All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(4)

Knox stretched out his hand. “Give it up.”

Spit flew from the guy’s lips. “Fuck you, man.”

It wasn’t about the biscuit. It was more than that. It was about Knox’s continued survival in this prison. He couldn’t back down.

This shit never changed. But it sure as hell got old. At least there was an end in sight. He’d already served eight years of his eight-to-fifteen year sentence for manslaughter. He wasn’t granted parole at his first hearing four months ago—not with his frequent trips to the hole—but maybe in another year or two. If he didn’t f*ck up too much more.

When he and North went to prison for killing their cousin’s rapist, their lawyer said it could have been worse. They could have gotten a more severe sentence. The jury had sympathized with them. Or more importantly, they sympathized with Katie, who had taken the stand and shared what Mason Leary did to her.

They killed a man. It hadn’t been their intention, but they did it. Knox accepted that he deserved to be here, but it still didn’t make it easy. Every day in Devil’s Rock sucked a little bit more of his soul away.

With an inward sigh, he did what he had to do. Curling his hand into a fist, he crashed it into the guy’s face, surrendering to the violence that governed his existence.

He felt a ripple surge through the crowd. A current of air behind him. Before he had a chance to turn, pain exploded in the back of his skull. He and the kid went down. Ears ringing, he shook himself, shoving away the pain as he pushed back up from the concrete.

Warm blood trickled into his eye as his gaze locked on another skinhead charging him, his face lost beneath a myriad of ink. The skinhead lifted a tray, presumably the one he’d already struck Knox with, ready to bring it down again.

Still no one intervened. Two against one were odds Reid expected any member of his crew to easily handle.

Knox sent a quick glance to his brother, telling him to stay with a warning look. If he didn’t, North would intervene—screw what Reid wanted. Blood before all.

Knox lashed out, kicking the other inmate in the knee as he charged. A satisfying pop cracked in the air. The crowd hissed, knowing how much that had to hurt. The inmate went down with a howl. Knox snatched up the discarded tray and swung it into the face of the punk who first grabbed his biscuit and started all this shit in the first place.

Four bulls burst through the crowd, pulling up hard at the sight of the two skinheads groaning at Knox’s feet.

Knox lifted both hands in the air, palms up, in an attempt to show he didn’t plan on causing any trouble. Well, any more trouble.

Chester, one of the more brutal of the corrections officers at Devil’s Rock, took one look at Knox and batoned him in the ribs twice. Knox could have guessed it was coming. The SOB loved taking down inmates. Whether necessary or not, he was all about cracking heads with his baton.

He bowed over, a whoosh of air leaving him as pain exploded in his side. That bastard really enjoyed his work. Guards came at Knox then, shoving him down to the concrete. He didn’t resist, but that didn’t stop Chester from dropping his knee and grinding it into his spine. He bit back a cry of pain, not about to give Chester the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt him. Instead, he smiled as they cuffed him.

Yanking Knox to his feet, the guards shouted for everyone else to disperse. He caught a glimpse of his brother’s scowl and sent him a shrug and a cocky grin meant to reassure him.

“Move it,” Chester snarled, pushing him roughly after the other two inmates. Knox stifled a wince at the sudden movement. The prick had done a number on his ribs.

North nodded back at him, trying to convey that he would be all right, that Knox shouldn’t worry. They knew the drill. Knox would get nothing less than a week in segregation for the fight. A week was nothing. He’d done longer stints in the hole. Weeks where he doubted his sanity within the gray, enclosed space.

Out in the hall, Lambert, the head bull on duty, looked them over with a bored expression.

The inmate Knox had kicked sniveled, unable to stand. Two guards supported him.

“What happened?” Lambert demanded.

Knox held his gaze, schooling his face into something blank and impenetrable. “We were just fooling around.”

No one ever admitted to fighting. No one ever pointed fingers or blamed anyone. It was an unwritten rule, even among enemies. Fighting, whether one was the attacker or the victim, got you a longer stretch in the hole.

Lambert snorted. “That so?” He tapped the skinhead kid’s knee with the tip of his baton, which only earned another howl. “Looks broken.” He sent Knox a hard look before returning his gaze to the kid. “Callaghan do this to you?”

The guy brought his sniveling under control and lifted his chin, his expression under all that ink once again fierce. “Like he said, we was just fooling around.”

Lambert rolled his eyes, clearly finished with them. “Fine. Whatever. Take them to the HSU. If that knee is broken, arrange transport to the hospital.”

The skinhead’s eyes lit up, broken knee and all. Out was out. God knew the food would be better in a hospital than the slop they ate here.

“C’mon, Callaghan.” Chester prodded Knox in his already tender back, getting him to move after the other two inmates.

He shot a glare over his shoulder. It was all he could do. His restrained hands tightened into fists, his knuckles whitening around the raw and bloody scrapes.