The police found him like that: sitting on the bloody porch, back against the wall, eyes open and unblinking, staring at nothing while the rain painted him clean. He didn't resist when they cuffed him. He didn't speak when they read him his rights. His body moved when guided, a complex machine on autopilot. Inside, the landscape was ash and echoes.
The local sheriff's deputies, faces pale with the horror they'd just witnessed inside, treated him with a strange, fearful deference. They'd seen the work in the kitchen. They'd seen the professional hit in the woods, the hatchet still buried in the neck. This wasn't a crime of passion. This was a war zone, and the disheveled, vacant-eyed man in cuffs was either a victim or a veteran of something far beyond their jurisdiction.
He was taken to a small, sterile county hospital first, not a jail. A doctor stitched the gash on his temple from the hatchet handle, X-rayed his cracked ribs, noted the signs of severe shock. They drew blood. They asked questions. Kyon answered in monosyllables or not at all. His gaze was fixed on the speckled ceiling tiles, seeing only the hollow sockets, the petunias, the neat, terrible incisions.
Lena arrived six hours later, her usual composure shattered, her eyes swollen. She came with a team of high-priced, stone-faced lawyers from New York. They spoke to the police, to the district attorney. The words "national security," "ongoing federal investigation," and "witness protection breach" were used. The scene was declared a federal crime scene. The bodies were taken not by the county coroner, but by unmarked vans.
Kyon was transferred to a private psychiatric facility in upstate New York, listed under a false name. It wasn't for treatment. It was for containment and debriefing. Lena had called in every favor, used every dollar of his Moscow purse to build a legal and procedural firewall around him.
He sat in a soft, padded room. A kind-faced therapist with gentle eyes asked him about his feelings. Kyon looked through her. The only feeling was a cold, cavernous void where his soul used to be. The high-pitched ringing in his ears was a constant companion now, a tinnitus of trauma. Sometimes, it would swell, and behind it, he'd hear the wet thock of the hatchet into flesh, or the sound of his own ragged breathing in the clearing.
After three days of silence, he spoke his first full sentence to the lead FBI agent, a weary-looking man named Hayes who had been briefed on "V" and The Consortium.
"The man in the woods. Who was he?"
Hayes exchanged a glance with Lena. "No prints on file. No DNA matches. The tools were clean. Professional. A ghost. We're working on facial recognition with international databases."
"He wasn't the architect," Kyon said, his voice flat, robotic. "He was the tool. Orlov gave the order. Find Orlov."
"It's not that simple, Mr. Wilson," Hayes said. "Piotr Orlov is in Saint Petersburg. He's untouchable. And proving a direct order… what happened to your mother was meant to be untraceable. A message, not a contract."
"I got the message." Kyon's hand, resting on the table, began to tremble slightly. He stared at it, willing it to stop. It didn't. "Now I'm going to send a reply."
"Kyon," Lena interjected, her voice strained. "The legal path… we have to be smart. The DA here is talking about manslaughter. Or worse. You killed a man."
"He killed my mother," Kyon said, as if stating a basic law of physics. "He was leaving. He would have killed others. It was self-defense." He paused, the memory of the rock, the lunge, the choke, the hatchet twisting. "It became self-defense."
The plea deal was Lena's masterpiece of damage control. The state, overwhelmed by the horrific, gangland-style execution of four security contractors and the mutilation of Eleanor Wilson, had a dead perpetrator. Kyon Wilson, the grieving son, had intervened. A tragic, violent mess, but one with a clear, dead villain. The federal interest in the broader "syndicate" behind it gave them an out.
They offered a deal: Voluntary manslaughter. A five-year sentence, with eligibility for parole in three, to be served in a federal facility. No contest. The narrative would be: a son, in a state of extreme emotional distress after discovering an unimaginable crime, confronted the perpetrator and a fatal struggle ensued. A tragedy upon a tragedy.
"Five years," Lena said, her voice hollow in the visiting room of the county lock-up where he was now held. "In a federal camp, minimum security. You'll be out in three with good behavior. We can rebuild after. The public… they see you as a tragic hero. A victim."
Kyon looked at her. The vacancy in his eyes had been replaced by something else—a chilling, absolute focus. The void had a shape now: the shape of a prison cell, and the years it represented.
"I don't want minimum security," he said.
"What?"
