Page 94 of Gather the Storm

“This is a delivery from your father,” he said.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“You’ve made it clear you’re ready to be on your own.” There was a note of superiority in his voice, and a note of triumph too, like he’d won a game I hadn’t realized we’d been playing. “Your father has decided to support you in that decision by sending your things.”

“What things?”

“Your furniture, photographs, clothing,” he said. “Your things.”

“Oh, okay. I, um… I’m not really ready for them here but I guess I can store them in one of the rooms we’re not working on,” I said.

“Good,” Calvin said. “Just tell the men where to put everything. Your father has covered the cost.”

I nodded, wondering if he expected me to say thank you.

“I’ll need your key,” Calvin said. “And your credit cards.”

“My… key? To what?” I was really confused.

“To your father’s house,” Calvin said.

I was beginning to understand. This wasn’t a gesture of kindness from my father, an attempt to make sure I had all the comforts of home.

This was a punishment for living with the Beasts.

“To my house, you mean.” I heard the bitterness in my own voice.

“If that’s how you prefer to see it,” Calvin said. He held out his hand. “In any event, your key?”

“I’ll have to go get it,” I said.

“I’ll wait.”

I wanted to smack the smug expression off his face, but I felt my eyes sting with tears and I wasn’t about to give Calvin the satisfaction of reporting back to my father that I’d cried when he’d done my dad’s dirty work.

I turned around and hurried into the house, silently cursing Jace for not allowing me the dignity of turning away from Calvin without my ass hanging out of my shorts.

I stormed past Otis in the hall.

“What’s going on, doll?”

I didn’t answer, just walked to the kitchen where I kept my bag and dug around for the key. When I had it, I stomped back outside. The movers were out of the truck and lifting the roll-up door in the back, preparing to unload my stuff.

Calvin held out his hand and I put the key in his palm.

“Your cards?”

“I’m not giving you my cards,” I said. It reeked of misogynistic punishment (only good girls get to go shopping). I vowed never to use them again, but I wouldnotgive Calvin the satisfaction of handing them over. “If my father wants them back, he can come get them himself.”

“It’s not a request,” Calvin said, his eyes cold.

For the first time, I was scared of him. It wasn’t an obvious threat. More like a total lack of human emotion, the feeling that he could wipe me off the face of the earth and then go have a nice meal.

Then a voice sounded behind me. “She said she’s not giving them to you.”

I turned my head as Wolf walked toward me, Otis right behind him. They stopped on either side of me like I was a rockstar on my way into the arena for a sold-out concert and they were my private bouncers.

And I had to admit, they looked every bit as ominous as Calvin. I’d give an easy edge to the Beasts in an old-school street fight, but I also knew Calvin had other weapons at his disposal.

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