Chapter Eighteen
Alarms rang from out of nowhere, and without a word, the entire prison was locked down. Even the guards were stuck in the cellblocks where they were posted until SWAT retrieved them one small group at a time. It was chaos. They had to usher inmates out halfway through the mandated lockdown. People kept demanding the prisoners remain in their cells while other instructions came down, insisting the buildings had to be evacuated.
Pure fucking chaos.
Roman didn’t know what to make of it; he didn’t have the energy to care. Every day since his incident…since his fun. He held that word close, praying for it to become reality. Every day since he looked back on the fun he had, it became more excruciating than the next. Nothing Roman did managed to piece together the events properly. Oh, he recalled everything vividly, even when he lied to himself and said most had faded away to a haze of shame. No, the only part he couldn’t recall was where he messed up, where he’d offended Ezra. Memories kept screaming that Ezra wanted this, that he wanted Roman to do this, that he pressured it. Not pressured. Encouraged. Roman always needed encouragement.
Now, he remained close to Ezra even if the man continued acting cold toward him in the days since his fun with Jake. Roman held onto that word, held onto the misunderstanding as just that. The minute he let his walls down, the moment he actually considered it something more. Acknowledged what he already knew, he’d break into a billion pieces of shame.
When firetrucks arrived, Roman figured out why they prioritized evacuation. He also surmised they wanted a lockdown to determine who set it. Well, he guessed at that. As he and Ezra ended up stuck in the clustered crowd, he did his best to stay within a few feet per their arrangement. Not that Roman thought Ezra cared much about that anymore. Jake’s words continued to haunt him, horrify him, and he tried to think of how he could make Ezra happy again. How they could be happy together again. Roman blamed himself. He didn’t show enough respect to Ezra. He spent too much time resisting this arrangement. He wasn’t good enough.
“I’ll do better,” he said in a low hush, too afraid to raise his voice, too frightened to be heard until he had a real apology to provide Ezra.
“They fucking killed him,” someone said.
Ezra and Roman searched the crowd, conversations and speculation spreading almost as quickly as the fire that hit the prison.
It didn’t take long for Roman to piece together the news. Cellblock D had been hit by the fire; their rec room had been burned down. Roman scanned the area, searching for Levi. He lived in that wing of the building. His heart surged at the idea the last time they saw each other, the last time they ever encountered one another, was much to Roman’s shame. He couldn’t fathom how he’d ever face Levi again, but the idea of never seeing him again sent more startling fear through him.
“Let’s go,” Ezra demanded, which Roman appreciated.
Their current spot offered him no real vantage point, and Roman desperately wanted to continue searching the crowd for Levi. He couldn’t tell Ezra that, with the champion already annoyed by him, already bored of him.
When Roman bumped into one of Jake’s pets, he flinched. The man was wispy and frail, eyes wide with exhaustion and bloodshot from whatever high coursed through him to make it another day. Roman trembled, staring into his future, seeing how much further he could fall and how terrible the collision would be.
“He’s dead, you know,” another person said.
The rumors of death had swept back around, this time carrying more intel alongside the gossip.
“They’re all dead.”
“Heard the fire was just to cover up the bodies.”
“Stabbed him like fifty times.”
Roman’s breathing hitched as he continued listening, continued searching, continued worrying about everything all at once until finally, a familiar face offered him the smallest relief in this sea of chaos.
Opposite the crowd over by the firetrucks and ambulances, Levi sat with some EMTs being tended to with a small group of inmates covered in ash. He didn’t appear burned or injured, but he looked completely devoid, like all his energy had been sapped.
Roman didn’t care who’d been caught in the flames, how this had happened, or even what would befall him in the days to come. He took a bit of solace in Levi’s safety and remained close to Ezra.
After hours of waiting, standing outside, and missing dinner, they finally allowed everyone back inside but relocated a bunch of inmates thanks to the loss of a cellblock. Levi ended up near Roman, and every part of him wanted to walk over, but shame and guilt held him back. Shame for what Levi knew about Roman’s fun night, guilt for how he continued to upset Ezra.
As the night swept in and lights out came close, news finally came in some tangible form. Ezra had a guard provide him and a small group of his friends with the news. Roman was hesitant to stand among them, expecting the friends he’d already serviced to be among them, but Jake and his crew were nowhere in sight.
“They’re all fucking dead,” the C.O. said, her voice low and harsh and nervous.
Roman blinked, completely bewildered as the information unfolded. The fire had been intentional and possibly a cover. Someone lured and locked most of Jake Finnegan’s crew inside the rec room and then set it on fire. They suffocated from the smoke, but a few were found with fatal cuts, too. They weren’t the only ones.
Jake himself wasn’t in the rec room, either lucky or unlucky enough to escape the trap. The few members of his crew who followed him out of the rec room ended up with their throats slashed in a nearby hallway. As for Jake, he’d been stabbed multiple times in the groin and left to bleed out.
