The darkness in the "Hole" wasn't just an absence of light; it was a physical weight, a thick, suffocating velvet that pressed against Adrian's eyelids until his vision swam with phantom sparks. There were no windows here, no clocks, and no sounds other than the frantic, uneven thudding of his own heart.
The gash in his side burned like a brand. Every breath he took felt like a rusted saw blade dragging across his ribs. He sat on the damp concrete floor, his back against the weeping wall, trying to use the cold of the stone to numb the fire in his flesh.
Lucas. Elena. Lucas. Elena.
Their names circled his mind like vultures. He could still see them in his mind's eye, clinking glasses in his home, laughing at the ghost he had become. The betrayal wasn't just a wound to his pride; it was an erasure of his entire existence.
"Focus," Adrian hissed to himself, the sound of his own voice startling him in the silence. "The pain is just data. The hunger is just a variable."
He had been in total darkness for what felt like forty-eight hours. His mind was beginning to fracture, the walls of his "Mind Palace" crumbling under the pressure of isolation. This was exactly what Miller—and Lucas—wanted. They wanted him to emerge from this cell a broken, babbling wreck, a man who would sign any confession just to see the sun again.
Suddenly, the heavy steel flap at the bottom of the door screeched open. A tray of gray, watery slop was kicked through, the contents splashing onto the floor.
"Eat up, 'Prince,'" a voice sneered from the other side. It was Miller. "It's the same stuff we feed the rats. Though, I think the rats have better manners than you."
Adrian didn't move toward the food. He didn't give Miller the satisfaction of seeing him crawl.
"Miller," Adrian said, his voice cold and steady, despite the tremors in his limbs. "The man who sent you the money to put me here... did he tell you what happens to the loose ends when the job is done?"
The silence on the other side of the door stretched. Adrian could almost hear Miller's heartbeat.
"Your brother is a man of his word," Miller finally spat, though the bravado was thinner than before.
"My brother is a man of his own interests," Adrian countered. "Right now, you're an asset. But the moment I die in this cell, you become a liability. A prison guard who let a high-profile billionaire die on his watch? That's a life sentence in a cell just like this one, Miller. Lucas won't save you. He'll bury you to keep his own hands clean."
"Shut up!" Miller kicked the door, the boom echoing like thunder in the small space. "You're nothing! You're a convict! You're a ghost!"
The flap slammed shut, but Adrian knew the seed was planted. Doubt was a slow-acting poison, and Miller was already showing symptoms.
An hour later—or perhaps a day—the main door hummed and swung open. The light from the corridor was blinding, a white-hot spear that forced Adrian to shield his eyes. Two guards grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him out. He didn't fight. He saved his strength, his toes dragging on the linoleum.
They didn't take him back to his cell. They took him to the visitation room—a cold, sterile box divided by thick, scratched plexiglass.
"You have five minutes," the guard growled, shoving him into the chair.
Adrian blinked, his vision clearing. His heart stopped.
On the other side of the glass sat Elena.
She was dressed in black lace, looking like a widow who was already enjoying the inheritance. She looked beautiful, polished, and utterly monstrous. She held a sleek, designer handbag in her lap, her manicured fingers tapping a rhythmic beat on the table.
"Adrian," she breathed, her voice coming through the intercom, sounding like a distorted melody. "God, you look... terrible. They really don't treat the elite well in here, do they?"
Adrian stared at her. He didn't look at the glass; he looked into her emerald eyes, searching for a flicker of the woman he had loved. He found only a shallow, glittering vanity.
"Why are you here, Elena?" he asked. "Come to check the measurements for the casket?"
Elena leaned in, her breath fogging the glass. "I came to give you a choice. Lucas is... impatient. He wants the access codes to the Swiss accounts. The ones your grandfather left only for the 'Rightful Heir.' Give them to me, Adrian. If you do, I'll make sure you're transferred to a minimum-security facility. You'll have a bed. You'll have books. You might even live to see your forty-first birthday."
Adrian felt a slow, dark heat rising in his chest. "And if I don't?"
Elena's expression shifted. The mask of the grieving fiancée dropped, revealing the predator beneath. "If you don't, I'll tell the board that you were the one who authorized the hit on my father. I'll make sure the world remembers you not just as a thief, but as a murderer. You'll never leave Blackwood. You'll die in that hole, and I'll be the one who signs the cremation order."
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. She pressed it against the glass. It was a photo of Adrian's grandfather's grave. It had been desecrated—spray-painted with the word 'TRAITOR.'
"Lucas did that this morning," she whispered. "He says it's just the beginning. He's going to dismantle everything you ever loved, brick by brick, until even the memory of you is a stain."
Adrian's vision went red. The physical pain in his side vanished, replaced by an absolute, crystalline rage. He leaned forward, his face inches from hers, separated only by the scratched plastic.
"Elena," he said, his voice a low, terrifying whisper that made her flinch. "I used to wonder why you did it. I thought maybe he had something on you. Maybe you were scared. But I see it now. You didn't do this for Lucas. You did it because you're just as small as he is. You're a parasite looking for a bigger host."
"Adrian, don't be a fool—"
"I'm not a fool anymore," he interrupted. "You want the codes? Here is your first code: Zero. That is the amount of mercy I will have for you when I walk out of these gates. That is the number of seconds you will have to run before I find you."
He stood up, the chair screeching against the floor.
"And tell Lucas," Adrian continued, "that he should have killed me in the courtroom. Because every day I spend in this hell, I am learning. I am evolving. And when I return, I won't just take back the company. I'm going to take the world you've built on my back and burn it until there's nothing left but the two of you, screaming in the dark."
"You're delusional!" Elena shouted, her voice cracking as she stood up. "Look at yourself! You're a prisoner! You're a nobody!"
"I am the Thorne Heir," Adrian said, his voice echoing through the small room, silencing the guards. "And a Thorne always pays his debts."
He turned his back on her before she could respond, signaling the guards to take him back. He didn't look back at her shocked, pale face. He walked with his head high, even as the blood began to seep through his shirt again.
As he was being led back to the Hole, a hand reached out from a passing line of inmates. A small, rough object was pressed into his palm.
Adrian didn't look down until he was back in the absolute darkness of his cell. He opened his hand.
It was a small, sharpened piece of flint. And wrapped around it was a tiny scrap of paper with a single word written in a hand he didn't recognize:
"Tonight."
The air in the cell suddenly felt different. The silence wasn't heavy anymore; it was expectant. Adrian gripped the flint, the sharp edge cutting into his thumb.
He didn't know who his ally was. He didn't know if he was being led into another trap. But as he sat in the dark, the image of his grandfather's desecrated grave fueled the fire in his soul.
Tonight, he thought. The first stone falls.
The heavy door of the Hole didn't open. Instead, the entire floor of the cell shuddered. A low, grinding sound of stone on stone filled the space. A secret passage? A structural collapse? Or the beginning of a prison break he never planned?
Adrian stood up, his hand white-knuckled around the flint, as the floor beneath his feet began to descend into the unknown.