The next afternoon, Leon ran his usual patrol route , just slightly adjusted.
He swung around to a secluded dumpster in the prison’s back alley.
He didn’t slow down.
As he passed, his arm dipped in and back out in one smooth motion, barely a pause.
When his hand came out, it was holding a hard object wrapped in black plastic.
He returned to his single-occupancy room and threw the deadbolt.
Inside the bag was a cigarette pack wrapped in so much tape it looked like a hostage.
Leon peeled it off.
Two brand-new cartons of Marlboros, and tucked into a hidden compartment, a ziplock bag holding roughly five grams of white powder.
Shane was efficient.
And he knew his way around things he shouldn’t.
Small amount.
Didn’t matter.
In here, this stuff hit harder than a hundred cartons of cigarettes combined.
Getting caught with it in prison didn’t just mean an added charge.
It meant your life inside was over.
Leon tucked the powder and one of the cigarette cartons into a brown paper bag, then went to find Ashley.
She was cleaning the storage room.
Her posture was different today.
Back straighter.
The two inmates trailing her , both of them Brenda’s lackeys until about twenty-four hours ago , were working hard, wiping down shelves without being told twice.
The cigarettes had done their job.
“Take this,” Leon said quietly, pressing the paper bag into her hands.
Ashley opened it and looked inside.
The moment she saw the white powder, her pupils snapped tight.
Her hand trembled.
“This — this is…”
“This is what buries Brenda for good.” Leon’s voice was flat.
“Are you insane?
Leon , if someone finds this—”
Ashley’s voice was shaking.
This was outside everything she’d bargained for.
She wanted to stop getting pushed around, not hold something that could end her.
“Found by who?” Leon held her gaze.
“By me?”
She went quiet.
“You want to run this block, you can’t just carry candy.” He leaned in, dropping his voice.
“Cigarettes buy you friends.
But this,” he tapped the bag, “gives you the kind of authority people don’t test.”
“Three o’clock.
Laundry room.
You know what to do.”
He turned and walked away before she could form a response.
Ashley stared at the bag in her hands like she was cradling a live grenade.
She bit down on her lip.
The fear in her eyes didn’t disappear , it just got something else mixed into it.
Something harder.
She was already past the point of turning back.
Three o’clock.
The laundry room.
Hot steam hung in the air.
Washing machines thundered.
“Spot check!”
Leon kicked the iron door open.
Frank and a younger guard named Kevin came in behind him.
The inmates froze.
Every pair of hands stopped.
Every face turned toward the three men who’d just walked in, eyes going wary.
Brenda was leaning against a massive dryer, watching two of her girls work.
She straightened up anyway, reluctant but smart enough.
“Nobody moves!” Frank bellowed, clearly enjoying himself.
“Empty your pockets.
Everything on the workbenches.”
Leon said nothing.
He moved along the row of machines, tapping each drum with his baton.
The hollow knocking sound carried.
His eyes swept the room , slow, steady, resting on no one in particular and missing nothing.
In the corner, Ashley was dragging a laundry basket packed with sheets, making a show of struggling with the weight.
Clumsy.
A little too clumsy.
As she passed Brenda’s basket, her foot slipped.
“Ah!”
She went down hard, crashing into Brenda’s basket and sending it over.
The clothes hit the floor in a cascade.
A carton of Marlboros rolled out.
Right behind it, a small ziplock bag of white powder tumbled free from inside a folded prison uniform, landing on the wet concrete like a spotlight had been switched on.
The laundry room went silent.
Every set of eyes locked onto that little bag.
The machines kept running.
Nobody breathed.
Frank’s eyes looked like they were about to leave his face.
He glanced at Leon.
He looked at the floor.
His jaw hung open.
Brenda’s color drained out of her.
Her mind went blank.
She had absolutely no idea how that thing had gotten into her basket.
“Whose — whose is this?” Kevin’s hand moved to his holster, his voice tight.
