The San Quentin prison cafeteria is a place where the air is heavy. It smells of stale sweat, burnt beans, and, above all, fear. But that afternoon, the fear had a different taste. It was metallic, like when you accidentally bite your tongue.
Ivan “The Russian” Petrov didn’t know that taste. Or at least, he thought he didn’t. Standing nearly two meters tall and weighing 120 kilos of pure injected muscle, he had entered the prison just three days earlier with the label of “alpha predator.” In his mind, prison wasn’t a punishment; it was a market, and he was there to be the manager.