C16 Pablo

Ramirez seemed convinced, and again poked the food he stole from my plate, more interested in killing his hunger than paying attention to my stubbornness.

" But is it serious that you didn't give any information that the woman asked for? "A Afonso asked, poking the vegetables from his plate. I denied it with my head, keeping my eyes on my plate, although I was listening to the conversation in the same behind ours, in which two prison veterans were trying to convince a rookie to join his gang. Afonso grumbled softly, attracting my attention again. "Dry, PS, it was your chance to get out of this hole. If I'm not mistaken, this lawyer is one of the best in the whole country. She doesn't defend ordinary people, only tycoons, because she charges very dearly for it. But the money pays off. Everyone has the dream of being defended by that woman, she is a lions in terms of defenders.”

Lioness. That's the name I was looking for and couldn't find it. For a while, I kept thinking that the woman was a panther, but I had forgotten that panthers are black. Lioness was better. The woman's hair was certainly soft and silky like the hair of that beast, and those eyes were lethal even from afar. I blinked when Afonso snapped his fingers in front of my face, as if to wake me up from a trance. The lia roared in the distance when I erased her vision from my head.

"I can't imagine how my brother's shaved foot managed to pay for it," I said softly, well aware that the people at our table already knew all the information long before Afonso started the subject. Nothing was kept secret inside the prison. Some were even evaluating me a little better, wanting to understand where I had gotten enough attributes to get the attention of some powerful lawyer. "And I can't imagine what she might want by defending me. No lawyer accepts a case of self-interest.”

"Freme, perhaps," commented Alefe, also sitting with us and listening to the whole conversation with his flaring ears. "A recognized case always brings merits to the lawyer who solves it, especially before a trial. If you are released, she will be decorated, you can be sure.”

"And the state will have to pay compensation for moral damages," said Afonso, taking the thread of that conversation and extending it. Now not only some evaluated me, but the whole table, even the boss of that gang, who also watched me with attentive eyes. "If I were a smart lawyer, or desperate for some recognition, I would even take your case for free, PS.”

Something made me think that the woman was really working without receiving any money. Not only because my brother doesn't even have money to buy a vehicle, but more to pay for the itineraries of a lawyer who charged the price of a house to issue a habeas corpus.

But something also told me that she didn't need any recognition. I've never seen her in my entire life, but she had mentioned something about the Jones sisters, who when I let go at that table, all the men began to giggle wild and maliciously.

Somehow, any of those sisters had a well-known name and more intimate than usual. I didn't want to know, I was only interested in finding out Joana's motivations, and if she didn't tell me that, I would never tell what I knew. Not even if the woman was totally naked in front of me, I would give my arm to cheer.

"I don't want to talk about this subject anymore," I grumbled, slightly indicating the gang leader with a chin movement. Afonso, smart as he was, didn't even seem to record the movement, and returned to focus on his spaghetti. "Let's leave this story of freedom and indemnity for trial.”

All the men were silent, as if my sentence was an order. Throughout that afternoon, no one else mentioned anything. I helped clean the tables, took the dishes to the kitchen and also put myself to peel more vegetables for dinner. Work was common.

Something that I had done for years in the countryside, and that I ended up creating a certain taste for the thing. The steaming pans didn't bother me when I had to mix something very closely to see the bottom of the utensil. The cuts I accidentally provoked by the sharp knife almost didn't burn anymore. And the comments from my colleagues didn't bother me enough either.

The guards sat at the door all the time, watching us as if they were watching an interesting football match. Those men were strangers. All of him. I had known a long time ago about some newcomers who let themselves be carried away by the talk that certain extra services "read sexual" could help in reducing their penalty.

Honestly, I never understood how they fell for that story, but the guards always had a story to tell about some idiot who had sucked his dicks until he almost hurt his jaw. Being close to them in the kitchen made me tense to the point of holding the knife more tightly, evaluating the costs of the attitude that surrounded my head.

They were all bastards. They all deserved a cell like ours. But, in the eyes of society, only we were the wrong ones. Only we deserved that life.

For many months I asked if I could really stand that situation. If I could really keep my head down and my ears closed, so as not to get in trouble, no matter how much it was against everything I believed. It was not easy to wake up every day with a hanging body. It was not easy to hear about some novice who had fallen into the vicar's tale.

But it was survival.

The fact that I was never touched in that place, not even for beatings or anything else humiliating, already made me someone to be afraid of. That shell of brutality was just a protection. I wasn't like that. I'm not quiet and sad. But I had become that. For protection and for fear of saying what would surely end my life in a matter of hours.