Chapter Eighteen
Zane
“My parents,” I said, and Chloe jumped at the sound of my voice.
I closed the door behind me and walked toward the desk. She stood hovering over the photo of my parents. It was probably the only one left of them since I’d thrown everything else up in flames years ago.
“I—I wasn’t…” she stuttered. “I didn’t mean—I just… I’m sorry.”
She kept stumbling around words like a child caught red-handed and flinched when I tossed my jacket over the desk between us. I wasn’t even angry, but doing that or shattering a glass against the wall would probably have had the same effect.
I rolled up my sleeves, making my way toward the seating area, my footsteps the only sound in the room. I dropped into one couch, gesturing for her to sit with me.
“If you want to know something, ask.” I said, unbothered. “You don’t have to sneak around.”
She hesitated, then slowly crossed the room to take the seat, giving me time to take a good look at her. Her hair was a mess, as if she hadn’t bothered brushing it, and despite her face looking freshly washed, the bruises on her delicate skin were prominent now.
Even that couldn’t make her look any less beautiful.
I just hated myself for not being fast enough to prevent them.
As she settled in, my eyes dipped lower—big fucking mistake. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The thin fabric of her shirt did nothing to hide the outline of her nipples each time she moved.
It was distracting as fuck.
“Go ahead,” I encouraged her, forcing my gaze back to her face. “Ask.”
She cleared her throat, her eyes briefly flicking back to where she’d left the picture. She bit her bottom lip in thought, completely unaware of how that made my hands turn into fists.
“What happened to them?”
I found it amusing how she was more curious about my life than about the reasons I was keeping her here.
Or maybe she was desperate to find a reason to humanize me, to understand me, to connect with me in some way she could use in her favor.
But by doing so, she was also letting her guard down, revealing her own vulnerabilities.
She craved a place to belong. She craved the warmth of a family. A safe place and some stability.
While I couldn’t give her any of that, I could provide for her and treat her with a fair level of respect which was far more than she’d ever had before, considering the life she’d had.
Her question hung in the air, and I watched her in silence, weighing up how much to say.
I didn’t talk about my past. There’d been nothing in it but anger, pain, and things I had long ago buried, with no desire to dig them up again. But if humanizing me was the key to getting her to give me what I needed, I guessed that sharing a silver wouldn’t hurt.
“They’re dead, Chloe, and there’s not much more to say about it.”
I kept my voice steady, hiding the burning inside my chest that still ignited every time I touched those memories. Her expression softened instantly, and she looked genuinely sad as if she understood that lost.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Stop apologizing, it makes you sound like a broken record.”
I didn’t like pitying. I wasn’t a fucking puppy she could pet and stroke to make everything okay, and the quicker she learned that the better.
She frowned, pressing her lips together, clearly biting back whatever retort balanced on the tip of her tongue.
Fucking finally.
“My turn.” I shifted the conversation. “Tell me exactly what those men wanted from you.”
“We’ve been through this, Zane” she started, her voice tinged with frustration. “They mistook me for someone else, and you did too. I’m sorry about the gunshot and the money, but I’m not who you want.”
She was wrong about that. She was exactly who I wanted, especially in my bed, with her legs spread wide. But the way she said my name, the desperation in her eyes, the frustration in every word… She wasn’t lying. Every instinct told me she was telling the truth.
“They didn’t look mistaken to me,” I insisted, because there had to be something I was missing.
“No, they looked more like perverts, and you seem too smart to get fooled so easily.”
The way she spoke to me, as if nothing she’d say could have consequences—and how I let it slide every time—was outrageous. Either I was losing my fucking mind, or this woman had more balls than most men I’d ever met.
I glared at her, and she sighed, going back to trying to find a reason behind all of this, and I found myself hoping she could because I had no fucking clue what to do with her if she had no use to me.
With each interaction, I tried to figure out what it was about her that made me hard and soft in the same breath, but it was useless.
“You can’t keep me here.” She muttered.
I smirked. She looked cute when she tried to impose herself, not realizing her fate had already been sealed with mine.
“I can do what the fuck I want, because you owe me, Chloe.”
