Chapter 3 - The Coward’s CageDeep within the subterranean holding cells of the temporary federal processing center set up at the county airfield, the Sterling brothers were finally experiencing a sensation completely foreign to their privileged existence: absolute, paralyzing terror.
Rowan and Jaxson had been hauled out of their beds at dawn by a tactical sweep team that didn't even bother to knock down their bedroom doors—they simply blew the hinges off with precision breaching charges. Stripped of their designer clothes, forced into coarse orange jumpsuit uniforms, and thrown into separate, sterile steel cells, the two brothers were shouting themselves hoarse, banging their fists against the reinforced wire mesh.
"Do you know who my father is?!" Rowan shrieked, his face pressed against the wire, spittle flying from his lips. "When we get out of here, I'm going to find that little bitch of a niece and—"
The heavy steel door at the end of the cellblock hissed open.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots echoed against the concrete floor. Marcus Vance walked down the corridor, stopping directly in front of Rowan’s cell. He didn't look angry. He looked like an apex predator observing a trapped rat.
Rowan swallowed hard, his bravado instantly evaporating under the weight of Marcus’s cold, unblinking stare. "V-Vance... look, man, it was just a family dispute. Kids get clumsy. It was an accident—"
"An accident," Marcus repeated softly. He reached into his tactical vest, pulled out a ruggedized tablet, and tapped the screen.
The audio file of Evelyn Sterling’s chilling threat began to play through the cellblock’s intercom speakers at maximum volume, echoing off the metal walls. ‘My boys are completely protected... Rowan says that if you dare to come looking for him, he’ll finish what he started with her.’
When the audio cut out, the silence in the cellblock was absolute.
"You promised to finish it," Marcus said, taking one slow step closer to the mesh. "I'm giving you the chance right now."
Rowan backed away, tripping over his own orange-clad feet and crashing into the metal bunk. "You're... you're out of your mind. You can't touch us in here! We have rights!"
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"Rights?" Marcus smiled, a terrifying, humorless expression. "Rights are for human beings. Monsters don't get rights under wartime protocols. And make no mistake, Rowan—you declared war on my daughter."
Before Rowan could scream for the guards, Marcus turned on his heel and walked down the corridor toward the interrogation suite, leaving the brothers to rot in the deafening realization that their untouchable name was now nothing more than a curse word.
