Page 54 of Claim

“Stay down,” a screw barked, as if I had any other option.

Then they hauled me up by the arms and marched me out while the wing howled behind us. Jeers, laughter, someone clapping slowly and mocking.

As they dragged me past, I saw Darren.

He shook. Hands over his mouth. Eyes wide and wet and broken. So I held his gaze. Long enough to tell him he wasn’t alone. But long enough to know I’d just made everything worse for him.

Always did.

Not that it mattered, cause the next door that closed on me was segregation. And it shut with a heavier sound than the others. Thicker. Final. Not the usual clang. This one thudded deep in my chest and stayed there. Or maybe that was just me. Trying for a metaphor or whatever. Tristan would have a word for it. He was the clever one. The one who’d sit across from me later, disappointed and explain exactly how I’d just torpedoed my case. All for what? To prove I was still hard? Still the same bloke who solved things with fists and blood?

I slid down the wall and hit the floor hard.

My breath came in short, tearing pulls. My ribs screamed every time my chest moved. My shoulder was dead weight, burning and useless. Blood ran from my knuckles and dripped onto the concrete, slow and patient, as if it knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

Probably wasn’t.

And fuck.

That hadn’t been about losing my temper.

Wasn’t even about the rumours. The cheap ones I’d known would surface eventually, floated just to see if I’d bite.

I had, hadn’t I?

Not because I needed to prove anything. Not because I couldn’t stop myself. Not because of shame or fear or repercussions.

Because they’d put him in front of me.

They’d turned it into a choice between doing nothing and watching an eighteen-year-old, someone tied to my blood, get eaten alive. And because somewhere in the middle of it, under the pain and the fear, I felt it. The rush. The brutal, narrowing clarity. The part of me that woke up when violence cut clean.

That was the bit that scared me.

Because none of this had been an accident. I’d been moved. Isolated. Fed a reason. Placed exactly where someone wanted me. And I’d walked straight into it.

Stupid. Fucking. Prick.

I reached into my joggers pocket, pulled out Tristan’s business card and ran my thumb over the embossed lettering. Then I banged my head against the brick wall behind me just to feel something that wasn’t this.

chapter ten

Tristan

I parked in a visitor space and checked my reflection in the rear-view mirror.

Idiot.

As if it mattered what my hair looked like. As if that was what today hinged on. And yet my hand came up anyway, fingers smoothing, correcting. A habit born from a lifetime spent in rooms where presentation counted as much as substance.

Or maybe it was something else.

I forced my hand back down.

This wasn’t chambers. It wasn’t court. And it certainly wasn’t a dinner table where smiles were currency and composure passed for control. The man I was about to see didn’t need me polished.

Yet I was.

And some quiet, treacherous part of me wanted him to look at me and remember. To call me pretty again. Beautiful if he thought it.