Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dalla
I wake up to the smell of dust and old wood.
My head is pounding—a deep, throbbing ache that pulses behind my eyes with every heartbeat.
My mouth tastes like chemicals, that sweet, cloying residue of chloroform coating my tongue.
My thoughts are sluggish, fragmented, trying to piece together how I got here.
The café. The woman. The lost little girl.
There was no little girl.
When I try to move, I realize I can't.
My wrists are bound to the arms of a chair.
My ankles are tied to the legs.
The rope is rough against my skin, tight enough to bite but not tight enough to cut off circulation.
Whoever tied me knew what they were doing.
Knew how to restrain someone without causing permanent damage.
Which means they want me alive.
For now.
I force my eyes open, blinking against the dim light filtering through dusty windows.
I'm in a living room.
That's the first thing that registers, and it's so unexpected that for a moment I think I'm hallucinating.
A living room.
Not a warehouse, not a basement, not some cold industrial space—a living room.
With a worn floral couch and a coffee table covered in water rings.
A fireplace with a mantle full of dusty picture frames—photographs of people I don't recognize, frozen smiles from decades past.
Faded wallpaper peeling at the corners, the pattern something floral and old-fashioned.
A grandfather clock in the corner, its pendulum still.
It looks like someone's grandmother's house.
Like a place where you'd eat cookies and drink lemonade on a summer afternoon.
There's even a crocheted afghan draped over the arm of the couch, moth-eaten and faded but carefully arranged.
It's the normalcy that makes it terrifying.
Except I'm tied to a chair in the middle of it.
And there are men with guns blocking every doorway.
I count four of them—big, hard-faced, wearing tactical gear that looks military-grade.
They're not looking at me.
They're watching the windows, the doors, the perimeter.
Scanning for threats. Professional. Disciplined.
The kind of men who've done this before, who treat kidnapping like a job with protocols and procedures.
My stomach lurches—partly fear, partly something else.
The nausea that's been plaguing me for days rises up, and I have to swallow hard to keep from vomiting.
The baby. Oh god, the baby.
I don't know how long I was unconscious.
Don't know what the chloroform might have done.
My hand strains against the rope, instinctively trying to reach my stomach, but the bindings hold fast.
"She's awake."
The voice comes from behind me.
Footsteps on creaking floorboards, slow and deliberate.
I try to turn my head, but the angle is wrong and all I catch is a shadow moving in my peripheral vision.
The footsteps circle around me, unhurried.
Taking their time.
Then she steps into view.
Sol. The woman from the café.
She looks different now.
At the café, she was playing a role—the friendly stranger, the concerned citizen, the woman who just wanted to help a lost little girl find her mother.
Now the mask is off.
Her dark hair is pulled back severely from her face, emphasizing the sharp angles of her cheekbones, the cold calculation in her eyes.
She's wearing black from head to toe, practical clothes for practical work.
No jewelry. No softness. Nothing but hard edges and ruthless efficiency.
And in her hand, she's holding a knife.
It's beautiful, in a terrible way.
An ornate handle, carved with intricate patterns that look almost ritualistic.
Nordic, maybe—runes or ancient symbols I don't recognize.
A blade that gleams even in the dim light, wickedly sharp despite its age.
It looks old.
Antique.
The kind of thing you'd see in a museum, preserved behind glass with a placard explaining its historical significance.
Or in a nightmare, held by a woman who wants you dead.
"Dalla," she says, rolling my name around in her mouth like she's tasting it.
"The princess of the Raiders of Valhalla.
Daughter of the great and terrible Runes.
The girl who has everything—money, family, love, a bright future ahead of her.
" She smiles, but there's no warmth in it.
No humanity. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you. You, or your sister, that is."
My voice comes out rough, scratchy from the chloroform. "What do you want?"
"Right to business. I respect that." She pulls a chair from the corner and sets it in front of me, sitting down so we're face to face.
Close enough that I can see the scar near her eyebrow, thin and faded.
Close enough that I can see the madness lurking behind her eyes.
"My name is Solveig. But you can call me Sol. We're going to be spending some time together, after all."
"Freya's daughter," I whisper.
