Chapter 112 Coban’s POV

For a second, I considered that maybe I’d said too much… Let her in too quickly… The words still echoed in the room – reminding me of how vulnerable I had just been with her… My chest was tight, the ghost of my father’s grip clawing through me as if time hadn’t passed at all. But then her voice came in a soft tremble, hesitant like she knew she was stepping onto fragile ground.

“So when I told you that my own father gave me that bruise on my face before I came here…” Her voice trailed off, the memory of it hanging there. That yellowing-blue mark on her cheek. The way she’d tried to brush it off when we first met. I gave a single nod. “Yeah,” I rasped, my throat thick. “I could relate more than I let on.”

I held her gaze, silent. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. She was finally putting the pieces together, pulling my shadows into the light with her bare hands. And worse? She still wasn’t afraid, not entirely. She was reaching to help me. Her lips parted, a flicker of understanding in her expression that twisted something deep inside me.

“But your father…” I continued, my tone hardening against the words. My jaw clenched as the thought dug in, ugly and cold. “Your father is much worse! Hitting a tiny girl like you.” My brows furrowed, the image of her much smaller, defenseless self flashing in my head. “Takes a special kind of coward to do that.”

Her eyes darted down for the briefest second, and I knew exactly what crossed her mind. The hypocrisy. Because I had hurt her too. Exactly the way her father had before. Not on purpose, sure, but intent doesn’t erase the marks she was left with, and the bandage wrapped around her neck was proof enough of that. My chest heaved once, the weight of her gaze dragging me under.

I wanted to tell her more. Wanted her to know that when I had her pinned that morning, I hadn’t seen her at all. I’d seen him. The bastard who broke me first.

“That doesn’t make your abuse okay either… just because you were a boy.” Margot nods in finality at her own words. “He shouldn’t have hit you.”

I shifted my stance, dragging a hand back through my damp hair, trying to force the storm back down. “That doesn’t matter now…” I shook my head.

She leaned in, voice trembling but steady enough to land like a punch. “It matters. To me, it does.”

Those four words tore through every wall I’d ever built. It matters to me. No one had ever said that. Not like that. Not about me. For half a second, I let it land. Let myself feel it. Did she seriously care?

I wanted to give her something back—comfort, truth, maybe even another apology that wasn’t dragged out of me like pulling teeth. I wanted her to know I wasn’t just some monster waiting to snap at her again. But the old instincts won out. The same instincts that had kept me alive this long.

Shut down. Don’t give them the weapons to use against you. Don’t let anyone too close.

“Coban…” she spoke, eyes searching mine.

“Doesn’t matter now though, it was in the past…” I muttered, the words rough and clipped, sealing the crack before it spread too wide. She frowned, confusion and hurt flickering over her face, and I hated it. Hated that I was the cause of it.

“But you still see him regularly, don’t you? That must be hard…” Margot states, and I couldn’t stand how pitiful she looked. I didn’t need a pity party. Not anymore.

“Doesn’t matter,” I repeated, firmer this time, putting weight behind it like I could bury the moment six feet deep.

I pushed off the wall, dragging the towel from my shoulders and tossing it onto the chair. My body ached, the workout still simmering in my muscles, but the ache in my chest was worse.

“We should get ready,” I said flatly, my tone sliding back into familiar territory. “Leo and Cara’ll be waiting at dinner.”

She opened her mouth like she wanted to argue, to keep tugging at the thread I was desperately trying to cut. But she stopped. She just sat there, braid hanging over her shoulder, book still loose in her hands. I didn’t look at her again. Couldn’t.

‘You still see him regularly…’

‘That must be hard…’

She had cracked the code to all of my pent-up anger and hatred already, and it was only the end of week one!

I eventually glanced at her once, sitting there sideways on the bed with her book still in her lap. She hadn’t flipped a page in minutes. Her eyes weren’t on the words anymore, they were purely on me.

I jerked my chin toward the door. “Come on.”

She closed the book, moving to put it back in its spot. She didn’t say anything, but her silence wasn’t empty. It was loaded with more information, more questions I wasn’t prepared to answer right now…

We stepped out into the corridor, the clang of the cell door closing again behind us. The walk to dinner was short, but every step stretched like a mile. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, the smell of bleach and sweat heavy in the air, girls rushing around to keep up with their inmates. I kept my stride slow enough for her to match me, though I didn’t say a damn word about anything else – especially not out here.

She glanced up at me once, quick. Her voice was small, but steady. “So… when you said it didn’t matter back there…”

I stiffened, eyes fixed straight ahead.

She went on anyway. “It matters to me. What you said. What you told me about your father, thanks for being honest.”

My jaw tightened.

“It makes sense now,” she added softly, “why you looked at me the way you did when I told you about mine. You understood. More than I thought.”

I swallowed hard, my muscles flexing against her words.

She exhaled, her shoulders slumping just slightly. “I just… I want you to know you can talk to me about it… I’ll understand.”

That one hit harder than I wanted it to.

“I told you before, I don’t need you to be my fucking therapist, Bella, I’m fine now. He doesn’t intimidate me anymore.” I pause my stride to look down at her, ensuring she heard me loud and clear.

“I get it, but talking does help, and clearly… he still haunts your dreams.” She whispered carefully, taking a small step backwards, but I noticed it. She was unsure if she had crossed a line. Nervous about it.

I slid a hand over the back of my neck, flexing my fingers against the tension knotted there. “Not everything needs saying,” I muttered. “Some shit’s better left where it belongs—in the past.”

She didn’t argue this time, just gave a little nod and a sigh, like she understood… even if she didn’t agree.