Chapter Twelve
Kayne stood outside the bedroom door like a guard dog who’d been told to stay, and he hated every damned second of it.
He could hear Chloe breathing. The bed creaked occasionally when she shifted, a quiet reminder that she was ten feet away in the dark and he was stuck out here in the hallway like a chastised teenager.
He dragged a hand over his face. Kayne hadn’t felt this kind of restless, bone-deep frustration in years.
She’d been through hell and was sleeping alone in a place she didn’t know, in a bed that wasn’t hers, with the image of a carved-up plant and a damn coffin of weights burned into her brain. He wanted to be in that room.
She shouldn’t have to be alone tonight, but she didn’t ask him for company. And he didn’t trust himself to offer.
He paced the length of the hallway off the living room again, probably resembling a predator burning a trench into its cage.
Talbot missing. The car attacks. The apartment arranged like serial-killer décor. Every part of him felt wound tight, as if he were gunpowder waiting on a spark.
Finally, he stopped pretending he could settle and pulled his phone from his pocket. He hit Logan Bradley’s number first. It rang twice before Logan answered.
“Colton.”
“It’s Serruto,” Kayne said quietly, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “We’ve got a situation.”
After Logan patched Luke in on the call, he explained efficiently, though he couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice when he got to the part about Chloe’s apartment.
Luke’s sigh was long. “You sure it wasn’t a break-in gone bad?”
“It wasn’t random,” Kayne said flatly. “It was a message.”
That coffin of weights flashed behind his eyelids again, heat and fury tightening in his gut.
Logan asked, “How’s Chloe holding up?”
Kayne glanced instinctively toward her door, lowering his voice even more. “She’s trying. She’s shaking on the inside but pretending she’s good because she doesn’t want to slow me down. Chloe won’t say she’s scared, but she is.”
Logan grunted softly. “She’s tough, but she doesn’t have training. Trauma rewires optimists like her. Makes ’em try even harder to be fine.”
“Yeah,” Kayne murmured. “She’s doing that. And I’m about half a second from ripping doors off hinges because I can’t be in two places at once.”
His bosses didn’t judge him.
“You shouldn’t be working this solo,” Luke announced. “We’re sending backup.”
Kayne straightened. “Who?”
“Anja Johansen,” Logan said. “I just texted her. She’s packing up. You’ll have her by morning.”
That eased the tension in his shoulders. Not much, but enough to breathe. Anja was intelligent, lethal, and calm under pressure. She was a damn good shadow who could blend into any space. Exactly who he needed.
“She’ll handle external threats,” Luke continued. “You focus on Chloe.”
Kayne swallowed. “I am.”
“Focus,” Luke said again, more pointedly. “Not implode.”
Kayne didn’t answer because he wasn’t sure which direction he was actually heading.
Logan’s tone softened. “You’ve got this. Get some rest if you can.”
Kayne hung up with a terse thank you, even though sleep was not remotely possible. His pulse was still a slow, steady hammer under his skin.
He turned off the living-room television, pacing once more to check the locks, the blinds, and the windows. Everything was secure.
He moved to her bedroom door again and rested a knuckle gently against the wood. Not knocking, just grounding himself.
He let out a slow breath.
“Sleep, cher,” he whispered. “I got you.”
He forced himself away from the door to lie down in the room across the hall and close his eyes. But every time he did, he saw Chloe standing in her ruined apartment, too brave, too quiet, while something dark and ugly snarled inside him.
He didn’t sleep for a second that night. He lay there, forcing himself to breathe in and out.
#
Anja Johansen flexed her fingers around the steering wheel for the hundredth time, testing the strength in her shoulder as if she hadn’t been doing exactly that since the crack of dawn.
The joint twinged annoyingly, but it was manageable.
A hell of a lot better than the white-hot agony of being shot and hitting the concrete hard enough to rattle her brain like loose change in a jar. Compared to that? This was a love tap.
Still, rolling out on her first mission back felt a lot like stepping on thin ice: exhilarating, terrifying, and almost irresponsibly stupid.
She cracked the window. Fall air sliced inside, waking her up more effectively than her travel mug of gas-station coffee. St. Louis sprawled ahead in the distance, a gray-blue smudge against the horizon.
“Back in the game,” she murmured, and told herself the way her pulse jumped was excitement, not nerves. Probably excitement.
CObrA Securities didn’t do training wheels.
Luke and Logan wouldn’t have sent her if they didn’t think she was ready.
Kayne certainly wouldn’t have asked for assistance if the situation wasn’t serious, though when she spoke to him earlier, he’d couched it in that gruff, zero-nonsense tone he used whenever someone he cared about was in danger.
Her cover was simple, he’d told her. You’re my fake girlfriend’s security specialist. Roll with it. And behave around Leo.
She had snorted at that. Why? Is he twelve?
No, Kayne had said. He’s a lawyer.
That had made her laugh out loud, and Kayne’s muttered, you’ll see had only added fuel to the curiosity simmering inside her.
Her phone buzzed in the cupholder. The automated voice read the text from Kayne:
Assess Chloe’s apartment. Talk to the cops. See if you can find video footage.
You didn’t second-guess Kayne Serruto’s instincts unless you enjoyed regret as a lifestyle.
She slowed to exit the highway, adrenaline humming now.
This was the part she’d missed: the moment right before stepping onto a crime scene, when everything was possible and nothing was certain.
