Chapter 7
The smell of antiseptic faded. In its place came the reek of mildew and rot.
Lisbeth opened her eyes. A moldy concrete wall stared back at her. Overhead, a bare bulb flickered on and off.
Beneath her was a wooden plank bed—no mattress. Cold seeped through the boards and burrowed straight into her bones.
Laughter drifted in from beyond the iron bars.
"Fresh meat? And it's a woman?"
"Well, damn—look at that pretty face. Tossing her in here with us? That's a freebie if I ever saw one."
Lisbeth braced her arms and pushed herself upright. The wounds on her shoulder and collarbone screamed in protest, and she sucked air through her teeth.
She looked toward the cell door.
Across the corridor, several shirtless, tattooed men leaned against the bars, their eyes crawling over her body without the slightest shame.
Those stares were sticky. Revolting. Like they were appraising merchandise.
Fear seized Lisbeth's entire body. It took her a long moment to process where she was.
A men's prison.
Nicholas—that lunatic—had thrown her into a men's prison.
Hours earlier. Hospital corridor.
Adalyn intercepted Nicholas as he was leaving.
"Nicholas, Lisbeth's so badly hurt—she'll get bullied if she goes back to a regular prison. Let me pull some strings and get her a private cell. For old times' sake, at least." Her head was bowed, her voice gentle, her eyes rimmed with red.
Nicholas paused and lit a cigarette.
"Do whatever you want. Just don't let her die."
He exhaled a ring of smoke and walked away.
Adalyn watched him go. The fragile, pitiful mask dissolved. Beneath it, her eyes burned with venom.
Oh, she would take very good care of Lisbeth.
A women's facility was too kind for that whore. A men's prison—now that was fitting.
She wanted Lisbeth to learn what it truly meant to wish for death.
And when the men were done with her, she'd love to see if Nicholas still wanted her then.
Lisbeth pressed herself into the corner of her cell, arms locked around her knees, trembling from head to toe.
During yard time, the corridor filled with the thunder of men's footsteps and sharp, taunting whistles.
Someone threw a bloody wad of tissue paper into her cell. Others made obscene gestures through the bars.
The guards saw everything. They did nothing. Some even joined in with a laugh.
"Hey, sweetheart—take something off and let me see. I'll share half my dinner with you."
"Drop the act. Every woman who ends up in here gets broken in sooner or later."
The filth poured over her in waves.
Lisbeth clamped her hands over her ears and buried her face in her knees.
She didn't dare leave her cell. She held her bladder until the dead of night, venturing to the restroom only after every last man was asleep.
The only thing keeping her alive was hatred.
Nicholas. Adalyn.
She chewed those two names over and over on her tongue until her heart bled.
As long as she didn't die, she would drag them both down to hell with her.
Lunchtime.
A guard rapped his baton against the bars and shoved a meal box and a tin cup of water through the slot.
"Eat." His voice was flat, but his eyes lingered on Lisbeth, sliding over her body. He swallowed.
Lisbeth hadn't eaten in two days. Her stomach was tearing itself apart.
She crawled over and picked up the meal box.
The food had gone rancid—sour, reeking—with a dead fly floating on the surface.
She set it down. She picked up the tin cup and drank.
The water had a strange, bitter taste.
Lisbeth forced down two mouthfuls. She hadn't had water in two days. This was better than nothing.
Ten minutes later, something went wrong.
A fire ignited in her stomach and spread through her bloodstream to every corner of her body.
Her temperature spiked out of control. Her skin burned to the touch.
Lisbeth slumped against the wall, panting hard.
Her throat was parched. Her vision blurred.
Deep inside her body, a strange, foreign emptiness swelled—a desperate craving to be filled.
She bit through the tip of her tongue, trying to use pain to stay lucid.
Blood flooded her mouth, but it couldn't drown out the fire.
"So hot…"
She clawed at her collar without thinking. The buttons tore away, exposing bare skin.
The men in the corridor noticed.
"Oh, she's in heat now?"
"That's some strong stuff—look at her. I can barely hold back!"
They pressed against the bars, eyes gleaming with something feral.
Someone started rattling their cell door. Metal crashed against metal.
"Open up! Let me in there!"
"Where's the guard? I gave him my smokes—open the damn door!"
Lisbeth curled up on the floor, arms clamped around herself.
She knew. She'd been drugged.
Adalyn.
No one else.
Her reason was slipping away. Instinct was taking over.
Lisbeth let out several agonized moans, her nails scraping against the concrete until they left trails of blood.
Her fingertips were raw and bleeding. She didn't feel a thing.
Then—footsteps at the end of the corridor.
The sharp, deliberate click of leather shoes on concrete, cutting through the noise like a blade.
The shouting men fell silent. They backed away from the bars.
Nicholas walked through flanked by guards, wearing a tailored suit.
He'd had an important meeting today. He'd canceled it on impulse.
He couldn't stop seeing Lisbeth's eyes in that wasteland—hollow, mocking, dead.
That look had crawled under his skin and wouldn't leave.
He wanted to see if she could still hold onto that stubborn pride of hers in a place like this.
He wanted to watch her break. Watch her fall to her knees, beg, and admit she was wrong.
Nicholas stopped in front of Lisbeth's cell.
The light inside was dim.
Lisbeth lay on the floor, her prison uniform half off, shoulders and waist exposed.
Her legs shifted restlessly against each other. Broken, breathless sounds escaped her lips.
Her skin was flushed an unnatural shade of red. Sweat beaded across her forehead.
Nicholas's expression turned black. The air around him plummeted to sub-zero.
He turned to the warden behind him—Randy Carr.
"What happened?"
Randy's face was drenched in sweat. He stammered, unable to string a sentence together, his legs visibly shaking.
Nicholas kicked the iron door.
"Open it."
A guard fumbled with his keys and wrenched the cell open.
Nicholas strode in, stripped off his suit jacket, and threw it over Lisbeth, covering her exposed skin.
He bent to pull her up.
The instant his fingers touched her arm, Lisbeth seized him. She clung to him with desperate strength.
Her entire body pressed into his. Her burning cheek rubbed against his chest.
"It hurts… help me…"
Her voice was honeyed, broken, laced with sobs.
Nicholas froze.
That tone. That vulnerability. She'd only ever shown it during their most intimate moments.
But now, she was putting it on display in front of dozens of male inmates lining the corridor.
Rage detonated behind his eyes.
Nicholas clamped her wrist and tore her off him.
"Lisbeth, are you really this shameless? Going into heat surrounded by men?"
Lisbeth couldn't hear him. Couldn't process the words.
The drug had stripped away every shred of her consciousness. All she understood was that the man in front of her could make the agony stop.
She lunged for him again, arms wrapping around his neck, her lips blindly seeking his jaw.
"So hot… give me…"
