spanng="EN"Sasha’s POV

    spanng="EN"I didn’t care who he ended up calling up to the stand. I’m just d to be out of the hot seat for a little while. Her attorney acts polite, but he’s actually pretty sharp. I don’t know if I can outsmart him or evade his questioned for too long. I just need to pray that the jury sees reasonable doubt and allows me to get the hell out of this country. Once I get my passport back, I’m gone. I’m nevering back here if I can help it.

    spanng="EN"I was sick of ying it safe. I knew that it was my word against hers. She’s the one who has to prove that the designs were hers. I didn’t have to prove they were mine. I just had to refrain from admitting anything that could be disproven while on the stand. Roger needed those designs, so he would have to be out of his mind if he contradicted me on this. I’m going to make sure that I end her career with this giarism allegation.

    spanng="EN"There was no way for her to be able to prove me wrong, not with Roger backing me up.

    spanng="EN"“I’d like to call Ms. Gwen Simpson to the stand,” her attorney called out.

    The hours passed slowly.

    Long. Agonising. Suffocating.

    I had no idea what time it was anymore. There were no clocks in the cell, no sunlight slipping through windows to measure the day. Just the same dim, artificial glow from the ceiling panel that buzzed faintly when the silence dragged too long.

    And God, it dragged.

    I hadn’t heard a single sound from the corridor since I sat back down on the bed. No voices. No footsteps. Not even the distant ng of a door mming. It was like I’d been dropped into some vacuum – sealed bubble where time stretched into infinity and I was the only one left breathing.

    The only one left in the entirepound!

    My stomach growled again – louder this time. A deep, aching twist that folded me over where I sat.

    Just when I was getting used to the three meals a day routine…

    I pressed my hand t against it, as if that would quiet the sound, but the hollowness only seemed to deepen. I hadn’t eaten all day – not a bite or a sip.

    I’d skipped breakfast due to sleeping in with Coban – the memory seeming humorous now amongst what was currently going on between us.

    Lunch had also most definitely been missed entirely too, swallowed up by the gym disaster and everything that followed.

    Now it had to be nearing dinner time, if it hadn’t already passed…

    I was being starved again, which I realised quickly…

    Was it intended as a new punishment from him? For revealing too much skin in a male dominated zone? For not listening to him? For not understanding most of this ce yet?

    Starvation as a punishment was something I was ustomed to living back with my father. I figured it would mostly be down to poverty and not having money, but even when there was food, he never shared it…

    The thought made my stomach churn in a different way now, an array of fresh tears rising to my eyes…

    I stood up quickly, unable to sit still a second longer trapped in my thoughts of the past and how they linked with my present.

    My legs were stiff from how long I’d been curled on the bed, but pacing felt better than just waiting for him.

    Back and forth.

    From the edge of the bed to the locked cell door.

    Back again.

    Each step was deliberate, but frantic.

    I chewed the edge of my thumbnail until it bled, forcing myself to stop only when I tasted copper.

    I couldn’t read. The book I’d started yesterday sat unopened on the desk, the corner of the page still folded neatly from when Ist dog–eared it.

    A fantasy novel twisted with a romance – a vampire love story.

    I’d been so eager to escape into it before, to let myself believe in some other world beyond this one. But now?

    Now it felt too cruel to allow myself the pleasure…

    I kept ncing at the door like it might swing open any second and reveal him standing there – Coban. With that unreadable look in his eyes. That brooding, predatory stillness in his body.

    The memory of the gym kept shing behind my eyes. The way he grabbed me. The sound of my own breath catching in my throat as he dragged me away. The sharp m of the cell door behind me like a cage snapping shut.

    He hadn’te back since.

    And that wasn’t like him.

    Coban didn’t leave me alone often.

    He loomed. Hovered. Controlled me.

    He always needed to be watching.

    So where was he now?

    The silence pressed in harder now. I paused at the door again, straining to hear anything – any sign of life beyond these four concrete walls.

    Nothing.

    Had the ce been evacuated? Had everyone been set free? It felt like I had been isted entirely now… the only prisoner left here to rot…

    I wondered if Coban was still furious, somewhere in the gym or tearing up another inmate just to cool himself down…

    Would I rather him rage at me or disappear entirely? It was hard to say…

    I pressed my forehead against the cold metal of the door, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to calm the rising dread I couldn’t shake.

    I couldn’t sleep.

    I couldn’t read or breathe or think or do anything other than wait.

    Wait for him toe back.

    Wait for the moment my nickname would be barked like a curse.

    ‘BELLA!’

    The pet name sent shivers through me every time…

    But what if he never came back?

    What if he handed me off to someone else, asked for a swap?

