The Most Feared Woman in Prison Threw Her Food on the Floor and Ordered the New Girl to Pick It Up—Then She Whispered “24701,” and the Entire Cafeteria Went Silent!

I wanted to run straight to the warden and demand to know where Leah was. Morgane Vale blocked the laundry doorway before I took two steps.

"You want her dead?" she asked.

"Is that your threat or somebody else's?"

She glanced toward Gloria, who had suddenly become interested in folding towels. "Keep walking. Talk without moving your lips."

We crossed the hall toward the library. Morgane was close enough to make us look like enemies.

"You think Redhaven is the whole operation," she said. "It's just the starting point. The invoices leave here, and the money goes through three companies."

"How do you know?"

"I used to handle transport manifests. I followed orders. I told myself the women were going to a licensed treatment center. Then one of them came back unable to look me in the eye."

"Gloria?"

"Before Gloria. A woman named Simone."

We passed a guard. Morgane raised her voice. "And stay out of my seat tomorrow, new girl!"

In the library she sat at a chessboard and moved a piece. Her hands shook beneath the table.

"Your sister came here with printed invoices. I was cleaning a hallway when she refused to leave without the women she'd found. Fitch locked her in a holding room."

"Did you see her afterward?"

"Once. She gave me a name and told me to remember it in case she didn't get out."

"What name?"

"Leon Varrick. The man who owns the companies."

I knew him. Varrick's firm operated the records office I'd broken into. He'd sat in the courtroom at my sentencing and watched me with the blank expression of someone inspecting damaged property.

Morgane tipped her king onto the board. "I tried to get a note out. It never made it past the mailroom."

"What happened to Leah?"

Morgane stared at the fallen piece. "They put her on a transfer truck. No handcuffs. She walked by herself because Fitch promised they'd release the other women."