“Happy now?” Ronan shook out his hand, wincing.
I touched my split lip, blood coating my fingers. Felt the swelling already starting.
“Yeah.” I spit blood into the toilet, already calculating how long until the guards noticed. Until someone called medical. Until I saw her again. “Real happy.”
10
HARPER
On Friday, the fifth day of my first week at the penitentiary, something unfortunate happened.
Dr. Mercer called in sick, and they sent a substitute. Apparently, some doctors made the rounds at various correctional facilities, filling in when needed. That would’ve been fine. Routine even.
Except for one thing. He looked strikingly similar to Silas. My abusive ex. Same build. Same sharp jaw. Same way of moving through a room like he owned every square inch of it. When he walked into the infirmary, my stomach dropped straight through the floor.
It’s not him, I told myself. But my body didn’t get the memo. My shoulders crept toward my ears. My fingers found the inside of my thumb, nail pressing into skin in that old, familiar rhythm.
Breathe. You’re fine. You got out. You’re safe.
The substitute doctor, whose name I’d already forgotten because my brain was too busy short-circuiting, gave me a cursory nod and buried himself in paperwork. He didn’t speak to me unless absolutely necessary, which suited me just fine.
I could handle this. I’d handled worse.
I was still telling myself that when the door buzzed open and Knox Blackwood walked in.
Something in my chest loosened. Which was insane. Absolutely certifiable. The man was a convicted murderer, for God’s sake. I should not feel relief at the sight of him.
And yet …
His silver-blue eyes swept the room in that calculated way of his, cataloging threats like breathing was optional but surveillance wasn’t. They landed on the substitute doctor. Lingered. Then slid to me.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing to the exam table.
He moved past me, close enough that I caught the warmth radiating off him. Close enough that I could smell prison soap and something underneath it. Something clean. Male. I shouldn’t have noticed. I definitely shouldn’t have leaned into it.
He folded his massive frame onto the table, and I noticed the split in his lip immediately.
Blood. Swelling. The telltale signs of a fist connecting with a face.
Again.
Oddly, his knuckles weren’t red at all. In fact, the split lip appeared to be his only injury. Did he get sucker-punched? And not fight back?
From the little I’d learned about Knox, I found that very unlikely.
Either way, this was his third visit here in five days. Busted knuckles on Monday. A suspicious split suture on Tuesday. Now a split lip on Friday. Either Knox Blackwood was the unluckiest man in this prison, or …
Or what? He got hurt on purpose?
The suture suspicion had been there on Tuesday. I’d even called him on it, but I didn’t honestly think it was true, and by the time the day was over, I’d convinced myself it was silly tothink anyone would hurt themselves on purpose like that. Yet here he was again.
But this was an even more ridiculous thought. No one would voluntarily get punched in the face just to?—
Just to what?See me?
I shoved that thought down so hard, it left bruises.
“Where’s the other guy?” I asked, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves.