    Decided I was too much hassle for him?

    –

    Thest one twisted something sharp inside me because I knew that was the worst case scenario – being paired with another inmate.

    Coban had be myfort in this ce, despite everything else. I looked to him for praise and protection.

    I hated that I was even thinking like this.

    –

    I hated that this ce was changing me rewiring something deep inside that used to understand right from wrong, safety from danger.

    Coban was danger.

    He was violence and fury and shadows you don’t dare poke.

    And yet…

    He hadn’t hurt me physically yet. Not like how my father would.

    He hadn’t struck me, even in his angriest moments. He’d thrown and grabbed me, sure – but that was restraint for someone like him.

    He chose not to be here. Not to explode.

    I clenched my fists at my sides, feeling the tremble in them, then turned abruptly on my heel and marched to the small sink in the bathroom.

    I sshed more cold water on my face.

    Third time today.

    Didn’t help much now.

    But it gave me something to do.

    I inhaled a steadying breath, whispering reassurances aloud in an attempt to distract myself, before a knock made me jump violently…

    “Hurry up ande out before we miss dinner!” I heard him break out in to the silence, causing me to flinch at the sound I’d almost hoped to hear for hours on end now.

    He was back.

    I quickly fumbled with the bathroom handle, revealing myself to him to show that I was fully dressed and definitely ready to eat something today…

    Thank the lord he’s decent enough to take me to eat something before bed!

    “Thank you, I’m starving!” I admit, my voice careful and quiet around him as I nced up to find him waiting for me by the cell door.

    “Come on then, hurry up!” He mumbled, motioning his head as I hurried towards him, inhaling a fresh breath as I stepped out in to the cell block.

    It had only been a few hours but it had felt like an eternity alone in there with so little to do…

    “Coban, I’m sorry about earlier, I just d…” I begin, staring at hisrge back in front of me as we walked.

    “Save it forter when we get back!” He snapped, and with that, my lips were sealed…

    About watching her squirm a little.

    About reminding her of why I was set on making her wear it in the first ce.

    She had made a big mistake…

    So letting her sweat was the consequence of her actions yesterday in the gym. Simple as that. She would think twice next time before stripping herself off around this damn prison!

    Leo’s dumbass question about the report shouldn’t have meant anything either, but the way she answered… “Of course…” Like it was a maybe..

    Like I hadn’t protected her all week.

    Like she hadn’t kissed me backst night with her little fingers twisted in my shirt like she wanted me to ruin her entirely.

    Like she didn’t enjoy cuddling and sleeping next to me whenever I gave her the chance…

    I was fair with her about the whole notes thing too, telling her to write a better list after I exined why most of her original points had been total bullshit…

    I could have flipped out on her, dragged her across the damn room… spanked her bare ass with the leather of the pad, but I didn’t.

    I had been fair.

    Which was what pissed me off the most!

    I even let her take the damn jumper off eventually, and that was more generous than what I’d nned on being to begin with.

    And still… she looked at me like I might explode any second.

    What the fuck was she scared of? My temper?

    Because she hadn’t seen the half of it yet.

    She had no idea how mild I’d been keeping things for her sake this week.

    I clenched my jaw as we stepped back into the corridor that led to our cell. The air inside was cooler, and I noticed the way her shoulders rxed the second we crossed into shade.

    The tops of her shoulders had began to burn outside, I noticed.

    That damn vest. Too thin. Too tight. Too exposed.

    I narrowed my eyes as we walked inside, but said nothing.

    Just watched the way her fingers yed nervously with the hem of her jumper like she was waiting for permission to breathe again.

    Good.

    I wanted her like this.

    Uneasy.

    On edge.

    Because if she was worried about what I might do, maybe she’d think twice tomorrow when the guards hand her that nk sheet and ask her to summarise her “progress” with me.

    I was going to find out what she nned to say, one way or another…

    Bribes always worked. The right food. The right pills. Enough cigarettes to buy loyalty for a week. The guards would tell me everything – what she put down, what she said.

    If she gave me a glowing review, fine.

    We’d move forward,

    But if she so much as implied I was a threat to her, a danger…

    She’d see my real temper then.

    The second I closed the cell door over behind us, her jumper was already halfway unzipped, as she tugged the rest of it off with a deep exhale, throwing it toward the corner of the room with more drama than necessary.

    I leaned against the wall, arms crossed.

    “Did I say you could take that off?” I asked, voice calm too calm.

    Testing her again.

    She froze.

    I watched her spine go stiff, watched the heat rise in her cheeks again as she turned halfway to look at me.

    “But… we’re alone now,” she said, voice small, almost confused.