Chapter 6 -CELL 405

The Hit

I drop my fork onto the plate with a loud clatter. My mom is still staring at my neck, her face pale with pure disgust, while my dad looks up from his wine glass, his brows pulling together. I don’t give them a chance to start the interrogation. I yank my sweater collar back up, push my chair out, and stand up so fast the legs scrape hard against the hardwood floor.

“I have to go,” I say, my voice flat.

“Ruby, don’t you dare walk out of this house!” my dad barks, his voice echoing in the dining room.

I ignore him, grab my purse off the entry table, and bolt out the front door into the cool night air. My heart is pounding against my ribs, but the shame of my mother catching that mark is immediately pushed aside when my phone starts vibrating violently in my hand. It’s an urgent call from Blackwood Penitentiary’s main line.

I hit answer and press the phone to my ear as I hurry to my car. “Steele.”

“Counselor Steele, this is Sergeant Vance,” a tense voice grunts over the receiver. “You need to get down here right now. Your client, Kayden Moro, was involved in a major incident in the C-Block yard.”

“What happened? Is he alive?” I demand, my hand shaking as I unlock my car door.

“Barely,” Vance says grimly. “Two guys jumped him during the evening recreation block. It was a targeted hit. Moro fought them off and killed one of them with his bare hands, but he took two shanks to the side before the guards could deploy tear gas. He’s in the infirmary right now.”

My blood runs cold. A hit inside a maximum-security yard doesn’t just happen on its own. They know I’m digging into his case, so they’re trying to shut Kayden up permanently before we ever reach a courtroom. I throw my purse into the passenger seat, slam the door, and hit the gas, speeding through the city streets like a lunatic.

By the time I clear security and race down the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors of the prison medical wing, my lungs are burning, and my palms are soaked with sweat. The air in the infirmary smells like heavy disinfectant, fresh blood, and metallic rust.

Two heavily armed guards are standing outside a private curtained bay at the end of the hall. They check my bar card with quick, tense nods and step aside to let me through.

I pull the curtain back, and the breath is completely knocked out of me.

Kayden is sitting on the edge of the metal examination bed. He isn’t wearing his jumpsuit top—it’s pooled around his waist, revealing the massive, solid expanse of his chest and shoulders. But he isn’t the untouchable, arrogant predator I saw yesterday. He looks like he went straight through hell and dragged the devil back with him.

A thick white bandage is wrapped tightly around his lower abdomen, already bleeding through with a dark red stain. His knuckles are split open to the bone, raw and caked with dried blood. His face is bruised, a deep purple shadow spreading across his cheekbone, and a ragged cut above his left eyebrow is dripping red down his jaw.

Yet, he’s just sitting there, refusing the oxygen mask the nurse is trying to hold up to his face.

“Get the fuck off me,” Kayden growls, shoving the nurse’s hand away with a weak flick of his wrist.

“Kayden,” I whisper, my voice cracking before I can stop it.

His head snaps up. Those bright sea-blue eyes lock onto mine through the haze of pain. The sheer relief that washes over me is terrifying. It hits me like a physical blow to the stomach. I’m supposed to be his lawyer. I’m supposed to keep this professional, detached, and clean. But looking at him right now, bloodied, battered, and still breathing, my stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with law books. I’m falling for this dangerous, toxic man, and no matter how hard I fight it or tell myself it’s wrong, I can’t stop it.

The nurse huffs, grabs her medical tray, and ducks out through the curtain, leaving us completely alone in the small bay.

I step closer to the bed, my legs feeling like lead. “You almost died tonight. Who the hell did this to you?”

Kayden lets out a rough, wet laugh that quickly turns into a harsh cough. He winces, clutching his bandaged side, but his gaze stays fixed on me. “Just a couple of dumb bastards trying to make a name for themselves. But they weren’t working for any gang.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my brows pulling together.

“It was Governor Smith,” Kayden says, his voice dropping into a cold, lethal growl. “He’s the one who ordered the hit.”

I stare at him, completely stunned. “Governor Smith? Why the hell would the Governor want to murder you in a prison yard?”

“There’s a lot of shit you don’t know, Little Lawyer,” he grunts, shifting slightly on the bed.

“Then tell me!” I press, taking a step closer. “If the Governor is trying to kill my client behind bars, I need to know why! What does he have to do with your case?”

Kayden tilts his head, a dark, dangerous glint flashing in his blue eyes despite the blood on his face.

“You want answers, Ruby? You’re going to have to find out on your own,” he murmurs, reaching out with a bloody, trembling hand to grip my wrist, pulling me an inch closer. “Because the deeper you dig into Smith, the darker this gets. And I told you… I’m not giving you shit.

The Supply Closet

The curtain’s heavy fabric sways as heavy footsteps echo down the corridor. Two guards walk past outside, their voices low and sharp as they discuss shifting security protocols. Kayden doesn’t wait for them to leave. Despite the blood on his skin and the raw tear in his side, his large hand locks around my wrist with absolute, unyielding force. He yanks me toward the back of the bay, shoving open the door to a small, windowless medical supply closet.

He pulls me inside and slams the door shut.

The lock clicks into place with a definitive thud, plunging us into near-total darkness, saved only by the faint amber glow of an exterior safety light filtering through the door’s frosted glass. The space smells suffocatingly of rubbing alcohol, latex gloves, and the heavy, metallic tang of his blood.

“Kayden, what are you doing?” I gasp, my back hitting the metal shelving unit behind me. Boxed IV bags and sterile gauze rattle violently against my spine. “We can’t be in here. If the guards check—”

“Fuck the guards,” he growls.

