“I told you to hold still! That needle almost jabbed me!”
Stan laughed. Actually laughed, like my fear was the funniest thing he’d seen all week.
That’s when Knox stepped into the room.
“She said hold still.” His voice was low. Lethal. A bass rumble that vibrated through my chest. “So, hold the fuck still.”
Stan’s smile evaporated. His entire body went rigid, arm extended perfectly motionless for the first time since he’d sat down. Whatever bravado he’d been clinging to crumbled under the weight of Knox’s stare.
I suppose I could have called a CO for help, but something told me that Stan wouldn’t have complied. Him hearing an order from Knox, on the other hand? Well, Stan sure as shit stayed still after that.
Stan didn’t move again.
Not once.
My pulse was still racing as I retrieved a fresh needle from the supply tray, my hands trembling slightly as I prepared to restart the sutures. A tangle of emotions knotted in my chest—frustration at myself for not handling it better, embarrassment that I’d needed backup, and something else. Something warmer.
Gratitude.
Knox had stepped in without hesitation. Without being asked. Without making it a scene that would require incident reports.
He’d simply … handled it.
When I glanced toward the doorway, I found him watching me. Those husky eyes soft now, the danger from momentsago completely banked. The transformation was startling—how quickly he could shift from lethal to gentle. From predator to protector.
He mouthed two words.You okay?
My throat tightened. I swallowed past the sudden lump and mouthed back,Thank you.
His eyes stayed soft. Stayed on me. Like making sure I was okay was the only thing that mattered, and as they did, my chest ached with something I couldn’t afford to feel.
Then he looked at Stan—one final warning glance that made the inmate shrink into himself—and returned to the hallway. The soft scrape of the mop against linoleum resumed, steady and unhurried, like nothing had happened at all.
But something had happened.
As I finished Stan’s sutures in blessed, cooperative silence, I couldn’t stop replaying the moment Knox had appeared in that doorway. The way the air had shifted. The way my racing heart had slowed the instant I realized he was there.
The way I’d felt for those few seconds, completely and utterly safe.
Safe.
When was the last time I’d felt that? Truly felt it, not just told myself I should?
Not with Silas. Not in the years before him, growing up with parents who couldn’t stay sober long enough to remember to lock the doors at night. Not in any of the jobs I’d worked, the apartments I’d rented, the careful distance I’d kept from everyone.
But here, in a prison infirmary, surrounded by convicted criminals, with a murderer mopping floors ten feet away?
Here, I felt safe.
Because Knox Blackwood made me feel safe.
I was in dangerous territory.
And I was about to find out a secret about Knox that would change everything …
14
HARPER