“Christ, ” Frank snapped out of it, stepped forward, and carefully bagged both items into an evidence pouch.
“Brenda.” Leon finally spoke.
“That basket.
It’s yours, isn’t it.”
Brenda’s whole body started to shake.
She whipped her head around and stared at Ashley, who was still on the floor with wide, frightened eyes.
Then she looked at Leon.
His face was perfectly neutral.
But deep in his eyes, something moved.
A cat watching a mouse figure out the walls have no exits.
It clicked.
That goddamn Chinaman and that blonde bitch.
They set me up.
“You motherfucker, ” The word came out as a scream.
Something in Brenda snapped clean through.
All the fear, all the desperation , it stopped being fear and became pure, animal fury.
She threw herself at Leon like something unhuman, fingernails aimed at his eyes.
“You did this to me!
I’ll kill you!”
Too fast.
Frank and Kevin didn’t move.
Leon hadn’t expected her to attack him in front of witnesses either.
At the last possible moment, her fingers a breath from his face, he turned, just slightly, and the baton came around in one short, explosive arc.
The crack of it against her thigh was dense and flat.
Brenda screamed and buckled, momentum gone, knees hitting the concrete.
Leon followed with a backhanded strike across her shoulders.
“She’s attacking an officer!
Subdue her!”
He said it with exactly the right amount of shock and anger , calibrated, convincing.
Frank and Kevin snapped back into themselves and piled on, forcing Brenda down with everything they had.
She kept fighting it, wrenching and twisting against both of them.
Sons of bitches!”
She was screaming at the ceiling.
“He set me up!
It was him!
Leon , you’ll rot for this!
And you, Ashley!
You think I’m done?
I’ll kill you.
I swear to God I’ll kill you!”
Her voice echoed and died in the steam.
Nobody made a sound.
Every inmate in that room was motionless, staring at Brenda pinned to the floor by two male guards, still fighting like something that had lost its mind.
Then they looked at Leon , standing off to the side, straightening his uniform, expression entirely unmoved.
Cold crept up every spine in the room.
Nobody here was stupid.
Brenda had crossed Leon yesterday, and today she was done.
Anyone who said this was a coincidence was either lying or suicidal.
“Take her.” Leon’s voice carried across the room.
“Solitary.
I’ll report to the warden personally.
Possession of narcotics, violent assault on a correctional officer.” He let the next part sit for a second.
“She won’t see general population again.”
They dragged Brenda out.
Her screaming followed her down the corridor until it didn’t.
The laundry room was wrecked.
Clothes everywhere.
Steam rising.
Leon let his gaze move across the room.
Every inmate who caught it immediately looked at the floor.
His eyes settled on Ashley last.
She was still sitting where she’d fallen, face pale, body doing a convincing little tremble.
She looked genuinely shaken.
She was good.
When their eyes met, there it was , the flash she couldn’t quite suppress.
Quick, involuntary.
Excitement.
Leon looked at her for one second.
Then he turned and walked out, leaving a silence behind him that nobody wanted to be the first to break.
Frank was in the corridor, leaning against the wall with a cigarette.
He killed it the moment he heard Leon’s footsteps.
The smirk he usually wore was gone.
What replaced it was something harder to name , somewhere between respect and genuine unease.
“Leon…
that whole thing back there was…”
“Routine inspection.” Leon cut him off.
“An inmate lost control when her contraband was found.
That’s the report.”
Frank watched Leon’s face , calm, clean, completely unbothered.
And looking at this kid who wasn’t even thirty yet, Frank felt something he hadn’t expected to feel in a prison surrounded by lifers and killers.
He felt like he was the one who should be careful.
Leon’s phone buzzed.
He pulled it out and read.
[Lori’s house sold.
Cash is ready.
When can I meet your miracle Chinese witch doctor?]
The corner of his mouth moved, just slightly.
Shane and Lori hadn’t wasted any time.
➤ Next: Handing Over the Leverage