The King Of Crystal Diamond Is Back

The Television in the prison recreation hall was bolted to the wall with thick steel brackets, but it still shook when the news anchorwoman said the name Paris Pentagon.

"We live outside the Grand Cathedral in Chevron Province," the screen shrieked in bright gold and white.

"The marriage proposal of the decade. Paris Pentagon, sole heiress to the Pentagon Winery empire, stepping into the winter snow on the arm of Richard Harrison, crude oil magnate and grandson of the legendary Harrison syndicate."

Chay Patrick did not stop scrubbing the prison floor.

His knees pressed into the rough concrete floor of the cell block, and gray mop water soaked through his thin prison pants.

He didn't need to look up at the flashing screen to know who was standing under those imported white rose petals.

Paris Pentagon was the woman he loved with all his heart. He had stayed up with her for three years helping build her family's winery, and he had proposed to her in the snow just before her family was investigated for importing drugs.

"Hey. Hey, convict!"

A hard rubber boot kicked Chay's bucket, splashing dirty gray water over his hands.

It was Big Hank, a huge enforcer, six-foot-four, doing ten years for armed robbery. His neck was covered in faded prison tattoos.

Hank pointed at the TV, where Paris Pentagon was smiling in a lace veil with her hand on Richard Harrison's jacket.

"Ain't that your little society bird, Chay?" Hank bellowed, loud enough to draw the attention of the guards leaning against the security grille at the end of the cell block.

"The one you took the fall for so her family could dodge those federal drug indictments? Look at her now, man. That oil boy is sliding a rock bigger than your thumb onto her finger while you're down here in this prison eating turnip mash and scrubbing my boots."

A ripple of jagged laughter tore through the common room.

They knew the story.

Everyone in Block C knew that exactly a year ago, Chay Patrick had taken the blame for fraud and drug charges.

He traded his clean name for a promise that the Pentagon family would pay for his 13-year-old son's experimental marrow treatments in Geneva.

Chay gripped the wooden mop handle tightly until it creaked. He didn't jump into combat. He didn't curse Hank or throw his bucket at the screen.

If he attacked Hank now, the guards would throw him in the hole for a week, and the payment to Geneva clinic on Tuesday would not go through.

"Keep talking, Hank," Chay said calmly, but with an edge that made Hank step back. "Just stay near the drain when I'm done with this aisle.”

Hank spat a brown tobacco juice onto the freshly mopped floor and grinned with yellow teeth.

"Stray dog still thinks he's a wolf," Hank muttered, turning back to the broadcast as Richard Harrison pulled Paris Pentagon into a slow, televised kiss that made the studio lights flare.

Twenty minutes later, the heavy iron partition in the visitor's wing grated open. A guard with a bored expression tapped his nightstick against Chay's cell bars.

"Chay Patrick, family visit."

Chay dropped the mop.

His shoulders hurt from working 18 hours straight, but the cold, heavy feeling in his stomach wasn't from work.

He walked down the narrow concrete hall behind the guard, his gray slippers sliding on the stone, eyes fixed on the three people waiting behind the wire mesh of Partition Four.

Paris Pentagon didn't look like she had spent a single night worrying about the court paper from the government, or the man who saved her family.

Behind her stood her mother, Beatrice Pentagon, and leaning against the steel pillar with his hands deep in his pockets was Richard Harrison, chewing on a wooden toothpick, flashing Chay a mocking glare.

Chay stopped two inches from the wire mesh.

He intentionally didn't speak.

He waited for Paris to look at him, really look at him, the way she used to when they sat together eating cold takeout food in the office after the accountants had gone home.

When Paris finally turned her face toward the partition, her eyes were as empty and cold as the prison floor he had just been scrubbing.

"You look thin, Chay," she said.

Her voice was cool with intent. It was the voice she used when she was firing a junior accountant for stealing money.

"I'm fine," Chay said.

His throat felt very dry.

"My son's second payment for the clinic was due yesterday. Did the trust send the money?”

Paris didn't answer immediately.

She reached into her expensive designer handbag and pulled out a small square box.

She didn't open it to show him directly. Instead, she tipped the box over and dumped it onto the metal tray.

A single silver band fell out.

It landed with a dull clatter on the metal and rolled a little before stopping on Chay's side of the barrier.

It was their engagement ring.

The one he had made from an old silver coin in a small workshop five years ago, back when they had nothing but ambition and twenty dollars for dinner.

"What's the meaning of this?" Chay asked, his voice dropping an octave.

Paris leaned forward, pressing her fingertips against the wire grid.

"It's over, Chay," she said, her tone as bright and cheerful as if she were canceling a subscription.

"The court sealed your confession six months ago. The Pentagon name is clean. The winery stock is up four hundred percent since Harrison Group bought our debt.”

