And just like that, the adrenaline crashed. Leaving nothing but the cold, heavy truth of what I’d done.
Three months. I’d been three months away from possible freedom. Three months from finding my daughter, from finally being the father she deserved.
Now?
Now, I’d be lucky if I saw the outside of these walls in a decade.
You failed Gwen,the voice in my head whispered.You promised yourself. And you threw it all away.
For a woman I’d never even met. A woman who didn’t even know I existed.
My chest ached. My eyes stung. For a moment, the grief threatened to swallow me whole.
But I’d killed once to protect someone I loved. Spent fourteen years paying for it. And I’d be damned if I ever became the kind of man who stood by and let monsters like Doyle hurt people.
That wasn’t who I was. That wasn’t who Gwen’s father was going to be.
The guards shoved me forward, toward the infirmary.
Looked like I was about to meet the nurse who’d just changed everything.
2
HARPER
On the first day of my new job, all I was thinking about was officially starting my new Silas-free life. Hundreds of miles from the bruises. The fear. The man who gave me both.
First step in the rebuilding-Harper checklist?
New place to live. Check.
New job? Double check.
Was it my dream job? God, no. But then how many people can say they’re actively working their dream job, am I right? Most of us make concessions. Some of us do it for survival reasons.
And survival was my middle name these days.
So, no, this job wasn’t a long-term career situation. No disrespect to anyone who enjoyed working at a penitentiary, but this was a stepping stone for me. A place that paid my bills so I could afford to live on my own. A means to an end.
But it was mine.
And, sure, it might not be the most glamorous job in the world—pretty sureprison nursewasn’t on anyone’s vision board—but it was mine all the same.
Onward and upward, Harper.
You can do this.
I smiled at my reflection in the rearview mirror, tucking a strand of dark hair behind my ear. There was almost no trace of the bruise Silas had left on my face. Gone. That chapter in my life closed forever. Only a tiny scar remained on my cheek, where his ring had cut me, so small that, in time, it would probably fade to nothing.
Like it never happened.
Except it did. And I’d never let it happen again.
As I got out of my parked car, Coldwater Penitentiary loomed above me. The fortress stretched three stories high, its weathered walls the color of old bones, topped with coils of barbed wire that seemed to whisperstay awayto anyone with half a brain.
Behind these medium-security walls, eighteen hundred men were imprisoned. Many of them violent.
And I’d had enough of violent men to last me several lifetimes, thank you very much.