Her eyes flashed with irritation, shooting a defiant look back at me.
“Those men didn’t attack you by mistake and they will come after you again unless you stay under my family’s protection until we figure this out.”
She crinkled her nose, the reality finally sinking in. She was starting to understand what she’d gotten herself into, and she didn’t like her options.
I paused, letting it sink in before continuing. “You’ll stay, and you’ll pay your debt by helping me figure out what’s so special about you that caught the shitheads’ attention. Every time you cooperate, your debt decreases. Every time you don’t, there will be consequences. Are we clear?”
Her eyes darted frantic, her mind still racing for an exit that didn’t exist.
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“You can start by dropping the attitude as if this—” I lifted a hand and pointed up, tracing the roof over her head, “—is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.”
Her eyes lit with fire. She hated that I was right. She hated that she actually felt comfortable in my house. With food around the clock and a clean bed every day, this would be the most comfortable she’d been in years, maybe ever, though she’d never admit it out loud.
“You cleared my debt just to force me into another,” she muttered, refusing to accept her new conditions. “Should I thank you for that too?” She asked sarcastically.
No one had ever spoken to me in that tone, but with her, I kept letting it slide.
“I fucking saved you, Chloe!” I snarled, leaning forward, my patience wearing thin. “Not only did I do that, but I also paid two million fucking euros to bring you into the safety of my home. That’s far from the pocket change you might be used to, so yeah, I think I deserve some gratitude.”
My voice rose with irritation as I kept closing the distance between us with each word, yet she didn’t flinch.
Her gaze held mine fiercely, the fire in her eyes burning hotter with every word.
Her body straightened, her shoulders squared as if she were preparing for war.
Oh and she was, and I loved seeing her breathing fire like that.
I couldn’t care less about the money, but I wouldn’t let her go.
I needed her to want to stay. I had to convince her I was her only option, because forced loyalty wasn’t loyalty at all. At some point, it had to come from something else. You can only trust your own blood or those who’d bleed for you, nothing else.
“So your plan is to keep me here forever? Or are you just going to kill me when you get what you want?” she asked bluntly.
I didn’t give her an answer.
The truth was, I didn’t plan to keep her forever, but she couldn’t simply walk away, either. She had seen too much. All my options were still open but she didn’t need to know that.
“If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead by now. Here, you still have a chance.”
“I don’t trust you. I want to go home,”
Now she was pushing it. Playing with my nerves like a damn violin.
“I don’t think you understand. I own every inch of you, head to toe.
The options are either the room upstairs or a fucking cell in a warehouse.
So, if you prefer food that isn’t expired and a bed that doesn’t reek of piss, you’ll do exactly what I say, when I say it. But you’re not going home. Ever.”
I snapped. I wasn’t the type of man to waste words to get what I wanted, and for her, I’d already wasted plenty. I’d tried it nicely, but that got me nowhere. I was done playing nice.
But instead of ending it, my words seemed to poke at something feral in her, and I saw that survival instinct kicking in. She wasn’t going to settle for that, I’d be disappointed if she did.
She stood abruptly, her tits bouncing behind the translucent fabric, making it hard for me to focus on anything else.
“You can’t do this to me! I have people out there who will be looking for me!”
I stood too, letting the full size of my body loom over her, expecting to intimidate her into calming down. “And who exactly?”
She bit her tongue, and I waited. There was something about her that made me want to push a little harder, to see how far I could go before she finally broke.
“You are mine, Chloe. I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with you—”
Before I could finish, she slapped me across the face. My head snapped to the side, and in that split second, she bolted.
She reached for the gun lying on my desk, the one she must have spotted earlier when snooping around and with the gun pointing at my chest, she circled me, backing toward the door.
The way she held it with both hands told me she’d never fired one before, and if she pulled the trigger, the chances of the bullet actually hitting me were slim. But not for once she broke, she held the gun as steady as she could and held my eyes with wild hatred.
Fuck, it made me so hard.
“If you pull the trigger, you won’t make it to the door before someone knocks you down.”
I warned her. She didn’t seem to care.
“Do it! Shoot me!” I barked.