Chapter Eighteen
Chloe was dimly aware of the sheets beneath her and the press of Kayne’s weight braced carefully on one arm.
His other hand cupped her jaw as he kissed her slowly and unhurriedly, in a way that suggested nothing outside this bed existed or mattered.
She kissed him back, slower than she meant to, savoring the way his breath hitched when she dragged her thumb along his lower lip.
For a few blessed seconds, her brain shut up.
No drones or threats or lurking stalkers.
Just Kayne.
Then his phone beeped intrusively, effectively breaking the spell.
Kayne stilled instantly. The kiss broke clean, as if someone had flipped a switch. His body went taut above her, every line of him alert now, eyes focused somewhere far beyond the room.
“That’s not a text,” she murmured.
“No,” he said, reaching for the phone. “It’s worse.”
“What is it?” Chloe asked, her voice still tender from kissing him.
He rolled away just enough to read the screen, the glow painting hard lines across his face. Chloe watched the shift happen in real time. The warmth drained out of his expression, replaced by something colder. Deadlier.
“Security system alert,” he said. “Tamper notification.”
Her stomach dropped. “At the club?”
“Yes.”
“Did someone break in?”
Kayne shook his head, eyes never leaving the screen. “There’s no breach notification.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “But something tripped the system.”
They were moving seconds later, grabbing clothes and half-lacing their shoes, the easy intimacy of moments ago burned away by adrenaline and a creeping dread Chloe didn’t want to name.
They met Anja in the kitchen. If she was surprised they came from the same room, she didn’t comment. Kayne didn’t say much on the drive. He didn’t need to. Chloe recognized the silence now. It meant he was running scenarios, tracing failure points, and counting how many ways this could go wrong.
The club loomed dark and quiet when they arrived, its exterior deceptively calm. There were no broken doors or shattered glass, no obvious signs of intrusion.
Kayne and Anja headed straight for the security hub. Chloe followed, hugging herself as unease crawled along her limbs, the echo of empty space pressing in from all sides.
The monitors were dead. Not powered down. Not malfunctioning.
Destroyed with intent.
Someone had yanked wires and smashed ports in a deliberate, methodical dismantling. Whoever had done this hadn’t been rushing. They’d known exactly what they were looking for.
“No forced entry,” Anja muttered, scanning the doors and locks. “No alarms were tripped beyond the system itself.”
“So they got in without triggering anything,” Chloe said quietly.
“Yes.”
She swallowed. The club suddenly felt enormous and hollow.
They swept the building and found nothing else disturbed. There was no missing equipment or trashed offices. Nothing was taken, which meant it wasn’t about theft. It was about access.
Someone had been inside her building.
And left without a trace.
#
Kayne crouched in front of the server rack, his pulse still ticking too fast for a room that was, on the surface, quiet.
Too quiet.
Anja stood a few feet back with her arms folded, pale brows drawn as she surveyed the mess with a detective’s critical eye. The open panels and exposed wiring were not ripped out in a panic, but cut cleanly, almost surgically.
“That wasn’t vandalism,” she said calmly. “That was someone who knew exactly what they were looking at.”
Kayne exhaled slowly through his nose. Losing his temper wouldn’t help. Not when Chloe was a few feet away, pretending she wasn’t shaking.
“The system didn’t fail,” he said, his voice low and controlled, and so calm that it was dangerous in its restraint. “It was neutralized.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “It tells me they didn’t learn on the fly. They either had time or practice.”
Anja straightened. “You’re thinking surveillance. They scoped it out ahead of time.”
“I’m thinking rehearsal,” he replied. “Someone watched the system get installed. Learned the layout and the redundancies. Then came back when they knew they wouldn’t trigger anything.”
Anja’s mouth tightened. “So they planted a camera. Something small. Battery powered, possibly. They watched the install, learned the blind spots, then pulled it before anyone thought to look for it.”
Kayne’s gaze swept the room the way his brain had been trained to do since he was eighteen. He hated how clean that theory was. How plausible.
“Which means,” Anja said, finishing the thought, “they know how we think.”
Kayne’s teeth clenched. “Not anymore.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and started walking. “That’s not happening again.”
Anja fell into step beside him. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I trusted a standard system because I wanted speed.” His thumb flew over the screen as he scrolled. “That was my mistake.”
He stopped near the front desk, turning his back to the open space of the gym and instinctively positioning himself to thwart any threat coming from behind.
“I’m ordering a full replacement.” He hit dial. “Top-tier. The model they only roll out for executive protection and compound-level security.”
