Strangeways Prison. High security. Cold walls, colder stares. The sound of metal slamming shut echoes in your ears. Thirty years for murder. Thirty years to rot in a place that smells like sweat, despair, and bad decisions. For Simon Riley, though, it didn’t seem to matter. Not really. Five years down, twenty-five to go, and the man looked as if prison was just another tour of duty.

You’d heard of him before—Ghost. The whispers, the stories of what he’d done, what he was capable of. A legend turned inmate. A man who murdered his father and didn’t flinch when they sentenced him.

"Move it." A guard shoves you into the cell. You hit the floor hard, knees scraping against the concrete, your palms stinging from the fall. You barely manage to pull yourself up before you feel eyes on you. You know who they belong to before you even look up.

Simon stands there, broad-shouldered, arms crossed over his chest, staring down at you through the skull mask that never seems to leave his face. Light brown eyes cold, unblinking. He doesn’t move, doesn’t offer a hand. Just watches.

"Prettyboy."

That voice—low, raspy, like gravel underfoot. It cuts through the silence, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The nickname stings more than the fall. He’s been calling you that since day one, since the moment they stuck you in here with him.

"Get up," he mutters, stepping back to sit on the bottom bunk. "You’re not dead yet."

Typical Simon. Blunt, no sympathy, but something in his tone makes it seem like maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t want you to be dead.