The Duke who walked out of Hell

Chapter Six

“Happy married life, Vanessa,” Damian said, and his voice trembled with restrained fury. Then the restraint snapped. “I hope you rot in hell.”

The words escaped before he could stop them. They sounded harsher than he had intended, sharp and bitter, and filled with a venom that startled even him. The moment they left his mouth, he realized there was no way to take them back.

Something inside his chest felt as if it had split open. Rage, heartbreak, humiliation, disbelief, and helplessness collided all at once and crashed through him in violent waves. His entire body began to shake, not from weakness, but from the overwhelming force of emotions he could no longer contain.

For a brief second, he searched Vanessa’s face for regret, guilt, or even the smallest trace of the woman he once loved. However, whatever he hoped to find was not there, and that absence hurt more than any insult could have.

The pain became unbearable.

He slammed his fist against the table.

The loud crack echoed sharply through the visiting room and cut through the murmurs of other conversations. Several guards nearby immediately turned their heads, and their eyes narrowed in warning, but Damian barely noticed them.

Pain shot through his knuckles, hot and immediate, and the skin split slightly under the impact. Even so, the physical pain felt distant and insignificant compared to the agony tearing through his chest.

His breathing grew uneven and heavy, and it almost felt as though he could not breathe at all. For a moment, he thought he might completely lose control.

Without allowing himself to look at Vanessa again, because he knew one more glance might destroy the fragile composure he still held, he turned abruptly and walked away.

His steps were fast, uneven, and almost unsteady. He did not walk like a proud man. Instead, he walked like someone trying to outrun the collapse happening inside him. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though invisible chains dragged behind him.

He needed distance before the storm inside him swallowed him whole.

“Get me out of here now!” Damian shouted the moment he reached the corridor. His voice cracked under the weight of desperation and fury. “Now!”

The sound echoed down the narrow hall in a raw and uncontrolled way.

Several prisoners in nearby sections lifted their heads with curiosity. One guard muttered under his breath, and another tightened his grip on his baton while watching Damian carefully, as if expecting another outburst.

The warden appeared seconds later with a stern and unreadable expression. His face showed the indifference of someone who had witnessed too many breakdowns to be moved by another one.

Without saying a word, the warden grabbed Damian’s arm with a firm and practiced grip and dragged him back toward the cell block.

Damian did not resist. He followed the warden and walked back to his cell.

His breathing remained rough and uneven, and each inhale scraped painfully through his lungs.

The fury that had exploded from him moments earlier was already collapsing inward and turning into something quieter, emptier, and far more dangerous.

By the time they reached the cell, the fire in his eyes had faded into cold silence.

The metal door clanged shut behind him with a final and unforgiving sound.

The silence that followed felt heavier than the noise.

For several seconds, no one spoke. Then the whispers began.

One of his cellmates was the first to break the quiet.

“What happened?” the man sneered as he leaned back casually, clearly enjoying the scene. “Did you swallow some bad news, or something worse?”

A few chuckles followed.

Damian said nothing.

Another prisoner sat up from his bunk with curiosity on his face. “Who did he even go to see?” he asked while glancing around. “Was it family, a lawyer, or his wife?”

“Maybe his lawyer just told him he is never getting out,” someone else added with a smirk.

Laughter burst out loudly and cruelly, and the sound bounced off the concrete walls and filled the cramped space. The noise felt suffocating, as though it pressed in from every direction.

Damian remained silent, and his silence only encouraged them.

“Look at his face,” one inmate said with a grin. “That is not a lawyer face. That is heartbreak.”

More laughter followed.

Just then, another prisoner entered the cell. He was the one who had also gone out to see a visitor. He paused near the door because he immediately sensed the charged atmosphere.

“What are you all talking about?” he asked while looking between them.

“It is about Damian,” someone replied. “Just look at him.”

The newcomer studied Damian for a moment and narrowed his eyes with interest. Then he let out a low whistle.

“Oh,” he said with a low laugh. “So that is what happened. His wife brought a pile of papers, and you can tell that conversation went badly. Those must have been divorce papers. Even his own wife can not stand him anymore.”

The reaction was immediate.

The entire cell erupted again with louder and harsher laughter that carried the kind of cruelty that survives in places where suffering becomes entertainment.

“Locked up and divorced,” one man said between laughs. “That is rough.”

“I guess she could not wait for you,” another mocked.

“Women love freedom,” someone added. “Just not the kind you are getting.”

Their voices blended together in a sharp and relentless noise, but Damian did not respond. He did not say a single word, and he did not even glance at them.

Slowly, he walked to his bunk and lay down.

The thin mattress creaked softly beneath his weight. He folded one arm under his head and stared at the ceiling. His face was completely empty of expression and so still that it almost looked lifeless.

On the outside, he appeared broken, defeated, and finished, which was exactly what they expected to see.

However, inside him, something entirely different was happening.

The pain remained raw and deep, and Vanessa’s face, voice, and final words replayed again and again in his mind like a wound that refused to close.

Beneath that pain, something colder began to form.

It was not rage, and it was not sorrow.

It was something quieter, sharper, and more patient.

His breathing slowly steadied, and his heartbeat calmed. The chaos inside him began to organize into a single and clear direction.

All the noise in the cell faded into the background. The laughter, insults, and murmurs no longer mattered.

His mind was no longer in that room.

His thoughts moved somewhere else entirely, and they moved carefully as they calculated, remembered, and examined every detail, weakness, and possibility.

Piece by piece and step by step, only one thought remained clear.

All he could think about was his escape plan.

For the first time since Vanessa walked away, the emptiness inside him did not feel like defeat.

It felt like the beginning of something dangerous.

.