So, I’d spent the remainder of my morning alone. Alone with thoughts I flatly ignored.

It was odd to sit and do nothing. I had nowhere to rush off to. No emails to reply to. No to-do list to attack. I was in limbo, just waiting for the man I loathed to appear.

My stomach was a ball of knots wanting him to get it over with, whilst my jangled heart wanted him to stay away forever. I’d never felt so jumbled inside—including my stomach.

It’d stopped growling for food around dawn, but the empty ache only grew worse.

Jethro swung open the top partition of the barn door, leaving the bottom closed. Resting his arms on the top, he nodded. “Ms. Weaver.”

The sun took the liberty of bouncing into the gloomy kennel, granting bright light and silhouetting Jethro. His face remained in shadow but his thick hair was wet and messy from a shower.

He’d shed his charcoal suit for a more casual grey shirt, the diamond pin twinkling in his lapel. I’d grown to recognize it as his signature piece, linking him to whatever organisation his father ran.

Is it a gang? Did they rob and cheat and kill?

It wasn’t my issue. I didn’t care. I didn’t condone what they did. I was the innocent party—their hostage.

I didn’t return his greeting, deciding to stay bundled in my blanket and glower.

Jethro sniffed impatiently, removing his arms from the door. He unlocked the bottom partition, swinging it wide.

More sunshine entered, illuminating the bottom half of his wardrobe. Dark jeans. Well-fitted jeans. Jeans that made him seem young and approachable and normal.

My hands balled. Don’t buy into the projection. There was nothing normal about this man. Nothing sane or kind. I learned that last night—many times over. There would be no more begging from me. No more pleading. It fell on deaf ears, and I was done.

Jethro snapped his fingers as if expecting me to heel. “Get up. It’s time to begin.” Taking a threatening step into the kennel, he pursed his lips. “Shit what did you do in your sleep? Roll around like the dogs?”

I kept my lips pressed together, watching him in the silence he so seemed to enjoy. When I didn’t move, his face twisted, taking in my hay-riddled hair and dirt covered blanket. “I won’t tell you again. Get. Up.”

I shrugged. It was liberating to no longer care. To no longer be captive by the need to obey and jump to attention for fear of retribution. I meant what I said to Kite. Everything inside me was gone. Locked down, bunkered inside, ready to weather whatever war was coming.

Standing slowly, I placed my dead phone into my jacket pocket. Letting the blanket fall off my hips, I brushed lingering lint off my clothes.

Jethro snapped his fingers again, and I moved willingly—coasting to his side exactly as he wanted.

He scowled; his gaze full of suspicion.

I gave him an empty smile. I’d found salvation in not caring. It didn’t mean I had to pretend to like him. He wouldn’t know that by trying to break me last night, he only gave me a new avenue of strength.

I’m ready.

For whatever he threw at me.

I’ll survive.

Until I no longer needed to try.

Running my hands through my hair, I quickly gave up with the tangles and focused on pinching some colour into my cheeks instead.

“You think that will save you? Looking presentable?” His voice was blizzard and snow.

I didn’t say a word.

Jethro gritted his jaw. His hands curled beside his spread legs.

My muscles braced for punishment. The air shimmered with violence.

Jethro’s hand suddenly shot out, capturing my throat. Without a sound, he spun me around, and marched me backward out of the kennel. The sun kissed my skin, fanning the warmth I’d tried so hard to keep hold of from talking to Kite. I embraced it, hugging it close, so Jethro’s ice didn’t slice me into pieces.

His fingers tightened around my neck but I refused to claw at his hold. I repay in kind. Whatever I did to him in self-defence, I’d get back ten times worse. But none of that mattered now because I knew how to survive.

By being above them. By being untouchable on the inside even while they broke me on the outside.

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” His arm hoisted me onto the tips of my toes. Breathing was difficult, not fighting was impossible, but I permitted it. All I did was stare silently into his golden eyes.

“I understand what you’re doing.” He smiled. “But mark my words. You won’t win.” Shaking me, he unwound his fingers, then smoothed the front of his jeans. The sun gleamed on the gold buckle of his crocodile skin belt.

My stomach clenched, but I held my ground. Raising my chin, I whispered, “Mark my words. I will win. Because I am right and you are wrong.”

Jethro seethed, silence thick between us.

“You’re so high and mighty, aren’t you, Ms. Weaver? So sure you’re the one in the right. What if I told you, your ancestors were scum? What if I showed you proof of their corruptibility and eagerness to hurt others in their chase for wealth?”

Lies. All lies.

My family tree was impeccable. I came from honest and good and hardworking stock. Didn’t I?

I ignored my rushing heartbeat.

Jethro stepped closer, crowding me. “The things your family did to mine sicken me. So continue on your quest believing you’re pure, because in a few hours you’ll know the truth. In a few hours, you’ll realise we aren’t the bad guys—it’s you.”

My throat closed up. I didn’t think he could say anything to crumble my fortress so soon, but every word was a carefully planted spade, digging at my foundation until I stood on crumbling ground.

My eyes danced over his, trying to decipher the truth.

Were my bloodlines tarnished with crimes I didn’t know about? My father hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with our history, apart from telling us our family had always been involved in weaving and textiles. It was how we were granted the last name Weaver. Just like the Bakers, and the Butlers, and every other trade that dictated their last names.

Jethro chuckled. “Don’t believe me?” His hands landed on my shoulders, pushing me backward. I stumbled, wincing as my spine collided with the bricked wall of the kennel.

“Don’t believe your forefathers were sentenced to death by hanging for what they did to mine?” His gaze latched onto my mouth. “Don’t believe you’re alive because the Hawks granted them mercy in return for a few signatures on a few debts?”

His voice dropped, sending a constellation of warning skittering over my skin. “Don’t believe I’m fully within my right to do whatever I damn well please to you?”

His touch seared through my jacket and maxi dress, sending unwanted intensity down my arms.

Do I believe it? Could I believe it? That everything I understood of this situation was reversed?

Mind games. Illusions. All designed to trip me up.

Shaking my head, I snapped, “No. I don’t believe it.” My blood pressure exploded, thundering in my ears. His focus was absolute, and it burned, oh how it burned. “Nothing you say will make you the victim in this situation. Nothing you show me will make this permissible. You think I believe a ludicrous debt that you say is over six hundred years old. Wake up! Nothing like that would hold up in a court of law these days. I don’t care that you’ve staged my disappearance, or following my family with a loaded pistol. I don’t believe any of this, and I certainly don’t believe you have anything law abiding on your side.”

Jethro scowled but I continued my tyrant.

“All I believe is you’re a bunch of sick and twisted men who made up some bullshit excuse to make themselves feel justified while tearing other’s lives apart. Show me where you have the right to own me. No one has that right. No one!”