“Do you really think I was going to spend the rest of my life tied to a federal inmate with a felon's serial number tattooed across his intake records?"

Richard Harrison chuckled behind her, removing the toothpick from his teeth to inspect the tip.

"Tell him about his boy, Paris," Richard said slowly, with the confidence of a man who had always been rich. "He's wasting our time. We have a private jet waiting in thirty minutes to take us to the Riviera.”

Chay slowly raised his hands and grabbed the cold iron of the partition.

"Paris," he whispered, and this time the name wasn't a question; it was a warning that rattled the glass in the adjacent booth. "Where is Leo? Did the payment go through to Geneva?"

Beatrice stepped up beside her daughter, her face full of hate.

"You stupid little rat," Beatrice hissed, her voice rising over the intercom.

"You thought you were a hero because you took the blame for the drug indictment? You were a tool. A cheap insurance policy to keep my daughter and me out of a federal prison while we restructured the winery board.”

“Why would we waste five hundred thousand dollars of family capital on a dying bastard child with your tainted blood?"

Paris Pentagon reached into her coat pocket again. This time, she didn't use the tray.

She pushed a folded card through the wire right into Chay's face, pressing it against his nose until he had to grab it.

"Read it," Paris said, her smile widening into something thin and cruel. "Read the letter from the municipal morgue. Your son stopped breathing three nights ago, Chay.”

"The doctors turned off life support when the hospital account ran out of money. They didn't even embalm him. They just buried him in a cheap grave behind the city cemetery.”

The world didn't go black; it went white.

A sharp ringing filled Chay's ears until the chatter of the guards and the laughter from the hallway vanished to the extent that he could not hear anything else.

His thirteen-year-old boy! Leo Patrick!!

"You… you all lied. You didn't keep to your end of the agreement." Chay breathed.

His voice wasn't loud. It was a dry rattle that made Beatrice pull back against Richard's shoulder.

"We didn't lie about anything except your usefulness," Paris cursed, turning her back on the partition and adjusting the collar of her champagne coat. "Come along, Richard. The air in here smells like poor people."

As Paris turned toward the exit, Chay didn't roar. He simply let go of his humanity the way a man drops a heavy stone into a deep well.

With a single, effortless jerk of his forearms, he pulled the reinforced steel wire of Partition Four toward him.

The heavy metal screeched as the wire mesh bent inward, the welds snapping like dry twigs.

The two guards at the end of the hall dropped their coffee mugs and drew their batons, shouting for reinforcement as they sprinted toward the booth.

"Stop right there! Drop your hands, prisoner!"

Chay didn't look at the guards.

His eyes were fixed entirely on the back of Paris Pentagon's head as she walked toward the doors of the visitor's exit.

His pupils were so wide his eyes looked almost black, empty of the kindness and mercy that used to be there.

He pressed his face against the wire mesh and spoke so low and scary that Richard Harrison instantly halted, his hand dropping to the gold ring on his thumb.

"Paris Pentagon," Chay said.

The full name echoed down the long hallway like a hammer hitting metal.

Paris turned her head back over her shoulder, her expression annoyed, expecting a final, pathetic plea for mercy.

Instead, she saw eyes as cold as ice.

"Enjoy your wedding," Chay whispered, every word heavy like never before.

"Enjoy the money, champagne, and white roses. I swear, before winter is over, I will take everything your family owns and destroy your husband's empire. And when you're on your knees begging me for bread, I will remind you of the boy you killed.”

"You're insane," Richard spat, pulling Paris by the elbow. "Get him off the glass, you useless wardens! Shoot him if you have to!"

Four guards hit Chay from behind, their heavy boots slamming into the back of his knees, sending him crashing down onto the concrete floor.

As the doors slammed shut behind the three visitors with an echoing thud, Chay lay strong on the floor.

His fingers slid forward through the dirt until his thumb touched the plain silver ring.

Ten minutes later, after the guards dragged him back to his segregation cell, threw him onto the cot, and slammed the door, leaving him in darkness.

The slot at the bottom of the door clicked. A small, dark object slid across the floor and stopped against his cot.

Chay reached down and picked it up. It wasn't a piece of bread.

It wasn't just a note from an inmate.

It was a military-grade satellite secure communicator, the kind issued exclusively to high-ranking officers in the Ministry of Defense and the supreme directors of the sovereign families.

A small green light blinked once in the darkness, and a cold voice hummed through the tiny speaker.

"The perimeter is clear, Your Excellency," a female voice murmured from the device, carrying an accent that belonged to the high courts of the capital.

"Great Heir, the Crystal Diamond Conglomerate is waiting for your order. And as for the boy…”

“Your son was extracted from the municipal hospital four hours before the certificate was signed. He is currently resting in a secure medical bay in Sector Zero.”