Chapter One
Fame wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Okay, so technically, Chloe Giordano wasn’t “famous,” although the ten-million follower milestone she’d just passed suggested otherwise.
Ten. Million. The number sat heavily on her shoulders.
It felt too big and unmanageable. Ten million sets of eyes.
Ten million potential strangers who knew her face better than some people in her own family. The number blew her mind.
When she’d started her workout program three years ago, she’d imagined something small and manageable.
A quiet little corner of the internet where she could teach and stay busy.
Maybe pay her rent without crying. Instead, it had erupted, climbing skyward like Jack’s famed beanstalk on steroids.
Her portfolio included over four hundred videos now: weights, cardio, circuits, HIIT, kettlebells, booty bands, all of it.
She had entire training programs and millions of views.
An audience that didn’t just watch her, they followed her.
Expected her. Needed her. It was flattering right up until it felt suffocating.
Her free videos would stay up, but her shiny new platform had launched quietly and exploded loudly with exclusive content and a clean interface, not to mention a subscription fee that still made her sweat.
Millions had signed up before she’d even opened the doors.
She told herself it was success. And it was.
But somewhere beneath the achievements and sponsorships and the licensing deal she’d landed for her clothing line, something else unwelcome had begun to creep in: attention.
The wrong kind.
Despite her attempts to have someone recognizable wear her designs in the national commercial, the company had insisted it be her.
They said she was relatable, authentic, and approachable.
She’d caved to their wishes and shot the promos, and a few days ago, it’d gone national.
As soon as it hit the airwaves, her popularity skyrocketed.
She even had her very own stalker. Yay, her.
Chloe had gone from unemployed to a household name in fitness.
She’d even bought the gym where she used to work.
She should’ve felt untouchable, yet her hands trembled as she held the printed photo someone had taken from her website.
Her smiling face was scratched out in vicious strokes of black ink.
Across her stomach, in jagged red letters: die bitch.
Her heartbeat flickered unevenly, as if trying to decide whether to race or stop all together.
“What the hell is that?”
Chloe had learned how to swallow reactions, so she didn’t jump, but the picture crinkled slightly in her grip as she turned.
Leo stood in the doorway, broad-shouldered and furious in that quiet, controlled way he had.
He was technically her cousin, but her brother in every way that mattered.
The one person besides his parents who’d never abandoned her, never chosen someone else over her.
He’d been there when her father had left, when her mother had died, when the world felt as if it had emptied out all at once.
Leo had been there the day she’d moved into his house, a six-year-old with too-big eyes and silence where laughter should’ve been.
He’d taken one look at her and made her his responsibility.
Her father hadn’t fought for her. He’d had a new wife, a secret daughter, and a whole other life tucked behind the marriage he’d abandoned long before he physically left.
He’d told Chloe he wanted her to live with him, but his wife had said no, so her aunt’s family had stepped up and loved her without conditions.
Now Leo was an agent—her agent—and her lawyer, managing the chaos of her career as if he’d been training for it all his life. And he was the only person who seemed to understand the danger she kept pretending wasn’t creeping closer.
Chloe lifted the paper, trying for casual and missing by a mile. “Oh, this? It’s nothing.”
Leo was across the room before she could blink. He ripped it out of her hand, his jaw tightening as he read it. “The hell it isn’t. This is a threat.”
“Leo, don’t be so dramatic.”
He looked up, and the worry in his eyes punched the air right out of her. “Chloe, don’t be so gullible.” His voice was low and restrained, and she could tell he was trying not to shout at her. “After the psycho they caught outside your apartment last week, you should be taking this seriously.”
“Don’t call him that,” she snapped, then immediately softened. “He has mental health issues.”
“I don’t give a damn what he has.” Leo stepped closer, the picture trembling slightly in his hand. “He tried to grab you.” He jabbed at the page. “This means someone else is paying attention. They might not be harmless.”
Fear knotted her gut. She hated that he was right. Acknowledging it made the threat real. “Leo, you worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough.” His voice cracked on the last word, and that scared her more than the note did. Leo didn’t crack. Not for anything. Not even for her.
