Chapter 90 Coban's POV

The day had been a fucking crawl.

Leo and I had hit the gym early, burning through every rep like it owed us something. Neither of us spoke much, just the sound of iron clanking and grunts echoing.

I drove myself into the kind of physical pain that drowned everything else out… until it didn’t. Until I was lying on that bench, sweat coating every inch of my skin, the weight rack empty in front of me, and my mind drifted to her again. My Bella. Margot.

Gone all goddamn day!

After dinner, I’d asked the guards, barked at them through the slot in the door like a lunatic. When the answers didn’t come, I even threatened one of them. The bastard still shrugged and said he didn’t know when the girls would be back, that the shuttle was still out, that I’d have to just sit back and wait.

Lights out was creeping in, and she still wasn’t fucking back. Was this going to be a regular thing now? Every Saturday spent pacing this fucking cell like a caged animal, wondering where she was, what they were doing to her, who she was with? Would it always feel this shitty?

I flopped onto the mattress, damp from the steam of my post-shower skin, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. The concrete wall was cool against my shoulder blades, but my nerves were too hot to be calmed.

This place was hell. Always had been. But Saturdays? Saturdays were something else now. They turned hell into purgatory.

I don’t know how long I sat there, half-leaning, half-waiting, eyes glued to the cell door like it might open just from the pressure of my stare. I told myself I wouldn’t sleep. That I’d stay up.

And then finally… fucking finally… the sound came. Commotion. Shuffling steps. Distant voices and the buzz of the door mechanisms activating in sequence.

I was already upright.

It didn’t take long before she stepped through the cell door, it sliding shut behind her, and for a moment, I just stared.

What the fuck…?

She looked different. Like a damn re-wrapped Barbie doll. Like someone had cracked her open and put her back together all shiny and untouched. Like a factory fucking reset!

Her hair fell down around her shoulders in soft, perfect curls, lighter than usual – almost honeyed as though she’d had it done… she must’ve had it done. Her skin was flushed, glowing in a way that didn’t exist in this place. And in her hands… a box. A brown, civilized-looking box.

Like she’d just gotten back from a spa weekend instead of a full day out in a maximum-security inmate experiment. She hesitated at the door, holding it like it might anchor her.

Her eyes flicked to mine, and her mouth curled into this soft smile like it was all okay. Like we were okay. But that smile didn’t land. I was still caught on the thing peeking out from beneath the box. That soft, pale-blue tee hugging her chest.

It wasn’t grey. It wasn’t the color I told her to fucking wear.

“Hey, Coban…” she started, all gentle, like she could feel the tension rolling off me.

“What is that?” I cut her off sharply, stepping forward, eyes narrowing on the neckline of that goddamn shirt.

Her smile faltered. A flicker of disappointment crossed her face. Was it because I didn’t compliment her? Because I didn’t fall to my knees over her new hair?

Tough fucking luck. I needed answers first.

“What?” she blinked at me, pretending not to understand, but my steps were already closing the gap between us.

“Give me this,” I muttered, snatching the box from her arms and placing it on the desk to my left, not once breaking eye contact. My voice dropped a degree. “That.”

I pointed directly to her chest, like the answer might leap off her collarbones.

She swallowed hard. “Oh… I was going to talk to you about that…”

“Were you?” I arched a brow. “Best get to talking then.”

Her shoulders curled inward slightly as I towered above her, arms folding across my chest.

“Well, they offered out some extra clothes when we were leaving,” she mumbled, brushing her hair from her face, “but there was nothing grey… so I picked something I thought was more dull. A color you wouldn’t mind. I needed more tees if it gets warm again like it did the other day…”

I exhaled slowly. “I see… and is that the only color you chose? Or am I going to open that fucking box and find pink shit again?”

She jolted upright, eyes wide, shaking her head. “No! Only blue! I promise.”

“Okay then…” I said flatly, though nothing in me was okay. “And what the fuck took you so long to get back here too?”

The question sliced through the space between us like glass. I knew it wasn’t her fault but my patience had died around an hour ago, and I was too wound up to pretend otherwise.

“I’m not sure,” she said softly, “they just said that’s when we’d be leaving. It is pretty late…”

She was trying to keep her voice even, trying not to trigger something in me, but that answer didn’t work.

“Let’s see what you have in here then…” I muttered, as I moved to peel back the lid of the box.

I glanced over the contents, finding two books sat neatly on top of a stack of folded pale-blue clothes.

Fucking books…

“They had a library,” she said quietly from behind me. “So I checked out a couple more to have here.”

I hummed, thumbing the corner of one, not really caring what the hell it was. Some romance crap, no doubt. I didn’t even need to ask.

Then I turned to face her again.

“So tell me, Bella. How did my first report go?”

Her expression didn’t change. No panic. No guilt. Just calm.

“It was good,” she said. “Really easy to do, actually. They had us type the answers on a computer system. I wrote good things about you, you don’t have to worry.”

I studied her face, waiting for a twitch, a crack in the mask – but there wasn’t one.

Was she being truthful? She actually gave me a good report?

I suddenly felt like a bastard.

She’d come back here… radiant. Brighter than I’d ever seen her. Lighter. As if for a day, she wasn’t buried under the shit of this place. And here I was, dragging her straight back down.

I didn’t want her to forget where she was.

But fuck… maybe I didn’t have to remind her so harshly either.

“Your hair looks good…” I said, forcing the words out past the tightness in my throat.

Because it did. She looked fucking breathtaking. Her skin. Her eyes. Her goddamn lips.

Too good for this place…

“Thank you…” she whispered, her face softening, eyes searching mine with that small, uncertain smile that killed me every time.

This girl would be the fucking death of me.