“She’s my sister.”
“And you’re my responsibility,” he shot back.“You don’t get to trade your life for hers.”
Her chin lifted.“You don’t get to decide on your own.”
They stood there, the air between them taut and vibrating, both too stubborn to bend, both too afraid to say the thing hovering just beneath the argument.
That loving her had rewired every instinct he’d ever trusted.
There was movement on the live feed.Danica slumped further in the chair.
Chloe’s voice broke.“If I don’t go—”
“You won’t finish that sentence,” Kayne said quietly.He stepped closer, cupping her cheek and forcing her to meet his eyes.“We go together or not at all.”
She searched his face, the fight draining into something terrified and fiercely loving, the choice finally unavoidable.Slowly, she nodded.
Then the feed shifted.A digital timer appeared in the corner of the screen:01:00:00.
Kayne’s pulse spiked.“We don’t know where to look,” he said grimly, already reaching for his weapon.“And we’re running out of time.”
Which meant someone was about to make a mistake.He just needed it not to be him.
#
Danica sat slumpedin the chair, her wrists bound tight beneath the steel rungs.The chair itself was bolted to the concrete floor and utterly immovable.She’d tested that already, more than once.The room smelled damp and old, of mildew and cold stone, with a faint metallic tang that made her stomach churn.Somewhere overhead, something hummed, steady and indifferent.Maybe a light.Who knew?
Time had flattened down here, stretched thin and mean.The phone on the tripod stared at her with its unblinking black eye.
She was being recorded live.Her breath hitched, lungs stuttering as panic clawed up her throat.She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to sob before she even spoke.Crying too early felt as if she were giving up and conceding the end.She wasn’t ready to give up.Not yet.
“Please,” she whispered, then cleared her throat and tried again, louder this time, forcing the words past the tremor in her voice.“If anyone can see this, if anyone’s watching, I’m in trouble.”
Her gaze darted around the room, not that she truly thought help might materialize out of the shadows if she looked hard enough.But she couldn’t see any windows or doors, only bare concrete walls and the phone.Always the phone, watching without blinking.
It didn’t feel like a lifeline.It felt like a confession booth with no absolution.
She shifted in the chair, the movement useless and painful.The restraints didn’t give.A broken sound slipped out of her before she could stop it, and her eyes burned.She hated that she looked dirty, shaking, and stripped down to desperation.Her hair was a tangled mess, and her mascara was probably streaked down her face like war paint.Worse than that, she hated that she was begging on camera, every defense she’d ever relied on peeled away.
“I know I haven’t been a good person,” she said, the words tumbling out faster now.Urgency sharpened them.“I know that.Believe me, I do.I’ve said things I shouldn’t have and wanted things that weren’t mine.I’ve been jealous, and petty, and selfish, and, God, I know.”
Her breath caught, and this time she didn’t fight the tears.They slid down her cheeks, hot and humiliating, dripping off her chin and onto her already stained shirt.
“I told myself it was because I deserved more,” she went on, voice thinning but relentless.“Because I was overlooked.”Her throat closed.She swallowed hard and forced the truth out anyway.“Because Chloe gets everything,” she said, the words brittle as glass.“I told myself it was her fault.If she just didn’t shine so damn brightly all the time, I wouldn’t feel invisible unless I made noise.”
Her fingers folded uselessly against the chain, nails biting into her palms as if pain might keep her alive.
“But that’s not true,” she said softly.“It was never her fault.”
Admitting it felt like stepping off a ledge, terrifying and oddly clean all at once.
She leaned forward as much as the chair allowed, bringing her face closer to the lens and whoever might be on the other side of it.“I can change,” she insisted.“I swear I can.I’ll do better, be better.I’ll apologize and make it right.I’ll stop competing with her and trying to be seen.I’ll stop everything.Just please help me.”
Her voice splintered on the last word.
She squeezed her eyes shut, gathering what little was left of herself, then opened them again and stared straight into the camera, at Chloe or Leo or anyone who might still be listening.
“I don’t want to die down here,” she said quietly.The fear in her voice was naked now, stripped of bravado or manipulation.“I don’t want to be alone.I’m scared.So scared.”
