She was still scared—he could feel it—but she wasn’t drowning anymore.He’d take that.Tonight, he’d take anything that helped her breathe.
And as Chloe went back for another bite, Kayne made a silent vow.He would find whoever had stepped into her home, touched her things, and decided to scare her.
God help them when he did.
Chapter Twelve
Kayne stood outsidethe bedroom door like a guard dog who’d been told tostay,and he hated every damned second of it.
He could hear Chloe breathing.The bed creaked occasionally when she shifted, a quiet reminder that she was ten feet away in the dark and he was stuck out here in the hallway like a chastised teenager.
He dragged a hand over his face.Kayne hadn’t felt this kind of restless, bone-deep frustration in years.She’d been through hell and was sleeping alone in a place she didn’t know, in a bed that wasn’t hers, with the image of a carved-up plant and a damn coffin of weights burned into her brain.He wanted to be in that room.
She shouldn’t have to be alone tonight, but she didn’t ask him for company.And he didn’t trust himself to offer.
He paced the length of the hallway off the living room again, probably resembling a predator burning a trench into its cage.
Talbot missing.The car attacks.The apartment arranged like serial-killer décor.Every part of him felt wound tight, as if he were gunpowder waiting on a spark.
Finally, he stopped pretending he could settle and pulled his phone from his pocket.He hit Logan Bradley’s number first.It rang twice before Logan answered.
“Colton.”
“It’s Serruto,” Kayne said quietly, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry.“We’ve got a situation.”
After Logan patched Luke in on the call, he explained efficiently, though he couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice when he got to the part about Chloe’s apartment.
Luke’s sigh was long.“You sure it wasn’t a break-in gone bad?”
“It wasn’t random,” Kayne said flatly.“It was a message.”
That coffin of weights flashed behind his eyelids again, heat and fury tightening in his gut.
Logan asked, “How’s Chloe holding up?”
Kayne glanced instinctively toward her door, lowering his voice even more.“She’s trying.She’s shaking on the inside but pretending she’s good because she doesn’t want to slow me down.Chloe won’t say she’s scared, but she is.”
