I wonder if he knows how much it hurts to have the sweet name he started calling me when we were in elementary school turn to a word that makes me flinch.
Knowing Damon, he probably does, and he gets off on the misery he brings me.
The door opens slowly, and I reach to unclip my seat belt as a rough sob tears from my throat.
Even knowing my captor will mock me for my weakness, I can’t stop the tears from falling.
“I’ll find you, Siren. I won’t stop until I bring you home,” Ryker murmurs so quietly I barely hear the words, but I don’t allow myself to believe them.
False hope has no place where I’m going.
I don’t look back as I climb from the car, or as I move toward the SUV, or even when I allow Damon to secure my hands with a zip tie that he tightens to the point of pain.
Looking back will only make it hurt more.
Because somewhere along the way, I allowed Ryker to mean something to me.
A mistake I couldn’t afford to make, but one I made anyway.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
RONAN
NOW
Damon: Head to the airfield. Jet’s fueling up. Wheels up in two hours.
His words have been rolling around in my mind ever since I received the text.
He got her.
He has Chloe.
And we’re taking her back to Miami with us.
Guilt and regret swirl around in my gut, but I shake them off.
She betrayed me.
She knew I was watching, she knew it would hurt me, and she fucked him anyway.
His name on her pretty lips the way mine used to be as he brought her to the edge, and she tumbled over it.
I’m intimately aware of how her pussy feels when she comes, and I’m fucking furious that anyone, let alone that fucking smug asshole, knows how it feels to make her fall apart.
My fists tighten around the steering wheel as I pull into the private airfield the jet has been waiting at for almost a week.
When we came to New York, we expected to only be here for a few days at most, but that was before we took a trip down memory lane and had to chase her across state lines.
Damon’s SUV is parked and empty, meaning they’re already on the jet, and another wave of unease rolls over me.
Get the fuck over it,I snap at myself.
After all these years, I can finally get my closure and move on. No more wondering. No more longing for a ghost of my past.
I’ll finally be able to get on with my life, and that’s what I remind myself every step I take toward the jet.
Damon is chatting to the pilot when I reach the top, his shoulders tense. For someone that almost always looks like they don’t give a fuck about anything, Chloe has him rattled.