Chloe closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him, partly to comfort him, but mostly to keep herself from unraveling. He was solid and familiar, a safe place she didn’t want to admit she needed.
“You’re an excellent big brother,” she murmured. “But you need to chill.”
He didn’t relax. Not even a little. His arms came around her, but they held tighter than usual, protective in a way that felt too close to desperation. He wasn’t just worried. He was scared.
For her.
#
Leonardo De Luca frowned as his cousin walked away like nothing was amiss.
As if the world hadn’t just lobbed another grenade at her feet.
Chloe had mastered that breezy innocence of an easy smile and a shrug that pretended danger couldn’t stick to her.
She thought if she didn’t acknowledge it, it would slide right off.
But Leo knew better. He knew the soft spots she hid behind jokes and optimism.
She was too damn na?ve for her own good sometimes, diving heart-first in a world that rewarded elbows.
She believed the best in people, which was ironic, considering the man who’d brought her into this world had betrayed her the moment she needed him most.
He still remembered the day Danny Giordano walked into their house.
Chloe’s face had been blotchy with grief, her hands twisted in the hem of her too-big shirt.
Danny had stood in their living room and calmly explained that he couldn’t take her.
Couldn’t raise his own daughter. As if she were a couch he couldn’t fit through the door.
His new wife, Candice, the woman he’d been cheating with for years, had flat-out refused.
Ten-year-old Leo had felt something primal snap inside him.
He’d wanted to break the man’s nose. Would’ve, too, if his mother hadn’t stopped him with a single whisper against his ear: “She’s ours now.
” That was all it took. That sentence rewired his brain.
A vow settled in his bones. He had a little sister, and he would protect her with his life.
Danny had continued to fail Chloe in every possible way.
Oh, he sent money for birthdays and Christmases, which were just checks instead of presence and guilt disguised as generosity.
But he never showed up, called, or ever tried.
It didn’t seem to bother Chloe. She’d claimed Leo’s father as her own and called him Dad, much to his delight, filling a space Danny had forfeited without a backward glance.
When Candice died two years ago, Leo thought Danny might make a halfhearted attempt to reconnect with his oldest daughter, but he didn’t.
And when Danny died a few months back, Leo had been stunned to learn he’d left half of everything to Chloe and the other half to Danica, his other daughter.
Except everything amounted to almost nothing once Candice’s tidal wave of debt was paid off. That final insult was neatly wrapped.
Danica. Christ.
She was two years younger than Chloe, but decades behind her in maturity.
She was the laziest, most entitled brat Leo had ever encountered.
Danica had shown up at Chloe’s apartment out of the blue, chirping about wanting to get to know her big sister.
Sure. And the timing had absolutely nothing to do with Chloe’s website launch, her newly purchased health club, or her workout line going national.
Right. And he was the freaking King of England.
Sweet, trusting, heartbreakingly kind Chloe had welcomed Danica with open arms. She’d even given her a job. The girl was trained for nothing. She could barely operate a microwave. Someone practically had to write down instructions for her to boil water.
Maybe Leo was biased, and he was being too hard on Danica.
She’d lost both parents and was alone in the world.
He understood loss; he just didn’t trust how she wore it.
Every time she smiled, something slick curled at the base of his spine, an instinctive warning he couldn’t explain.
It was the same one that had kept him alive more than once.
His gaze dropped to the grotesquely altered photo in his hand. Black ink slashed across Chloe’s face, obliterating it, and red letters screamed die bitch. The paper felt too warm and alive. As if it held the residue of someone else’s hatred.
Chloe had dismissed it. Of course she had. Smiles and denial were her go-to defenses. But Leo couldn’t. Not after the man they’d arrested last week, who was lurking outside her building, claiming she’d sent him messages through her videos.
A chill drifted down Leo’s spine, ghosting over his skin like cold breath.
Someone else was watching her. Someone bold enough to put threats on paper.
Leo pivoted and headed for his temporary office, steps clipped and deliberate. His pulse ticked hard beneath his jaw. He had a call to make.
And God help whoever had Chloe in their sights.