Chapter Twenty
Kayne didn’t sleep. He lay beside Chloe in the dark, one arm draped over her waist, breathing shallow so he wouldn’t wake her.
She’d finally drifted off sometime after two, exhaustion winning out over fear.
They’d made love three times, and still, he craved her like an addict.
Her body stayed tense even in sleep, muscles tight and breath uneven.
Her mind didn’t trust unconsciousness. Even in what was supposed to be a relaxed state, she was braced for impact, and the realization gutted him.
He stared at the ceiling and cataloged failures. It was an old habit, one he’d never managed to break. Strip everything down to what he’d missed, what he should’ve seen sooner, where the margin for error had been too damn thin.
He’d been seconds late. Again.
That thought sat heavy inside him, a slow, grinding weight.
He replayed the stairwell over and over, feeling the same horror he’d felt hearing her scream and finding her with bloody hands, panicked breath, and a silhouette vanishing upward.
He hadn’t seen a face or heard a sound, nor had Leo, who had been upstairs until the darkness drove him down via the main stairs.
Whoever it was knew the building and how to move unseen.
They also knew exactly how close they could get without killing her.
Which meant this wasn’t luck.
This was planning. Planning meant patience. Patience meant proximity. And proximity meant this wasn’t even close to being over.
At five a.m., Kayne eased out of bed, careful not to disturb her. Chloe murmured, shifted, then settled again. He paused and watched her longer than he meant to.
He’d never met anyone like her. She was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with bone structure or skin. It was deeper and quieter than that. It settled in your heart and stayed. Her body and her soul were so hopelessly entwined, he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
And mais là, she knew exactly how to undo him.
Sex had always been good for him, even when it was bad, even when it was just heat and release and nothing more. But with Chloe it was different. It stripped him bare and rewired something fundamental.
The realization settled heavy and unwelcome in his heart: he wasn’t just drawn to her. He was becoming dependent on her presence, her touch, and the way she made the world go quiet.
That scared the hell out of him.
Kayne turned away before guilt could soften him. She was a client, and he was supposed to be protecting her, not crossing lines he’d sworn never to blur. He didn’t have time for that. Not now.
Anja was already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, and hair pulled back tight. Her coffee sat untouched on the counter. Small bags were beginning to form under her eyes.
“You having trouble sleeping too?”
“Comes with the job.”
True, that.
“Overnight delivery came through,” she said without preamble.
Kayne glanced at the three heavy-duty crates stamped with CObrA Securities logos and a warning label that practically dared someone to try their luck.
He liked that.
When they arrived at the gym, he left Chloe with Leo while he and Anja went to work. A locksmith was already en route to change the locks. No discussions. No delays.
They worked in silence born from mutual trust and shared instincts. Kayne had rebuilt war zones faster than this. The fact that the comparison even crossed his mind sat wrong, settling low and dark in his gut.
That thought stayed with him as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Anja in the security closet, the sharp scent of fried wiring still clinging to the air. The old system laid in pieces at their feet. Whoever had done this hadn’t panicked. They’d known exactly where to touch and where not to.
This system wasn’t just better than the last one, it was paranoid. Independent power supply. Redundant backups stacked on top of redundant backups. Cameras watching doors, cameras watching hallways, and cameras watching the cameras watching the system itself.
“If someone even breathes wrong near this,” Anja muttered, tightening a mount, “we’ll have it in 4K.”
“Good,” Kayne said. “I want to know if they blink.”
They positioned a small cluster of cameras directly on the control hub, a choice most installers would’ve dismissed as excessive. That was the point. If anyone tried to tamper with the system again, they wouldn’t just know that it happened, they’d know how.
There would be no more invisible phantom. Next time, someone would leave a trace.
And Kayne would be waiting.
#
By mid-morning, the gym looked nothing like the war zone it had been for weeks.
The construction crew had finished laying the new flooring.
It was thick, luxurious rubber in a deep charcoal gray, engineered for impact, grip, and longevity.
It absorbed sound and light, making the entire space feel grounded in a way the concrete never had.
Pallets of equipment lined the walls, shrink-wrapped and pristine, waiting to be unboxed.
Kayne watched Chloe move through it all with focused energy, her tablet in hand and ponytail swinging as she pointed out machine placement with precise, confident gestures.
There was something fierce about her when she was in her element.
She was calm, decisive, and unshakeable on the surface. She looked like herself again. Almost.
“Okay,” she said, pointing. “Treadmills along the windows. We want airflow, not a traffic jam. Racks go here—no, actually—” She paused and rethought it. “Shift them six inches left.”
The crew listened. They always did.
Kayne stayed close. He tracked movement and memorized faces. Every time someone passed behind Chloe, his shoulders tensed.
She noticed.
“You don’t have to hover,” she murmured without looking at him.
“I do,” he said quietly.
She didn’t argue.
Equipment was wheeled in and bolted down. The space began to look like a future rather than a crime scene.
“Two inches left,” she told a delivery guy as a cable machine was lowered into place. “Trust me. You’ll thank me when no one clips their elbow.”
The man laughed and adjusted it. “You’ve done this before.”
She smiled. “A few times.”
Kayne’s lungs seized. Pride had no business feeling this dangerous.
His phone buzzed with Tyler Redmond’s ringtone. He stepped away to answer.
“Kayne.” Tyler’s voice was grim. No preamble. No wasted breath. None of the usual joking around. “We’ve got a situation.”
His stomach dropped. “Talk to me.”
“A body washed up along the Mississippi this morning. Female. Early thirties.”
Kayne closed his eyes.
“Identification just came through,” Tyler continued. “It’s Robin Day.”
