63. Ryuji
RYUJI
Obi’s planning ensured that we stayed together as a group. Several guards avoided direct eye contact with us, as if they were in on something and didn’t want to admit it. This whole department ran on corruption and underhanded deals. Guilty motherfuckers.
An officer read off our cell assignments, but I barely listened. Instead, my eyes scanned through the prisoners already mingling around the block. I glanced from bunk to bunk, getting an idea of the space we had. Which locations would be the best to incite a fight? Where would the most chaos ensue?
With a sigh, I tossed my bedding down onto my assigned bunk.
This wasn’t good enough. We needed more people together in one spot.
I had to bide my time.
The next mealtime would have to do.
Calmly, I circled the block and watched each inmate inside with us.
Most kept to their own groups, including my brothers.
Ciel and Wynn spoke with Obi in low voices.
Max and Cas sat on their bunks, talking.
As much as I wanted to relax, I had work to do, cataloguing the weak points of each inmate I could see.
It took all fucking night. The other guys took turns sleeping, but not me. I sat with my back against the wall, hands over my chest, and I watched.
Finally, they called us to breakfast. The guards ordered us to line up single-file. One by one, we did.
I was silent and unassuming—the model of a perfect prisoner—while they herded us to the cafeteria. We passed through three locked gates while the officers worked in a careful dance to get us through the jail hallways without incident.
Little did they know the incident was about to happen.
When we made it to the chow hall, the guards ordered us into another line, but I half-listened.
I scanned the room until my eyes locked onto a table where Greco’s capos were already gathering.
I recognized them from Kostya’s territory when they burned it all to the ground.
They hadn’t seen us yet—we’d been careful to avoid them before.
I didn’t see Kolya’s or Felix’s men anywhere. They must have been on another cell block.
“Line up!” one guard shouted.
One by one, we shuffled through the cafeteria line until we got a tray of some sort of disgusting meal.
They called this fucking breakfast? My favorite goddamn meal of the day?
No eggs. Some kind of powdered monstrosity instead.
No rice. No vegetables. Fucking heap of dogshit.
Only the thought of the riot I was about to create kept me from gagging.
“Cas,” I whispered. He glanced over his shoulder from his place in line in front of me. “See that table over there?”
I pointed to a table of Hispanic men in an isolated corner of the room. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I knew a gang when I saw one.
“Yeah?” Cas asked.
“Take Max and go talk to them,” I said. “Tell them a fight is about to go down. Tell them we’ll pay them for their help.”
Cas jerked a tight nod. “They watch our backs, we watch theirs?”
“That’s right,” I said. “T-minus ten minutes till chaos starts.”
His knuckles brushed against mine while he gave me a look that said be careful before he nudged Max.
The two of them sauntered over to the table.
Slowly, my gross meal tray and I made our way around the outside of the room until I saw Cas look up.
He gave me a thumbs up. Obi waited for my signal along with Wynn and Ciel.
When I made a signal gesture under my tray, the four of us started collapsing on the capos.
They ate and talked, conversing in Italian, unaware of how I crept up behind them.
When one noticed, he glanced up just in time for his face to meet the side of my tray.
I slammed the plastic against his head, and it whipped back.
Blood sprayed from his nose. The capos leapt to their feet, only to come face to face with the rest of my brothers.
I tossed my empty tray onto the table. Within seconds, my hidden knife was out of my bun and in my palm.
The capo had just started groaning before I jammed it into his chest and yanked it free.
With a gurgle and some extra bloody spittle, he collapsed.
Seconds later, the rest of the capos were dead around the table—courtesy of Obi’s bare fists, the shiv Ciel made last night, and Wynn’s classic neck-snapping technique.
It took less than a minute.
I spat on their bodies. “Try bailing out these fuckers now, Greco.”
When I looked up, the guards watching the meal line had wide eyes and white faces. Caught completely off-guard. Frozen in panic and fear.
In the next second, chaos erupted everywhere.
The gang we paid attacked the table next to them. Blood spewed everywhere. Cas and Max were in the fray, throwing punches and kicks at anyone they could find. Cas was an incredible fighter, but Max was the same. Quick. Decisive. Strong. He had only been getting stronger the more he trained with us.
“Control, control, there’s a riot!” One guard radioed his command center while the other two planted their feet and shouted orders, hands on their batons at their waists. A few of the inmates paused, trying to decide if they would listen to the guards’ orders or not.
Nope. This was a riot. That certainly wouldn’t do.
I hopped up on the table and held my knife out.
“Get the fucking guards!” I screamed.
The inmates erupted. Like a tsunami, we rushed them. The guards took out the first few inmates with tasers, but they were no match for fifty angry hooligans. They disappeared behind the locked gates, retreating to regroup with the rest of the officers.
Once they left, we had no choice but to fight each other again.
Alarms blared, signaling a lockdown. I hid my knife back inside my bun.
We only wanted to kill the capos—we weren’t out to wipe out this entire jail block—but when my fist flew against a random man’s chin and I felt the crunch of his bones beneath my knuckles, I grinned. Fighting was fucking fun.
This was exactly what we needed.
My brothers and I made quick work of the rest of the prisoners, knocking them out or getting them to surrender.
After another five minutes of mayhem, the guards returned with assault rifles and deadly force.
They infiltrated the cafeteria like it was a fucking war zone, shouting at us through loud-speakers.
The guy next to me caught two taser barbs to the chest and collapsed to the ground.
“Obi?” I called. His head whipped around seconds after he landed another punch on a guard. “We good here?”
“We’re good,” he responded. “Finish it.”
I wiped a hand across my nose. This was the part I wasn’t looking forward to.
“Hey!” I shouted at the guards. I extended my arms to the sides. “Hit me, you bastards!”
The taser barbs were fucking lightning in my veins.
I fell to my knees, letting the current flow for two more seconds before I yanked the barbs out.
It hurt like a motherfucker, but it wasn’t even close to the worst pain I’d felt.
I lay flat on my chest, waiting patiently while the guards dug their knees into my back and zip-tied my hands together.
The rest of the guys did the same. None of us struggled.
We were done here.
“Throw them in solitary!” a captain screamed in my ear.
I grinned. Mission accomplished.