Chapter 29: Cold Dismissal

Valkyrie's POV 

The high-pitched, relentless screech of Chloe's heart monitor sliced directly into my nerve endings like a shard of broken glass.

I gently pushed Lachlan behind the thick leg of the kitchen table, placing his small hands on his knees. "Stay where you are, my love. Don't move."

I got up slowly, stepping right off the rug beside where my knife was lying. At the moment I extended my right hand, all the blood in my veins turned into liquid ice. Dr. Hamish Croft's arm trembled, his face pale with fatigue. When I slipped my fingers around the cold, textured handle of his sidearm, he didn't resist. He allowed me to take the heavy steel pistol directly from his hand.

I turned back to face the broken doorway.

Kaelen remained where he was. He stood out clearly against the dark, his tall figure stretching over the threshold. His tailored wool coat was stained with coastal mud, and his eyes were wide, vivid, and filled with an intolerable surge of pain as he stared at me, then down at the table where Lachlan sat hidden.

"Valkyrie..." he choked out, his voice a broken, raspy whisper. He took a step inside the room, reaching out with an open, trembling hand. "We have to go. My cars are at the gate. I'll get Chloe into a private facility in Melbourne before—"

CLACK.

I held the heavy pistol in both hands, locking my wrists firmly as I aligned the sights directly with the centre of his chest.

The silence that came after struck the room so heavily. Outside, the rain beat against the cypress trees, but inside the only sound was the sharp, mechanical screeching of Chloe’s failing heart pump.

Kaelen stayed still. He looked down at the black steel barrel aimed at his heart, then gradually looked back up at me.

"Get off my doorstep, Kaelen," I said.

My voice was flat, quiet, and edged with a lethal, absolute finality that made the enforcer in the corridor feel uncomfortable.

"Val," Kaelen breathed, his chest heaving under his damp shirt. "You won't shoot me."

“Try me," I said, moving forward until the cold steel of the barrel was less than three inches from his chest. "Give me a reason; give me just one reason not to pull this trigger after all that your family has stolen from me."

Kaelen grumbled that he hadn't known anything about Lachlan; his voice broke suddenly and violently with the surge of intense emotion, and his silver eyes shone in the moonlight. "If only I had known—"

"I didn't know about Lachlan,” Kaelen growled, his voice cracking with a sudden, violent surge of emotion. “If only I had known–”

"Four years ago, you gave up all your rights to know his name!" I screamed into his face, my tears finally breaking through, hot and stinging as they hit my cold cheeks. "You were in that penthouse while your mother's security guards pulled me out into the rain! I pleaded with you, Kaelen! I dropped to my knees and made a vow on my life that I didn't steal your framework, and you looked at me like I was a stranger!"

Kaelen flinched like the words were a physical blow, his face turning pale in the dim light. "I was wrong, Val... I was a fool, but I'm here now!"

"You're four years late!" I shouted, pressing my finger down harder on the trigger guard until my knuckles went completely white. "Lachlan is mine. He was born in the cold, brought up in the dark, and fed on the money which I earned with my bleeding hands. He has no connection with the Vance family. He doesn't belong to your mother's empire, and he will never belong to you."

"He has my eyes, Valkyrie," Kaelen rasped, lowering his voice to a desperate, heartbreaking whisper. He moved straight into the gun, pressed his chest firmly against the barrel, making me feel the full force of his presence. "He is my blood. You may hate me, shoot me right here on the floorboards, but can never erase what we made together."

"I can erase you from his life," I replied, meeting his silver eyes directly without blinking, my heart breaking into a thousand sharp fragments. "Go away, Kaelen. Take your cars, your mother's lawyers, and leave my land. If you ever return here or attempt to put your hands on my son again... I swear to God, I'll put a bullet through your heart."

Kaelen stared at me, his chest heaving against the cold barrel of the gun. The tension in the room built up; it seemed as if the air itself would break.

Slowly, and painfully, he took a step back, stepping over the broken threshold slick with rain. He didn't look down at the steps. His eyes stayed fixed on mine, filled with a promise of dark, unrelenting war.

"I'll go down from the porch, Valkyrie," Kaelen said, his voice fell to a deep, definite tone that caused the floorboards to vibrate through my bare feet. "But I'm not leaving Port Campbell, and I'm not going to allow Victoria to touch a single hair on Chloe's head."

Before I could reply, a sharp and loud air horn blared from the end of the unpaved lane.

Blinding white floodlights cut through the coastal fog, illuminating the trees and cottage in a harsh, industrial glare. 

Three black tactical vans, each displaying the authority and presence of federal enforcement, stopped across the grass turnaround, blocking every exit.

A heavy, amplified loudspeaker boomed across the yard, rattling the small windowpanes:

“This is the Federal Tactical Response Group, Valkyrie Croft! The property has now been surrounded! So put down your weapon and come out onto the porch with your hands in the air!”

Next to me, the enforcer in the corridor snorted and picked up his radio.

Kaelen turned slowly on the porch, his eyes narrowing into cold, deadly slits as he looked at the federal officers coming out of the black vans with their rifles raised.

He wasn't frightened; instead, he glanced at the tactical squad and then looked back at me over his shoulder, his eyes shining in the light from the floodlights.

"They don't want you, Val," Kaelen whispered, stepping between the floodlights and the open door, using his wide shoulders to protect Lachlan and me from the sniper scopes in the trees. "My mother has just carried out the final protocol. She didn't just report the leak... she has transferred full ownership of Vance Global to a foreign trust and has listed you as the main target."