Pittsburgh homicide had taught her how to chase monsters; CObrA Securities taught her how to stop them before they finished the job.
Her shoulder protested again as she reached for her ID, and she blew out a breath. “Quit whining. We’ve got work to do.”
Traffic thickened the closer she got to the city.
Her mind ran through the cover story again: She was a specialist Kayne hired because his girlfriend—she still rolled her eyes at that—was receiving threats.
No badge here. She wasn’t a detective, just another layer of protection wrapped in a pleasant, non-intimidating Scandinavian package.
IKEA, but dangerous.
The apartment building came into view. And on the front walk pacing with arms folded, radiating tightly wound fury, stood a man who had to be Leonardo De Luca.
Anja parked and slid out, straightening her jacket. Leo spotted her and stopped. He blinked, then stared. Not at her shoulder. Not at her ID.
At her face.
She was used to that. Her coloring tended to make people do double-takes, but Leo looked as if someone had gutted his vocabulary. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. She wondered if the poor guy’s brain had imploded.
“Hi,” she offered, because someone had to speak. “I’m Anja. Kayne sent me.”
Leo cleared his throat. “Yes. Anja.” Then, after a pause too long to be accidental, “Wow.”
A tiny laugh slipped out. “Try to pace yourself.”
Color rose adorably in his tanned cheeks, and he stepped aside to let her pass. “The police have already left.”
Good. That meant fewer obstacles and opinions while she laid eyes on the scene.
Anja moved past Leo, every investigative instinct sharpening. The air in the hallway tasted wrong, heavy and disturbed.
Her shoulder stopped aching, and her nerves stopped fluttering. Work mode slid into place like a glove.
She glanced back and found Leo still watching her as if she’d knocked his world a little off kilter. Anja felt a flicker of warmth she did not have time to unpack.
Later. Maybe.
Right now she had a crime scene to walk into, a threat circling closer, and a team to steady.
God, it felt good to be back.
#
Leo hadn’t stopped pacing the walkway for twenty minutes, and the concrete was starting to show signs of emotional distress.
He dragged a hand through his hair, checked the apartment windows for the fiftieth time, and tried very hard not to think about Chloe’s shredded plants, the creepy rearranged photos, or the fact that someone had created a coffin shape out of her dumbbells as if they were auditioning for a low-budget horror movie with a very specific grudge against leg day.
He was going to hunt this bastard down and staple their kneecaps to a wall. Horizontally.
His phone buzzed in his palm. A text from Kayne: Backup’s almost there. Don’t be scary.
Leo scoffed. Him? Scare someone? He was a delight. One who currently wanted to throw a stalker off a bridge, yes, but a delight nonetheless. A charismatic, bridge-yeeting bundle of charm.
A sleek black SUV rolled up to the curb before he could type a response. It was too expensive to be anyone but CObrA Securities.
Leo straightened, bracing himself for . . . he didn’t know. A wall of muscle? Another Kayne-type operative with a jaw that could cut granite? Someone who looked as if they ate threats for breakfast?
What stepped out made his brain short-circuit.
The woman had long, pale-blonde hair that shimmered like moonlight and eyes the color of storm clouds right before lightning hits.
Every line of her compact build read controlled power.
She moved like someone who could break down a door or recite poetry, possibly at the same time.
Somehow, all scenarios were equally believable.
Leo blinked and forgot how to inhale. Forgot his own name for a second there. He briefly considered introducing himself as, “Hi, I’m an idiot.”
She shut the door, glanced around, and when her gaze landed on him, his heart did something undignified in his chest, like a puppy skidding across hardwood. No traction. Zero dignity.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“Hi,” she said, voice calm and confident. “I’m Anja. Kayne sent me.”
Oh. Right. Words. He should absolutely make some of those, preferably in the correct order.
“Yes,” he managed. “Anja.” A beat. “Wow.”
Wow? Really? That was the best he had? Fantastic. Just great. His cousin’s life was turning into a Lifetime thriller, and he was over here rediscovering puberty.
A breathless little laugh slipped out of her—at him—which should have offended him but mostly made him want to hear her do it again. It was deeply problematic.
“Try to pace yourself,” she teased, sweeping past him toward the entrance.
He stepped aside, clearing her path, reminding himself he had bigger problems than his sudden inability to function around beautiful, dangerous blondes.
“The police have already left.”
Her expression intensified, a predator scenting threat, and something inside Leo eased a fraction. Whatever she was—cop, agent, Valkyrie—she looked as if she could handle it. Possibly with one hand tied behind her back.
Thank God. Chloe needed steady hands right now. Not Leo, who was apparently operating on hormones and adrenaline alone.
He watched the energy shift in Anja’s shoulders as she took in the hallway. She wasn’t rattled or even fazed. She was already cataloguing details, reading the air as if it owed her answers.
Anja Johansen was trouble. Beautiful, competent trouble that showed up exactly when you needed it and rearranged the world on your behalf.
Leo exhaled slowly, rolling out his shoulders, forcing himself back into protective big-brother mode. Later, after the police reports, the security sweeps, and the overwhelming urge to punch a brick wall settled, he’d allow himself to think about the way her eyes had pinned him like a searchlight.
Right now, Chloe came first. He’d stop the world before he let anything hurt her. Even if it meant pretending he didn’t notice the stunning blonde operative who had just knocked the breath out of him at first sight. Which was, frankly, a lie he was already terrible at telling.