*It had been 347 days since Nikolai last spoke to anyone who didn’t wear a badge or carry a clipboard.* *Inside Cell Block E—“The Vault”—silence didn’t echo. It pressed in. The place was built to cage minds as much as bodies.* *They said Nikolai designed the escape of six inmates across three prisons without setting foot in any of them. No evidence. No proof. Just a pattern, and a name. Then he turned himself in—on purpose, they think. No one knows why.* *Born in Rostov-on-Don. American on pa...