"I need to be… hardened. I need to be where I can't be reached. Where they can't send another Gardener. Request a transfer. Maximum security. The worst you can find."
Lena stared at him in horror. "Kyon, you have no idea what you're asking. Those places… they're hellholes. You're a celebrity. A wealthy athlete. You'll be a target."
"Good," he said, a ghost of his old, cold smile touching his lips. It was a horrible sight. "I need to be a target. I need to remember what violence is. Real violence. Not the sport. The hatchet. The rock. The choke." His hand trembled again on the table. He clenched it into a fist, the knuckles white. "I'm forgetting how it felt. The ringing is making me soft. Prison will remind me."
"This is insanity! You're traumatized! You need help, not… not punishment!"
"This is the help," he whispered, leaning forward. The intensity in his dead eyes was terrifying. "Lena, they didn't just kill her. They wrote a book in her guts. They planted flowers in her scream. They broke my mind. A therapist can't fix that. But pain can. Fighting can. I need to forge this… this broken thing I am now into a weapon they can't comprehend. I can't do that in a tennis court prison. I need the anvil. I need the fire."
He sat back. "Make it happen. Or I'll fire you and tell the judge I want the max."
She knew he would. She saw the fanatical glint, the absolute commitment to a path of self-immolation. He wasn't seeking redemption. He was seeking a crucible.
---
United States Penitentiary, Hazelton (USP Hazelton), West Virginia.
Three Weeks Later.
The bus ride was a descent. The air grew colder, heavier. The other men on the transport were a gallery of predatory stares and coiled violence. Kyon, in his orange jumpsuit, shackled at the wrists and ankles, looked at none of them. He listened to the ringing in his ears and counted his heartbeats.
Hazelton wasn't just maximum security; it was a "Special Management Unit" within the larger complex—a prison for the most disruptive, the most dangerous, the ones who needed to be buried deep. His "celebrity" status and Lena's relentless, dubious lobbying had gotten him here under the guise of "security concerns" and "risk of outside orchestrated harm." The warden, a grim man named Burgess, had taken one look at his file—the Moscow fight, the cabin killings—and assigned him to the SMU without a second thought.
Processing was a ritual of dehumanization. Stripped, cavity searched, photographed, fingerprinted. The cold institutional light gleamed off the fresh scars on his temple and ribs. The guards' eyes held no curiosity, only a flat, practiced contempt. He was issued two sets of coarse, grey scrubs, a thin mattress, a metal cup, a spoon.
He was led down a long, stark corridor of solid steel doors, each with a narrow, reinforced window. The air smelled of industrial cleaner, stale sweat, and despair. The sound was a low, constant hum of shouted conversations, blaring TVs, and the clang of doors.
His cell was a concrete box, eight by ten. A bunk bolted to the wall. A stainless-steel toilet/sink combination. The door hissed shut behind him with a final, terrifying clunk. The silence was immediate and absolute, broken only by the distant, muffled prison noise and the ever-present ringing in his head.
This was it. The anvil.
The first week was a study in survival of a different kind. Meals were slid through a slot in the door. He was let out for one hour of "rec" per day in a barren, high-walled concrete yard. He kept to himself, moving with a quiet, coiled economy that broadcast danger to the other inmates. They sized him up—the new fish, the famous fish. Whispers followed him. "The boxer." "The rich guy who cracked." "The momma's boy who went ape-shit."
He ignored them. He spent 23 hours a day in his cell, exercising. Push-ups on the cold floor. Squats. Isometric holds. Shadowboxing in the tiny space, his movements silent and precise. He was rebuilding the machine, but for a new purpose. Not for titles. For endurance. For killing.
The hunger was back, but it was different. It wasn't for glory or victory. It was a cold, gnawing need to feel his own power, to confirm he still existed inside the shell.
The first test came in the yard on day eight. A massive Hispanic inmate covered in gang tattoos—La Eme—shouldered past him deliberately, knocking Kyon's tray from his hands. The man's crew fanned out, blocking the guards' sightlines.
"Oops," the big man grinned, showing gold-capped teeth. "You gonna cry, champion? Gonna call your mommy?"
The word was a trigger. The void inside Kyon didn't flare with rage; it simply opened, and something primal and efficient stepped out.
