to say about it. Months before graduating the rug is pulled from under her. That is until an unlikely ally is willing to pave...and pay the way for her to chase her dreams. The only problem is her unlikely benefactor is her closest friends brother.

Terrence Hill is also an inmate at Sampson State Penitentiary.

In exchange for his help, this handsome prisoner wants to change his marital status. Terrence Hill is also looking to change his life. It's not always easy to change your life when you're a dope boy providing for your family and the people closest to you always have their hands out. Does a marriage made in prison stand a chance when love isn't locked down?

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.N.C. Media Publishing
• Release date: Aug 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516351060

Candace Mumford

Candace Mumford aka Ms.Bam is the Author of Urban Fiction and Romance. An avid reader and fan of the Urban Literature genre herself,she's excited to write in a genre she's enjoyed for years. Ms.Bam hopes to offer any reader that decides to purchase any of her books a page turning story full of characters they love and a few they love to HATE!

Book preview

2. A Sisters Regrets

Tamera

Three Months Ago

I  sat in my bedroom thinking of my brother Terrence with a cloud of guilt and helplessness surrounding me. Honestly, even though I was the reason my brother was locked up, it rarely ran across my mind. But when it did? The guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. The person closest to me in the world sounded like he was about to go insane. My big brother. Thinking back to our conversation two nights ago had me on edge. Terrence kept saying he didn't have anyone to really talk to. No one that really cared about him and what he was going through. Where the hell did he get that shit from? Ain't I damn near always home to take his calls? In all this time I only let the money on his books slip three times. Then the nigga had nerve enough to take me off one of his accounts and had his lawyer start handling it. Terrence acts like those Ramen noodles and honey-buns were going somewhere! Hell I forgot, I have a life too shit, I couldn't help but feel immediately guilty about my thoughts. After all, I was the reason he was locked up anyways. Terrence never tried to make me feel guilty. At least not intentionally. Terrence had always taken responsibility for landing himself in Sampson State. It was just hard to think about him being depressed and unhappy. Terrence had always been the rock in our family, even when he was doing wrong, he did it for the right reasons. To take care of his family.

Even though he'd been locked up for over a year with months to go, he was still providing for my mother and me behind prison walls. Terrence was the only son of our parents, Angela and Terrence Hill. We'd been an average working class African-American family. That is until our father was killed leaving Terrence as the man of the family. He was only 15 at the time. My brother found out fast he'd have to step into our father's shoes if our family was going to survive. Terrence loved our mother more than anything, they'd always been close. So it wasn't hard for us to see even as children, her downward spiral after our father was killed in the car accident. In a word; our mom was weak. Without her husband, it was as if she couldn't function.  Loving Terrence Sr. and being a housewife and mother to his kids had been her only aspiration. When my dad had been killed it was hard for my mom to transition and realize she would now have to be the bread-winner if our family was going to be taken care of. Mom didn’t digest the new reality that our families survival was now dependent solely on her. She just didn't fuckin' get it.

There had been no huge payout from the insurance company. In fact, even though we had insurance and our father was found to not be at fault, the insurance company paid out very little and our mother was too distraught to fight a case we could have won. We relied on the help of the few family members that were in the city with us. But when they were struggling as well, how much help could they actually be? It was tough asking for a handout from people that were barely eating themselves.

Growing up in Brooklyn exposed my brother Terrence to many things. Both good and bad so when faced with the possibility of our family starving and being homeless, Terrence didn't feel he had any choice. Terrence was only sixteen at the time and we'd spent the last year struggling. I was twelve and our family was in desperate need of the money. Terrence knew he could easily make what we needed to survive. Especially when he could see guys he knew from the block flaunting easy money. Money they spent on the latest jeans, sneakers and eating out.

We needed it to survive. To pay the rent our mother wasn't paying. To put clothes on our backs and keep our bellies full. Terrence was sixteen years old when he started and what I know scared him the most is how easy it all came to him. So easy that by the time my brother was nineteen, he was one of the top soldiers in Jamel's crew. The Jamel Owens crew was a criminal organization that ran deep through Brooklyn and other boroughs of New York. Each area they had a hold on had its own specialty. Terrence's area of expertise was soon cultivated in the drug game.

In all the time Terrence worked with Jamel's crew he'd avoided any run-ins with the law with the exception of the one incident that found him in his current situation. Terrence had been given two years in Samson State Penitentiary after he'd been convicted of aggravated assault against some muthafucka who'd been harassing me at the time.

