Page 106 of Their Property
All my obscenities fell on deaf ears as my father passed me off to the remaining soldiers. “Take her to her room. Make sure the locks are secure, and guard all the doors and windows.”
Two men took hold of my arms now, all my thrashing clamped down between them as they led me down the corridor. Where was my valkyrie now? Why didn’t she possess me so I could bash a shield over these mens heads?
“I’m not a fucking animal, Governor Vance!” I continued to yell, trying to twist to look at my father behind me. “You can’t lock up your adult daughter in her room, you fucking psycho! You can’tfuckingdo this to me!”
“Miss Vance,” the soldier to my right muttered. “Please stop struggling. We don’t want to hurt you.” He sounded young, if even sweet. “Sorry,” he added. “I agree that it’s not right what’s happening.”
Something about his gentle urging made all the strength leave my body, and I sagged heavily against my escorts. It wasn’t their fault, they were just doing as they were told. It was my father’s fault. And mine, for bringing myself and the Sons back here when Iknewwhat would happen.
The soldiers deposited me in my bedroom without a fight. I sagged onto my bed like a rag doll, limp and lifeless until they left and the lock clicked behind them. That sound re-awoke my rage. That fuckingclickthat I heard every single night for four years straight. Shut in my room like a petulant child.
Well, if my dad wanted to treat me like a child, then I’d act like one.
I grabbed the first heavy object I saw, a paperweight on the nightstand, and flung it with all my strength at the mirror on the adjacent wall.
THIRTY-TWO
KYRIE
Islept like shit, and not just because of the pieces of my trashed bedroom surrounding me. Every time I started to drift, I remembered my men were spending the night in a cell, and the blinding rage at my father flooded my system.
Morning came and a maid, escorted by two soldiers so I wouldn’t escape, brought me breakfast on a tray.
“I’m not eating,” I informed them, my voice raw from all the screaming and crying. “Not until my father frees them.”
The maid stared at me while the soldiers eyed my trashed bedroom before they put the food on my dresser and left. I stuck to my word and didn’t touch the food, choosing instead to inspect the walls and air vents in my room.
Maybe I could escape through an air duct or hide in a hole in the wall, make my escape that way. What I would give to have an axe in my hands now.
I whipped around in a circle, furiously trying to find the valkyrie hiding in the corners of my vision.
“Where were you?” I demanded. “Ineededyou then. Your strength, your weapons. They took my men away, and I couldn’t stop them on my own. So where the fuck were you?!”
I screamed at the walls like a madwoman and kept spinning until I was dizzy. No matter how quickly I turned, I could never see the valkyrie head-on. She never answered, and I kept trying to find her, to confront her and demand her help. One axe swing could break the lock on the door. She could get me past the guard outside and out to the jail to free my men.
With an exasperated cry, I collapsed to the floor. My vision spun and my empty stomach roiled. I threw the first thing I saw, a jewelry box that I had already broken last night.
“If you’re really my mother, thenhelp me!”
She only stood there, as useless and silent as my guards, taunting me.
I didn’t know how much time passed, hours probably. My stomach growled, but I only took a few sips of water for my parched throat. Part of me wanted to clean the room out of sympathy for the maids, but there was a twisted satisfaction at seeing the destruction too. I’d kept everything bottled up until last night, and it was strangely freeing.
That feeling would only last so long though, the longer I stayed here.
My bedroom door unlocked with a click at some point, and the person coming through was the last one I expected to see.
“Mari?” I gasped, scrambling off my bed. The trashed room was embarrassing now, something I didn’t want my friend to see.
“Hey, Kyrie.” She smiled at me before turning to the soldier who had escorted her in. “It’s alright, I’d like to talk to her alone.”
“But…”
“You can double-check with General Bray, if you’d like. He won’t object to it.”
If I was in a better mood, I’d snicker at that. The general was her father-in-law. Once the door closed again, we rushed forward to wrap each other in a hug. Mari had been there at my Blakeworth rescue with the Sons. Her four husbands were the highest-ranking officers of the Steel Demons MC and close allies of the Sons.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be nursing twin babies or something?”
