Her shoulders shook as she cried, breath coming in shallow, uneven puffs that left her lightheaded.She shook her head, hair sticking to her damp face.
“I’ll be a better sister,” she whispered.“I’ll stop pretending I’m entitled to things I didn’t earn.I’ll stop blaming everyone else for how empty I feel.I promise.Please.Someone help me.”
She slumped back against the chair, spent, lungs heaving, and eyes glassy as she stared at the phone.The red light stayed on, unwavering and merciless, offering no reassurance or response.No mercy.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the seconds kept ticking away, each one a quiet, patient threat.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kayne didn’t like this.That didn’t begin to cover it, but it was the cleanest version he could offer his brain while he pulled on his jacket and checked his weapon for the third time.He’d learned early that when something felt wrong on a cellular level, you didn’t argue with it.You planned around it and expected worst-case.You assumed someone smarter than you had stacked the deck and was waiting for you to play your hand.
This felt like that kind of wrong.It was patient and didn’t rush because it didn’t need to.
The gym had to be a trap.A neat, polished, brightly lit ambush with new floors, carefully placed equipment, and too many memories layered under the surface.A ploy that smiled at you while it waited to close its teeth.
He trusted dark alleys more than places that pretended to be safe.
The countdown timer on the feed didn’t care about his instincts.Danica didn’t have the luxury of waiting for certainty, or for him to be wrong.
Kayne stood near the door as Chloe squared her shoulders, bracing herself.
“We don’t have to go in blind,” he said, keeping his voice even.“We can slow this down.Think it through.”
Chloe looked at him then, and there was fear, yes, but also resolve that didn’t crack when you leaned on it, but held fast under pressure.
“She’s running out of time,” Chloe said softly.“And so are we.”
Kayne nodded once.He wasn’t going to win this argument, and some part of him respected the hell out of that.Another part wanted to lock her in the safest room he could find and dismantle this piece by piece without her anywhere near it.He’d prefer to take the risk himself.
Protecting her had never been about permission.It had always been about inevitability.
“Then we stay together,” he said, not as a suggestion.He was drawing a line in the sand.“No heroics.”
She gave him a look that said she was deeply offended by the implication she’d ever do something reckless, as if the idea itself were insulting.It said she had never once made a questionable decision in her life and would like that slander noted for the record.
He almost smiled.
