And yet something in me had shifted. I couldn’t name it. Didn’t want to. But the way my pulse steadied when he spoke,the way my shoulders had dropped without me noticing … my body was responding to him in ways my brain hadn’t approved.
“Won’t you get in trouble with the other inmates?” I asked suddenly. “For helping a prison employee? Aren’t there rules in here? Some kind of inmate code?”
Knox’s lips twitched. “You worried about me, Princess?”
Princess. I should have been appalled by a prisoner giving me a nickname.You hear that, you stupid stomach butterflies?
“I don’t want …” I stopped myself. What was I going to say?I don’t want you to get hurt?I don’t want your parole denied? I barely knew this man.
“You don’t want what?” Knox asked, his voice soft now. Curious.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
But he was looking at me like he knew exactly what I’d been about to say. Like he could read every thought scrolling across my face.
“Well”—I snapped off my gloves, needing something to do with my hands—“you’ll live. Try not to rip the stitches again. That skin’s been through enough trauma, and I’d rather not explain to Dr. Mercer why my patient keeps showing up, looking like he lost a fight with a cheese grater.”
“Thought I won the fight.”
“You won the fight. Your knuckles did not.” I tossed the gloves in the trash. “The skin around the metacarpals is thin. Delicate. Keep tearing it open, and you’re looking at infection, maybe permanent nerve damage. So, unless you want to spend the rest of your sentence unable to make a fist …”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You’ll be careful,” I repeated flatly. “Says the man who apparently tore his own stitches to get back into my infirmary.”
Knox’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in his eyes. “Never said that.”
“You didn’t deny it either.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then, softer: “You pay attention.”
“Someone has to.” I crossed my arms. “Since you’re clearly not going to take care of yourself.”
Something flickered across his face. There and gone. But it looked almost like he wanted to say something else. Something that had nothing to do with stitches or wounds or medical advice.
Instead, Knox stood. Six foot four of tattooed muscle, yet he angled his body slightly away and kept his shoulders relaxed, making himself less threatening without making it obvious. How did the most dangerous man in here know exactly how not to scare me?
He started toward the door, then paused. Looked back at me over his shoulder. “Harper.” The sound of my name in his voice did something to me. Something warm and unwelcome. “Stay away from Doyle.”
I blinked. “He’s in solitary. And after what you did to him, I doubt he’ll be working as an orderly again anytime soon.”
Knox didn’t look reassured. “Doyle’s dangerous.”
“So are you.” Okay, I was totally aiming for sarcastic, but my eyes flew wide when I realized how wrong it had come out.
Before I could apologize, Knox offered me a gentle smile, his voice softening. “Some monsters are made, not born. Doesn’t make them less dangerous. But it might make them worth understanding.”
He held my gaze, and I realized he wasn’t talking about Doyle anymore.
He was asking me, in his own guarded way, to see the difference.
Before I could respond, he turned and walked out.
I stood there, medical supplies forgotten, his words echoing in the sterile silence.
“It might make them worth understanding.”Like understanding why Knox had stepped between me and those two inmates earlier. Why he’d made himself a potential target just to keep them away from me.
And why, just now, he’d taken the time to warn me about Doyle.
