The interior of the Department of Corrections transport van was a claustrophobic cage of rattling steel and suffocating heat. Outside, the midday Manhattan sun beat down on the pavement, but inside, the air was stagnant, smelling of burnt oil and the metallic tang of the previous inmates' misery.
Ruby sat shackled to the bench, her wrists raw and bleeding. Her head throbbed with a rhythmic, sickening pulse where she’d been thrown against the partition earlier that morning. She wasn't thinking about the law; she was thinking about the betrayal. Chloe’s face—her tears, her practiced, trembling testimony—haunted her. Why? How could someone she’d been kind to orchestrate such a flawless destruction? Every jolt of the van felt like a hammer blow to her already fragile state. She was terrifie
