Chapter Fifteen
After a restless night where Chloe was torn between sleep and going to Kayne’s room, she woke up frustrated and, sadly, alone. Her body felt as if it had run a marathon while her brain had been stuck pacing at the starting line.
She needed to be at work early to meet with Robin on her first day. Chloe didn’t realize she was grinding her molars until a flare of pain shot up her jaw. She forced her shoulders to loosen, praying it would trick her body into believing she wasn’t a vibrating mess of nerves.
Spoiler: it didn’t.
Danica was already inside her office. Not lounging prettily on the sofa or scrolling through her phone. No, she was perched behind Chloe’s desk, tapping on her computer with the proprietary confidence of someone who’d never been told no long enough for it to stick.
Chloe stopped in the doorway. “Danica? What are you doing?”
Her sister jumped. “Oh! Chlo! Gosh, you startled me.” She clicked the mouse repeatedly with a light, brittle smile. “I was just checking my email. Reception is garbage out there.”
Chloe’s stomach clenched. “On my computer?”
Danica tossed her hair; the motion practiced and a little too flippant. “Relax. I wasn’t prying. I don’t care about your little gym spreadsheets.”
The lie landed wrong.
It wasn’t her tone. Danica was always casually dismissive. It was the fact that Chloe could still see the faint ghost of her daily schedule on the locked login screen. Her private schedule, which included names, times, and gaps she hadn’t meant for anyone else to see.
Her palms went cold.
“Danica, did you open my calendar?” she asked carefully, the way you approach a loose stair, already bracing for the drop.
Danica’s smile froze, then recalibrated. “Why would I do that?” She laughed lightly—too lightly. “You think I care when you have meetings? Please. I can barely keep track of my own life.”
Before Chloe could push further, Kayne stepped into the office behind her. His presence filled the small space in that quiet, effortless way that made half her nervous system sit up and salute. The other half melted in relief before she could stop it.
And that was when Danica transformed.
She practically oozed off the desk and slinked toward him, lashes fluttering as if she were auditioning for a mascara commercial.
“Well helloooo, Kayne.” Her voice dipped into a sultry purr that made Chloe want to sink through the floor. “I didn’t know you were here today. You look,” her gaze dragged deliberately over him, “very fit.” Danica’s hand hovered near his biceps, debating a brazen pat.
Kayne blinked, then gave Chloe a look that said, “Please, dear God, collect your sibling before I jump out a window.”
“Morning, Ms. Giordano,” he said, stepping neatly out of her reach. “Everything all right?”
“Oh, everything is more than all right,” Danica said, smiling like a cat about to nap in a sunbeam.
Heat crawled up Chloe’s neck from secondhand embarrassment. Possibly thirdhand. For everyone involved.
“Danica,” Chloe said firmly, “you never answered my text last night. Where were you during the break-in?”
“The what?” Danica’s eyes widened, pure innocence on display. “The break-in? Oh, right. That.” She waved a manicured hand. “I was at a friend’s house. Drinks. Music. You know. I told you.”
“You didn’t,” Chloe said softly.
A flicker of annoyance crossed her sister’s face before she smoothed it over. “Well, I meant to. I swear.”
Kayne’s gaze sharpened. “Which friend?”
“Oh, my God, do you want my Social Security number too?” she snapped. Then, realizing yelling at a muscular alpha male with zero tolerance for nonsense was not her best life choice, she backpedaled fast. “It was . . . Maddie. Yeah. Maddie’s place.”
Chloe’s stomach churned. Maddie had moved to Denver three months ago. Chloe had helped her pack the boxes.
Kayne said nothing, but Chloe felt him register the lie like a seismic reading.
“Danica,” Chloe said, choosing her words with aching care, “this is serious. Someone broke into the gym and stole thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment. You know that. If you weren’t where you said you were, I need to know.”
“I don’t have to justify my life to you.” Danica snatched up her purse, chin tilting high. “I came here to check on you. To be a good sister. Sorry if that’s not convenient.”
“Danica.”
But she was already flouncing toward the door. She paused only long enough to gift Kayne one last slow, deliberate sweep of her eyes.
“If you ever get tired of babysitting,” she murmured, “call me.”
Kayne’s jaw actually dropped.
Chloe’s soul quietly exited her body in mortification.
Then Danica was gone, heels clicking sharply, perfume lingering.
Silence clamped down.
Kayne exhaled. “Cher, I’m trying real hard to find a polite way to say that your sister is something else.”
Chloe shoved both hands into her hair. “She’s not always like that.”
Kayne lifted a brow.
