"Ethan. I've been hiding and planting contraband in this facility for three years. I think I know where to put it."
"Make sure there's no trail back to you."
"Please. There's never a trail back to me. I’m a fucking professional," he winks. "Anything else, boss?"
"Yeah. Don't tell anyone about this. Ever."
"Tell anyone about what?" he says with a grin, and slips back into the room.
I stand in the hallway for a long time. My hands are steady. My breathing is even. I feel nothing, not guilt, not satisfaction, not the rage from earlier. Just a cold, clear focus, like the seconds before a fight when the bell hasn't rung yet, but you already know exactly what you're going to do.
Tomorrow, I go to Griff. Tonight, Harry goes to Garrett. By this time tomorrow, Garrett will be in handcuffs, and Liam will never have to look over his shoulder again.
I go back to the room. Lie in my bunk. Stare at the ceiling.
In the morning, I move fast. Before breakfast, before roll call, before anyone else is even fully awake. I knock once on Griff's door and enter without waiting.
"It was Garrett," I say.
Griff looks up from his desk, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. His green eyes narrow. He sets it down.
"You sure about that?"
"Yes. Liam told me. Garrett got him alone and beat him. It wasn't the first time either." I swallow. This next part is the calculation, the gamble. "And that's not all. Garrett's using. Drugs, at minimum. I've seen him after lights out, dilated pupils,impaired coordination. He's got a stash somewhere in his room. I'm certain of it."
Griff's expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. He waits a second, like he’s thinking, then he picks up his desk phone. Dials a three-digit extension.
"I need a security team at dormitory B, room fourteen. Full search."
He hangs up. Looks at me.
"Come with me."
The raid is clinical. Efficient. Garrett and his roommates are taken out of the room to another hallway, to wait, still half asleep. Two guards pull Garrett's bunk apart while Griff stands in the doorway with his arms crossed. I stand behind him, watching.
They find it taped to the underside of the bed frame. A plastic bag containing pills, a smaller bag of white powder, plus a crude pipe fashioned from a hollowed-out pen. More than enough. No gray area.
Garrett is brought from the corridor where they've been holding him. When he sees the contents of his mattress spread across the floor, something flickers across his face.
He's scared. More than scared.
Then he sees me.
His bravado shatters. The tremor starts in his hands, violent enough that he clenches them into fists, but the shaking moves up his arms. His face drains to the color of old milk, every sharp angle standing out. When his eyes meet mine, I see it: primal terror. Because he knows. He knows what they've found, and he knows I put this in motion.
His throat works. That arrogant jaw clenches so tight I'm surprised his teeth don't crack. Sweat beads across his forehead despite the cold corridor. When he swallows, it sounds like a man drowning on dry land.
And God, it's delicious. Better than anything I imagined during those dark hours on the edge of Liam's bunk with murder mapping itself behind my eyes. Because killing Garrett would have been one moment, one explosion, one crack, one silence, and then it would be over. This is better. He'll sit in a real prison. For years. No merit points. No rec room. No therapeutic halfway house. Just concrete and time and the slow understanding that he put himself here.
I want to laugh. I'm fighting it. I know I look unhinged. My hands tremble slightly, not from fear but from the effort of containing what I feel, which is something primal and satisfied and not entirely sane.
They cuff him. Standard protocol for transfer to actual detention. As they lead him down the corridor, he doesn't struggle. Doesn't speak. Just walks, head turning once to look at me over his shoulder.
I let him see my smile.
I see the fear flicker in his eyes one last time. And I savor every second of it.
Chapter 35. Ethan
