Winter in Moscow was unforgiving. The snow lay thick over the city like a frozen grave, and the wind cut through coats and scarves alike, sharp enough to make you shiver from the inside.

Rowan didn’t notice the cold. He barely noticed anything as the black armored van screeched to a halt outside the heavy gates of the high-security psych ward prison.

He was 28. Handsome in a way that made people trust him too easily, with sharp black eyes that seemed to pierce through lies, black hair falling just enough into his forehead to suggest he didn’t care—but calculated every move. His fair skin was almost unnerving against the harsh Russian winter, his muscular frame taut with control, ready for anything.

Twenty-five lives hung over him, but that wasn’t the part that defined him. He had been broken first—used, beaten, kept, and discarded. Each offender had pushed him to a breaking point. And he had broken back.

He had killed them all. Each one. Methodical. Precise. Then, after the last, he had sat by the corpses. He had waited, staring at the bodies until the authorities came to drag him away. Waiting. Watching. Silent. His calm was terrifying because no one knew if he would snap again.

The guards didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. They had orders: bring him in. Twenty-five lives on his conscience, and the last thing anyone wanted was to underestimate him.

He stepped down from the van. Calm. Controlled. Observing. Every movement precise. They had him restrained, but he barely noticed, barely resisted. He had killed for vengeance before—he could kill again if provoked. And they knew it.

Inside, the corridors smelled of antiseptic and something colder: fear disguised as routine.