SEVENTEEN
Rubin
“So how many COs?” I asked Damian from the corner of the common area he’d taken as his.
The men surrounded him, and on the surface, this could have been any other day, men locked inside searching for petty amusements to pass the time.
But it wasn’t any other day, and there was work to be done.
“You’ve been here for nearly two years. Wouldn’t you know better than me?” Damian said, a smirk on his face.
“Yes. But there have been staffing shortages and new hires. Plus, we don’t know how many of them fucked off at the first sign of trouble, and I’ve only heard three voices on this walkie,” I said.
My brother was trying to get under my skin.
Not really, but he always told me that I was too serious, that I ran things like our father, the gravest insult he could make, and he knew it.
But I understood his aim. If everything was dire all the time, if the men feared that at any moment I might lose it, they couldn’t perform.
Still, if ever there was a time to be serious, it was now.
Arben tilted his head, clearly in thought. “At least forty, though that may have thinned in all this mess, plus the civilians,” he said.
“Tell me more,” I responded, looking at him.
“All the COs rushed to D Block, dressed in their SWAT uniforms. We held back while they drove those things into E and sealed the doors. It won’t hold forever.”
“Nothing ever does, but they’ve contained the threat for now?”
Arben shrugged. “On this floor, and maybe a couple of floors above, but that’s about it. It’s difficult to say, but they seemed comfortable enough. And they have gear, weapons.”
“But hardly any food,” I said. I’d overheard them talking over the radio and after deciphering their simple code, I’d pieced their predicament together. “They’re going to try to take the rest of the building and the resources. Any reports from outside?”
Damian frowned. “Not much. Mostly static on the radio, and when I land on a channel, it’s all screams and shooting. No help is coming.”
“Good thing we’ve never banked on help. For now, we need to make sure that we have A, B, and C locked down and get a detailed accounting of the supplies and how much we use every day. Simone has set the rations and will keep track of them. Send anyone who has an objection to me.”
I heard a scoff and looked over my shoulder at Lorik. He was looking at me, then averted his gaze before looking at Simone, his expression hard.
“Is there something you want to contribute, Lorik?” I said.
He lowered his gaze and spoke in a quiet voice, but the anger was radiating off him. “She is tradhtare,” he said. “We all know the penalty for that.”
There was silence. Besnik cleared his throat and one glance out of the corner of my eye saw Damian smirking.
“So you disagree with my approach. You are questioning my decisions?”
Lorik kept his gaze lower, then after a moment, looked up. “I…”
“Speak freely, Lorik,” I said.
“Krye, she deserves to die for what she did to you.”
“That’s what you think,” I said, my voice surprisingly calm.
“Yes,” Lorik responded. He tilted his head slightly, clearly proud of himself for speaking the words.
Every man in the room knew it. Just as I did. Besa demanded blood as payment for betrayal. And Simone’s betrayal was the worst kind. She hadn’t stolen. She hadn’t even lied. She’d exposed our world to the outside, and she’d earned her death.
Yet my words gave her reprieve.
“When you become krye, your thoughts on the subject will matter. Until then…” I looked at all of the men…“and hear this, all of you. Simone is off limits. Don’t even look in her direction. Any man that has a problem with that can take it up with me personally. Right here. Right now.”
I went quiet for a moment, breathed out, and met the men eye for eye.
I wished one would challenge me. I needed an excuse to demonstrate that my word was law.
Simone had betrayed besa and made a fool of me, but I was still krye.
Damian still smirked, but he understood the point.
Besnik, I could rely on. Arben, always a wild card, but loyal and not too invested in making waves.
I held Lorik’s gaze until the stubbornness bled out of it, and he nodded grudgingly. The others followed suit.
“They broke up the gangs to keep any group from consolidating power, so there shouldn’t be any challenges for leadership,” I said.
“As long as the men get fed, shouldn’t be a problem,” Arben said. “And as for the guards, they are still holed up in D block. We should gather up the dead ones and let them take care of the problem for us.”
“We’re not animals, Arben.”
He shrugged. “But they are.”
I couldn’t argue the point, and I looked away from the group to where Aaron and Simone sat.
They were playing cards, both of them smiling softly, and I couldn’t help but remember the time we’d played dominoes.
There had been a storm, so I’d insisted she stay put until the rain stopped.
I’d offered to teach her dominoes to pass the time.
She’d smiled shyly but said she hoped I didn’t fire her when I lost.
I hadn’t lost, though I still wasn’t sure if Simone had taken the fall. But I had gotten my first glimpse of relaxed Simone and the blade-sharp wit she could wield.
Even though she was smiling now, I noticed the tension around Simone’s eyes, the way her shoulders were nearly at her earlobes.
She could feel me watching her. She always could, even when she pretended otherwise.
She was worried about Aaron, or more specifically, what I might do to him.
She had every right to be. It was Aaron who’d brought Simone to me, so he was culpable.
