Chapter Eleven
Chloe found it halfway through her lunch protein bar, tucked beneath her keyboard like a cranky little bookmark. A neon-yellow square with Sharpie ink pressed into the fibers. Her name wasn’t on it, which somehow made it worse.
You won’t see me until it’s too late.
For a moment, her brain flat-out blue-screened. The words hovered in the space between her ears like someone dragging an icicle down her face. Then her heart remembered how to exist and immediately overcorrected.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. Someone’s idea of a joke,” she muttered to the empty office. It was just her and the quiet . . . and the note. Which had definitely not been there an hour ago.
A nervous laugh slipped out. “Right. Because this is funny.” Except it wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Heck, she wasn’t buying her own tone. Her hands had gone slightly damp. Could’ve been the protein bar. Could’ve been terror. Hard to say.
She crumpled the note, tossing it toward the trash. It bounced off the rim and slid to the floor like a whiffed game-winning three-pointer.
Great. Even her garbage rejected it. Rude.
Footsteps sounded behind her. She jerked so hard she nearly toppled out of her chair.
Kayne filled the office doorway, expression already darkening. “Chloe, I could feel your pulse spike from fifty yards away. What happened?”
Seriously? How did he know that?
“Nothing,” she said far too quickly. “Just paper on the floor. Gravity. Very dramatic situation.”
He didn’t smile. Not even a ghost of one. This, in Kayne-speak, translated to: We are now officially concerned.
His gaze swept the room the way a wolf checks the tree line for threats. When his eyes landed on the crumpled yellow ball near the trash, something in his cheek flexed. “What’s that?”
“Kayne, it’s literally just—” She dove for it, but apparently Navy SEAL reflexes beat fitness influencer reflexes every time.
She winced as he smoothed it open.
When he lifted his eyes, his green irises had gone all controlled storm and absolutely not messing around. “Where did you get this?”
“My keyboard.” She forced a breezy shrug, even though her stomach was slowly folding itself into a pretzel. “Probably a prank. Or Danica being Danica.”
He stared at her as if she were mildly deranged. “This isn’t a prank. You didn’t see anyone come in here?”
“No, I’ve been editing video for the last hour.” Her voice wanted to shake. She politely told it to take a hike. “The construction guys wander through sometimes. This room is scheduled for remodeling next. Maybe one of them thought it’d be funny. You know, a Halloween thing.”
“Halloween ain’t for another damn month.” His fingers tightened around the paper. “And no one gets this close to you without me knowing.”
Heat flared under her breastbone, equal parts embarrassment, irritation, and some traitorous spark of comfort she refused to examine. “You can’t monitor every—”
“I can.” He stepped close enough to rearrange her nervous system. “And I will.”
Terrific. She was comforted and annoyed at the same time. A fun, emotional smoothie.
“I really think you’re blowing this out of proportion,” she insisted. “It’s vague. It could mean anything. Maybe they meant ‘too late’ as in lunch hour. Or a deadline.”
He arched a brow. “Chloe, you teach people to do deadlifts, not perform emotional parkour.”
She huffed. “I’m just saying—”
“You’re scared.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Glared at the floor as if it had betrayed her. “I’m . . . startled.”
“Scared,” he repeated, softer this time. “And you’re allowed to be.”
A knot rose in her throat. Wonderful. Emotional vulnerability was happening right in front of God and her keyboard. “Well, you don’t have to be.”
“Oh, but I am.” His gaze dropped to the note again. “Because this sounds like a promise.”
Her eyes stung. She blinked quickly, refusing to surrender her mascara before lunch. “Kayne, please don’t make it bigger than it is.”
He took her hand. Just took it, as if it was the natural next step in the conversation.
His grip was warm, steady, and annoyingly perfect against the cold creeping along her nerves.
His jaw, though? It had morphed into immovable object phase.
Then his thumb brushed her knuckles, a comfort she absolutely did not request yet relied on completely.
“Now,” he said as he folded the note with one surprisingly gentle hand and slid it into his pocket, “you’re gonna show me every person with access to this office. And cher? We’re changing your locks.”
He was focused and lethal in the calmest possible way, and her pulse actually steadied.
Maybe she wouldn’t see the stalker until it was too late. But Kayne would see them coming before they even formed the bad idea.
#
Kayne didn’t let go of Chloe’s hand until his pulse settled. Because the truth was, the second he’d read that note, something primal and ugly had detonated inside him.
You won’t see me until it’s too late.
