Incarcerated
Copyright © 2025 by T.K Wright
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Vincenzo De Marco
I’ve waited a hundred years.
But I’d wait a million more for you.
Nothing prepared me for the privilege of being yours if I had only felt the warmth within your touch.
If I had only seen how you smiled when you blush.Or how you curl your lip when you concentrate enough
Well, I would have known what I was living for all along, what I was living for. Your love is my turning page.
Where only the sweetest words remain
Everything is a cursive line. Every touch is a redefining phrase: I surrender who I’ve been, for who you are. Nothing made me stronger than your fragile heart.
...
My heartbeat pounds so loudly it drowns out everything else. It does not feel like proof of life. It feels like an accusation, as if my body itself is asking a question I have no answer for.
You are still here. Why?
That night comes every time I close my eyes. Not memories, not dreams, but replays. The way flames bloomed against the rain. The way twisted metal screamed as it folded in on itself. Isabella’s voice, hoarse and desperate, was tearing itself apart as she screamed my name. Louder than sirens. Louder than gunfire. Louder than anything that ever claimed to be holy.
There is smoke in my lungs even now—burning rubber. Blood coating my tongue. The taste never leaves.
I wake with my fists clenched, nails biting into my palms, breath trapped somewhere between a scream and a prayer I stopped believing in months ago.
It has been four months and two weeks since my world ended. Since Isabella was taken from me. Since our son died with her.
Rikers Island smells like mold, bleach, and something older than both. Violence that never quite leaves the walls. The mattress is thin enough that I can feel the steel frame beneath it every time I shift my weight. The lights never fully turn off. They flicker day and night, as if the building itself can’t decide whether we deserve darkness or exposure. This place was not built to heal anyone. It was built to grind people down until whatever remains is sharp enough to survive.
When I arrived, they tested me.
The first attempt came three days in. A man with more confidence than sense, a weapon fashioned from melted plastic, slipped in close and aimed for reputation rather than precision. He learned quickly how little either mattered when I sliced his face open with his shank. The second came a week later, when a group decided numbers would succeed where one man hadn’t.
They were wrong.
I didn’t need to call in favors. I didn’t need to threaten anyone. I made an example in open view, under fluorescent lights and bored guards who understood exactly who I was and what intervening would cost them. After that, the message carried itself. Silence is the most efficient kind of authority.
By the end of the first month, no one tried again. My family and I knew exactly who our enemies were. Honestly, being confined here has saved the city from me. I was going to burn every inch of it for what they have done to Isabella.
Some of them already knew the name.
N. De Marco. Not Don.
Víbora de la mar.
It followed me in on whispers, carried by men who had seen me fight in rings at the depths of the prison, where there were no rules and no mercy, where blood salted the floor and only the most dangerous survived. I earned it there, long before prison walls tried to contain me. A serpent from the sea. Fast. Coiled. Lethal when provoked.
I never claimed it. Names like that don’t need endorsement.
By the third month, my block ran on unspoken rules. Men learned to read the air around me, the subtle shift in posture, the way animals sense a storm before the sky darkens. They knew when to step aside. They knew when not to look too long.
My body changed. Prison layered muscle over grief until my skin felt stretched tight around bone and sinew. New tattoos marked time and memory, black ink burned deep into flesh. Saints and sinners. Old vows. New ones. Names I would never say aloud again.
I read constantly. Psychology. Strategy. Law. I trained until my joints screamed and my vision blurred. I waited.
Bruises mapped my body, some yellowing, some still fresh—quiet souvenirs from yesterday’s lessons.
Dante, my cellmate, was already awake on the bottom bunk, smoking like the rules were written for someone else. He watched me through half-lidded eyes, respectful, amused.
“You were a madman yesterday, De Marco,” he says with a hoarse chuckle. “One punch. Just one. Guy folded like cheap paper.”
Unfortunately, I don't actually answer him. Words have lost their weight. They do not change outcomes. They do not bring anyone back.
I sit up slowly, feeling the scabs across my knuckles split open. Warm blood seeps free. I welcome the sting. Pain is honest. Pain does not lie about what it is.
Nothing matters anymore.
Except her.
I carry Isabella inside me like a wound that never closes. I see the man I was before the fire, before the lies, before the smoke. The man she believed in. I repeat the only truth I have left, over and over, like a vow carved into bone.
Dolcezza.
Before the fire, there was another grave.
My mother.
A few years ago, Melissa Reeves orchestrated her murder, the murder of my uncle Frank Jr. Meeting her in school that year was not a coincidence. She planned it carefully, patiently, and vanished before anyone could touch her. She has been running ever since. Changing names and changing faces. Leaving bodies and burned safehouses behind her like breadcrumbs. The last known locations put her in three different cities across two countries. None of them held her for long.
