Chapter 484: Birth Of Resentment...

"You’re in prison now."

Another blow landed against his ribs.

"We’re the ones who make the rules."

Damien coughed violently as another wave of pain spread through his battered body. His fingers trembled against the cold concrete as he struggled to push himself upright, but before he could gather enough strength, a heavy kick struck his side and sent him rolling helplessly onto his back.

The impact drove the remaining air from his lungs, leaving him gasping as agony radiated through his ribs. For several seconds, he could do nothing except lie there and struggle to breathe while the three inmates stood over him with expressions that held neither sympathy nor hesitation.

The largest of the three eventually crouched beside him. His thick fingers seized Damien by the hair and roughly lifted his head from the floor, forcing his battered face upward. Damien’s swollen eye barely remained open, and the blurred figure before him seemed to sway in his vision. The inmate stared directly into his eyes, his expression carrying the cold certainty of someone who had delivered the same lesson to countless newcomers.

"Remember this. You don’t have money here." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

His palm suddenly cracked against Damien’s face. The slap echoed through the corridor, snapping Damien’s head to the side and sending another burst of pain through his already swollen cheek. Before he could recover, the inmate continued.

"You don’t have influence here."

Another slap followed, harder than the first. Damien’s head jerked in the opposite direction, and the metallic taste of blood immediately filled his mouth.

"And nobody gives a damn about your family."

The inmate’s expression hardened as he stared into Damien’s eyes, making certain that every word sank in. "In this place, we’re the bosses."

He finally released Damien’s hair, allowing his head to fall heavily against the concrete. The back of Damien’s skull struck the floor with a dull impact, leaving his vision spinning once again. The inmate rose to his feet and looked down at him with open contempt.

"So you either learn to bow your head, or somebody will keep putting you on this floor until you do."

With that, the three men turned around and walked away. Their footsteps gradually faded down the corridor, leaving behind only the faint sounds of prison life resuming around them. The inmates who had gathered to watch the beating slowly returned to whatever they had been doing. Some continued their conversations, others went back to their bunks, and a few merely glanced at Damien before losing interest. The brief entertainment was over, and with it went whatever small amount of attention he had received.

Nobody approached him. Nobody offered him a hand. Nobody asked whether he was still conscious or whether he needed help.

Nobody cared.

For several long seconds, Damien remained motionless on the floor. His entire body throbbed with pain, and every breath sent a sharp ache through his ribs.

His cheek had already begun to swell beneath the repeated blows, while blood continued to trickle slowly from his split lip and stain the concrete beneath his face. His body was covered in injuries, but somehow, the physical pain seemed insignificant compared with the humiliation burning inside his mind.

He had never imagined that he could be treated this way.

Damien had grown up surrounded by wealth, influence, and people who were willing to bend over backward to accommodate him. Even when he had behaved arrogantly, there had always been someone willing to tolerate it because of his family name.

His mistakes could be covered with money, his problems could be solved through connections, and his displeasure had always been treated as something worth addressing.

Blackridge had stripped all of that away in a matter of days.

Here, his surname meant nothing. His money meant nothing. The people he once considered beneath him had no reason to fear him, and the people who had once rushed to his side were nowhere to be found. For the first time in his life, Damien had been forced to confront a world in which he possessed no special privileges.

He should have been furious at the men who had beaten him.

He should have hated them for what they had done.

Yet, as he lay there staring blankly at the concrete, his thoughts slowly drifted somewhere else.

Sophie.

The image of her face surfaced in his mind with painful clarity. He remembered the way she had looked at him, the calm indifference in her eyes, and the complete lack of hesitation when she rejected him. She had not cared about his wealth or his family. She had not been impressed by the things that had always made other people treat him differently. To Sophie, Damien had simply been another man whose feelings she did not share.

That memory hurt more than he wanted to admit.

His fingers slowly curled against the concrete.

Then another face appeared in his mind.

’Stan. That bastard.’

The man who had interfered. The man who had humiliated him.

The man who had somehow appeared in Sophie’s life and stood between Damien and what he believed should have been his.

Damien’s jaw tightened despite the pain.

The memories began overlapping in his mind. Sophie’s rejection. Stan’s interference. The humiliation he had suffered. His arrest. His imprisonment. The beating he had just endured. Every unpleasant event seemed to connect itself to the two people he had already come to resent.

In the distorted logic of his mind, the responsibility for everything that had happened to him had already been transferred onto them.

It was because of them.

If Sophie had simply accepted him, none of this would have happened. If Stan had never appeared in his life, Damien would never have been humiliated. If neither of them had stood in his way, he would never have ended up inside Blackridge, lying helplessly on a filthy concrete floor while complete strangers beat him as though he were nothing more than a worthless animal.

The possibility that his own decisions had played a major role in his downfall never seriously entered his thoughts. His pride refused to accept it. Rather than examine his own actions, Damien’s mind searched for someone else to blame, someone who could carry the weight of his anger and humiliation.

It found Sophie and it found Stan.