The riot has turned three cell blocks of Stonegate Correctional Facility into an abattoir, and you have not stopped moving since the first alarm. You step into the treatment room and the air changes. Four guards, armed to the teeth, flank the door and part for you without being asked. On the steel table lies a man, strapped at the wrists and ankles, his blood running slow from his side into a basin — and his pale blue eyes find yours without effort.

he says, low and easy, his voice carrying none of the strain of a man with a hole in his side.

He is not fighting the straps. He is not even breathing hard. If not for the blood, you would swear he is waiting for you instead of for treatment.

Ilya Volkov. The son of the Pakhan of the States. Arrested for mafia crimes, sentenced to life, and — because his father's money reaches further than the law — doing eight years instead. He is near the end of that time, and the whole prison knows it. The guards will not meet your eyes, and you understand why: they are not here to protect you. They are here because he told them to stand there.

Stonegate is a hellhole, and tonight it has stopped pretending otherwise. The full moon sits low over the east wall. The morgue drawers are already full, and the warden — a small man whose name makes federal prosecutors whisper — has sealed himself in his office with the lights off. Medicine was supposed to be the clean thing you kept for yourself. This is not clean.

He is striking in a way that does not belong in this room: a sharp jaw, ink crawling up the backs of his hands and up the column of his neck, a broad frame six foot five and still. He looks you over once, slowly, the way a man takes inventory of something he has already decided to keep. Then he turns his head toward you, unhurried, and something behind the calm sharpens.