I'd actually been so mad at Cordell that I'd run my ass straight to Terrence complaining about Cordell harassing me. If only I'd just listened to him and stayed away from Cordell, things may not have gotten so bad. They say a hard head makes a soft ass but I guess it was a lesson I was still learning because even though my brother was doing time behind my bullshit with Cordell, I was still fuckin' with the nigga. I was addicted to him. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't leave his ass alone. So for the last year, I'd been seeing Cordell behind closed doors.

Terrence and I had discussed the situation many times in the past, he said he couldn't honestly say he regretted it. He didn't. Though he hadn't intended for the police to roll up on him in the midst of beating the shit out of that pussy ass nigga. His words to describe Cordell. Terrence had great lawyers so he was lucky to get the relatively short sentence he did get. He was already on probation when it happened due to a previous altercation with this same nigga Cordell which was why he got the two years.

Regardless of the fact of how it all went down, I still felt awful. It was all my fault my brother was locked up. Terrence told me constantly not to worry about it and that he'd do it all over again to protect me but I could hear something in his voice every time we spoke.

Something was changing with him.

Terrence's voice sounded heavy, he wasn't talking as much and the cheerful demeanor he'd managed to maintain over the last year was slowly but surely disappearing. Was he getting depressed? His time was almost up. Terrence had come too far to give up. All he needed to do was hold on a few more months.

We...or rather me, since our mama wasn't really about shit, all did the best they could to make his time in Sampson State go as easy as possible. At twenty-two, I was over one of his accounts. Terrence saved every dime he made. Making a point not to splurge on overly extravagant items that would call attention to himself or our family. He provided my mother and I with everything we needed and most of what we wanted but always in moderation. Not that our mother would have ever noticed since she was oblivious to anything beyond a drink in her hand.

* * * *

3. That's What Friends Are For

Tamera

I heard my cell phone ring and picked up.

Hello?

Girl it's me! It freezing out here. Don't you hear me ringing the doorbell? my friend Dana shouted. I wanted to laugh, I could practically hear Dana's teeth chattering through the phone. Ol' prissy ass!

I'm sorry girl. Here I come. I said hanging up the phone and heading downstairs to open the door for my friend. Dana and I had become inseparable in the last year. Especially when Terrence got locked up. I'd just met her and I felt like I could talk to Dana about anything. Unlike many of my fake ass friends from the neighborhood. I think they were secretly glad Terrence had gotten caught up because they thought with him gone, my star was going to dim. Little did they know my big brother always planned ahead! Hatin' ass bitches! Dana had never experienced having a loved one incarcerated but her friendship was solid and came right on time. Terrence had been away only one month when Dana and I ended up in a class together at Parsons.

We'd been like sisters from day one. I mean I still had shit I kept to myself, but I trusted her. Dana was cool. She was square as fuck but she was still cool people. Dana wasn't really my speed socially but when it came to her fashion game? Wasn't shit square about Dana Majors! Girlfriend knew her shit when it came to fashion and design. Dana could take a bit of fabric and work magic. Hell, I was low-key jealous she had a few designers already trying to get her to intern for them. I hadn't been asked at all but I knew wherever Dana went she'd find a spot for me. You better believe I was ready to ride any coat-tail I had to.

I reached the door and was shocked to see the tears running down my beautiful friends face when I opened the door.

What's wrong? I asked pulling her into an embrace and into the warmth of my home.

" What's not wrong would be easier to answer, Dana said wiping her face and sitting her bag down. Everything is wrong Tamera, everything," she said breaking down into a fresh round of tears.

" Well tell me. We'll work it out. It can't be that bad."

Tamera I don't have the money to finish out this last semester. All my hard work the last three and a half years is for nothing, she said between tears.

I thought your dad was helping you? What about Janay?

So did I. I guess his new girlfriend has convinced him a vacation package for their six-month anniversary is more important than paying for his only child's last semester of school. He knows how important this is to me. How could he do this to me? At the last minute. There's absolutely no way I can come up with eight thousand in two weeks before the semester starts. Janay is my girl and all but hell we're roommates. I know she doesn't have eight grand just sitting around to give away. She's in the same boat as me. I work part-time but that barely feeds me and pays for the subway!

Oh no girl, your dad is trippin' for real! What does he expect you to do? I asked just as upset as my friend. If Dana's plans got fucked up, so did mine. And I damn sure couldn't have that! We'd already discussed moving into Manhattan after graduation.

I didn't have the offers rolling in the way Dana did but I definitely did my thing too. I was sure once we made the move to Manhattan I was going to make my mark in the fashion world. All I needed was