Chapter 20 Cloe
CLOE
The old hotel hunched against the skyline like a broken tooth—dark, abandoned, windows shattered, marble cracked. The air leaking from the crumbling walls was cold enough to make me shiver.
It smelled like mildew and old velvet. A ghost place. A place built for breathing wreckage into bone.
I crossed the threshold. Boots scuffing against broken tile. The hallway stretched out before me. Flickering overhead lights buzzed low. Distant water dripped steadily. Somewhere, a door creaked on rusted hinges.
The city hummed beyond the walls. But inside? Silence. Thick. Waiting. Breathing.
I made it three steps in before I felt it—the shift, the weight, the world rearranging itself. He was here.
Wolfe stood at the end of the hall. Royal lounged against a cracked pillar nearby. Loyal leaned stiff against a broken radiator farther back. All three of them dressed like shadows. All three of them kings built for the ruins.
Royal wore dark jeans and a gray fitted sweater. Black boots scuffed and ready. A smirk bleeding lazy across his mouth. Casual. Cruel. Waiting for blood.
Loyal wore dark jeans, a black hoodie pulled low over his brow, hands flexing into fists and out again at his sides. Guilt dripped off him like sweat, regret crawled up the line of his spine. But he didn't move. Didn't reach. He wouldn't save me. Not now. Not anymore.
And Wolfe—
God, Wolfe.
Wolfe wore black tailored trousers. A black turtleneck that cut sharp against the line of his throat. The shoulder holster hugged his chest. A gun glinting under his jacket. Silent. Final.
My breath stuttered. He didn't look brutal or furious—he looked inevitable. A king not dressed for diplomacy, but for execution.
Wolfe's eyes locked onto mine—flat, cold, not angry, not cruel. Just certain, as if he already knew how this night would end, as if he'd already decided.
I felt the leash burn tight across my ribs—even without it around my throat, even without it wrapped visibly across my skin. Alive. Commanding. Breathing for me.
Wolfe's hand rested casually on the holster, thumb stroking slow over the black leather—not threatening, just patient. Waiting for me to finish remembering who I belonged to.
Royal chuckled low from the pillar. “She's going to survive this,” he said lazily, smirk curving crueler. "One way or another."
Loyal didn’t speak. Didn’t lift his head. Just shook it once when Wolfe’s phone buzzed briefly. A signal. A question.
Wolfe didn’t even glance down. He looked at Loyal. Sharp. Demanding. Loyal shook his head again. A small, grim movement.
“Don’t bother.”
Barron wasn’t coming. Barron wouldn’t save anyone tonight.
A flicker of something cold slid down my spine—fear, maybe, or memory. But it died quickly.
Wolfe shifted—one step forward, one hand curling slow into a fist at his side. The gun didn't matter. The holster didn't matter. The world didn't matter.
The door to Room 305 creaked.
Callum.
My ex.
I heard his footsteps. Cocky. Confident. Hope bleeding off him like gasoline. He thought he could save me. He thought I still needed saving.
The door swung open wider. The ex stepped inside. Smirked. Wearing hope across his shoulders like a dying flag.
He didn’t see the wreckage kneeling in front of him. He saw a girl he thought he could still save. And he was already dead for it.
He crossed the room with slow, careful steps, boots echoing hollow against broken tile. His eyes locked onto me—not Wolfe, not Royal, not Loyal. Me. He thought I was still his to save, still his to fix, still his to own.
I stayed kneeling, breath scraping raw against the leash burning invisible across my throat. I didn't look at Wolfe. Didn't look at anyone. Only stayed kneeling, breathing, praying to survive this the only way Wolfe taught me—by loving the chain, by worshipping the breath he owned.
Callum crouched down in front of me. Close enough that the heat of him burned wrong against my skin.
He smiled. Soft. Pitying. Pathetic.
“Come on, Cloe,” he whispered.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“This isn’t you.”
I didn't move. Didn't breathe harder. Didn't blink. Standing would be betrayal. Hope would be death. Survival meant kneeling even when shame ripped through my lungs like fire.
His hand touched my wrist. Gentle at first. Soft. The way memory remembered safety. The way ghosts whispered promises.
I flinched. Tiny. A tremble he mistook for longing.
He grabbed harder, yanked, dragged me against him. My breath snapped sharp, body locked, panic clawed up my spine. But I didn't scream. Didn't fight. Worship was survival now, and worship didn't flinch when the world tried to tear it free.
The ex’s arm wrapped around my waist. Pinned me tight. Mauled my breast brutally through the silk. I gasped, tears stinging hot behind my eyes—not from pain, but rage, betrayal of the survival Wolfe built into me.
Royal moved, boots scraping sharp against the floor. Wolfe didn't move. Not yet.
Wolfe wasn't chaos—he was gravity, waiting for the right second to kill or save.
Callum leaned into my ear. Breath hot and cruel.
“You think you’re his?”
A laugh.
Sharp.
Ugly.
“You were always mine.”
He shoved me roughly. Hard enough to stagger me toward the broken stairwell.
The gun slid from under his jacket. Glinting. Sharp. Final. He pressed it against my temple. Breath rasping. Cocky. Terrified.
Loyal shouted once.“Let her go!”
Callum snarled. “She’s not yours to save.” A beat. A breath. Then he hissed against my ear. “She was right, you know. You’re just a Lawlor whore now. Just like their sister.”
The leash snapped tighter in my lungs, vision blurred—not from fear, but survival, worship, love. Even here, even with a gun pressed to my skull, even with survival screaming to stand, I stayed kneeling inside myself. Breathing Wolfe. Choosing Wolfe.
Callum shoved me hard. Toward the stairs. Fired once wildly. The crack of the shot split the air.
Royal moved.
Loyal dove.
Wolfe—
He was already moving.
I stumbled. Hands catching air. Knees cracking against broken tile. The world tilted sideways. Breath vanished from my lungs.
I saw him—
Black-on-black.
Gun gleaming. Eyes dead and beautiful. And then—he moved past the shot. Past the danger. Past the kill. And caught me.
His arms locked around me. Hard. Brutal. Alive.
I broke there. Not like glass. Like prayer.
I didn't reach for him. I didn't need to. The leash never left—it just curled tighter inside me, pulling me home.
The gun clattered to the floor beside us. My ex-boyfriend ran. Footsteps pounding down the stairs. Gone.
I sobbed once—broken, breathless, beautiful. Wolfe didn't kill him. Not yet. He chose me instead. He chose breath. He chose leash. He chose survival. He chose love.
His hand fisted the back of my dress. Crushed me tighter to his chest.
The leash buried inside my ribs burned hotter.
Alive.
Sacred.
Silent.
Wolfe didn’t speak. Didn’t shout. He just held me. While the world burned around us. While Royal and Loyal closed ranks. While the hotel howled into the night.
Even ruined, even touched, even wrecked—I was still Wolfe's.
And he still chose me.