Chapter 33
33
CLAIRE
T he world was darkness. Thick, suffocating, absolute.
A hood covered my head, its rough fabric damp with sweat and my own breath, muffling the outside world. The air inside it was stale, hot, tainted with the sharp tang of chemicals—whatever they had used to knock me out. My stomach churned, nausea rolling over me in waves, but I forced it down. I couldn’t afford to be weak.
I was sitting. My wrists were bound behind me—zip ties, biting into the skin, cutting off circulation. My ankles, too. A rough wooden chair was beneath me, solid but old, the kind that creaked with the slightest shift of my weight. The air was damp, thick with mildew and something else. Gasoline? Blood? My head was pounding, the echo of whatever they had injected into me still rattling through my skull.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat, forcing myself to focus.
Where am I?
Darkness pressed against the edges of my mind, blurring reality, pulling me under. And then—light. Soft, golden. The familiar glow of my apartment in New York, the city outside my window humming with life.
I blinked, disoriented. My sofa was there, covered in a mess of blankets from the last time Diego had crashed after a late editing session. My laptop sat open on the coffee table, audio waves frozen on the screen, half of an Unseen episode waiting to be finished.
And then—footsteps.
“Claire, please tell me you ordered food.”
I turned, and there he was.
Diego.
Laughing, exasperated, shaking his head as he kicked the door shut behind him. He dropped his bag on the floor, unzipping his hoodie as he walked toward me, his dark hair an absolute mess, his warm brown eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Let me guess,” he said, flopping onto my sofa and throwing a pillow at me. “You got distracted by some murder mystery again instead of eating like a normal human?”
I laughed. Laughed. The sound bubbled up so easily, so naturally, it almost convinced me this was real.
Because this was us.
Me and Diego.
The late nights, the endless debates over edits, the inside jokes that had built over years of working side by side. The ridiculous conversations that spiraled into absurdity when we were both running on too much caffeine and too little sleep.
“That transition was sloppy, Dixon. ”
“Sloppy? Diego, I spent two hours making that transition seamless.”
“Okay, okay. But what if we added a little reverb? Just to be dramatic.”
“This isn’t a horror podcast.”
“Says you.”
I had spent more hours with him than I had with anyone else. In recording studios, in coffee shops, in my tiny New York apartment where we camped out when deadlines loomed too close. I knew exactly how he took his coffee—black, two sugars—how he hummed under his breath when he edited, how he’d make the same exasperated sigh every single time I veered off-script in a voiceover.
I had never doubted that he had my back. Not once.
I’d felt like I belonged. Like I was doing something real. Like I had someone who understood me, who cared about this work as much as I did, who cared about me.
That’s what Diego had been. My friend. My producer. My partner in this crazy, chaotic career we’d built together.
And I had never, never imagined a world where he wasn’t in it.
“You are my producer,” I shot back, tucking my feet under me. “If I die of starvation, that’s technically your fault.”
Diego groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re impossible.”
I grinned, about to fire back?—
And then I saw it. The hoodie he was wearing. The same gray one I had stashed in the bottom of my suitcase at Dominion Hall.
Because Diego was dead .
The laughter strangled in my throat. The warmth bled from the room. I blinked, and he was gone. The sofa, the golden light, the city beyond my window— gone. I was back in the dark.
Back in the damp, stinking air.
Back in Charleston.
A slow, aching horror unfurled inside me, as sharp as the pain radiating through my ribs.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Not my apartment. A warehouse. Fluorescent lights flickering overhead. Footsteps. Boots scuffing against concrete.
I choked on a breath.
Diego was gone. Really, truly gone.
And then—voices.
Low. Male. Close.
I strained to make out words, but they were just beyond reach, swallowed by the thick press of the hood.
Think, Claire. Think.
Panic wouldn’t save me. Hyperventilating wouldn’t break the zip ties. Crying wouldn’t bring Marcus crashing through the door with a gun in his hand and murder in his eyes.
Marcus.
A lump rose in my throat, thick and suffocating. Had he seen them take me? Had he fought? Had he been hurt?
He would come for me. I had to believe that. But what if he couldn’t? What if—this time—he was too late?
A sharp chill ran through me.
Jason Lawson had been his best friend, his brother-in-arms. And Marcus hadn’t been able to save him. Byron Dane had been the man who raised seven sons to be unstoppable. And yet, something in the dark had swallowed him, too.
