Chapter 13: Midnight

Four men came out of the two SUVs, and none of them looked at the crowd.

They looked at me.

"Juliana," my father called over the horns. "Get in the car."

He said it the way he had said it when I was nine.

Chisolm stood at my elbow with one hand cradling his wrist, smiling at the phones.

"Augustus, thank God," he said. "She's had some kind of episode."

"I'm having a wedding," I said. "Yours is off."

Two of my father's men took my arms above the elbow.

Rhodri moved, and the other two stepped in front of him, and he stopped with his hands open at his sides.

I saw what it cost him.

I had asked him to wait, and he was waiting.

"Family matter," my father announced to the bridge.

"My daughter is unwell, and I am her trustee. I have legal authority over her affairs."

"Over my shares," I said, loud enough for every phone. "For one hour and forty-nine more minutes."

"Not over me."

A woman in a green coat held her phone higher.

"I already called 911," she said. "Twice."

"She said no, you idiots," a man shouted from the curb.

My father's face went the color of raw meat.

He nodded once to the men holding me.

They dragged me one step, and my train caught under the SUV's tire and ripped with a long wet sound.

Chisolm took my wrist back from them, gently.

"I've got her," he said.

He turned me toward his sedan and brought my arm up behind my back until the old bruise lit white.

I cried out.

It was the first sound I had made for him in eleven days.

Rhodri crossed ten feet of wet asphalt faster than the men could turn.

He hit Chisolm once, and I felt it through the arm Chisolm was still holding.

Chisolm's rimless glasses flew off and skidded under a taxi.

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