Later, as they were tangled together beneath soft sheets, the world narrowed to skin, breath, and the way his arms securely wrapped around her.He didn’t rush her or push.He stayed with her, steady and solid, until the tension finally loosened its grip and exhaustion claimed them both.
Chloe slept pressed against him, his heartbeat a metronome against her ear.
And then she dreamed.
Danica stood at the end of a dark hallway, her face half in shadow, eyes bright with something twisted and unfamiliar.She smiled as Chloe tried to move and couldn’t, tried to speak and failed.
“You took everything,” Danica said, voice echoing wrong.
That’s when Chloe saw the gun.
“You might have loved him, but he’s mine now.”
The words landed heavier than the weapon.
Danica lunged, the sound of a gun firing shattering Chloe’s eardrums.Had she been hit?Was she dying?
Chloe woke with a gasp, heart hammering, sweat slick against her skin.
Kayne’s arms tightened around her.“Hey.Cher.You’re safe.”
She clutched his biceps, breath shuddering.“It was her,” she whispered, even as denial still fought to survive in daylight.“In my dream.She was trying to hurt me.”
Kayne didn’t sayI know.He didn’t saydreams don’t mean anythingeither.
He just held her, stronger, closer, as if he could keep the nightmare from ever finding her again.
But long after her breathing evened out, Chloe stared into the dark, haunted by the terrible possibility that her mind might be seeing what her heart still refused to accept.
#
Leo De Luca lay awakeon the narrow bed in the safe house guest room, staring at the ceiling as if it might eventually offer answers.
It didn’t.
The place was quiet in that artificial, too-controlled way.Every sound felt amplified.The hum of the security system.Soft thudding footsteps somewhere upstairs.The distant clink of a door closing.Kayne moving through the house like a sentry who didn’t sleep so much as merely pause because rest was a luxury the situation no longer allowed.
Leo exhaled heavily.
Danica.
He hated that the thought even existed, and once it had, it refused to leave.
Chloe’s half-sister was spoiled, sharp-tongued, and needy in a way Chloe never had the luxury to be.Danica had always wanted more.More attention, more validation, more money, moreeverything, and Chloe had always given without asking for anything back.
The photos in the closet replayed in his mind uninvited.They were carefully hidden, not displayed or theatrical.They were private and personal, obsessive and twisted.
That was what scared him most.
If it was Danica, this wasn’t an impulse, it was rot that didn’t announce itself until it was too deep to ignore.It had set in quietly and patiently.
Leo rolled onto his side, staring at the closed door.Down the hall, two turns past the bathroom, was Anja’s room.He told himself not to think about that.
He told himself a lot of things lately.
Don’t think about the way she’d tackled him without hesitation, or how her arm had locked across his torso like instinct incarnate.Don’t think about the look on her face afterward.Controlled, yes, but threaded with something open she clearly hadn’t intended to reveal to him.
Don’t think about how safe he’d felt in that split second before the world exploded.