A door creaked open. I froze, breath catching.
The voices grew clearer. Footsteps approached. Heavy. Deliberate.
Then—rough hands grabbed my hood.
I barely had time to brace before it was yanked off.
Light exploded into my vision. I flinched, my eyes burning, my head jerking to the side against the sudden exposure. The room swam in a dizzy blur of gray concrete, metal beams, dim buzzing lights.
A warehouse. A bad one.
The walls were damp with condensation. Rust streaked down from bolts in the ceiling. The air reeked of oil and wet wood, like we were near water—maybe a dock.
The man standing in front of me was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark tactical gear that screamed military but wasn’t quite right. His stance was too loose, his expression too smug. He was ex-military, maybe, but not one of the good ones.
He was a mercenary.
And behind him?—
My stomach dropped.
Evelyn Hart.
She stood just beyond my captor’s shoulder, wrapped in a pale gray coat that cinched at the waist, her blonde bob sleek as ever. Her lipstick was flawless, her nails pristine.
Like she had just walked out of a campaign event. Like this wasn’t happening. Like she wasn’t standing in a goddamn warehouse, watching me like I was an inconvenience instead of a kidnapped woman tied to a chair.
I swallowed hard, forcing my spine straight.
She tilted her head, eyes sharp. “You really should have stayed in New York, Ms. Dixon.”
I lifted my chin. “Go to hell.”
Hart’s lips curved in something like amusement. “Now, now. No need to be rude.” She took a step forward, her heels clicking against the concrete. “You’re quite the troublemaker, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
She sighed, almost like she pitied me. “You must be scared.”
I was. But I refused to let her see it. I held her gaze, steady and silent.
Hart hummed. “Tell me, Ms. Dixon. Do you think he’s coming for you?”
A beat of silence.
Marcus’s face filled my mind—fierce and unrelenting, the way he had looked at me that first day at the pier, the way he had touched me in his bed, the way he had roared my name when they took me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my breath hitching.
I didn’t want to think about him. I couldn’t think about him. Not here, not now, not when I was trapped in this darkness, held by people who wanted to break me. But I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop him.
Because there was no part of my life that he hadn’t already reached into and rewritten.
I thought I had known obsession before. Thought I had known desire, attachment, need. But Marcus had taken all of those things and shattered them, built something new out of the wreckage. Something that terrified me as much as it consumed me .
Because I didn’t just need him. I loved him.
The realization cracked through me like a bullet. A sharp, painful, undeniable truth I had been circling around, maybe from the moment I had met him.
I had fought him. Resisted him. Hated him at first, the way he towered over me, the way he made me feel small and seen all at once. The way he pushed, threatened, got under my skin in a way no one ever had.
But then—then he had touched me.
He had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth protecting. Held me like he didn’t know how to be careful but was trying so hard not to break me. Laid claim to me with his body, his hands, his rough, possessive mouth, as if he had been waiting for me before he even knew I existed.
And now? Now, I was locked in this suffocating dark, stolen away from him, and there was only one thought cutting through the fear.
I needed Marcus Dane. Not just to save me. Not just to storm in like the monster I knew he could be, to lay waste to anyone who had dared to touch me.
I needed him . The man. The warrior. The storm that had torn through my life and left me ruined in the best possible way.
I needed to get back to him. I needed to tell him.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Yes,” I said simply, certainly. “He’s coming for me.”
Hart’s lips pressed together in a mockery of a smile. “Then let’s make sure he finds exactly what he’s looking for.”
She turned to the man beside her. “Make her scream.”
My stomach bottomed out.
He grinned .
I barely had time to brace before his fist slammed into my ribs.
Pain detonated through my side, white-hot and breath-stealing. My chair rocked back, nearly tipping, my lungs seizing in protest.
I sucked in a breath, forced myself to stay upright.
The man stepped closer. “Come on, you yankee cunt,” he crooned, mockingly. “Give the boss what she wants.”
I clenched my teeth. I refused to give them what they wanted.
The second blow was worse. A fist to my stomach, driving all the air from my lungs in a brutal, unforgiving rush. My body seized, muscles locking up, my knees straining against the zip ties as I fought against the pain.
I gasped, trying to drag in air, but the agony was immediate, sharp as broken glass in my ribs. I felt something shift inside me—maybe a bruise forming, maybe worse.
A cruel laugh echoed in the warehouse, bouncing off the damp concrete walls.
