Runaway // h.s.

one

charlotte 'charlie' evans

Six years have passed.

Six years have passed since the incident and I have finally moved on. Well...at least I've tried to.

After my arrest, things were never the same. I was New York City's headline news that never seemed to fade. 18 year old Scarlett Hayes from Long Island was a criminal? How could it be possible! Even though my name was cleared, my possible involvement kept everyone on their toes. My face was plastered on the television for weeks after the arrest. My name was written all over social media. After my charges were dropped, I could barely leave my house. Every time I tried to go out in public, I was harassed. The worst part? There was nothing I could really do about it. Any chance of a normal life that I once had was simply gone. But then again, was my life ever really normal? The friends I had made turned their backs on me, most of my family was dead, and to top it all off, I got kicked out of college.

My first year of school and I completely ruined it.

But what did I expect? I was stupid for thinking I wouldn't get caught or that there wouldn't be consequences. I was stupid to think that it wouldn't catch up to me. That's what you get for being involved with criminals, Scarlett. There was something about my job that day that didn't sit right with me. I wasn't one to question what I was told. I was given a job and I always did it. And I was fucking good at it too. My job was always consistent.

Once a month I was given the same task as always: go to the marina in Long Island City, oversee the movement of multiple cocaine crates, and make sure they get loaded on the truck to be transferred to the warehouse. That was it. Nothing less, nothing more. While this sounds scary and complicated to some, I wasn't scared in the slightest. I had been doing this for what felt like years. It felt so simple to me. I was never armed. Never assisted. Just me, myself and I, guiding stupid, clueless men to load crates and crates of cocaine onto a truck. That's how smoothly the transfer always was. No one questioned me.

But this time, something was different. This time my superior told me I had to be armed and that there would be two guards coming with me. I was told the load was going to be much bigger and more dangerous this time around. That it was more than just cocaine. Like usual, I didn't ask questions. Quite frankly, I didn't want to know what else was being brought in. But being armed made me nervous. I never liked being armed. While it was definitely out of the ordinary, I wasn't in a position to question what I was told. Questioning came with consequences. You don't question your leaders.

I still don't even know what happened the day I was arrested because it all felt like a blur. Everything was going smoothly- I had both guards assisting me on the boat and everything looked promising. I was gone for 20 seconds. Literally 20 SECONDS. And then, boom, two gun shots echoed throughout the boat. I knew something wasn't right so I ran like hell only to find myself surrounded by countless cops at the foot of the marina.

But regardless, I bit my tongue during interrogation to save my own ass. Ratting out your leaders is asking for a death sentence. It seemed as though biting my tongue worked out in my favor. Someone paid 1.5 million dollars to bail me out and get my charges dropped. I had faith in the Mafia when it came to stuff like that. You never spent more than a couple hours in jail no matter what you did. They always had a way to get you out.

While it was fantastic that I didn't have to spend life in prison, life wasn't looking so sunny on the outside. I faced a lot of consequences once the court case was settled. You know that phrase "real men don't hit women"? Yeah, that doesn't apply in the Mafia. They fucked me up. Real fucking badly too. I knew something wasn't right that day, but I took the bait anyways. Maybe I'm the moron? Probably. I was 18 years old. Who has common sense at that age? I knew getting arrested was going to put me in big trouble with the leaders. In their eyes, I fucked up majorly, costing them thousands of dollars in drugs and ruining a reputable location. None of it made sense. After 3 years of doing this job someone finally decided to tip off the cops? Like I said, the whole thing just didn't sit right with me. But I also knew how much of an asset I was and cutting me loose didn't fit their itinerary. No one could do the job as good as I did.