“And you don’t worry enough.”His voice cracked on the last word, and that scared her more than the note did.Leo didn’t crack.Not for anything.Not even for her.
Chloe closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him, partly to comfort him, but mostly to keep herself from unraveling.He was solid and familiar, a safe place she didn’t want to admit she needed.
“You’re an excellent big brother,” she murmured.“But you need to chill.”
He didn’t relax.Not even a little.His arms came around her, but they held tighter than usual, protective in a way that felt too close to desperation.He wasn’t just worried.He was scared.
For her.
#
Leonardo De Luca frownedas his cousin walked away like nothing was amiss.As if the world hadn’t just lobbed another grenade at her feet.Chloe had mastered that breezy innocence of an easy smile and a shrug that pretended danger couldn’t stick to her.She thought if she didn’t acknowledge it, it would slide right off.But Leo knew better.He knew the soft spots she hid behind jokes and optimism.She was too damn naïve for her own good sometimes, diving heart-first in a world that rewarded elbows.She believed the best in people, which was ironic, considering the man who’d brought her into this world had betrayed her the moment she needed him most.
He still remembered the day Danny Giordano walked into their house.Chloe’s face had been blotchy with grief, her hands twisted in the hem of her too-big shirt.Danny had stood in their living room and calmly explained that he couldn’t take her.Couldn’t raise his own daughter.As if she were a couch he couldn’t fit through the door.His new wife, Candice, the woman he’d been cheating with for years, had flat-out refused.
Ten-year-old Leo had felt something primal snap inside him.He’d wanted to break the man’s nose.Would’ve, too, if his mother hadn’t stopped him with a single whisper against his ear:“She’s ours now.”That was all it took.That sentence rewired his brain.A vow settled in his bones.He had a little sister, and he would protect her with his life.
Danny had continued to fail Chloe in every possible way.Oh, he sent money for birthdays and Christmases, which were just checks instead of presence and guilt disguised as generosity.But he never showed up, called, or ever tried.It didn’t seem to bother Chloe.She’d claimed Leo’s father as her own and called him Dad, much to his delight, filling a space Danny had forfeited without a backward glance.
When Candice died two years ago, Leo thought Danny might make a halfhearted attempt to reconnect with his oldest daughter, but he didn’t.And when Danny died a few months back, Leo had been stunned to learn he’d left half of everything to Chloe and the other half to Danica, his other daughter.Excepteverythingamounted to almost nothing once Candice’s tidal wave of debt was paid off.That final insult was neatly wrapped.
Danica.Christ.
She was two years younger than Chloe, but decades behind her in maturity.She was the laziest, most entitled brat Leo had ever encountered.Danica had shown up at Chloe’s apartment out of the blue, chirping about wanting to get to know her big sister.Sure.And the timing hadabsolutely nothingto do with Chloe’s website launch, her newly purchased health club, or her workout line going national.
Right.And he was the freaking King of England.
Sweet, trusting, heartbreakingly kind Chloe had welcomed Danica with open arms.She’d even given her a job.The girl was trained for nothing.She could barely operate a microwave.Someone practically had to write down instructions for her to boil water.
Maybe Leo was biased, and he was being too hard on Danica.She’d lost both parents and was alone in the world.He understood loss; he just didn’t trust how she wore it.Every time she smiled, something slick curled at the base of his spine, an instinctive warning he couldn’t explain.It was the same one that had kept him alive more than once.
His gaze dropped to the grotesquely altered photo in his hand.Black ink slashed across Chloe’s face, obliterating it, and red letters screameddie bitch.The paper felt too warm and alive.As if it held the residue of someone else’s hatred.
Chloe had dismissed it.Of course she had.Smiles and denial were her go-to defenses.But Leo couldn’t.Not after the man they’d arrested last week, who was lurking outside her building, claiming she’d sent him messages through her videos.
A chill drifted down Leo’s spine, ghosting over his skin like cold breath.
Someone else was watching her.Someone bold enough to put threats on paper.
Leo pivoted and headed for his temporary office, steps clipped and deliberate.His pulse ticked hard beneath his jaw.He had a call to make.
And God help whoever had Chloe in their sights.
