Tomorrow, Chloe would hire Oliver Pearsall.Kayne already had the office run him six ways to Sunday.Oliver was clean enough to make Kayne uneasy anyway, because patterns didn’t always announce themselves until they were finished forming, and by then it was usually too late.His gut kept whispering that they were standing on the edge of something final.A crest before the break.
He found Chloe curled on the couch, knees tucked in, pretending to watch something she hadn’t absorbed a single second of.Anja and Leo had already gone to bed.The moment she saw his face, she reached for him without a word.Kayne sank down, pulled her into his arms, and felt her breathe him in.There were things he couldn’t fix tonight, threats he couldn’t yet name, but this he could do.
He carried her to bed slowly and carefully, as if the world outside might shatter if he moved too fast.They didn’t rush.They didn’t need to.He held her first, kissing her reverently.When they finally came together, it wasn’t about urgency or escape.It was about connection.About reminding her, and himself, that she was alive.That whatever came next, it would have to come through him first.
Later, with Chloe tucked against his body, her breathing finally deep and even, Kayne lay awake, staring into the darkness.He didn’t pray or bargain.He planned.
Kayne had spent his entire adult life dismantling men who thought they were smarter than the net closing around them.
Whoever had started this had made one fatal error.They’d mistaken Chloe for an easy target.
#
Cold had stopped beinga sensation and had turned into a state of being.
Danica lay curled on her side, wrists screaming, legs numb, every breath shallow and careful, afraid the air itself might run out if she wasted it.Time had lost meaning.Minutes stretched.Hours collapsed.Hunger gnawed viciously now, a hollow ache that made her lightheaded and fuzzy around the edges.
Her body no longer argued with the restraints.It had learned better.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.Real ones, not imagined.It wasn’t the echo of her own pulse in her ears.It was leather on concrete in unhurried, deliberate strides.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, panic detonating inside her.Her body jerked uselessly against the restraints.“Please.Please, I’ll do anything.I won’t tell anyone.I swear.Just let me go.”
Her voice cracked, humiliation flooding in right behind the terror.She hadn’t begged like this since she was a child, since she’d learned early that pleading was sometimes the only currency she had left.
The footsteps stopped close.She held her breath, straining to hearanything—a voice, a breath, a curse.Something human.
Nothing.
Fingers brushed the edge of the blindfold.
“No, please—” The words tangled together as the cloth was yanked away.
Light exploded, white-hot and brutal, searing her vision until she cried out and squeezed her eyes shut too late.Shapes swam uselessly when she forced them open again.All she could see was a blinding glare and indistinct shadows, nothing she could focus on long enough to recognize, nothing that stayed.
Whoever stood in front of her had made sure of that.
Her heart pounded so violently she thought she might pass out.
A sharp click split the air.A camera.The sound was unmistakable.Another click, then the blindfold was shoved back into place, plunging her into darkness again so abruptly it made her head spin.
“Wait,” she sobbed.“Please, just tell me what you want.”
Silence answered.
Slow, measured footsteps retreated, fading until they were gone entirely, leaving only the echo of terror behind, ringing in her ears.
Danica lay there shaking, tears soaking into the fabric over her eyes, mind racing in frantic circles.She hadn’t seen a face or heard a voice.She wasn’t being held by someone careless, or being kept alive out of indecision.She was beingused,and she had no idea how far it would go.