He’d seen threats. Real ones. Men who meant every word they carved onto paper. Notes like this didn’t come from impulsive idiots. They came from people who’d already practiced the kill in their heads.
But he didn’t tell her that. Not when she was already holding herself together with sheer willpower and whatever wholesome snacks she survived on.
He inhaled, forcing the anger back down where it belonged. Anger turned men reckless. Focus kept them lethal.
Then a glint on the floor caught his eye. He bent and plucked up a single chain link.
“Is this yours?”
Chloe studied it. “Nope. Never seen it before.”
“Probably dropped by one of the workers,” he said, pocketing it automatically.
But the faint prickle at the base of his spine didn’t ease. If anything, it crystallized. Something was off in this building. And he trusted that feeling more than he trusted luck.
“Start with the construction crew,” he said as they moved down the hall. “Names, habits, who lingers where they shouldn’t. If someone’s been watching you, I want to know.”
Her shoulders rose, tight with nerves she pretended weren’t there. “You’re assuming it wasn’t just, I don’t know, a bored teenager with Sharpie access?”
He almost snorted. “A bored teenager would’ve drawn something obscene.”
She made a wounded noise. “Okay, true.”
They rounded the corner toward the main gym floor. A couple of crew members nodded at her, smiling widely as if she weren’t holding herself together with sheer willpower. She smiled back, gentle and brave.
He hated that she had to be brave at all.
“Kayne,” she whispered, tugging him closer, “please don’t make a scene.”
He leaned in just enough that his Cajun rumble rolled over her spine. “Me makin’ a scene is what keeps you breathin’, cher.”
Her eyes flashed annoyance, fear, and something that looked suspiciously like longing. “You can’t hover.”
“Watch me.”
He scanned the corners of the gym, the exits, the shadows. Nothing screamed danger, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up anyway. The note had changed the atmosphere. Tilted it. Someone wanted her rattled.
He’d make sure they regretted that.
They reached the construction area where two workers were arguing over blueprints. Neither looked up. Good. Innocent men rarely flinched around authority; guilty ones tended to break into spontaneous sweat.
He stopped Chloe with a hand on her lower back. “Any of them give you trouble?”
“No. They barely notice me.”
“That’s a damn lie.” His gaze flicked to a younger guy whose eyes were very much noticing her legs. The kid caught Kayne’s stare and snapped back to the blueprints so fast he almost sprained something.
Kayne’s jaw tightened. “They notice.”
Chloe released an exasperated sigh as if she were trying not to roll her eyes. “Kayne.”
“Chloe, this ain’t flirting and it ain’t ego.” His voice dipped lower. “Somebody got close enough to your desk to plant a note. That means proximity. That means opportunity. And that means we narrow down every person who had access.”
She opened her mouth to argue because he noticed that was her instinctive survival skill, then froze. Her lashes dipped, hiding the fear she didn’t want him to see.
He saw it anyway. Felt it under his ribs as if someone had pressed a bruise.
“That note,” she murmured, “it wasn’t written on a whim.”
“No,” he agreed, voice darker than thunder. “It wasn’t.”
Her throat bobbed. “Then why warn me at all?”
He hated that question, that she was perceptive enough to ask it.
“Because,” he said, stepping closer so only she could hear, “some threats aren’t warnings. They’re countdowns.”
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t pull away. She leaned in a fraction, almost unwillingly, as if her body had already chosen trust even while her mind scrambled for control.
He let his hand brush her arm. “I’m not gonna let anyone get to you. Not now. Not ever.”
Silence enveloped them, heavy and intimate enough to steal the air.
Then she whispered, “You can’t promise that.”
He held her gaze, unflinching. “Yes, I damn well can.”
And he would. Even if he had to burn the world down to keep her safe.
#
By the time they reached her apartment building, Chloe felt like a wind-up toy whose key had finally stopped turning. Her legs were gelatin, her brain oatmeal. Her emotional regulation had taken an extended lunch break and was not answering emails.
If someone bumped her too hard, she might shatter like a hand-thrown ceramic bowl.
Kayne stayed glued to her side, close enough that his coat brushed her sleeve with every step. He didn’t talk much, but she didn’t need sound. She needed this. The steady quiet. As if he were a very large, very armed emotional support person.
She snorted softly to herself, already knowing how much he would despise that description.
“I’ll go in first,” he said as they reached her door.
She opened her mouth, but he cut off her protest.
“No arguments today,” he murmured, voice low in that Cajun gravel that made her bones melt. “Not after we learned your stalker is on the loose.”