Locked Up (Enemies to Lovers Romance, Novella 2): Enemies to Lovers, #2

By Willa Brooks

Unbarred Love

 

Janine Benson's life takes a wild detour when she's unjustly sentenced to prison, separated from everything she holds dear. Enter Luke Whitmore, her unwavering supporter, promising justice. When her conviction is overturned, Janine feels like the luckiest person alive—until she spots a tabloid photo of Luke with another woman. Heartbroken, she retreats to her taxi, using driving as an escape.

 

A twist of fate leads Janine to send Luke a bittersweet 'thank you' letter, and he unexpectedly shows up at her doorstep. Sparks fly, and they're given a second chance at love. But Luke's formidable father sees Janine as unworthy, setting the stage for a battle between love and social expectations.

 

Can love conquer all? Will Janine and Luke defy the odds and prove that their hearts are stronger than family duty? This is a heartfelt romance that tests the limits of love and societal pressures.

 

Find out if their love is bound for a happily ever after.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willa Brooks
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778261046

Book preview

Chapter 1

The beeping grew louder, and I forced my heavy eyelids open. The walls were a dirty beige like the ones from my dreams, but this one had medical equipment in it.

Nice to see you're finally awake, Ms. Benson, a lady said. Her blue-green scrubs tipped me off to where I was.

What happened? I asked, sounding like I had swallowed a frog.

She checked something over my head and marked it on a clipboard. You were attacked in the library, and the guards rushed you to the medical ward.

Attacked? What was she talking about?

Where's my mom?

The lady stopped writing, and her face froze, then it fell. She said, You're an inmate, hon. Your family can't visit the medical ward.

The horrible nightmare I lived flooded my brain like a shitty deluge of unhappiness. Reality settled on me like a ton of bricks, and it felt worse than my attack in the library.

My eyes stung, nose burned, and I wanted to go back to sleep again.

For a second, I lived with the happy delusion that I wasn't incarcerated.

I brushed away the hot tears streaming down the side of my face.

The scrubs lady said, You're here because you suffered trauma to your head and ribs. You have a high-grade concussion, so I'd like to keep you here for observation. You might notice bright flashes for a few days as your brain heals. Don't be alarmed, it's a good sign. Your ribs are bruised, but nothing's broken. All in all, you're lucky things didn't turn out worse.

Thank you, I croaked out and winced at the dryness in my throat. How long do I have to stay here?

A few days until it's safe for you to be released into gen pop. Right now, you're being monitored to make sure there's no more swelling. Your ribs will be better in about a month. Bones take longer to heal than brains.

My brows furrowed. Can I stay here for a month, then? What if she comes after me again?

What about the woman who’d put me in here? Where's she?

The nurse quirked her mouth to the side and said, From what I know about these things, she'll be in the SHU for a while. The warden might want to investigate since it happened in the library, and witnesses said she was unprovoked so this might be a psychiatric issue. But don't take my word for it because I'm not super sure how the legal stuff works around here. I just come in to do my job.

Well, I'll be here for a while, and that's good, at least. Why would she attack me? I never met her. Maybe I reminded her of someone. Around here, not everything people did made logical sense.

Who knew what set her off?

Chapter 2

Afew weeks later, I set my tray down on the long bench in the chow hall, and my group cheered. They had bite-sized chocolate bars on their trays, whereas I didn't.

What's with the chocolate? I gestured at their treats.

Halloween was a few days ago, silly. Tamara Bines answered through her giggle. Her thin blonde hair lay flat and lifeless. Her chapped lips moved as she chewed her food.

Halloween?

Wow.

I was out of it that long? Last I remembered, it was sometime around fall. Now we were in the month of November. I would've spent Thanksgiving with my family in Poughkeepsie.

I sobered but kept a straight face, picked up the plastic spoon, and dug into the square of tasteless peas.

How did you celebrate? Did you guys have a party? I asked.

Well, as best as we can have. The guards handed out mini chocolate bars, Amy Armstrong, a trustworthy lady in my group, explained.