“Forty-eight times?” Ezra scoffed, unconvinced.
“Look,” the C.O. said with her hands up in disgust. “I know where I work and who I interact with, but some of you fuckers are downright disturbed.”
“Did they find any evidence?”
“You mean aside from the bodies?” the guard asked with a roll of her eyes.
“No,” Ezra snapped. “I mean, witnesses, footage, DNA. Something they can use to pin on a person.”
She got really quiet and shook her head. Ezra seemed especially concerned from that point on.
Roman couldn’t believe what he’d heard. Jake’s entire crew had been killed. He wanted to smile, but then he recalled the violent brutality of Jake’s death, and his stomach twisted with queasy confliction. There was absolutely no way Roman would mourn the death of Jake “the Snake” Finnegan, but he’d also never wish that type of carnage onto someone. Onto anyone.
The amount of rage it’d take to stab a person, to stab any living being, forty-eight times and in the groin. There was a severe degree of malice involved, someone who hated Jake and certainly hated his snake. Roman thought back to the pet he encountered, the guy who’d likely endured enough pain to certainly carry the rage necessary.
He shook away the thought. The guy he saw was too frail, too broken, too strung out. No, the person responsible had to be someone like Jake, a rival gang member perhaps. Roman continued studying Ezra’s concerned expression as he questioned again and again about evidence until he was absolutely certain they didn’t have any.
Roman’s eyes widened. Ezra would absolutely have the strength for something like that. And he had left Roman alone in the cell before the fire was announced, barely returning before the lockdown started. But even Ezra couldn’t attack his entire crew. He wouldn’t have to, though. Ezra had built his own silent army of men during his stint as champion; he had the favor of the rest of the syndicate at Marlow Penitentiary.
Would he have the rage, though? Roman had seen the hidden undertones of fury behind Ezra’s green eyes, but he thought only he provoked it. Maybe Ezra hadn’t grown bored with Roman. Maybe he was mad that Roman offered himself over. Roman struggled to figure out Ezra’s tests, what would make him happy, and he thought servicing Jake, patching things up with the crew, was what Ezra wanted in the bliss of a delirious high. Maybe Ezra didn’t like the idea. Maybe he removed Jake.
After everyone settled in their cells, Roman stepped over to Ezra, who stood at their open doorway, staring out of the suite to the barred cells.
“Did you…” Roman paused, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. “I just want you to know if you… Well, if you had to do something…”
“For Christ’s sake, just fucking speak,” Ezra said through ground teeth.
“Did you get rid of Jake?”
Ezra’s face fell flat.
“I’d understand, I just—”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of what he said to me. Did to me. With me.” Roman swallowed hard, quickly correcting more for his sake, his sanity, than anyone else’s. “Because maybe you didn’t like how he treated me.”
Ezra smiled, chuckling a bit to himself as he reached out to caress Roman’s face.
“You really are so fucking pathetic and stupid that you’d build up a fantasy like that in your head.”
Roman’s stomach dropped.
“You think I’d do something so outlandish for you? You? Roman fucking-pathetic Grayson.” Ezra squeezed Roman’s cheek, nails stabbing his skin. “You think you’re worth that type of effort? No.”
He shoved Roman back a step.
“I was actually hoping Jake would take your cheap ass off my hands.”
“I’m sorry,” Roman said, pressed against the wall and staring out at the cells, hoping no one saw this argument, hoping no one knew how he’d upset Ezra.
“Apologies from worthless whores mean nothing.” Ezra spit. “I’m tired of you, tired of the headache your presence brings me. I’m just gonna hand you off to the next person who wants you. Let you be their problem. Hell, maybe we can have an auction, huh? I’ll give you to the lowest bidder because you’re not worth a goddamn thing.”
Roman’s eyes teared up, and it took everything not to break down and cry.
“And when you’re passed around from one gang to the next,” Ezra said, cupping his hands around Roman’s face again. “I’ll laugh at your agony. I’ll smile at your defeat. I’ll relish every day that you suffer.”
“Why?” Roman finally began to cry, trying to understand how he’d ruined this friendship, where he’d failed to behave, how he’d let Ezra down.
“Because you broke me first, and it’s about time you fucking understood why I’ve always hated you.” Ezra released Roman and turned to go to sleep.
Roman stood silently at the open door in complete confusion by Ezra’s comment, by the day’s events, by what would happen to him soon enough.
Standing on the first floor with his arms wrapped around the bar cells was Levi. Levi pulled out a lighter and sparked a cigarette. It was against the rules, but inmates regularly smoked inside, same as the guards. The bizarre part was seeing Levi with a cigarette at all. He hated them and anything else that reminded him of the addictions he’d put down after being locked up.
Still, Levi took a deep drag and showed he’d watched the conversation unfold, then gave Roman a quiet, empathetic expression. Roman wanted to say something, to apologize for always falling apart in front of Levi, but he didn’t have the strength to form any more words tonight.