Page 8 of Blood We Steal

It was a reminder that I couldn’t die here and couldn’t let her either, not until accounts were settled. The one plus was knowing she was terrified, but I couldn’t really enjoy it because her terror had nothing to do with me.

No, it was all this, whatever this was.

I didn’t need my years of experience and intuition to know that this was very, very bad. The first step out of the warden’s office proved what I knew to be true. The floor of the long hallway was covered with white and orange tiles that were mopped and then waxed until they shined every single day.

They were always pristine because I made it so. The warden had personally assigned me the job. He intended the work he deemed beneath him to drive me low and show me my place. But like every other task, I completed it to perfection.

And like every other stupid, petty man that dared challenge me, I brought the warden to heel.

Now, though, my pet warden was nowhere to be found, and my clean floors were smeared with streaks of red and scattered sheets of paper. I could chalk that up to Merrick getting active with his baton and leaving a mess.

Logical enough, but that wasn’t it. Because the hallway was too quiet, too empty. After all these months, I made it my business to know the rhythms of this jail. Simone had done her best to ensure I’d spend the rest of my life in federal prison. It had taken a not inconsiderable sum for me to stay in the city jail, and at this moment, I was glad I’d made the investment. The warden’s office and surrounding area usually buzzed with activity. Today it was empty, and the wrongness of it settled heavier on my skin with each step.

Things had been odd for the last several weeks. My contacts on the outside had told me people were getting sick. Damian had consolidated the smuggling operation, ready to take advantage if there were supply chain disruptions.

Before today, there had been little evidence of it in the prison besides a few changes. Relocating some of the food from the main cafeteria because there wasn’t enough staff to properly monitor meals. A few less COs, a few more inmates going to the infirmary. I hadn’t minded. Some of the COs on my payroll called out sick, and that saved me their fee and gave me a chance to fuck over Merrick.

I’d counted it a win.

A catastrophic miscalculation, I now saw. I should have been able to look at the bigger picture, but no. I’d been focused on her. Yes, I’d heard the chatter, but I’d been the one thing I could never permit myself to be. Distracted. Because of her.

During the eighteen months I’d spent in a cell, I’d done what needed to be done. Saw that the appropriate COs were paid, that my men were where I needed them, that all the people who needed to die died. My gaze was drawn to Simone, but I looked away, correcting myself.

Almost all of the people.

With my brother as my eyes and ears on the outside and the inside fully under my control, my business had continued to run without a hitch.

And I’d been left with nothing to focus on but her.

For a fleeting moment, I regretted I hadn’t acted the monster she expected when she cowered on the floor.

And the insult of that wasn’t lost on me. After what she’d done, she believed I’d give her a quick death? No, she wasn’t getting off that easy.

So she had to stay alive.

The hallway was bright and the air ice cold. In the distance, I heard the hum of the generators, yelling, screams. All a part of the jail’s daily soundtrack. But the shooting… that was new. Unsettling.

Once we reached the end of the hallway, I looked back at Simone. Her eyes were wide, and she was clutching that stupid trophy like a talisman, trying to be brave.

It disgusted me.

“I’m leaving this unit,” I said without conscious thought. I wasn’t sure what I would do next, a feeling as foreign as any. My family, my honor, had no space for uncertainty. But after I said the words, they made sense. “I need to find Besnik and the others,” I said, wondering why the fuck I was explaining myself to her. At hearing Besnik’s name, her eyes brightened and my rage spiked.

She looked happy, and the soft smile that lifted her lips seemed almost genuine. She probably thought he could protect her or that at the very least he might try. After all, she’d made a fool of me, what was it to do the same to Besnik? Nothing for her, but I looked forward to showing her the error of her ways.

Later, though. I focused on the path ahead. The heavy metal door was open, and I stepped through and into the hub. The jail was nine floors of pods stacked around an open well, each level ringed by a catwalk. Each level was boxed in with thick plexiglass, but even from here and through the glass, I could pick out the pattern of the tile.

I heard the screams too. Most days, it was the incessant chatter that buzzed at a low hum that I refused to allow myself to get used to. Now, though, that buzz was gone, and screams had taken its place.

Something had happened here. The noise was of a different variety than usual, and when I looked through the metal grate over the catwalk, I saw more blood smears, a food cart, and a dead correctional officer.

There was a body outside pod C, the shank still protruding from its eye socket. Someone had kicked over the mop bucket, and the dirty water had spread and mixed with the blood leaving a gummy film that would be hell to clean up. I glanced at Simone again but refocused on the body. It was safer; it didn’t threaten my control.

Because again, she was the source of my failure, my time wasted with her while the world came apart at the seams.

I needed to find my men because things were out of control.

The thing that lurched to my left was out of control too. And headed for Simone.