She deflated. “Okay, she is always like that. But she wouldn’t hurt me or my business. She’s just . . . over-the-top dramatic. And maybe jealous. She’s been struggling. Money stuff. Life stuff. I know she hates how easy all of this looks from the outside.”
Kayne stepped closer. “Being jealous doesn’t make her a threat.”
“I know.” Or at least she wanted to. Because something was off, and Chloe couldn’t tell if the stalker had turned her nerves too tight or if the unease twisting her insides was finally justified.
“She lied about her alibi,” Chloe confessed. “She accessed my schedule, and I think she’s flirting with you to provoke me or something.”
Kayne laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Chloe, listen to me. Your sister’s a mess, not a murderer.”
Her breath trembled. “I want to believe that.”
His thumb brushed her elbow in a slow, steady circle. “Then believe what you know. Not what your fear is screaming.”
She nodded, swallowing the knot in her throat. “Danica drives me insane, but she’s still family. I don’t want to assume the worst.”
“You’re not,” Kayne assured her. “You’re protecting yourself.” His gaze softened. “And I’m protecting you too.”
Chloe exhaled shakily. For now, Danica was a nuisance. A complication. A heartbreak in designer heels. But not the villain.
God help her, she hoped she was right.
#
Kayne waited until Chloe left the office to cool down.
She’d murmured something about checking on deliveries, her tone light but her eyes already gone somewhere inward.
He knew the truth. She needed air before her brain knotted itself into a pretzel over her sister.
Leo was with her, so she wasn’t alone, even if she felt like it.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Danica wasn’t the villain. Probably. Hopefully. But the girl sure as hell wasn’t playing with a full deck. Between the flirting, the lies, and the sudden interest in Chloe’s private schedule, Kayne’s instincts were pacing like caged wolves.
He’d already run a background check on Danica after the first time he’d met her.
She had a staggering amount of credit card debt from designer purchases, cosmetic procedures, and a lifestyle that didn’t remotely match her income.
Spending meant to project success, not survive.
It was luxury debt, but she made her payments on time each month.
Danica had two speeding tickets but no criminal record. Nothing that raised a red flag.
He accessed his notes app to document odd behaviors, inconsistencies, and anything that didn’t sit right.
It felt clinical but necessary. He hated putting Danica on any kind of list, even a soft one, because it would gut Chloe.
But protecting Chloe meant following the evidence, not the hope she was clinging to.
Footsteps clicked down the hall. Anja’s stride always announced when she’d found something. And usually not something he wanted to hear.
She pushed open the office door without knocking, her pale hair pulled back, her expression sharp enough to cut steel. “Kayne,” she said. “We’ve got a problem.”
He pocketed his phone. “We already got a whole grocery cart of problems. What’s the special today?”
She didn’t smile. Not even a twitch. Not good.
Anja set a small plastic evidence bag on the desk between them. Inside lay a micro-sized lens. It was sleek, expensive, and definitely not store-bought. “Found this in an air vent on the second floor.”
Kayne’s pulse tightened. “That’s not a standard security cam.”
“No.” She crossed her arms. “It’s a pinhole model with wireless transmission capability. High-end. Whoever installed it had technical skill and a blueprint-level understanding of the building.”
He stared at the grain-of-rice-sized lens, heat crawling up his spine in a slow, deliberate burn. “Where exactly?”
“In the vent near one of the smaller offices. Perfect angle to catch the hallway and half the studio entry.” She met his eyes. “The bastard came back more than once. I checked dust patterns. The screws were removed and reinstalled at least twice.”
Cold electric fury narrowed his focus until everything else dropped away. Whoever was after Chloe wasn’t rushing. They were circling. Burrowing closer.
He forced himself to breathe. “Any prints?”
Anja snorted. “Please. Whoever did this wore gloves and wiped all surfaces with alcohol. No way to trace it, either. Amateur hour this is not.”
Kayne nodded, pacing once, twice. Then he stopped dead. “Wait.”
“What?”
“That vent is accessible from the upstairs maintenance corridor, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And the maintenance corridor is supposed to stay locked.”
“It was locked,” Anja said. “From the inside.”
His gut sank. “Inside access only,” he muttered. “So someone with keys.”
“Or someone who stole them,” Anja said evenly. “Or someone who knows enough about vents and crawl spaces to bypass a lock entirely.”
Kayne thought of Danica behind Chloe’s desk. At the gym when she wasn’t supposed to be. Accessing Chloe’s private schedule.
No. He had to be careful. Coincidence wasn’t evidence. But damn, the timing was bad.