“That one looked like it hurt,” the man taunted, his voice thick with amusement.
I refused to look at him. Refused to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging the pain flooding my body.
I thought of Marcus instead.
Of his hands on me—rough and reverent, claiming and careful, never cruel. I thought of the way he had held me that first night, the way he had pushed me up against the wall underneath Dominion Hall like he couldn’t get close enough.
I had spent so long fighting him, resisting the pull, convincing myself that what we had wasn’t real, wasn’t something I could trust. But Marcus had always known. He had always seen it, seen me, long before I was ready to see it myself.
And now, I might never get the chance to tell him.
The thought sent a fresh wave of terror through me, one that I couldn’t let settle.
Marcus was coming for me. I had to hold on. I had to make it through this.
I squared my jaw, forced my head up. “You hit like a bitch.”
His expression darkened.
The next blow sent my chair skidding across the floor.
I barely had time to process the impact before he grabbed my jaw, yanking my head up so I was forced to look at him. His grip was bruising, fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave marks.
“I can do this all night.” His breath was hot against my cheek, reeking of cigarettes and something sour. “Can you?”
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, ignoring the way my ribs screamed, the way my wrists throbbed from the zip ties cutting into my skin.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His nostrils flared.
He released me with a sharp shove, and my head snapped back against the chair.
Hart sighed. A slow, almost bored sound. “You’re stubborn.”
I didn’t answer.
She took a slow step forward, lowering herself into a crouch beside me. Close. Too close.
Hart’s lips pursed, her expression shifting from cold amusement to something sharper, something angry.
“You don’t have to be,” she murmured, tilting her head as if she were speaking to a child who had disappointed her. “I don’t particularly want to hurt you, Claire.”
A cold, manic laugh bubbled up in my throat, scraping against my raw nerves. “Is that why you just had your pet gorilla use me as a punching bag?”
She ignored the remark.
Instead, she stepped closer, her eyes narrowing, the smooth veneer of her politician’s mask slipping just enough for me to see the rage simmering beneath.
“You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” she hissed. “It wasn’t enough for you to poke around, to stir up trouble where it didn’t belong. No, you had to go and put my name on your little show. You had to make me the headline.”
Her voice dripped with venom, and suddenly, I understood—this was what had sent her over the edge.
Not Diego’s death. Not my investigation. It was the podcast. The fact that I had turned my microphone on her. That I had exposed her.
She wasn’t just a politician. She wasn’t just a woman with power. She was a woman who needed control, who had spent years—decades—carefully curating her image, building her legacy piece by piece. And I had shattered it in an instant.
A million listeners, all digging into her life. Hunting for her. Turning over stones she had worked so hard to keep buried.
My pulse stuttered.
She didn’t just want me dead—she wanted me silenced.
Hart crouched beside me, her expensive perfume clashing with the stench of damp concrete and blood.
“You have no idea the mess you’ve made,” she seethed. “Do you know how many people are looking for me now? How many eyes are suddenly watching? How many questions are being asked?”
I clenched my jaw, refusing to look away.
“Good,” I rasped.
Her hand snapped out so fast I didn’t see it coming. The slap cracked across my cheek, white-hot pain flaring through my skull. My head jerked to the side, my vision swimming for a moment before I forced it back into focus.
Hart exhaled slowly, straightening. The mask slid back into place, but I had seen beneath it now. I had rattled her. And that meant I had power, too. Even tied to this chair, bleeding, gasping through the pain—I had struck a nerve.
“Smart,” she continued, smoothing down the lapel of her coat. “Resourceful. And if things had gone differently, I think we could have been friends.”
I let out a shaky breath, tasting blood.
I turned my head just enough to meet her gaze. My vision was blurry at the edges, my breathing shallow, but I managed to lift my chin.
“Well,” I said, my voice hoarse but steady. “I have enough friends.”
Hart smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“That’s a shame.” She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face with an almost maternal touch. “Because I’m the only person who can stop what happens next.”
A shiver rippled through me, but I didn’t let her see it. I wouldn’t give her that.
“You don’t scare me.”
Hart’s gaze softened—mocking. “That’s because you don’t understand what’s coming yet. ”
She straightened, adjusting the belt of her coat like we were at a fucking dinner party instead of a goddamn torture warehouse.
Then she turned to her man.
“Break her.”
And just like that, the real pain began.