He steps directly into my space, trapping me between his massive frame and the cold steel shelves. He’s huge, towering over me, his chest heaving with deep, ragged breaths. The heat radiating off his bare skin is scorching, burning right through the thin fabric of my dress. He rests both palms against the shelf on either side of my head, leaning in until his bruised, dark face is inches from mine.

“You ran down here like your whole world was ending, Ruby,” he whispers, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that travels straight down my spine. “You looked at me out there like you actually give a fuck if I live or die.”

“I’m your lawyer,” I lie, my voice breathy, trembling, and entirely unconvincing. My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard it feels like it’s going to crack them open. “It’s my job to care.”

“Lie to yourself all you want, Little Lawyer,” he chuckles darkly, his sea-blue eyes burning through the shadows like hot coals. “But you didn’t look at me like a client out there. You looked at me like a woman who’s completely out of her depth.”

He shifts his weight, pressing his lower body flush against mine. A hard, heavy ridge presses directly into the cradle of my thighs through his thin cotton sweatpants. My breath catches in my throat. He’s fully, rock-hard, his body reacting to me with an aggressive, primal hunger that completely ignores the fresh bandage leaking blood at his waist.

“Look at what you do to me,” he growls, tilting his head down, his hot breath ghosting over my lips. “I’m bleeding out from two shank wounds, surrounded by guards who want to stick me in the ground, and all I can think about is ripping this fucking dress off your body and burying myself inside you.”

“Kayden…” I whisper, placing my hands against his bare chest. I’m supposed to push him away. I’m supposed to remember my ethics, my career, my reputation, and everything my parents raised me to be. But my fingers don’t push. They curl into the tight, corded muscle of his torso, feeling the wild, rapid pounding of his heart underneath his skin.

I am in too deep. The realization hits me with terrifying clarity. The boundary between attorney and client hasn’t just blurred; it has completely vanished. He utterly consumes me, addicted to the dangerous, raw edge he brings out in me.

“I don’t trust people, Ruby,” Kayden murmurs, his voice dropping into a rare, vulnerable roughness that strips away his hardened street persona. His calloused thumb comes up, tracing my lower lip, dragging it down until it pops open. “I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by snakes and backstabbers. But when you walk into that room… when you look at me with those stubborn eyes… I know you’re the only real thing in my fucking life.”

His words shatter the last standing wall in my mind.

Before I can think, he dips his head and crushes his mouth onto mine.

The kiss is wild, possessive, and completely unhinged. He tastes like blood, iron, and dangerous desire. I let out a soft moan against his mouth, my hands sliding up his bruised chest, wrapping tightly around his neck, pulling him as close as humanly possible. He groans, a deep, primal sound from the back of his throat, and hitches one of my legs up over his hip.

He doesn’t waste time. His large, scarred hand reaches down, hiking the skirt of my corporate dress up to my waist. He hooks two fingers into the lace of my panties, dragging them down my legs until they fall onto the linoleum floor.

“Look at me,” he commands harshly, his breath ragged against my mouth.

I open my eyes, staring directly into his glowing blue gaze through the amber gloom.

He aligns his tip with my soaking heat and drives himself inside me in one smooth, deep thrust.

A sharp, breathless scream catches in the back of my throat. I bite my lower lip to keep from crying out loud as he fills me. He feels massive, stretch-thick and agonizingly hot, embedding himself so deep inside me that I lose all sense of gravity. I cling to his massive shoulders, my fingers digging into the raw ink on his skin as he rests his forehead against mine.

“Fuck, Ruby,” he pants, his hips locking against mine. “You’re so tight… so damn wet for me.”

He begins to move. His pace isn’t gentle; it’s a rhythmic, heavy drive that pins me harder against the metal shelving with every strike. Boxed bandages and medicine bottles rattle above us with every thrust, but neither of us cares. Every hit of his pelvis sends an electric surge straight to my core, burning away every shred of my professional sanity.

I sink my teeth into his shoulder to muffle my whimpers as he sets a relentless, brutal rhythm. His hands slide down to grip my rear, holding me suspended against him, lifting me higher onto his shaft so he can hit deeper. He’s completely fallen for me—it’s written in the desperate, fierce way he holds me, in the rough, frantic kisses he presses into my jaw, my neck, and my collarbone.

“You’re mine, Ruby,” he growls against my ear, his thrusts turning faster, harder, completely reckless. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine.”

“Yours,” I sob softly, my body coiling tight, the unbearable tension building at the base of my spine. “Kayden, yes… right there…”

His thrusts go deep and relentless, driving me completely over the edge. My muscles clamp down around him in a intense, shattering orgasm that makes my whole frame tremble violently. Seconds later, with a harsh, guttural growl, Kayden buries himself as deep as he can go, his muscles locking tight as he spills hot and heavy deep inside me.

We hang there in the quiet room for minutes, our chests heaving together, our skin slick with sweat and his blood. He slowly lowers my leg back down, sliding out of me with a wet, agonizing slowness that leaves me feeling empty and marked.

I lean against the shelves, trying to smooth down my dress with trembling hands, my mind spinning as the reality of what we just did crashes over me.

Before I can pull my clothes together, Kayden reaches out. His calloused fingers wrap tightly around my wrist, pulling my hand up to his chest, trapping my palm right over his beating heart. His sea-blue eyes burn into mine, completely cold, completely possessive.

“Now you’re mine, Ruby,” he whispers, his voice dropping into an absolute line. “Not the law’s.”