He gestured to a pitcher and a glass, already sweating on a silver tray. I glared at it as if it might bite me.
“I don’t need anything from you,” I said. The effort cost me; my voice trembled at the edges, but I held his gaze. “And I will never belong to you.”
He stood up, brushed invisible lint from his lapel, and leaned over until I could smell the expensive aftershave he wore. “You will belong to whoever wins. You have no other options.” His words buzzed through my skin, setting my nerves on fire.
He straightened and nodded to my father. “See that she’s kept under close watch tonight. I want her delivered in presentable condition to the Council.”
Declan gripped my upper arm, steering me to my feet. The hallway outside the office was even colder than before. The lights turned down for the night, but no less oppressive. The walk to the guest suite was a blur. My body floated behind Declan’s grip, and every step echoed down the corridor like a countdown.
Inside the room, he shoved me onto the bed and stood over me, looming. “You will make us proud tomorrow. That is your duty. Do you understand?”
I didn’t answer.
He slapped me again, not as hard as before but just as sharp, a reminder that my body belonged to him until someone took it away. “Do. You. Understand?”
I tasted blood and stared up at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a nod.
He left without another word. I heard the key turn in the lock, then his footsteps fading down the hall.
I lay there a long time, staring at the ceiling, tracing the pattern of the chandelier’s arms with my eyes. It was hard to believe that, just days ago, I’d been teaching music to a classroom full of children. Harder still to believe that there was any world beyond this suite, this prison of velvet and bone.
But the bond was still there, a thin thread burning through the fog, pulsing in my veins like a beacon. I reached for it, even though the silver had dulled it to an ache. I closed my eyes and sent out a single, desperate plea:
Bridger. Please.
It echoed in the empty cavern of my skull, but the thread flickered in response. Distant, faint, but not gone.
I let the tears come then, silent and hot, burning tracks down my face as I gripped the bedspread with fingers that still shook. I’d always known the odds were against me. But there was comfort in defiance. In knowing that, even now, I could choose whether or not to break.
I pressed my face into the pillow, and through the haze of exhaustion and pain, I made myself a promise.
They would never see me bow.
Not to them.
Not ever.
Chapter 15
Menace
I’d seen men go to pieces before, and it always took me by surprise which ones did. Bronc wasn’t a man built for coming apart; he was the kind you expected to survive nuclear fire and walk out with his hair only slightly out of place. But the phone call from Arsenal had pushed him to the brink. After what had happened when he’d lost Juliet just weeks ago, he’d been a man on the edge. He hung up, then spent a minute circling the perimeter of our suite, shoulders so tight it looked like he’d tear through his suit jacket. When he dialed back, I thought the phone itself might dissolve under the strain of his grip.
I sat on the edge of the sofa, hands resting on my knees, body so still it might have belonged to a corpse. I watched Bronc pace, watched the cords in his neck stand out, his mouth opening and closing like he was chewing through iron wire. There was a subtle tremor in his hands—a new thing, and one I catalogued with silent dread.
“Please explain to me how you fucking lost her,” he spat into the phone, barely waiting for Arsenal to say hello. The voice coming out of the speaker was measured and slow, but Bronc cut him off at every turn. “You had one job, Jess. One. Fucking. Job. Did you forget how to watch a goddamn door?” A pause, then: “I don’t care about the cameras. What happened with Karen Day?”
He stalked to the window, jaw flexing. Arsenal’s voice had the calm of a man who knew it wasn’t his fault and wasn’t about to get rattled by someone else’s panic. “She set her up?” Bronc bellowed, slamming the heel of his hand against the glass. “And you just let it happen? How the fuck did she even know who Savannahwas?”
It sounded like Arsenal was pacing as well. “Apparently she has a cousin who’s a member of an East pack. It seems word had gotten around that Savannah had been on the run, and the gossipy bitch and Karen put two and two together. She saw an opportunity to rid herself of her roadblock to Menace, and she fucking took it. She had all the admin keys, alarm codes, and so she could set it up before we had a chance to know what happened. Savannah was gone before I could even get to the rear lot. There was a van waiting.”
“Did you get a plate?”
“Covered with mud. But it’s in the security surveillance log.”
Bronc’s eyes slid to me. I met them and shook my head: not worth killing the messenger. He looked back at the phone. “Do we have eyes on the airport? Has the jet left?”
“Gone thirty minutes ago. Decoy SUV stayed parked, but I checked the tarmac myself. She’s in the air.”
