"It was you." She said as she leaned back, and for the first time in all the years alone, he laughed.
Joseph Cassian, the person who was caged for ten years, who nobody heard talking or laughing, now was laughing into the woman's face with joy. It was a genuine laugh. It came from deep, so deep that his whole body shook with the chains.
"Me?" He asked, still chuckling and shaking his head and leaned forward. "Lady, I suffered for ten years for something I did not do. My family put me here, yes and you know what I thought about every day?" He asked as he looked deep in her eyes, and for the first time she actually got scared. She felt the goosebumps on her arm, she felt her legs shaking but tried to calm herself as much as she could.
She did so many investigations, she tried to get the persons that were close to Joseph, but nothing. Not a single evidence. Nobody knew nothing, even the deepest fuckers in the underworld not even a single clue.
But now the person everybody pointed at was laughing about the fact that his whole family got massacred, their heads were cut off and sent to the exact same person that helped them put Joseph into jail.
And they too were butchered days later… and he was laughing about it.
"What…?" She asked and tried to have the upper hand as she held the paper that was waiting for her signature. She came here for a reason to see if he was the one.
"I thought about killing them the day I got arrested in my fucking home that I worked for. I lived my life away from them, I worked as a welder, I had no connection to the mafia nor the crimes they did, yet I was thrown into here by them." He leaned forward a bit. "In the last ten years I was just thinking, the day I get out I will chop them up." He leaned back and shook his head as he chuckled. "Every fucking single day I sat in silence and thought about what was my sin, what did I do wrong that I get this treatment? But there was nothing, lady. Nothing. Not a single thing… or maybe that I said no to the family. It was the perfect escape plan for them when the knot tightened around their neck. And it worked." He leaned in again. "I served 10 years. I couldn't be a boyfriend, I couldn't enjoy what others my age did. I sat in the darkness and thought about the same thing all the time… to kill them. And when I heard that, did you know what I did?"
She shook her head, but again how the fuck he heard that they died?
"Nothing. I wasn't happy, more like furious that somebody else did what was mine… my family, my chance to kill them and die with them."
Yeah, she could imagine the feeling of that, waiting for one moment, the moment to finally take revenge and that moment was taken away… or it was, again, just an act to save himself.
There is no evidence that Joseph ever did anything. His whole life is clear, he studied, he became a welder at his early 18 and was renting an apartment.
Yet something is off about him.
People fear him in the prison and outside the prison. Literally, crime bosses dipped when they heard that he had the chance of getting out. But why then?
The question in her was such a mystery that no one could answer it. Why does everybody fear him, when even the government published a long fucking statement about wrong jailing?
The whole system changed, the government changed, and everybody got jailed who was corrupted, even the president, governors, mayors, everybody who participated in the great era of gangsters. And now, the government gave a chance to those who during that period were wrongly jailed, but of all of the people who they investigated Joseph was the most dangerous one like a two sided blade.
Because if it was him who did it all he's not just a gangster but a criminal mastermind, a genius and a monster who was ready to sit in jail for 10 years waiting for the pardon to let him out.
She needed to make a decision and it was almost impossible to make it, because if it became reality that he is actually who people think he is and she too that would be a catastrophe.
On the other hand, falsely imprisoning him for life would be a disaster too, for the criminal justice system.
She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them and looked straight at him.
"If I sign, and you get out, what are you going to do?"
"Eat, drink, and fuck whores." A straight answer and well, it was a need after that many years… but that wasn't the answer she was waiting for.
"There are hundreds of millions to your family, maybe billions no one knows about. Where is it? Maybe offshore accounts, maybe in a fucking warehouse or in the ground… a legacy is waiting for you outside, as well as enemies, even if you are a misunderstood person. So I ask again… what are you going to do if I sign this paper?"
A long silence.
"Try to survive." He said with a faint smile on his face, a smile with those empty, dark eyes and she felt something about it just made her feel bad.
If this guy tries to survive and uses his influence, even if it's fake, still is a power that he can use. A power that could shake the city, the country, the continent.
But maybe that's the right thing to do. Even if the system changed, the government changed, there are still gangsters, still bribery, still corruption. And if a guy like him appears suddenly, he can kill all of them and when he's done, he himself can be killed.
She let out a long breath and as he grabbed the pen and that was the moment when she realized that she was shaking as fuck, this whole situation and the weight of that signature was creeping her out.
"One more question." She looked up at him. "How do you know about the death of your family and the others?"
"The guards has big mouths and pride mixed with greed." He said. "They were mocking me that I don't have power anymore, that my family died like dogs."
It made sense, she would have done it too in the early years, and understood the feelings of the guards, because a lot of people died, civilians, law enforcement officers, too much, but now it meant nothing and she signed it.
"You are going to visit a psychologist chosen by the DSA, you will be put under heavy surveillance." She looked up. "The good news is after ten long years of suffering the JCA for the misjudge, wrongful jailing offers a 100 thousand dollar for every year which means you will get a million dollar which you can use how you want to." She looked up again and there was no reaction at all.
Not a smile, nothing just sat there but he looked like he was thinking.
"What is DSA and JCA?"
"The DSA is the new Domestic Security Agency that will hunt you down if you do something, the JCA is just the Justice and Corrections Agency." She leaned back. " Lot of things have changed in ten years." She said and pushed the paper in front of him. "Read it."
"It hurts my eyes."
She looked at him and well she could understand it sitting in darkness for that long. It was a miracle he became blind or something.
"Effective immediately, you are hereby exonerated of all charges and ordered to be released from custody without condition. All records pertaining to your conviction will be expunged in accordance with Section 4 of the Wrongful Convictions Act. On behalf of the Ministry of Justice and the Justice and Corrections Agency, we extend our formal apology for the wrongful imprisonment. And others like laws on it point by point but just look at it and we can go." She said as she pushed the paper back in front of him.
And he looked at it for one second. "I'm done then."
"Good." She said and stood up and opened the door calling the guards in. "Get off the chains, he's a free man." As she said it like time stopped and they just starred at her what the fuck he men by free… "Do it, I already spoke with the warden and the principal of the facility." She said again and well they did it quickly.
They didn't even look into his eyes and as fast as the chain and the handcuff was off hurried out.
"By the way, who are you?" Joseph asked as he stood up towering over the woman and he looked intimidating, but she was too.
"I am Olivia Grisa, special agent of the DSA and for a year your supervisor." She said looking up at him. "But now let's go." She stepped out of the room and he followed her and within ten minutes after signing more papers, he was out of The Bastion supermax prison.