Or perhaps he had escaped. Nobody was really sure.

Not even Selina.

She gazed up at Blackgate’s forbidding gray walls and watchtowers as she was escorted into the facility, wearing an absolutely hideous orange jumpsuit. Her long brown hair was tied back behind her head. A pair of steel handcuffs accessorized her convict garb. She would have preferred a pair of diamond bracelets.

After being processed, she was led down the middle of a multi-level cell block. Rows of inmates, locked in their cells, hooted and hollered at her as though they had never seen a woman before. Obscene jeers, whistles, and catcalls followed her down the length of the long, dreary corridor. They rattled their cages like monkeys in a zoo.

She had always liked the big cats better.

The guard in charge of the block looked askance at his new prisoner.

“We’re locking her up in here?”

Selina was the only female prisoner in sight. This part of Blackgate wasn’t exactly co-ed.

“The Dent Act allows non-segregation based on extraordinary need,” the warden explained. He kept a close eye on her. “First time she broke out of a women’s correctional, she was sixteen.”

Fifteen, she thought, but I looked mature for my age.

A hulking convict—who was as ugly as he was muscle-bound—groped for her through the bars of his cage. Pudgy fingers strained to reach to her. He licked his lips, practically drooling like a dog in heat.

“Little closer, baby,” he said coarsely.

“Why, honey,” she purred, “you wanna hold my hand?”

Making it easy for him, she slipped his greedy hands between her own handcuffed ones, and then executed a flawless cartwheel, snapping both of his arms.

Bone splintered noisily and the steroid case shrieked in agony even as the guards rushed to separate them.

She landed on her feet and kept on walking, not missing a step.

The hoots and whistles died away.

“She’ll be just fine,” the warden predicted.

The elevator let Fox and Miranda off on the top floor of Wayne Tower. They strolled toward the executive boardroom.

“I don’t see the need for a board meeting on the energy project,” he protested. He didn’t have time for a meeting right now, not when he was still dealing with the raid on Applied Sciences. Even a partial inventory of all the prototypes that had gone missing was enough to keep him up at night. He didn’t like to think about those inventions falling into the wrong hands.

“Bruce got a lot of things right,” Miranda said. “Keeping the board in the dark wasn’t one of them.”

Lucius wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but Miranda was president of Wayne Enterprises now, so he needed to respect her opinion. Bracing himself for a contentious exchange, he politely opened the door to the boardroom and escorted her inside.

Where he found a different kind of meeting already in progress.

The board members sat around the conference table, ashen and trembling. Armed intruders held them captive at gunpoint, while an intimidating masked figure occupied the head of the table. Lucius recognized him as the same ruthless killer who had staged the raid on the stock exchange, wiping out Bruce Wayne’s fortune. Newspaper reports on the attack had identified him as a notorious mercenary known only as Bane.