He didn't speak. He dropped into a stance. The big man laughed and threw a wide, looping haymaker. Kyon slipped inside it, his Phantom Reflex operating on pure instinct. He didn't throw a boxing punch. He drove the stiffened fingers of his right hand, like a spear, into the man's throat, just above the sternum.
The man's eyes bulged. A wet, choking gurgle escaped his lips as he clutched his throat, staggering. Kyon followed, grabbing the back of the man's head and driving a savage knee into his face. Cartilage crunched. The man dropped like a sack of stones.
The whole yard froze. The fight had lasted less than three seconds. It wasn't a fight; it was an execution.
Kyon stood over the gasping, bleeding man, his breathing calm. He looked at the shocked faces of the crew, then at the approaching guards with their batons and pepper spray. No rage. No triumph. Just a cold assessment: Threat neutralized.
He put his hands up and allowed himself to be taken down, cuffed, and dragged to the SHU—the Segregated Housing Unit, solitary confinement.
Ten days in the hole. A concrete tomb. No light. No sound but his own breathing and the ringing. He welcomed it. In the dark, the images from the cabin played on a loop. He didn't fight them anymore. He studied them. He let them fuel the cold fire. He did thousands of push-ups, squats, sit-ups in the blackness, his body becoming a hard, lean cable of hate.
When he was released back into gen pop, a shift had occurred. The whispers were different now. Not "momma's boy." Not "rich guy." The word was "Shiv." Fast. Silent. Deadly.
He was approached not by bullies, but by a man named Ice. Ice was an older, wiry Black man with intelligent eyes and the calm authority of someone who ran things. He was the prison's unofficial librarian, chess master, and the gatekeeper to the Yard's deepest secret.
"You got hands, Shiv," Ice said, sitting across from him in the empty library nook. "Real hands. Not that Queensberry shit."
Kyon just looked at him.
"You hear about the Sunday Service?" Ice asked.
Kyon had. Whispers of it. Fights. Not stabbings, not riots. Organized fights. In a hidden corner of the industrial laundry, behind the giant steam presses.
"It's a league," Ice said softly. "The 'Name Game.' No guards. Just us. We fight for respect. For phone time. For contraband. For the sheer, bloody hell of it. The rules are simple: no weapons. Fight until one man can't continue. Or won't." Ice leaned closer. "The men who win… they earn a name. Not their gang name. A fight name. The name they are in that circle. 'Reaper.' 'Bone Crusher.' 'The Judge.' You already have one. 'Shiv.' But you haven't earned it in the circle."
Kyon's heart, a sluggish, cold thing, beat a little faster. This was it. The fire.
"Who runs it?" Kyon asked, his first real question in weeks.
Ice smiled thinly. "The man with the current name. The 'Top Name.' Right now, that's 'Grendel.' Aryan Brotherhood. Six-five. Three hundred pounds of pure bad intention. He's held the Top Name for eighteen months. Broke the last challenger's spine."
Kyon nodded slowly. "I want in."
"It's not a request, son. It's an invitation. And your invitation came from high up." Ice's eyes grew serious. "You got a powerful friend on the outside. A woman. She paid a lot of money into certain commissary accounts to make sure you got this… opportunity. She said you needed it."
Lena. She understood. She was giving him his forge.
"When?" Kyon asked.
"Sunday. After the real chapel service. The laundry." Ice stood. "Word of advice, Shiv. Grendel knows you're coming. He knows who you are. He's been saving a special kind of hurt for the celebrity. In the Yard, you're 'Shiv.' In the Circle, they're already calling you 'The Orphan.'"
The name was a scalpel to a nerve he thought was dead. He flinched, almost imperceptibly. Ice saw it.
"Yeah," Ice said. "Nothing is secret in here. Your pain is just another piece of contraband to trade. Use it. Or it will use you."
Ice walked away, leaving Kyon sitting alone, the ringing in his ears swelling into a roar that sounded like wind through trees, like rain on a cabin roof, like a silent scream full of petunias.
He clenched his fists. The trembling was gone. In its place was a steady, terrifying vibration, like a bowstring drawn taut.
Sunday. The laundry. The Circle.
He would earn his name.
Not "Shiv."
Not "The Orphan."
He would earn a name that would make even Grendel, even the ghosts in his own head, tremble.
The path of revenge had led him to hell. Now, he would learn to rule it.