Good, let her worry. Worry kept her on edge, exactly where I wanted her to be. I forced myself to look away.
“Okay, next we—”
I cut off at a clamoring sound. Arben and Besnik were on their feet and rushing toward it.
“Weapons,” I said, taking a moment to glance at Simone before moving toward the door.
“It could be the dead,” Besnik whispered.
“If we’re lucky,” Arben responded, his weapon raised high. “I’ll handle this, krye.”
He rounded the corner and went into the darkness. The narrow hallway led to the utility and auxiliary areas where pressure valves, pipes, and wiring were located. There was a low thud, and murmuring and I looked at Simone again, tightening my own grip on my knife.
Relaxed a fraction at Arben’s chuckle. I couldn’t make out his words, but he was alive. A man I didn’t recognize stumbled out of the darkness, Besnik a step behind him.
He was young, twenty-five or so, and his brown skin glistened with sweat, his CO uniform stained with blood.
Next came a woman I recognized, though I’d never seen her quite like this. She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans that were much too long for her short, curvy figure. She also held a thin piece of metal that dripped blood onto my newly pristine floors.
I looked at Arben. “What do we have here?”
Arben smiled. “Well, you know Veronica Shaw. I’m not familiar with this gentleman, but we’ll get to know him. But in broad terms, I think they are what we like to call leverage.”
“Leverage,” the woman muttered under her breath, loud enough that we could all hear her, but it didn’t look like she cared.
“How exactly are they leverage, Arben?” I asked.
Arben smirked. “Aren’t cops supposed to look after each other?”
The man narrowed his eyes but wisely chose to stay quiet.
“And her,” he gestured toward Veronica, who rolled her eyes, “She’s a civilian. Cops are supposed to protect them, right?”
“You really are as dense as you seem. You think those cops give a fuck about me?” Veronica looked at Arben like she was daring him to answer.
Arben glared at her before looking back at me. “She’s right. We should just get rid of her.”
“No!” Simone said, stepping up quickly and stopping at my side.
“Are you interfering in my business, Simone?” I couldn’t risk looking at her.
“They’re useful. Especially him,” she said.
Veronica scowled and Simone glanced at her apologetically. Then she looked at the guard. “He knows the prison. You’re a guard, right?”
He nodded.
“Then he can show you things you don’t know.”
“Simone, I’ve been here for almost two years. You think there are places—”
“Maybe not you, but we should all know. And there might be areas that you didn’t have access to.”
“You trying to protect him?” I looked at her then, wondering what game she was playing at.
“Whatever you want to call it, Rubin. I’m just trying to be smart. And they’re obviously here for a reason.” Simone looked toward Veronica and the guard.
“Why are you here? Have you been sent to spy?”
“Like we’d admit it if we had been,” Veronica said.
“Veronica…” Simone said.
Veronica folded her arms under her ample breasts and rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything else.
“Truth is,” the guard said, “we left. It was better to take our chances than stay with them.”
“Were you trying to get out?” I asked.
“That was the plan. We made it down from six and that took hours. Had to take out a bunch of those things. A couple of inmates too. A guard…”
“And now you’ve come to make yourself my problem?” I said.
“Like I said, I don’t want to be a problem. And as a sign of good faith, I’d like to show you something,” he said.
“What’s your name?”
“Kane. Kane Williams,” he said.
He was young, but not so young that he was reckless. “Fine. Can I assume that you’re going to be on your best behavior, Miss Shaw?”
Veronica looked practically riotous and as impressed as I was by her fearlessness, of the two, she was going to be a problem. Then finally, after slanting her eyes at Arben, she nodded. “Yeah.”
“Lead the way,” I said to Kane, deciding his death would be quick but very, very painful if this was a trap.
I followed the man, Simone still by my side. It was almost comical, this motley crew making our way through the halls of a jail.
Finally, we reached a long hallway.
“What’s back there?” I said.
Kane said, “Open the door.”
I approached carefully, Arben right next to me. When Arben opened the door, the heavy metal creaked, and then came that awful, inhuman moan. A figure stumbled out, a CO with a hole in the shirt at his side, one coated with red-black goo that had once been blood.
“Hmm,” I muttered. “The coward hid here, and died.”
I pulled out my knife and dropped the zombie, barely giving it a second glance.
“There are regulations about keeping weapons inside the block, but we always like to be prepared in case something happened,” Kane said, stepping inside of the closet.
It had what looked like a lifetime supply of cheap, one-ply toilet paper and paper towels. No chemicals. But Kane pulled two large pallets of paper down, reached inside and pulled out a handgun and two magazines.
“Probably would have ended up in here myself if the warden had known about this.”
I didn’t respond and instead took the gun. “Good. That’s a good gesture. Keep it up and you might survive this.”
Kane laughed, though there was no humor in the sound. “Mr. Marku, I don’t know if any of us are gonna survive this.”