Her smile widens. "So, you do know who I am. Good. That saves time." She leans back in her chair, the knife balanced casually on her knee. "Tell me, Dalla. What do you know about your father? About the things he's done? The blood on his hands?"
"My father is a good man."
"Your father is a murderer." The words are flat, emotionless.
Stating a fact. "He killed my mother. Slit her throat with her own knife—this knife.
" She holds up the blade, letting the light catch it.
"Did he ever tell you that story? How he butchered a woman in cold blood and left her daughter to find the body? "
My stomach turns.
Not from the words—I knew my father had killed Freya.
I knew it was violent, but hearing it from her daughter, seeing the knife that did it...
"Your mother was a monster," I say, because it's true. "She trafficked women. Girls. Children. My brother. She destroyed lives."
"She was my mother." Solveig's voice cracks, just for a moment. A flash of something human beneath the ice. "She was all I had, and he took her from me."
"I'm sorry."
"No you're not." She laughs, sharp and bitter. "But you will be."
She stands, beginning to pace around my chair in slow circles.
I track her movement as best I can, but she keeps disappearing into my blind spots, and each time she does, my heart rate spikes.
The knife glints in and out of my peripheral vision.
"Do you know what happened to me after she died?
" Solveig asks. "I was six years old. I came home from school and found her on the floor, lying in a pool of her own blood.
So much blood—I didn't know a person had that much in them.
I thought she was sleeping at first. I tried to wake her up.
I shook her and shook her and she wouldn't open her eyes. "
She pauses behind me.
I feel her fingers touch my hair, gentle and wrong.
An intimate gesture from a stranger who wants me dead.
"I remember the smell," she continues, her voice soft now. Almost dreamlike. "Blood has a smell. Metallic. Warm. It got into everything—my clothes, my hair. I sat with her body for hours before someone found us. A neighbor who heard me screaming."
"Solveig—"
"The police came. Child services. They put me in foster care—a group home at first, then a family.
A good Christian family, they said. The Nichols.
They were going to give me a fresh start.
A new life. A chance to heal from the trauma of finding my mother murdered.
" Her voice goes flat. Dead. "Mr. Nichols started coming to my room at night when I was eight.
His wife knew. She pretended she didn't, but she knew.
She'd turn up the TV so she couldn't hear me crying. "
My stomach lurches. "Solveig—"
"Don't." Her fingers tighten in my hair, yanking my head back. I gasp at the sudden pain, tears springing to my eyes. "Don't say my name like we're friends. Don't pretend you care about what happened to me. You're the daughter of the man who destroyed my life. You don't get to feel sorry for me."
She releases my hair and continues pacing.
"I ran away when I was fourteen. Lived on the streets. Did things I'm not proud of to survive—things that would make you sick if I described them. But I never forgot." She comes around to face me again, crouching down so we're eye level.
The knife dangles from her fingers, casual and terrifying.
"I never forgot who killed my mother. I never forgot the name Runes.
I never forgot that somewhere out there, the man who destroyed everything was living his life, raising his children, pretending to be a good person while I was being passed around like a piece of meat. "
"My father didn't know what would happen to you," I say. "He didn't know about the foster care, about Nichols—"
"Like he would care." Her voice is ice. "He killed my mother and walked away. He didn't think about the little girl she left behind. Didn't think about the consequences. Didn't think about anything except his precious club and his precious revenge."
"Your mother was trafficking children. Children including my brother. She was destroying lives—"
"She was my mother!" The words explode out of her, raw and ragged.
For a moment, the mask slips, and I see the broken child underneath—the six-year-old girl who sat in her mother's blood, waiting for someone to come. "She was all I had. She was the only person in the world who loved me. And he took her away."
The moment passes. The ice returns.
"So yes," she says, her voice steady again. "I rebuilt her network. I became exactly what she was. Because that was the only way to become powerful enough to hurt the people who hurt me. Eye for an eye, Dalla. It's the oldest law in the world."
"This is insane. You kidnapped me because of something that happened over thirty years ago?"
"I kidnapped you because your father took everything from me. And now I'm going to take everything from him." She stands, the knife glinting in her hand. "Starting with you."
My blood goes cold. "Killing me won't bring your mother back."