Anja’s lips curved slightly. “Good.”
“It’ll have an independent power supply,” he continued, already pacing. “Redundant backups. Hardwired and wireless. Internal recording and off-site mirroring.”
“And the doors?” she asked.
Kayne didn’t hesitate. “Every lock gets swapped. Today. Any copies of the keys floating around are about to be useless.”
“That’ll inconvenience the construction crew.”
He shot her a look. “I don’t care.”
She held his gaze, then nodded. “I’ll coordinate and make sure no one’s left out of the loop.”
Kayne turned back to the call as it connected. “Hey, Tank, this is Serruto. Sorry to call so late, but I need an emergency overnight shipment. Yes. Full package. No, not the commercial line. Top of the line.”
He paced as he spoke, eyes constantly moving, cataloging exits and shadows. When he ended the call, he stood still for a moment.
Anja watched him with quiet understanding. “You okay?”
“No,” he said honestly. “But I will be.”
She didn’t push. “You’re doing everything right.”
Kayne let out a breath that sounded more like a growl. “Someone was inside her space. Again.”
Anja’s voice softened, but her eyes stayed sharp. “Then we make sure it doesn’t happen a third time.”
He nodded once. Whoever this was had crossed a line. Kayne did not give second chances when it came to Chloe.
#
The rest of the day passed in a tense blur. Kayne barely left Chloe’s side, his presence a constant, quiet anchor as conversations blurred together and hours slipped sideways. By closing time, exhaustion pressed in at the edges, leaving her hollowed out.
Then the lights on the second floor flickered once, twice, and went dead.
A hush fell over the space that felt heavy rather than peaceful. Then a harsh curse broke the silence. Leo.
“Power’s out upstairs,” Chloe said unnecessarily, her voice sounding too loud in the sudden quiet.
She followed Kayne and Anja to the breaker panel. Kayne stared at it as if it might offer answers if he glared hard enough.
“You need a backup generator,” he decided.
The club had one, but it’d quit working. Chloe hadn’t had it replaced since the club wasn’t open yet, but it was on her ever-growing list of things that needed attention.
Kayne was on his phone while Anja went outside to check the controls. Chloe suddenly realized she’d left her phone in Leo’s office upstairs.
“I’ll be right back,” she mouthed to Kayne.
He put a hand over his phone. “You don’t leave my side.”
“I left my phone upstairs. Leo’s there.”
He looked torn, but he trusted Leo to watch out for her.
She hurried to get it, taking the back stairwell, the familiar concrete steps echoing softly under her shoes. The emergency lights glowed dimly, painting the walls in a sickly amber that made everything feel slightly unreal.
It was eerily dark when she reached the second floor. “Leo? Are you up here?”
No answer. He must’ve gone down the main stairs when the power went off. She swiped her phone from his desk and headed back toward the way she came. Halfway down, unease slid down her spine, cold and sudden, raising the fine hairs on her arms.
She turned, and the world exploded sideways.
A brutal shove slammed into her back, hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. She cried out as her body pitched forward, legs tangling as her palms scraped violently against the railing while she clawed for purchase, for anything that would stop the fall.
She gasped, choking on panic, clinging to the rail as her vision blurred and stars burst behind her eyes. Above her, a shape bolted upward. Footsteps pounded and a door slammed.
“Kayne!” she screamed.
He was there seconds later, skidding to his knees beside her, hands everywhere at once—her shoulders, her arms, her face—gentle despite the urgency.
“Chloe,” he said softly. “Look at me. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, breath hitching, even as blood slicked her palms. “Someone pushed me.”
His gaze flicked upward, tracking the empty stairwell. Something in his face went absolutely still. He pressed his forehead briefly to hers, grounding her, or himself, she wasn’t sure which. Then he was gone, moving like a shadow up the stairs, lethal and silent.
Leo arrived looking as frantic as Kayne as he also checked her for injuries. Anja appeared with towels, wrapping them around Chloe’s hands, her touch brisk but reassuring.
Kayne returned moments later, his face a mask carved from stone. He and Anja exchanged a look, some silent security specialist shorthand Chloe couldn’t read, and Anja took off up the stairs.
Chloe couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I don’t want to die in this building,” she said, her voice breaking despite her best efforts. “I don’t want this place to be the thing that kills me.”
Kayne pulled her into his embrace, holding her so the world couldn’t steal her away.
“You won’t,” he promised. “I won’t let it happen.”
But as he lifted his head, his eyes burned with something beyond fear. Resolve.
Whoever was doing this had crossed a line and she could tell Kayne was done waiting.