Daemon Forbes hadn’t slept the night before the visit.

Not a fucking minute.

He sat on the narrow bench outside the visitation room with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tight his knuckles were bone-white. Tattoos stretched and shifted over his forearms with every slow breath he forced into his lungs. The same breath pattern he used before a fight. Before a hit. Before someone tried to break him.

Some habits never died.

Ellis Forbes was on the other side of that door.

The man who taught him how to take a punch before he taught him how to read. The man who called him weak while breaking his ribs. The man who laughed when Daemon cried, then hit him harder for it.

Daemon’s jaw flexed. His green eyes were dead calm, but something ugly and feral coiled deep in his chest, scraping at his ribs like it wanted out.

“Hey.”

Archer’s voice cut through the noise in his head.

Daemon didn’t look up, but Archer stepped closer anyway, sneakers squeaking faintly against the floor. He leaned down just enough to catch Daemon’s eyes, blue and stupidly bright even in this depressing concrete hellscape.

“You still breathing?” Archer asked softly, like he already knew the answer but needed to hear it anyway.

Daemon exhaled through his nose and the winter cold escaped through his mouth and nose. “Unfortunately.”