Chapter Four: Rule of the Block
919 Words
Morning in Blackrock arrived with a siren instead of sunlight.
Isabella jolted upright, heart pounding, momentarily disoriented by the concrete ceiling and the metal frame digging into her spine. Then the events of the previous night came flooding back, the unlocked door, the confession about Vantage Logistics, the way Salvatore's expression had gone dark and calculating in a way that still made her uneasy hours later.
Above her, she heard him already moving, methodical and unhurried despite the chaos of the wake up siren still blaring through the block.
"Up," he said. "Now. They dock privileges for slow risers."
She scrambled off the bunk, still wearing yesterday's ill, fitting scrubs, and followed him toward the cell door as it slid open along with every other door on the block in a synchronized mechanical groan.
The corridor outside filled instantly with bodies, and Isabella felt Salvatore's hand close briefly around her elbow, steering her into the flow of foot traffic at a precise angle that kept her slightly behind him, slightly shielded.
"Stay close," he murmured. "Don't make eye contact with anyone unless they're a guard. Don't stop walking for any reason, even if someone drops something in front of you. Especially if someone drops something in front of you."
"Why especially"
"Because it's usually a test to see if you'll bend down. Bending down makes you an easy target." He didn't look back at her as he spoke, eyes scanning the crowd ahead with the practiced awareness of someone who had spent his entire life reading rooms for danger. "You bend down for anyone in here, you've told them you can be pushed."
They reached the mess hall, an enormous room filled with long metal tables bolted to the floor, the smell of reheated eggs and burnt coffee thick in the recycled air. Conversation dipped noticeably as they entered together, heads turning, a ripple of attention following them toward the food line that made Isabella's skin crawl.
"They're all staring," she whispered.
"They're cataloguing," Salvatore corrected quietly. "Figuring out what it means that Cosa's got a woman in his cell. Figuring out if it makes me weaker or if it means something else."
"Does it mean something else?"
He didn't answer, taking a tray and moving down the line with the same unhurried authority he seemed to carry everywhere, guards and inmates alike stepping subtly out of his path without seeming to notice they were doing it.
They sat at a table near the back, and within moments a man slid onto the bench across from them uninvited, broad, shouldered, heavily tattooed, missing a section of one ear that looked like it had been removed deliberately rather than lost to accident.
"Cosa," the man said, voice pitched low and pleasant in a way that immediately set Isabella on edge. "Heard you got yourself a new roommate."
"Reyes." Salvatore didn't look up from his tray. "This doesn't concern you."
"Everything in this block concerns me, you know that." Reyes's eyes slid toward Isabella, slow and appraising in a way that made her want to disappear into the wall behind her. "Pretty thing. Word is she's got some kind of connection to the Varela shipping business. That true?"
Isabella's blood went cold. How could this man possibly know that already she and Salvatore had only discussed it hours ago, in the privacy of their own cell.
Salvatore set down his fork with deliberate slowness. "Where'd you hear that."
"Word travels." Reyes smiled, showing a gold tooth. "Walls in this place aren't as thick as people think."
"Watch yourself, Reyes."
"Or what, Cosa? You gonna do something about it from in here?" Reyes leaned forward slightly, and something dangerous flickered across Salvatore's face that made Isabella's stomach twist. "You're not the king of anything anymore. Not while you're wearing the same grey scrubs as the rest of us."
The tension between the two men stretched taut enough that Isabella could feel it pressing against her skin like static electricity before a storm. Around them, the mess hall had gone eerily quiet, other inmates watching without watching, the way people watched things they didn't want to be blamed for seeing later.
"I'd choose my next words very carefully," Salvatore said, his voice dropping into something low and lethal that Isabella hadn't heard from him yet.
Reyes held his gaze for a long, taut moment, then laughed, short, humorless and pushed himself up from the bench.
"Enjoy your breakfast, Cosa." He turned to go, then paused, looking back at Isabella with an expression that made her skin crawl. "You should ask your cellmate what happened to the last person who tried to use information against the Varela family from inside these walls."
He walked away before either of them could respond, disappearing into the crowd near the food line, leaving Isabella staring after him with her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Salvatore," she said quietly, "how did he know about Vantage Logistics? We only just talked about that last night."
Salvatore's jaw was tight, his eyes tracking Reyes's retreating figure with an intensity that frightened her.
"That's what I'd like to know," he said.
He turned back to her, and whatever calm composure he'd maintained since she'd arrived had entirely evaporated from his expression.
"Someone in this block is listening to everything we say," he said quietly. "Which means from this moment forward, nothing we discuss inside that cell is safe."
Behind them, without warning, a tray crashed to the floor, and someone screamed.
- Writer