Something to look forward to, I guess, I said. What about Thanksgiving? Do they serve something close to Thanksgiving dinner, at least?

Tamara snorted. Waiting on a long ass lineup to call our families. We miss breakfast and sometimes lunch just to do it. Same goes for Christmas if you were wonderin'. It's why we skip calls. Just takes too long to do it, and people act out when they're hungry. That's when shit goes down.

I gulped down my mouthful of peas along with a shit-ton of disappointment.

Three years of this. Three years of missing out because I'm here.

I swear, after I do my time, I'm going to move to a small town. Somewhere away from potential drama. Maybe I'll grow out my hair and revert to my natural blonde. I hadn't been blonde since high school. Well, shortly after my waitressing stint while studying for my commercial driver's license, or CDL as it's known, but that's another story.

When I showed at the library, Mrs. Lieberman, our kooky librarian, wore a brown cardigan with a black outfit underneath. Her face brightened, and her genuine smile lifted my spirits a tad when I dragged my feet into the library to report for duty.

She said in her Julia Child-cadence, Janine, glad to see you're up and about. How are you feeling?

I'm still bruised in the ribs, I answered.

Lieberman's face fell, and pity replaced her smile. No lifting, then. Do the check-ins from now on until you feel better, and I'll ask the other ladies to help with restocking.

I thanked her and took up my post behind the counter. Anxiety built and stayed in my gut as I kept a close eye on the door and monitored when an orange jumpsuit walked by.

While on break, I wrote letters to my entire family. They were roughly a paragraph's worth of explanation, giving a rundown of what happened.

The daunting one was to Luke, but he had a right to know what happened because he stuck by me for some unknown reason.

I wrote:

---

Dear Luke,

---

I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you for so long. I wanted to, but something happened. An inmate beat me up while I was at work. She knocked me to the ground, and aimed a kick to my ribs, and at my head.

I woke up in the infirmary with bruised ribs and a concussion. They kept me there for observation, then released me.

My boss, Mrs. Lieberman, is taking it easy on me by putting me on desk duty until I'm better. The nurse said it'll take a month for me to heal.

Other than that, I'm okay. Sorry my news isn't better. Maybe in a month's time, it will be.

---

Sincerely,

Janine

---

    After work, I dropped in at the housing office and presented the letters to C.O. Barnett. She read them and asked, Need me to charge the envelopes and stamps to your account?

Yes, Ma'am, I answered, and she shook her head. 

Barnett muttered something that sounded like another one who mixed with the wrong crowd—whatever that meant.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a few envelopes and stamps. Then she clicked on her old-school, gray computer. She copied the addresses on the letters onto the envelope and stamped them with Inmate Mail. It embarrassed me to no end the first time I saw it.

Probably embarrassed my family, too.

I dipped my head and crossed my arms while I waited.

Here, seal them, she said, handing an envelope back to me. I stuck my tongue out, sealed my parents' letter, and handed it back to her, then repeated that process with Luke's.

     I left Barnett's and hoofed down to the chow hall for dinner before they served me scraps from the bottom of the mush pile of food.

After gobbling my meal, I trudged over to the dorm and settled down for the night.

The nice thing about sleeping in the infirmary was that I didn't have to contend with the snoring. Sleep didn't come easy with a hall full of people in the same place, because their snoring echoed. It came as a shock when I first came here, especially since I lived by myself for many years. I couldn't fall asleep until sometime around two in the morning, which turned me into a zombie for the rest of the day.

I settled on my bed when the corn-rows lady, who I chatted with in the library the day I was attacked, approached.

My body tensed, and I coiled back, bracing myself for whatever abuse she was about to dish out.

She said, Easy, Benson. Just came to see how you were doing.

Why?

I answered with a vague, Okay, I guess.

The need to glance around at the other women gripped me but I didn't dare take my eyes off of her.

Did she set me up that day? Distracting me with conversation while her buddy attacked? 

I wouldn't put it past her.

A lot of scheming went down in this place. Shit like that happens. You only hear about it in maximum security prisons with violent offenders, though—not medium ones.

She said, "Look, I felt