The Duke who walked out of Hell

Chapter Eight

Damian still couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening—or who had pulled the strings to get him out. Confusion and a gnawing unease twisted in his chest as they moved through the corridors.

When they reached the counter, the other warder looked at him sharply. Damian’s stomach knotted. His heart thumped nervously against his ribs, and he struggled to meet the man’s eyes, feeling exposed and on edge.

“You are free to go, —you should leave now and stay out of trouble if you know what’s good for you.”

“How is this possible? What changed? We didn’t even go to court…” Damian’s voice trembled with disbelief, his hands clenching at his sides.

“Well,” the warder said, shrugging slightly, “Mr. Martins decided to have mercy on you.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed. Something didn’t feel right. He had seen Martins just days ago, instructing one of them to make absolutely sure Damian never left. A cold knot of suspicion tightened in his stomach.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, his voice low and wary, trying to mask the storm of doubt rising inside him.

The warder’s eyes flashed with irritation. “Are you trying to say I am lying, loser? Just leave.”

The words struck Damian with the subtle weight of a hammer, though the blow that followed carried the force to match it.

The warder’s hand collided with his chest without warning, driving the air from his lungs and propelling him backward with a stumble that felt as if the floor itself had conspired against him.

His boots scraped against the cold, unforgiving concrete, sending a sharp echo down the corridor, and for a brief, terrifying instant, Damian felt that his head would fall headfirst into the wall, his skull cracking like the brittle shells of so many who had come before him.

Pain erupted behind his eyes, a white-hot flare of agony that made him see spots and hear the phantom ringing of bells long silenced.

Instead, his shoulder struck the wall, a jarring collision that rattled his bones and sent the sharp taste of iron racing across his tongue as blood slowly dripped from the corner of his mouth.

The warder laughed

“Don’t mind these low lives,” another warder sneered, glancing over his shoulder as though someone might be watching them perform their small cruelty. “This is all they know how to do, this one especially has always been a pain in the ass.”

Damian straightened, moving deliberately despite the ache that throbbed in every muscle. His ribs reminded him of every boot that had landed across his chest, his head throbbed with the dull, persistent pressure of years of blows, and even the act of lifting his chin was a negotiation with his own body, which had been trained for nothing but endurance and submission.

He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the red smear with detached fascination, because after three years of life within these walls, the sight of blood no longer startled him. It had become a rhythm, a cruel percussion that matched the clang of cell doors, the stench of damp concrete, and the quiet death of hope that occurred in silence, unheralded and absolute.

Words escaped him before he could stop them, a whisper born of defiance that had been gathering quietly in his chest.

“What did you say?” the warder barked, stepping closer, his voice sharp and demanding.

Damian lifted his head, steadying himself against the fog of pain that sought to cloud his mind.

“I said…” His voice emerged rough and raw, unpracticed yet unflinching, “…I am not a loser.”

The warder’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second before he erupted into laughter, louder this time, sharper, and mocking in a way that seemed to strip the very air from the corridor.

“You hear that?” he said to no one in particular. “Listen to him.”

Before Damian could brace himself, a fist connected with the side of his head. White light flashed violently across his vision, his knees buckled, and he barely managed to remain upright as the world tilted briefly into chaos.

“That’s exactly what a loser would say,” the warder spat, a sneer cutting across his face.

Damian swallowed hard, jaw clenching as the coppery tang of blood filled his mouth once again, heavier now than before. His vision swam, blurring the harsh lines of the corridor, but he forced clarity, forcing air into his lungs, grounding himself in the rhythm of survival.

“Leave. Now.”

For a long moment, Damian regarded the man before him, each second a battle between desire and discipline, between the burning fury that demanded retaliation and the cautious calculation that had preserved his life for three long, brutal years.

Everything in him—the coiled rage, the long-smoldering fury, the desperate longing for vindication—threatened to erupt. He could strike, could rend the man who had made his life an endless hell. And yet, he had learned, in ways that left scars not only upon his body but upon his soul, that rage had a cost too high to pay twice.

So he turned and walked away.

Outside, the sharp air hit his bruised body like a balm, though his muscles ached and his mind was on fire. Two men stood by the prison doors, dressed impeccably. Damian assumed they were here for someone else and started past them, attention half-distracted by the unfamiliar civility of their presence.

They moved in perfect unison, bowing deeply.

“Your Grace, Master,” they intoned, voices echoing in his chest and mind, perfectly synchronized.

The words slid past him at first, meaningless, a strange echo that he tried to ignore—until recognition clawed its way through the fog of disbelief.

Your Grace.

His heart slammed against his ribs, disbelief pressing down with the weight of a lifetime of suffering. Instinctively, he glanced behind him, expecting someone else—someone worthy, someone deserving.

There was no one.

Just him.

A former inmate, bloodied and broken, tethered to shadows and past mistakes, now standing in the unfamiliar light of acknowledgment he had never dared to imagine.

His chest tightened, the impossible truth suffocating and thrilling all at once.

“…Are you referring to me?” he whispered, voice low, incredulous, trembling with the raw weight of a man who had survived, endured, and still had the courage to hope.

In that single, suspended moment, past, present, and future collapsed into one, leaving him poised on the precipice of a world he had never dared to envision.