Chapter 35 Knox
KNOX
I’d been staring at the same row of syringes for fifteen minutes.
Counting them. Recounting them. Writing numbers on a clipboard that I’d already erased twice. My handwriting looked like a seismograph during an earthquake, which was fitting, because everything inside me was trembling with barely contained rage.
The infirmary was quiet. Harper was at her desk, just visible through this exam room’s doorway. Head down. Pen scratching against paper. Her dark hair pulled into a neat ponytail that swung slightly every time she moved.
I heard footsteps in the corridor. The purposeful kind of walk that announced itself before it arrived.
Whitmore. He appeared in the doorway of the main infirmary, not even glancing my direction. His attention went straight to Harper.
“Nurse.” He said it like a summons. Like she owed him something just for existing in his line of sight.
Harper’s pen stopped moving. I watched her shoulders climb toward her ears. Watched her shrink two inches without moving an inch.
Interesting.
“Officer Whitmore.” Her voice was professional. Flat. The voice of someone who’d learned to make herself small. She straightened her spine. “Can I help you?”
He moved into the room. Medium build. Soft around the middle. The kind of guy who probably got his ass kicked in high school and spent every day since making other people pay for it.
“Just doing rounds.” He stopped at her desk. Too close. His hip nearly brushed her shoulder. “Making sure everything’s running smoothly.”
Harper didn’t look up. Her hand moved to the base of her throat. Just briefly. Just a flutter of fingers against skin.
My eyes tracked that motion. Filed it away.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Quiet day.”
“Good.” He didn’t move. Just stood there. Looming. “I like quiet.”
Holding my clipboard, I stepped into the doorway.
Whitmore’s head turned. His eyes found me, and something shifted in his expression. Irritation. The look of a man who didn’t like witnesses.
“Blackwood.” He read my name off his mental roster like it tasted bad. “Inventory duty?”
I said nothing.
He left Harper’s side and stepped toward me, making a show of having a reason to. But his body stayed angled toward Harper. Even with his back half-turned, he was tracking her. Keeping her in his peripheral vision.
Possessive.
I knew that body language. Had seen it in a hundred different men. The ones who treated women like property they’d misplaced and were determined to recover.
“Been working in here a while now, I hear.” His voice was casual. Too casual. “Must be nice. Cushy assignment.”
I studied his knuckles. Slightly red. The skin across two of them rougher than the rest. Nothing concrete.
But enough.
Men like him always told on themselves eventually. You just had to watch.
And I was very, very good at watching.
“Eyes on your work, inmate.” Whitmore’s voice cracked through the silence. “Not on me.”
I looked up slowly. Let him feel every second of my attention.
I had thirty pounds and six inches on this guy. Outside these walls, he wouldn’t have the balls to look me in the eye, let alone give me orders. He knew it. I knew it.
That was the problem.
Men like Whitmore didn’t like feeling small. So they found ways to feel big. Badges. Batons. Women who couldn’t fight back.
But we weren’t outside these walls.
So, I dropped my gaze back to the clipboard. Slowly. Made sure he understood it was a choice. Not submission.
He moved closer. Invaded my space.
Behind him, I saw Harper glance up. Her green eyes met mine for half a second before darting away. Her hand moved under the desk. I knew without seeing that she was rubbing her thumb with her fingernail. A nervous habit. A tell.
She was scared of him and trying very hard not to be.
“Something funny, Blackwood?”
I hadn’t realized I was smiling. The kind of smile that had nothing to do with humor.
“Nothing.”
He didn’t like that. His jaw tightened.
“Here’s some advice.” He leaned closer. “You’re an inmate. You don’t get to look at anyone in this room like you matter. Understood?”
His eyes cut toward Harper when he said it. Just for a second. Just long enough.
He was flexing for her, I realized. Big alpha energy unlocked, with the misguided belief he had all the power here.
He stepped back, adjusting his belt. Turned back to Harper.
“I’ll check in later.” His voice had shifted into that of a man who knew how to sound caring when he wanted to. “Make sure you’re not working too hard.”
Harper’s smile was a masterpiece of trying to give nothing away. Refusing to let him rattle her. Refusing to give me confirmation. “Thank you, Officer.”
His footsteps echoed down the corridor as he left.
I stood there for a long moment. Clipboard in hand. Syringes uncounted.
Watching Harper until, evidently, she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Knox”—her voice was sharp—“can you help me with something in exam room four?” She stood. Smoothed her scrubs. Professional. Composed.
Too composed.
My eyes tracked to the bruise on her cheekbone. Fainter than yesterday, but still there. Still proof of what someone had done to her.
I set down the clipboard and followed her.
The exam room was empty. She closed the door behind us.
“How long?” I demanded before she had a chance to utter a single word.
Her hands straightened supplies on the counter. “Knox, don’t.”
“How long was he hitting you before you got out?”
“Please.” Her voice cracked.
“Tell me he’s not your ex.”
She spun around. And I saw it. The calculation behind those green eyes. The fear she was trying so hard to hide.
She swallowed. “He’s not my ex.”
I scrubbed a hand over my stubbled jaw. Let out a breath that felt like grinding glass. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I need you to drop this.”
“He’s the one who laid hands on you.” The words came out rough. Dangerous. “That bruise on your face. He did that. And now he’s here, walking these halls, standing over your desk like he’s got a claim on you.”
“Knox.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.” I stepped closer. “Look me in the eye and convince me I’m wrong.”
Her shoulders dropped. Just slightly. Just enough.
And I had my answer.
My fingers stretched. One by one.
Various cellmates through the years had taught me twelve different ways to kill a man. And I was currently ranking them by how much pain they’d cause.
“Please.” Harper’s voice cut through the red haze. Her hand pressed against my chest. Right over my heart. Her eyes were wide and desperate. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“It’s not stupid; it’s revenge.”
She glanced at the door. At her hand on my chest. At the space between us that had somehow become inches instead of feet.
When she looked back at me, something had shifted in her expression. Fear, yes. But something else too. Something that made my heart stutter.
“If you hurt him,” she whispered, “they’ll never let you out. You’ll never see your daughter again. You’ll never …” She stopped. Swallowed. “You’ll never have a life outside these walls.”
I stayed silent. Waiting.
She moved closer. Close enough that I could see the tears she was fighting to hold back.
I opened my mouth to respond. To argue. To tell her that some men deserved to die and her ex was at the top of that list.
But I never got the words out.
Because Harper gave me a reason to behave. A reason to keep my hands to myself. A reason to do everything possible to be granted parole.
She gave me hope.
By pressing her mouth to mine.