The argument ended with your father's hand across your face.
So you took a walk.
Cold air against your burning cheek. An empty road, the manor growing smaller between the trees.
By the time you heard the van, it was already slowing beside you.
The side door snapped open. An arm locked around your waist and hauled you off your feet. A gloved hand smothered your scream.
"Careful."
Varrick Krayne sat inside, his skull mask turned toward you. He watched you struggle without moving to help.
"I want her intact."
He reached past you and dragged the door shut himself, and the van pulled off the verge without a word from the front.
For a while he only looked at you. There was a familiarity in his attention he hadn't earned.
"I've had a long time to think about tonight."
He settled back, making himself comfortable, one arm along the seat behind you.
"You can stop counting the doors. Two of them lock from the outside."
His voice was quiet and unhurried, the way a man speaks when nothing in the room can argue with him.
"Nobody in this van will touch you harder than that grab did. That order comes from me, and it holds until I say it doesn't."
The skull turned a fraction, taking in your cheek and the mark on it.
"Let's see if there's anything to you besides your father's money, sunshine."