The Prison Project (by Bethany Donaghy) novel Chapter 148

Coban’s POV

Being escorted back to my cell after killing a man should have felt heavier.

Heavier on my shoulders.

Heavier in my gut.

Heavier in my conscience… if I had one left.

But all I felt was the throb in my nose and the lingering rush of adrenaline draining into something cold… something focused.

They kept me in medical far longer than needed. Too long. Long enough to double and triple check alibis. Long enough for the suits to ensure the cameras had been turned back on and the mess downstairs was cleaned up before they could point fingers.

Long enough for my mind to rotate around one thing:

Margot better fucking be paired up with Leo…

If those suits dareg to screw me over after everything I just did for them, after I broke my own damn nose and let Leo lay me out like a punching bag…

After I signed their contract and split Newman’s skull open on command…

Well.

Then hell would eat this building from the inside out. I’d have no choice but to call my father for retaliation, even if I hated using him for anything… it was the only thing he was actually good for.

Anthony, the faux guard with the dead-fish eyes, eventually returned from wherever

suits stash their dirty laundry, and jerked his chin.

“Let’s go.”

No other words.

No other expressions.

Just that deadman stare and the faint scent of someone who’d helped hide bodies before. He was experienced in this. They’d used him before for similar jobs, I could tell.

I followed anyway, glad to be getting out of here.

Every hallway we walked, every set of stairs we descended, every door that beeped open with an access card, it all felt too normal for what Id just done.

And when we turned down my block?

Silence.

Dead silence.

Not even the usual shouting. No tension, no echo of inmates bitching about the swap.

Just… nothing.

There was more guards posted now at every corner and turn, but I guessed my block was most likely silent after hearing about the murder.

Nobody would lift their head around here. They wouldn’t draw attention incase

they were deemed a suspect for it. It was the drill around here.

Lay low.

“Has the swap started?” I question at Anthony’s back, as I watch him nod once.

“Yeah, just. It took a while for them to… clear this mess up.” He stated, and I knew what he meant.

It wasn’t easy scrubbing blood from floors…

But the swap had started now, which only meant one thing..

Margot was somewhere else. Not with me.

And it better be with Leo..

I rubbed the heel of my palm against my forehead as the ache in my skull flared.

The meds dulled the pain but not enough.

Leo had a hell of a right hook.

He’d acted the scene a little too enthusiastically – that fucker!

As we approached my cell, one of the suits from earlier was already waiting outside my cell door with Cara beside him.

Cara…

She was small, wide-eyed, wringing her hands like she’d just been told she was being dropped into a lion pit and I couldn’t exactly tell if she was shocked or relieved to see me?

The suit straightened his tie and smiled thinly.

“Pleasure, Mr. Santorelli,” he said as if we’d just concluded a business meeting at a hotel bar and not a organised execution.

“Thank you for your cooperation today.

Please be assured that Margot is with Leo now.”

My chest loosened by a fraction at that.

Cara gasped up at me, then blinked at him, her eyes ping-ponging between us like she was connecting the dots of something too large for her head to hold.

“The phone?” I pressed, because priorities mattered now…

He nodded, tugging open the inner pocket of his jacket.

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