Page 20 of Claim

Ghost’s attention snapped sideways then.

Shit. Stupid move by my cellmate there. Colin didn’t understand what that just cost him. You didn’t call the screws. Not unless you fancied being dismantled slowly, over weeks, months, until there was nothing left of you worth recognising. And the annoyance crossing Ghost’s face was proper real. He’d leave me where I stood, regardless of the cash he was banking to put me on my face, to make an example of Colin instead. Tear him apart just for the inconvenience.

I couldn’t have that.

I’d always taken the hits. Pain was familiar. Expected. Almost manageable. But Colin? He couldn’t. And I shouldn’t have cared. I really, really shouldn’t have.

I did though.

Call it some moral code. Fuck knows. But I launched at Ghost, shoulder-first, driving him off Colin and into the rail. The impact rattled my bones. Breath tore out of me in a harsh bark, but I kept moving, kept pushing. Stopping wasn’t an option. Not here. Not with a crowd closing in. Not with eyes on us. If Ghost had wanted me dead, I’d already be leaking on the floor. So this hadn’t been about killing me.

This was hierarchy.

And I wasn’t letting him write it uncontested.

The fight exploded.

Fists flew. Bodies slammed. We crashed into each other with no space left for thought. I took a punch to the jaw snapping my head sideways and tasting copper immediately, but I stayed upright. Stayed in it. I drove a forearm into his throat, felt cartilage give, felt him stagger, and then his knee came up hard into my thigh, buckling it.

The crowd surged tighter, jeers and shouts rising, feeding it, sharpening it. Men shouting my name. Others calling for blood. The noise blurred as Ghost went feral. All the rage he’d been hoarding since I put him in here came loose. Since I’d torched his little operation. Since I’d carved my name into his streets and left him with nothing but revenge to live on. He came at me wild, brutal, swinging with everything he had.

And I matched him.

There was nothing else left in me but fight. It was all I’d ever had. So I let it loose. Every punch thrown was ugly and close. Elbows driven in tight. Shoulders slammed. Nails raked. Teeth clenched. Fury flared hot and poisonous, souring into hate.

I hated him.

Hated this place.

Hated that I was here at all.

Hated that I’d walked away from the warmth of somewhere beautiful because I’d believed I could end it on my terms. Not by doing the one last thing they wanted, but by proving I didn’t have to. I’d gambled on that. On showing them I still had a choice.

I’d lost.

So I poured it all into Ghost. The anger. The regret. The need to not be erased. And I can’t say, in all honesty, who would’ve won. But with another minute, another thirty seconds, while the hollers and jeers swelled around us, I’d reckon my chances were pretty fucking good.

He bled.

I hurt.

I bled.

He hurt.

And for a moment, that was enough.

Then boots thundered on concrete. Keys rattled. Shouts cut through the chaos, and hands were suddenly everywhere. Orders barked. Brute force ripped us apart, and I sagged into Dent, lungs on fire, pain blooming in places it absolutely shouldn’t. Another screw dragged Ghost the other way. Just as bloodied, just as wrecked.

“Move,” Dent snapped.

I glanced back at Colin.

Wide-eyed. Shaking. One eye bruising dark. He’d had a hit in there too.

Told him he should have walked behind me.

And as they hauled me away, one thing cut through the haze with brutal clarity: by doing that, by breaking the one rule that should have mattered in here, Colin had bound himself to me.