Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADDIE
"Idonated your car, Adolpha."
"Donated?" The word somehow found a way through my slackened jaw.
"You won't need a car any longer."
He didn't even have the decency to look annoyed. He sounded as if he was discussing a redirected shipment of office supplies. His tone was so reasonable it made me want to scream.
"You’ll have a driver at your disposal twenty-four hours a day. It’s safer, more efficient, and befitting your new station. If it makes you happy, you can choose whichever vehicle you’d like the driver to use."
I blinked a few times, trying to keep his face from going blurry with rage. "I don't want a driver. I have a car. I bought it with the money I earned at a job I no longer have because of you."
"Which is why I've simplified things."
"What do you mean?"
"Check your bank account."
My hands shook as I pulled my phone from my bag. When I opened my banking app, my heart came to a full stop against my ribs. Account Closed. I tried the savings. Account Closed. Every cent I’d saved, every dollar of my independence, was gone.
"No, not your old accounts. I had those closed. I mean your new accounts."
A notification banner slid across the top of my screen. A text from Vidar. New login credentials.
I tapped it, my vision blurring with fury. When the new account loaded, I gasped. There were so many zeroes it didn't look like money; it looked like a coordinate.
"That is your monthly allowance. Your new black card, with no preset limit, is being overnighted to our home. You'll never have to worry about the cost of anything again."
"Our home? I have an apartment. I can't break my lease."
"I broke it this afternoon. My people are moving your things to my penthouse as we speak." He checked his watch, entirely unbothered by the fact that he was dismantling my soul in real-time. "We'll stay here at the family estate tonight while everything is being settled."
I felt the wolf inside me clawing at my throat. He was erasing me. He was overwriting ten years of my life in a single afternoon. And there was nothing I could do about it.
"I want to see my brother," I rasped, the anger making my chest ache. "Now. I’m not moving another inch until I see Elias."
"Elias will join us soon."
"Why not now? You said he was safe."
"He is," Vidar said, his gaze fixed on mine, heavy and unyielding. "But he isn’t quite fit to be seen yet."
I knew exactly what that meant. My father’s men used that phrase when they’d spent too much time in the basement with someone. The rage turned from red to a blinding, freezing white.
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the back of the hall. Two men emerged; two more versions of the mountain standing in front of me. The tallest one stepped forward.
If Vidar was a fortress, this man was a mountain.
He was taller than his brother, broader in the shoulders.
But it was his eyes that stopped me. They weren't sharp like Vidar’s or mocking like Ivar’s; they were the eyes of an old soul, heavy with a weariness that didn't belong on a man who looked like he could snap a tree trunk with his bare hands.
He looked like safety. He looked like the kind of man you could crawl toward in a storm and find shelter.
But I knew better. He was a Blackwood. Magnus Blackwood.
The eldest, the heir to this entire cold, marble empire.
He was the one who would eventually sit on the throne Vidar was so busy building.
Magnus stepped forward, but he didn't crowd me. He didn't loom. To my utter shock, he stopped a respectful distance away and held out a massive, calloused hand. He didn't reach for me; he waited.
"I'm Magnus." His voice was a deep, resonant rumble that felt like it started in the floorboards. "I'd like to welcome you to our family, Adolpha."
I stared at his open palm. It was the first time since I’d been snatched from my life that anyone in this family had asked for my permission.
Even Ivar, for all his boyish charm, had pushed his friendship on me like a foregone conclusion.
Magnus stood there, silent and steady, granting me the agency to choose.
I placed my hand in his. His skin was incredibly warm, his grip firm but careful, as if he were holding a piece of delicate glass he had no intention of breaking. For a fleeting, dangerous second, I felt that warmth try to seep into my bones, a siren song of comfort I hadn't felt in years.
I slammed the door on that feeling. I didn't dare let it penetrate the ice I’d built around my heart.
It was false. This wasn't a meeting of equals; this was a king greeting a subject.
No matter how much "permission" he offered, I knew the hierarchy.
I was the Vane girl bought to settle a debt, the lowest on the totem pole for this would-be king.
"Call me Addie." I pulled my hand back as quickly as I could without it being an insult. The warmth lingered on my skin like a brand, a reminder that in this house, even the kindness was a weapon designed to make you forget you were a prisoner.
I shifted my gaze to the second man. He was shorter than his brothers but still loomed over me, built with the thick, compact power of a middleweight boxer.
His nose was crooked, like the jagged trophy of a fighter who had stopped a few too many punches with his face.
His grin was pure arrogance. When he smiled, his teeth were startlingly white and too straight for a man who spent his time in the ring.
I couldn't take my eyes off their gleam; they looked like a row of polished ivory in the light of the hall.
He didn't wait for my hand. He reached out, caught my fingers in his grip, and brought them to his lips with a flourish.
"I’m Gunnar," he murmured against my skin, his eyes dancing with a heat that made my skin crawl.
As he lowered my hand, my gaze caught on his knuckles. They were split and bruised, the skin a mottled purple and red. Magnus was the king in waiting. Vidar was the brains of the operation. Gunnar was the muscle. This was likely the animal that had beaten Elias.
I didn't pull away. Instead, I smiled, flashing Gunnar my own straight, sharp teeth in a mirror of his cocksure grin. He looked charmed, his chest puffing out slightly as if he’d already won.
The moment he released my hand, I stepped into his space, shifted my weight, and swung with my left. I put every ounce of my father’s cruelty and my own decade of suppressed rage into the hook. The sound of my fist connecting with his jaw was the most beautiful thing I’d heard all day.
Gunnar’s head snapped back. He stumbled, his heavy boots scuffing the marble as he fought to stay upright. Magnus winced. Vidar let out a long, weary sigh.
"That's for my brother."
Gunnar slowly straightened his neck. He reached up, thumbing a bead of blood that was beginning to well at the corner of his mouth. He looked at the red on his thumb, then back at me. A low, dark laugh vibrated in his chest.
"A southpaw? I like her!" he barked, his eyes gleaming with genuine, predatory delight. "Welcome to the family, sis."