She is alive.
And she is still out there.
After the ambush that took Isabella, while the city was choking on smoke and lies, I went looking for answers. I found betrayals. I found corruption. I found how deep the rot truly went. But I did not find Melissa. Only the aftermath of her presence. Only fear and ruin in her wake.
The police found me days later, bloodied and uncooperative, standing too close to too much damage. Agent Allison Parker was there, watching me like a hunter who finally believed the trap had closed.
Now, my name headlines her career.
Dr. Murphy calls it “latent homicidal ideation.”
Court-appointed therapy. Mandatory sessions. A condition of my release, personally signed off by Parker. Dr. Murphy is professional, technically, and attractive. Too young for this job. Too observant. She watches me like she thinks that if she studies me long enough, she will understand what I am.
She will not.
“You have experienced compounded trauma,” she tells me during one session, pen hovering uselessly over her clipboard. “Loss layered on loss. Violence reinforced by confinement.”
I meet her gaze without blinking.
“And yet,” she continues, voice quieter now, “you remain functional.”
“I am still breathing,” I reply. “That is not the same thing.”
She shifts in her chair. Too close. Too aware of the space between us. The old version of me would have noticed the way her pulse jumps when I lean forward. Would have exploited it. Would have let her suck me off in her office, anything, to feel alive.
This version feels nothing.
My family visits when they can.
Nonna is emotional every time. She brings food even when they will not let me keep it, pressing rosary beads into my hands like she can pray me back into the man I used to be. My father stands beside her like a man carved entirely out of regret. He cannot look at me for long. A conversation was overdue.
Victoria arrived shortly after I went to jail, fresh from traveling. Dark hair, expensive clothes, eyes sharp with determination. She cups my face between her hands and tells me she is home now. That whatever broke, she intends to fix.
Damien visits the most, sometimes with Ricardo, our family attorney.
He updates me quietly. The businesses are stable. The family is intact. Enemies cautious. Someone has to hold the line while I am locked away, and Damien does it without complaint. Ricardo made sure I had regular benefits in here; they drew a line at a private room, hence Dante.
The baton strikes the bars early one morning.
“De Marco. On your feet. You’re out.”
I stand. I grabbed the photo of Isabella from my side, leaving the $ 200 I won from last night's fight. Dante would appreciate it.
The walk through the corridors feels unreal. Inmates watch me pass with a mixture of fear and respect.
I pull on the clothes I wore the day they locked me up. Everything was much tighter now. Prison stripped the little softness I had from me. Before I leave the cell block, I double-check the inside pocket.
Her photo.
Isabella is laughing in the sunlight, one hand resting over her belly.
I press it once to my chest. Hard. Then I put it away.
Surprisingly, Cara Rita Garcia sent me a Bible with this photo between pages and a note saying she was incredibly sorry for their role in Isabella's demise and that they really need to talk.
Her husband shall die regardless of siding with my enemies; an apology does not fix shit.
The lobby is much brighter when I sign a couple of documents to confirm my release.
Dr. Murphy waits near the exit.
“I wanted to see you before you left,” she says.
“Therapy’s over,” I reply.
“Yes. But trauma doesn’t end when paperwork does.” Her gaze lingers. “You are not the same man who came in here.”
“I did not come here to remain the same.”
She hesitates, then offers me her card. “This isn’t professional. Just… someone who understands what she’s looking at. Call me on the days when you are feeling the darkness consume you."
I take it without comment and leave before she can say my name again.
Sunlight hits me instantly, and it feels different. It feels like freedom. A black Porsche and a G-Wagon SUV are the only things that stand out in the parking lot.
Damien pulls me into a hard embrace. “ Fratello, you look like shit.” His hair is back to being dark, with a buzz cut, none of that blonde nonsense.
“Hello to you, too.” I deadpan him.
Ricardo’s eyes go straight to my hands, then the gash on my lip. " Enzo, who the fuck did that to your face?”
“The man who is currently in the infirmary.” He laughs, pulling me to the car. Damien chucks me the Porsha keys, knowing a drive is exactly what I needed.
Inside the car, silence stretches until Damien breaks it. “Everything is ready. Accounts. Weapons. Vehicles. Safehouses.”
“And?” I ask.
“We have his name yet again. Neil. He coordinated the ambush. Stayed back. We think he was working with Melissa, who is also in hiding.”
My focus sharpens.
“Where?”
“Last known location was Jersey. But the place was clean. Someone tipped them off. They’re running.”
“They won’t run far,” I say.
“You won’t be alone,” Damien adds.
I look at him then, really look.
“I know.”
Outside, the world keeps turning.
Inside me, something has finally settled.
Grief did not kill me.
It forged me.
And everyone responsible will learn the difference.
