Chapter 9 Keeley
NINE
KEELEY
I don’t sleep. I don’t dare. The nightmares were bad before this, and I didn’t want to risk worse by closing my eyes. So I stay curled in the bed until the sun comes up, trying to swallow the hollowed out feeling in my chest.
Morning doesn’t bring clarity, just more emptiness and a dull head.
I always knew my brother was a bastard, but this? This surpasses even my wildest imagination. There’s no scenario in which I thought I was in that cage as payment.
I still can’t believe it, even with the facts staring me in the face.
I’m not delusional. I know what kind of man my brother is.
Over the years, he’s stolen from me, put me in the hospital numerous times, and made a career out of lying to my face.
He’s dragged me kicking and screaming into messes I didn’t ask for and expected me to clean up after him when the shit hit the fan.
But it was always just Daniel being selfish. Never anything like this. Never my brother deciding I’m expendable.
New thoughts creep in with the dawn, raw and ugly. Did he ever give a shit about me, or was I always transactional to him? Was I always destined to end up in a cage as leverage for him?
Did my brother even stop to consider what would happen to me if he didn’t uphold his end of this deal?
By lunchtime, the shock has morphed into something hot. Anger blazes through my veins as I lie glaring at the ceiling.
How dare he. How fucking dare he.
My fingers fist into the blankets, but it doesn’t help to ground me. My life is on fire and I don’t know whether to rage, scream or dance in the fucking ashes.
And Nic? Poor fucking Nic. He did not sign up for this. He told me the truth was ugly, and I still pushed for it.
I wish I hadn’t.
Maybe he lied. No. I felt the truth in it before he even spoke. I remember the man in the suit. Remember him looking at me like I was nothing.
I remember fragments of a conversation with my brother. Pieces of a puzzle I’d rather forget existed. Daniel did use me as insurance. My own fucking brother.
I begged Nic to tell me. He didn’t soften it or make excuses for my brother. He didn’t look smug when he told me what a piece of shit Daniel is. He looked like a man who’d had the truth dragged out of his mouth against his will.
I asked, and he gave it to me.
And how did I repay that?
I accused him of awful things and then I stormed out of the bar without looking back.
Fuck me.
I drag a pillow over my face and groan into it. It’s unfair to blame Nic for this. He didn’t pull me into this mess. I was already sitting at the table eating the first course.
All he’s done is try to keep me safe, even when I was plotting to escape, and yet I told him he was the one keeping me in a cage now.
Great. Brilliant, Keeley. Nic might be the only person on my side right now.
I exhale through my nose until my lungs burn because the worst part is I hurt him when I said that. He looked wrecked through the entire conversation.
Did he sleep last night or was he lying awake, running over every rotten word I threw at him?
Guilt settles in my stomach.
Maybe I’m an idiot for even considering trusting Nic. He’s a criminal, and he rules over a world I don’t understand. But he didn’t put me in that cage.
He pulled me out of it.
Last night, he didn’t have to sit with me and eat. He sure as hell didn’t have to plate up my food like he cared if I ate. And he definitely didn’t have to stand there while I accused him of using me against Daniel.
The soft rap of knuckles against the door is loud in the quiet of the room. I sit up so fast the pain in my hip pulses in time with the pounding in my head.
Then I hear Nic’s gruff: “Keeley? You awake?”
Fuck. I’m not sure I’m ready for this conversation, but I need to have it.
I slip out of the bed and pad across the room like I’m walking to the gallows. I pause before I open the door, just long enough to take a steadying breath, and then I brace.
Nic fills the doorway, like always, a mountain of denim and leather. It’s the bruised smudges under his eyes that weren’t there yesterday that draw my attention. They’re not subtle and there’s a slow, sickening drop in my stomach as I stare at them.
The cost of my sharp words are painted on his skin, and a deep ache settles behind my ribs.
I stand there, staring at him while my guilt eats me alive.
“You didn’t come down for breakfast.”
“I—” I lick my dry lips. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“You barely ate last night either. It’s almost two p.m. You’re eating.”
He steps forward and the way he consumes the space around him means I shift back automatically to give him room. There’s no pushiness or aggression. Nic doesn’t need that. He just… commands the air before him, filling it like it bends to him.
I don’t close the door behind him, but I follow him like a puppy as he moves to the dresser. I didn’t notice the bag he’s clutching, but he unloads it onto the top.
Leftover Chinese food.
“You want it hot, I’ll warm it, but leftovers taste better cold.”
He’s acting as if last night didn’t happen. But it did and we need to address it.
“Uh… Nic?” I fidget with the hem of my borrowed shirt.
