The transport van rolled through the outer gates just before dusk.
Hills Prison was already awake.
Metal rattled. Fists slammed against wire mesh. Laughter—raw, cruel, anticipatory—echoed through the yard.
"Fresh meat!"
"Welcome to Hell, boys!"
The inmates crowded the fencing like starving animals scenting blood. New arrivals were the closest thing this place had to entertainment.
On the far side of the yard, Patricia leaned against the concrete wall, cigarette hanging lazily from his lips.
"You not curious, Robert?" he asked, offering the pack.
Robert didn't look at it. "Smoking ruins stamina."
Patricia snorted. "You've said that a hundred times."
He had the build of a brawler and the careless grin of someone who'd survived too much to fear consequences. Irish blood, broad shoulders, muscles that prison years hadn't softened. He exhaled smoke toward the lowering sun.
"Relax. By tonight we'll know every inch of them anyway."
Robert's gaze drifted toward the intake yard.
"Wonder how many of them are real men?" Patricia continued. "Remember your batch? All first-timers. Crying. Screaming for mommy. Except you."
"Prison isn't frightening," Robert replied mildly. "Not when you know someone's watching your back."
Robert Swenson did not look like a lifer.
Golden hair caught the sunlight like polished brass. Sharp green eyes. Clean lines. Refined features that belonged on magazine covers, not behind razor wire. With glasses, he could have passed for a corporate lawyer stepping out of a Manhattan high-rise.
Instead, he stood inside the deadliest prison in America.
A year inside had not broken him. If anything, it had hardened the beauty into something dangerous—quiet, watchful, restrained. The kind of man who didn't need to shout to be obeyed.
In a place ruled by testosterone and violence, good looks were usually a liability.
But no one touched Robert.
He might have been a minor name on the outside, but inside he had backing—an organization that did not forget its own. Patricia was part of it.
And Robert himself was no fragile ornament. Before prison, he had been an underground boxing champion. The only loss on his record had come by order—not by weakness.
Someone once called him "Princess."
The joke cost that man both kidneys.
The intake gate opened.
The new prisoners were dragged out in chains, wrists cuffed together, linked like livestock. Panic showed in every face—white knuckles, trembling legs, darting eyes.
Four-meter stone walls crowned with electrified wire sealed the horizon.
Hills was not a temporary stop.
Everyone sent here was serving life.
Which meant, sooner or later—
they would adapt.
Or be broken.
Patricia clicked his tongue. "Cowards."
When he'd first arrived, he'd flipped off the veterans. The man in front of him had wet himself. He didn't last long.
"Nothing impressive this round—"
Then Patricia stopped.
A low whistle escaped his lips.
"Well. That one's interesting."
Robert followed his gaze.
It wasn't the brown-haired kid shielding himself with his clothes. Nor the pale former executive Robert vaguely recognized from the news.
It was the last one.
The noise died before anyone realized it had.
He walked differently.
Head lowered, black hair falling to his shoulders, obscuring most of his face. He didn't look around. Didn't flinch. Didn't tremble.
He moved as if he already belonged.
Robert felt something unexpected—sharp, invasive.
An urge.
To tear the calm apart.
To cut him open and see if the heart inside beat like everyone else's.
Or if it was just as fearless as it appeared.
When the man was ordered to strip, he didn't hesitate.
He climbed the stairs naked, unhurried, unapologetic—like a statue carved for worship rather than humiliation.
Lean muscle. Controlled strength. No excess, no weakness. Power coiled beneath pale skin like a predator at rest.
Water dripped from his dark hair.
Robert swallowed.
The man's face, when finally visible, carried a strange harmony—Eastern sharpness blended with Western structure. Not soft. Not delicate. Just… arresting.
But it was the eyes that froze the yard.
Brown. Wild. Provocative.
They didn't plead.
They challenged.
Come conquer me.
If you dare.
A beautiful beast had entered the cage.
The moment his cell door slammed shut—two doors down from Robert's—
the yard erupted again.
"Shut your damn mouths!" Officer Barclay slammed his baton against the bars. "Or I'll shut them for you."
Silence fell reluctantly.
Patricia gripped the bars nearest the newcomer's cell.
"Hey, rookie! Name?"
A pause.
Then a voice—lazy, edged with amusement.
"Call me Davis."
A beat.
"As in D for Death."
Patricia smirked.
We'll see about that.
In Hills, everyone eventually learned what death really meant.
As expected, the moment the lights went out and the guards' footsteps faded, the real welcome began.
Voices slithered through the darkness.
Crude. Slow. Predatory.
"Sleep tight, sweetheart. Tomorrow my little friend's paying you a visit."
"Missing home already? Too bad—you belong to us now."
"Don't worry. We're throwing a party for you tomorrow."
Laughter rolled across the tiers.
Robert lay back against the wall of his cell, counting silently.
One.
Two.
Three—
He was timing it.
How long before one of them broke?
A thin sob cracked through the dark.
Another joined it.
Robert almost smiled.
Eleven seconds.
A new record.
The mockery came instantly.
"Come to daddy!"
"Still need milk, kid?"
Amateurs.
In Hills, weakness was blood in the water. Show fear once, and the wolves would tear you open just to see how much spilled out.
Compassion had died here long ago.
"I shouldn't be here…" The crying shifted into a hoarse, desperate whisper. Not Davis. Different voice. The banker. Garcia. "I worked my whole life for what I had. This isn't how it ends."
Robert angled his head, listening harder.
From the next cell over came a low, smooth voice—calm, almost bored.
"Honestly? I couldn't stand you back in the van."
Silence.
"A grown man crying like that. I'm trying to sleep."
"…I'm innocent," Garcia insisted weakly. "I didn't kill anyone."
"Innocent?" Davis let out a quiet chuckle. "Save that speech. If people think you're a killer, they'll at least hesitate. But with that pathetic tone? Tomorrow you're prey."
"You don't understand!" Garcia's voice cracked again. "This place isn't meant for humans. It's— it's a cage full of animals!"
A pause.
Then Davis answered, unhurried.
"If it's a henhouse, then you're the hen."
Another beat.
"And I'm the fox."
Even in the dark, Robert could feel the shift.
No fear.
No tremor.
Just quiet amusement.
"A fox in a coop doesn't panic," Davis continued softly. "It waits."
Garcia fell silent.
A few minutes later, steady breathing echoed from Davis's cell.
He had fallen asleep.
Just like that.
Robert stared into the ceiling's shadow.
Something coiled in his thoughts.
That one's unstable.
Not weak. Not foolish.
Unstable.
Like something with its own gravity.
Like a timer ticking somewhere no one else could hear.
He closed his eyes.
One day, this prison would choke on him.
And later events would prove him right.
Davis wasn't livestock.
He was a predator.
And he was studying the cage.
Waiting.