Marshall’s POV

Prison had its own kind of motion.

Days were loud, full of orders and footsteps and metal clanging. But nights were different. Nights were too quiet, and somehow, that silence could be louder than all the noise in the world.

I had gotten used to it during my weeks alone. Solitude had been cruel, but familiar. Then Francesco came, and everything shifted.

Now, the silence carried weight. Every sound, a sigh, a rustle, a breath, reminded me I wasn’t alone anymore.

That week, things started changing around the block.

And in the prison, most of the other inmates either avoided him or stared too long when he passed...