3. Chapter 3
It didn’t take me an hour to decide. It didn’t even take ten minutes. I had worked around offenders for eight years—murderers, drug dealers, pedophiles. You name it.
At some point I had learned how to survive it.
You stopped asking questions, you stopped wondering, and you stopped imagining blood beneath someone’s fingernails.
I was good at looking at prisoners and seeing people instead of monsters.
Sometimes I made it a point not to learn what they had done because once you knew, it followed you.
Besides, Blackthorne had protocols. The prison existed because people smarter than me had already planned for danger—not that I was stupid enough to think the place as safe of a position as working at a local cafe as a barista. Accidents happened, and sometimes, staff died. That was the risk.
But death had never frightened me as much as poverty did.
The ache in my chest every time rent came due did. Standing in grocery stores pretending not to count coins. I was tired of stretching meals, tired of cheap liquor becoming my answer to bad nights, and tired of surviving instead of living.
Whoever said money didn’t buy happiness had clearly never wondered if they could afford groceries that week or if they had to live off of ramen noodles and pure grit.
So, I accepted.
An hour later I found myself in another office smaller than the Warden’s but somehow colder.
There were no windows, and a single table sat between two chairs with thin cushions.
Detective Morvain rose when I entered. With blonde hair cut sharply at her chin, her face was plain but her bright green eyes missed nothing.
“Miss Hart, can I get you water or a coffee?”
I sat.
“No, thank you.”
“Very well.”
She sat across from me and opened a thick folder. The first page remained face down.
“We have extensive information to review before these files are released to you, and I want to remind you that you may still withdraw from this assignment at any time—before briefing, during briefing..”
Her gaze lifted.
“Especially after briefing.”
“Yes, okay,” I murmured.
“The prisoner transferred to Blackthorne last night is classified as an extreme instability risk.”
“Instability?”
“Unpredictable behavior patterns, high manipulation index, an extensive history of provoking unrest, inciting violence, and creating mass civil disturbances.”
My fingers tightened in my lap. The detective finally turned the page. A single name sat there.
Alias: THE JESTER
Everything inside me stopped.
No. Oh, hell no.
My eyes locked onto the page. I knew that name. Everyone knew that name. I had seen it featured across newspaper headlines and social media news outlets for years.
THE JESTER STRIKES AGAIN
RIOTS ERUPT IN SOUTH MARKET DISTRICT
MAGISTRATE ATTACKED DURING PUBLIC ADDRESS
THE JESTER SUSPECTED IN CIVIL UNREST
The Jester wasn’t just a petty criminal.
Stories followed him everywhere. Protests becoming riots—people turning on each other in streets that had been peaceful an hour earlier.
Half the city called him insane, and the other half called him a calculated genius. Nobody seemed to agree which was worse.
“He upheaved the mobs, right?” I whispered.
The detective’s expression remained neutral.
“Yes.”
“And he caused the market fires three years ago.”
“Yes.”
“The harbor riots?”
“Yes.”
“They never caught him?”
"He has two prior arrests on his sheet, and both times he managed to break custody.
We picked him up yesterday morning and had him transferred to Blackthorne overnight.
Given his flight risk, the state decided to put him behind maximum-security walls while he awaits trial.
The state is trying to fast-track the docket, but we're looking at weeks in a cell before he sees a judge.
When the DA finally steps up, they're hitting him with a mountain of charges. "
Silence swallowed the room. My pulse thundered This wasn’t a murderer. This wasn’t a street mobster. This was The Jester. My voice came out smaller than I intended.
“What’s his real name?”
The detective watched me for a long moment.
“He has many titles, but we only know his alias, as I'm sure you know. The Jester.”
My stomach twisted as she slid the file toward me.
On top sat his mug shot. The man staring back at me didn't look like a guilty or frightened prisoner awaiting trial; he looked like a localized riot.
He was tall and lanky, the height markers on the wall behind him topping out just around six-foot-three, but his presence practically bled off the glossy paper.
His dark hair was styled into an aggressive undercut—closely buzzed at the sides, while the longer, wavy top was swept forward in loose, windblown layers that draped sharp fringe across a face built on dangerous angles
He was, by all accounts, dangerously attractive—if not for the unsettling glint in his eyes that promised violence.
He was smirking directly at the camera, completely unbothered by the flash. Piercings hooked through his ears and nose, and dark, grungy eyeliner was smeared around his eyes, complete with a gruesome scar streaked across his left eyebrow.
In his blood-stained hands, he held the booking placard at his last imprisonment.
I suddenly understood why the Warden offered extra pay. And for the first time since accepting, I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake.