NATE'S POV
" I need you and your team to go to Hell's Watch Prison, " Captain Marcus Levin spoke up, his voice booming with authority.
His office was perpetually dry, thick with the scent of stale coffee and bureaucratic anxiety. It was precisely the kind of controlled environment I thrived in, logical, ordered, and entirely predictable. I stood before Levin's expansive oak desk, ramrod straight, my focus rigidly locked on the case files laid out before him. The 'Chimera Corporation Case' was a cold, impenetrable wall, and a massive financial fraud and money laundering scheme had resurfaced, threatening to destabilize the city's economy and pointing disturbingly close to the weakened but not yet broken structure of the Blackwood organization.
"Captain Cole, "Levin proceeded to speak and his voice tight with frustration. "We have exhausted every avenue. Forensics, wiretaps, financial tracing, we hit brick walls stamped with Blackwood's bloody seal every time, and It is too complex, too insulate, and the insider structure remains intact."
Clara Hayes, my second-in-command, stood beside me, shifting uncomfortably. "The data leads nowhere, sir. It is encrypted with old Blackwood code, and we fucking need a key, a living decoder."
Levin leaned back, his eyes drilling into mine. "Which brings us to the last resort, Cole. The only living decoder we can access." He paused, letting the unspoken name hang heavy in the air. "I am authorizing Captain Cole to open communications with Inmate Adrian Blackwood at Hell's Watch. You will secure his cooperation and whatever leverage you need to use, use it, as this case must be solved. "
My jaw tightened. "The last resort," I thought, the words tasting like ash. It was not just the professional humiliation of begging a criminal for help; it was the chilling reality of confronting the man whose entire life I had engineered into that high-security cage. "Sir, respectfully," I started, trying to inject logic into the madness. "Working with a Blackwood, especially him, is professional suicide, and you all know that he is manipulative, ruthless, and highly unstable."
Levin cut me off with a wave of his hand. "He is serving twenty years, and his power is constrained. Yours is not. Your job is the CSI, Nate. You follow the evidence, and right now, the evidence trail ends in Cell Block C of Hell's Watch." He fixed me with a hard look. "You handled the original takedown; now you handle the aftermath and get the damn fucking information."
And that is how the meeting ended, and within the hour, we arrived at Hell's Watch was not just a prison; it was a fortress carved out of fear, cold steel, electric fences, motion detectors that could sense a skipped breath, and walls so high they swallowed sunlight. The very walls whispered threats and warnings, and the air tasted perpetually like dread, rust, and cheap disinfectant.
"We all need to focus," I said, trying desperately to anchor myself in logic as white-hot tension crawled up my spine.
Clara shot me a sideways glance. " I know. I am worried that once inside, Hell's watch is a different ball game.
Behind us, Ryan Mitchell was half-walking, half-stumbling as he typed furiously on his tablet. "I swear to God, if he hacked the cameras again, I still have trauma from the last time. One second, security says he is in Cell C, and the next, I see him strolling through a hallway like he owns the place. Which, honestly, he does."
Sophie Alvarez let out a long, weary sigh. "Stay sharp. Adrian Blackwood is not just another inmate. He is dangerous, and unfortunately, he is the only one who can help us crack this case."
A gravelly voice cut through the sterile hallway. "Captain Cole."
We all turned, and Warden Blackwell, broad-shouldered and stern, stepped forward. "Warden Blackwell," I greeted him tightly.
He nodded curtly. "Your request to see Inmate Blackwood has been processed and approved, but we are not going to his cell today."
Clara frowned. "Why not?"
"Because," Blackwell said, turning on his heel, "Blackwood refused to meet you in his cell and said that he would take visitors to the gym."
Ryan squeaked. "They let him near the equipment. Metal? Weights? Objects that can kill?"
" Is he planning to kill us? " Clara spoke up through gritted teeth.
The warden's jaw flexed. "Mr. Blackwood has privileges that have been earned through compliance, intelligence, and a particularly unsettling ability to get what he wants." He began walking, and we followed. When we reached the reinforced double doors, Warden Blackwell stopped. "He is in there. I will escort you in, but be aware, Blackwood controls that room more than I do."
Blackwell pushed open the steel doors, and everything inside me froze. The damn scent that hit us was sweet citrus, hot metal, and raw, unrestrained male energy. Adrian Blackwood was standing in the center of the prison gym like he owned every inch of it. Shirtless, sweat glistening over every defined line of muscle, intricate tattoos snaking from his collarbones down to his waist like dark, dangerous scripture.
My pulse kicked hard as I took in the devastating power in his shoulders and the way his biceps flexed. " What the fucking hell," my brain whispered, a profane, visceral reaction. He moved with the confidence of a predator, and I realized with a cold punch to my chest that I had never seen anyone like him, anyone who could make the air itself feel charged and I fucking I tried to focus on the case, but the sight of him, sweat, ink, muscle, sheer brute power burned into my mind and refused to let go.
Ryan stopped walking and froze. "Holy… holy shit," he whispered.
Sophie staggered backward, gripping her notebook. "Oh my God. Is that allowed? Should a man look like that? In damn fucking prison?"
Clara went silent. Her eyes widened in horrified awe, and she muttered, "Oh. Oh wow, he is ridiculously heavenly and distracting, and I swear if this is not the devil, I have no idea what is"
Adrian moved slowly, deliberately, and he set down the weights, the resounding clang echoing through the gym, and stretched his arms over his head, abdominal muscles rippling, and my mouth went dry. "Don't look at the damn body." I could not tear my eyes away from his chest.
Ryan groaned dramatically. "Jesus Christ, this is a hate crime against the rest of us."
I tried to snap at them, "Get it together, all of you." But my voice was not steady, and we all watched as Adrian grabbed a towel and wiped his chest, slow and decadent, like he enjoyed watching us implode. Five years since I last saw him, and he looked so good that my mouth watered.
Blackwell cleared his throat. "Inmate Blackwood," he announced.
Adrian did not turn, and his voice cut through the air like heated steel. "I know," he responded. Smooth. Controlled. Dangerous. "I could smell them the moment the doors opened."
A shiver crawled down my spine, and then he finally turned. His eyes, that cold, calculating gray eyes, swept across the room, cataloguing each of us with slow, cruel precision. Adrian raised his chin slightly, expression unreadable, voice low enough to vibrate through bone: "What the fuck are you all doing here?"
The world snapped painfully back into motion as his voice vibrated, and my body reacted, and I felt the heat pull from my head to my pants. "Oh shit," I muttered too loud, too honest, too late. Blackwell exhaled sharply, confirming that we all had already lost control of this room. Adrian's eyes landed on me, watching me with a slow, lethal, devastating awareness with the smirk on his face, like he already knew that none of us would leave the prison unscathed.