He doesn’t pause at what he’s doing, but cuts a glance at me. “You need somethin’?”
A tactical time out. Two seconds to breathe. A drink.
“I was—” My words die and I clear my throat to cover the silence when he doesn’t try to fill it.
I swallow around the tightness in my throat and shift on my feet. Nic waits, gives me the space to speak or to just exist. He does that, I notice. Doesn’t talk when he thinks I’m trying to find the right words.
But I don’t know what to say, so I just stare at him and the longer I do, the more my stomach twists. There’s a bone deep exhaustion he’s trying to hide, like he’s been shouldering too much for too long.
And I hate that I added to that.
That helps me to unlock my tongue. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I’m sorry.”
The apology hangs between us, exposed and ugly, but real. I don’t take it back. I don’t try to soften what I said or how I reacted. I just say it.
The breath he pulls in through his nose isn’t angry or irritated. It’s something softer. “You were upset.”
“I was a bitch,” I correct.
He turns fully to me now. His expression hardens into something defensive, protective even. “Don’t.”
Just one word, that’s all he says. It’s low and unshakeable. Then he steps into my space until there’s barely a breath between us. I tip my chin to look at him, my heart fluttering wildly in my chest. I can feel the heat coming off him, a warmth I almost drift closer to.
He dips his head until he can meet my gaze and the air sticks in my throat at the way he’s looking at me. “Don’t call yourself that.”
My throat bobs. “I was out of order.”
“You were blindsided,” he corrects, “and you reacted like any normal human would’ve.
” I reach behind me and curl my fingers around the edge of the dresser.
My legs feel weak, and not because of my hip.
It’s the way he’s pinning me with his eyes, and his body.
“Keeley, I don’t care what you said to me in the heat of the moment.
I care that you didn’t come down for breakfast or lunch.
I care that you’re hidin’ in this room like you’ve got somethin’ to be ashamed of. ”
Oh. That traitorous flutter sparks again behind my ribs. He noticed I didn’t eat and he’s bothered by it. It hits harder than I want to admit.
Before I do something stupid like lean into him, I clear my throat. “It tastes better cold,” I say, gesturing vaguely at the cartons. His brows inch up just a fraction at the swerve back to his earlier statement. “The flavours settle overnight.”
I have no idea if that’s true. I can barely navigate the kettle, let alone understand marinating and sauce infusion. But my mouth won’t stop moving.
“It’s a rule that if you order takeaway, you have to get more than you can eat in one sitting.
That way, you have food for two days. Otherwise you’re just setting future-you up for disappointment.
Leftovers are elite. Honestly, it’s a thing.
” I’m breathless by the time I clamp my mouth shut and the heat is burning my cheeks.
“It’s a thing?”
I nod so hard my neck hurts. “It’s science, Nic,” I say, as if I’m an expert on this weirdly niche topic.
What the fuck am I saying? Please stop talking, Keeley.
I press my lips together to stop my tongue from wagging and wish I could disappear into the floor.
He smiles. Actually fucking smiles. “Good to know.”
When he twists back to the food, the air reclaims the space he left. I inhale discreetly through my nose, watching as he opens the cartons one by one like this is a normal thing we do.
“Didn’t bring plates,” he says, flicking his gaze to me, as if checking I’m still standing.
“That’s okay,” I say. “Tastes better in the carton.”
“That science too?” He hands me a fork, and when I take it from him, his fingers brush mine.
There’s that flutter again.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
We end up sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, mine against the side of the bed. I’m making my way through a carton of something sweet and tangy. It’s really good, and it fills some of that hollowness from earlier.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time.”
My fork pauses for a split second before I keep moving. “I think last night proved I’m not strong any of the time, Nic.”
“Don’t rewrite what happened.”
“I’m not. I demanded the truth, then got snappy when you gave it, and stormed off.”
He puts the carton down on the carpet and gives me his full attention. “You just found out your brother used you as insurance, Keeley. I’d have been more worried if you weren’t upset.”
My grip tightens around my fork before I unclench my hand. Somehow, I push the shadows back to where they belong and give him a tentative smile. “That wasn’t me upset. I was—” I grapple for a word that fits but there’s nothing big enough. “What happens now?” I ask instead.
“You eat, you rest. I handle everything else.” He says it simply, as if stating this makes it happen.
“Okay, but, Nic, that’s not a plan.”
He stares at me. I stare back. Then he says, “It’s the one we’re followin’.” I watch as he grabs the carton and starts eating again, as if he didn’t just drop that. For a moment, he just eats as the silence grows around us. “You were right by the way.”
I blink. “About what?”
“Tastes better the day after.”