Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Henry
She looked small in my bed. Too small for someone like her.
Or, at least, the version of her I’d built in my head.
Poised. Polished. Powerful.
The woman I’d watched at society dinners and charity galas.
The one who stood beside Victor Kane like a queen wrapped in diamonds.
But now?
Now she was curled beneath a wool blanket in the center of my stark, oversized bed that made her seem so much smaller than the woman I thought her to be.
Her hair was a mess, a chaotic halo of gold tangled across the navy pillowcase. Not the polished waves I’d seen in pictures. No pristine curls or flawless blowouts. Just raw, unstyled disorder. A smear of mascara clung to her lashes, the last trace of the mask she wore in public.
I sat in the corner of the room, my elbows braced on my knees, hands clasped loosely, just watching her breathe. Her chest rose in slow, shallow intervals, the sedative still holding her in its grip. I told myself I was just monitoring her vitals. Making sure she didn’t aspirate or crash.
But that wasn’t the whole truth.
Something in me needed to see her like this.
Unvarnished. Untouched. Real.
My dog, Cato, padded softly into the room, his claws clicking faintly against the floorboards. He paused near the bed, sniffed once, then walked toward me, sitting with a low grunt of approval, like he could somehow sense she wasn’t a threat. That she belonged here.
The thought twisted something in my chest.
“She’s not staying,” I muttered under my breath. “She’s just a means to an end. Nothing more.”
But Cato only tilted his head, unconvinced.
I stood abruptly, the scrape of the chair loud in the quiet cabin. The motion startled her — just a twitch of fingers, a wrinkle of her brow. I froze. Watched. Waited.
After a few seconds, she settled back into unconsciousness.
I turned and walked out of the room, finally able to breathe once I was no longer in her presence.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her only purpose was for revenge. A necessary casualty in the war I’d declared on the man responsible for Sarah’s death.
One second, I hated her and everything she stood for. Couldn’t wait to see the look on Victor’s face once he realized his precious Ariana was gone.
The next, I felt things I didn’t think I was capable of.
All for a woman I’d barely spent more than five minutes with.
I needed to put some distance between us. Needed to remember she was a necessary part of my plan. That she was just a tool. Nothing more. And when she was no longer useful, I’d toss her out like the garbage she was.
Cato remained close on my heels as I made my way to the underground bunker my father built as a safe room.
While I loathed everything the man stood for, at least his paranoia ended up useful to me.
The reinforced walls, lack of windows, and triple layered insulation were the perfect place for a remote office away from the standard protection in the various offices of my cyber security firm.
Booting up the system, I logged into the server. The interface lit up, encrypted protocols sliding into place, one after another. A notification for an incoming call popped up, and I accepted it.
“Line secure?” I asked.
“Always,” Blake replied.
“How’d it go?”
“The warehouse is clean,” he assured me. “But not too clean, like you wanted. No blood. No prints.”
I normally didn’t involve my employees in this sort of thing, but Blake wasn’t a regular employee. He was my right-hand man. Always happy to blur the lines of legality when necessary.
For that, he was invaluable to me.
When he learned I was going after Victor Kane, he didn’t hesitate in offering to be transferred to the Miami office in case I’d need him.
Turned out, I did, especially when I refused to accept Gideon’s offer to help.
“And the body?”
“Alligator feed.”
Grim, but effective.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, my fingers scraping along stubble. “Good.”
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” He asked after a few seconds.
Of course he would ask. He was the only person, aside from Gideon, who knew the plan. Who knew I’d intended to take Ariana for my own reasons. And now she was here, albeit under entirely different circumstances than I’d originally planned.
“I was out on the boat when I saw a cruiser pull up to the Kanes’ dock. A man dressed in black got off and entered a code into the back gate. Less than a minute later, he walked out with an unconscious Ariana over his shoulder.”
“So you followed.”
“What choice did I have? I couldn’t let him take her. Then my entire plan would be ruined.”
My words lacked conviction. I’d spent the past several hours convincing myself that was the only reason I intervened.
In reality, when I saw her being dragged to that boat — her body limp, her head lolling like a puppet with its strings cut — something inside me snapped.
Something raw, violent, and so damn confusing.
“Did you have a chance to run facial recognition or his prints?”
“Nothing’s come back, but it could take a while.”
I knew how these things worked. It wasn’t like in the movies where you immediately got a hit. There were thousands of databases to comb through. Even then, it wasn’t always successful.
“Why do you think this guy was after her?” Blake asked.
“I’m staring at fifty thousand reasons right now.” I sat back in my chair, my eyes focused on the duffel bag full of cash.
“But who hired him? And why?”
“That’s what I need you to figure out. This guy was familiar enough with her and the household staff’s schedule to know she was alone. And he had a gate code. I want to know why. And how.”
“Do you think this could have a connection to Sarah?”
I peered into the distance, struggling to get my thoughts in order. That was the million dollar question. Was there a connection? Or were they two completely unrelated events?
I had absolutely no reason to believe they were connected. Ariana was a high-profile target. But the entire operation seemed planned. Organized. Methodical.
It was rare that Ariana was alone. I’d watched that house for weeks. Months. There was usually staff around.
But not today.
Could it have just been a coincidence? Or was it planned? Did Victor plan it?
Or was I grasping at straws, desperate for there to be a connection between Sarah and Ariana?
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“And your plan?”
“What about it?”
“Has that changed?”
“What do you think?” I snapped. “You think I brought her all the way to Maine to play house?”
“It’s not every day you go out on the boat and end up rescuing the woman you’d planned to abduct.”
I barked out a laugh. “I didn’t rescue her. Not like that.”
“Are you sure?”
I glanced at the monitor, where the live feed showed her sleeping. Still as death.
“I did what I needed to do.”
“You’re protecting her.”
“I’m protecting my investment,” I shot back harshly.
“Right.” Blake didn’t argue. He knew better than to push when my voice sounded like this.
“I’ll let you get some sleep,” I told him, clearing my throat. “You’ve probably had a hell of a night.”
“You should get some rest, too. You sound like shit, boss.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
I ended the call and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes.
What the hell was I doing?
Ariana wasn’t innocent. She wasn’t mine to protect. She was the young, spoiled wife of the man who murdered Sarah. A society darling who wore blood diamonds to galas and smiled for cameras while the world burned around her.
That’s who she was.
I had to remind myself that whatever softness I thought I saw in her, whatever part of me wanted to believe there was more to her than the roles she played, was nothing but weakness.
I learned long ago to bury any weakness far below the surface.
And that was what I needed to do again.