“Then I’ll wait,” he murmured.“Just don’t push me so far away I can’t reach you when you need me.”
Her pulse stuttered.She didn’t answer, couldn’t, because the one thing that terrified her more than almost being crushed by a falling ladder was needing Kayne Serruto.And losing him.
#
The ladder was stilllying there at a crooked, accusatory angle, resembling a crime scene exhibit no one had bothered to chalk yet, when the back doors banged open hard enough to rattle the drywall.
Kayne didn’t need to turn to know who it was.Leo De Luca’s voice carried enough volume and authority to qualify as a federally recognized natural disaster.
“Chloe, Kayne, what the hell happened?”
Anja was right behind him, moving fast and controlled, her posture already shifting into threat assessment mode, one hand drifting toward her weapon as if muscle memory had beaten conscious thought to the punch.Her eyes swept the scene, taking in the ladder, the foreman, and Chloe pressed against the wall.
Kayne stepped instinctively in front of Chloe, intending simply to settle her with his presence.He moved close enough so she could feel him, and she leaned into his solid frame without realizing she’d done it.She was trembling again; he felt the flutter against his arm, quick and involuntary.
Leo skidded to a stop in front of them, nostrils flaring.“You said you were just checking progress,” he snapped, eyes wild, “not reenactingFinal Destination!”
“Leo,” Chloe said quietly, which was never a good sign, “I’m fine.”
Kayne lifted an eyebrow.She was lying again.And poorly at that.Leo didn’t buy it either.His glare could’ve melted steel beams.
Anja drifted closer, scanning the overhead landing with a professional frown.“The ladder fell from up there?”
Kayne nodded once.“Worker lost control.”
“Slipped,” the foreman insisted from somewhere near the wreckage.“It slipped.I swear, we secure everything.I’m so sorry, Miss Giordano.”
Anja crouched, examining the metal, fingertips tracing the scuffed edge.“The angle’s wrong for a clean slip.Someone leaned it too close to the edge,” she said, then glanced up, cool and precise, “or nudged it without realizing.”
Leo was less subtle.“Or someone wanted to flatten my sister into a pancake.”
Chloe flinched.
Kayne shot Leo a look that saiddial it down before you make it worse,but Leo was too wound up to read nuance.
“Chloe.”Leo softened despite himself, stepping closer.“Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said quickly.Her voice wobbled at the end, betraying her before she could rein it in.
Leo noticed.His jaw flexed, protective rage simmering just under the surface as his gaze slid toward Kayne, as if this was somehow his fault.
Kayne didn’t bother dodging it.“I got to her in time.”
The words scraped out of him roughly because the idea ofnotgetting to her in time still hadn’t stopped clawing at him.
Leo’s anger cracked for a second, and something like gratitude flickered through it.Then suspicion slid back in.A De Luca specialty.
“Is that all you got to her?”he muttered, eyes narrowing at the space between Kayne and Chloe.
Kayne opened his mouth to shut that down, but Anja beat him to it.
“Leo,” she said lightly, with just enough edge to warn him off, “maybe don’t interrogate the man who kept your sister from being leveled by construction equipment.”
Leo blinked because Anja Johansen defending someone was apparently not on his bingo card for the day.
Kayne would’ve smirked if he weren’t still half-feral with fear.
Chloe shifted behind him, trying to stand straighter.He felt the effort it took, the way she rallied on sheer will, dragging that stubborn spine upright as if pride alone could erase how close she’d come.