The world narrowed to a pinpoint. “How?” Kayne asked, though he already knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Strangled,” Tyler said. “Marks are consistent with a chain.”
Kayne’s grip tightened on the phone until his knuckles went white. “Time of death?”
“Water complicates things. They don’t know yet.”
Kayne glanced at Chloe. She was laughing now, talking with one of the crew, light catching in her hair. She was completely unaware that the ground beneath her had just shifted under her feet again.
A sudden thought struck.
“Tyler,” he said slowly, “I need you to pull everything on Joel Erickson’s death. Full reports. Scene photos. Autopsy. All of it.”
“Wasn’t that ruled an accidental overdose?”
“Pull it anyway.”
Another pause. Then, “On it.”
The reports came through less than a minute later.
Kayne didn’t need all of them. He barely made it past the first few photos before his eyes locked on one detail, and everything else fell away.
A chain link.
Small, easy to miss, but completely out of place. Caught near the body as if it were an afterthought. It was the same kind he’d found in Chloe’s office and the stairwell. The same kind that kept surfacing like a signature no one wanted to acknowledge yet.
He and Anja had been careful not to disturb Erickson’s body when they’d found him, which was why they hadn’t seen it then.
Robin Day. Joel Erickson. Chloe.
Kayne lowered the phone slowly. Whoever was doing this wasn’t done.
He stood there for a long moment, rage settling in his bones. Robin hadn’t quit. She’d been silenced. And whoever was doing this wasn’t just circling Chloe anymore.
They were killing their way closer.
#
Chloe stood in the middle of the gym floor and felt something dangerously close to joy bloom inside her.
Incredible, mind-blowing, life-altering sex had something to do with it, she was sure.
But it was also this. The new flooring gleamed beneath the lights.
The deep charcoal rubber had a faint satin sheen and was seamless and perfect.
It smelled clean and new. Possibility instead of fear.
The air felt lighter too. Equipment crates were being hauled in, and the crew was unpacking them with the careful reverence usually reserved for museum artifacts or luxury cars.
Her gym. Really hers.
She walked slowly, fingertips brushing the cool steel of a squat rack to reassure herself it was real.
The machines were exactly where she’d envisioned them during too many sleepless nights.
The rows were aligned with obsessive precision, cardio near the windows and free weights anchored in front of the mirrors, the heart of the room. It looked purposeful.
“This is insane,” she murmured, half to herself.
Kayne hovered nearby. He wasn’t being obvious, but he was never far. He leaned against a column, his eyes tracking every movement. Yet when she glanced his way, he smiled. Not the guarded one, the soft one that made her insides ache and told her he saw this too and understood what it meant.
She pointed animatedly, directing a crew member to shift a cable machine six inches to the left. “People need space here or they feel crowded. Nobody wants to feel trapped when they’re already gasping for air.”
The man nodded, adjusting without question.
She laughed under her breath. Me, giving orders. Owning this.
For a fleeting moment, the world narrowed to polished equipment, gleaming chrome, and the hum of something finally going right. Her chest lifted with a breath that didn’t feel borrowed or forced. She could almost hear future laughter, music pounding, and bodies moving with strength instead of fear.
This was why she’d fought so hard and hadn’t quit when it would’ve been easier.
Then Kayne’s phone buzzed.
It wasn’t loud or dramatic, but the way his body stilled told her everything.
He turned slightly away, listening. One hand fisted at his side, and the smile vanished from his face. After he disconnected, he read something on his phone. She could tell it wasn’t good news.
“What?” she asked quietly when he finally faced her.
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes searched hers to see how much truth she could take.
“Kayne,” she pressed.
He crossed the distance between them in three strides, lowering his voice. “We need to talk somewhere private.”
They stepped into the office that would be used by the membership manager, the person who would sign up clients, a position she needed to fill sooner rather than later.
It was still half-staged, boxes stacked neatly, the glass wall catching reflections of the new gym beyond.
She could see the machines. The dream was right there.
So close. It felt cruel, being able to see it when she knew something was about to shatter.
Kayne shut the door.
Her pulse kicked up. “What happened?”
He exhaled slowly. “They found Robin.”
The room spun. Chloe grabbed the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening. “Found her?”
“In the river,” he said gently. “Down by the Mississippi. She washed up this morning.”
Her ears rang. The hum of machines being unboxed outside felt suddenly obscene. Life was going on while something irrevocable had snapped.
“No,” she whispered. “No, she was just fine. You saw her.”
Kayne shook his head once.
She swallowed hard. “How?”
He hesitated. “Strangled.”
Something within her cracked clean through.
Her knees gave, and she sank into the chair behind her, breath coming shallow and fast. Robin’s face flashed in her mind, competent with a smile that said she had things handled even when chaos reigned. She had trusted Chloe and walked into this space believing it was safe.
“Oh, my God,” Chloe breathed. “This is my fault. She’s dead because of me.”
“No,” Kayne said instantly, fierce and certain. He crouched in front of her, hands bracketing her face. “Do not do that. This is not on you.”
“She only worked here because of me,” Chloe shot back, tears burning hot now. “She was here because of me.”
Kayne’s gaze didn’t waver. “Don’t borrow trouble. We don’t know that she was targeted because of you. There could be things in her past we don’t know about. And even if she was, that’s on them, not you.”
Her breath hitched. She looked past him, through the glass, at the shining gym floor that moments ago had felt like salvation.
Now it felt like a trap.
Her voice broke completely. “This gym will be the death of me.”
Kayne stood and pulled her into him, holding her so tightly she could feel his heart pounding. His chin rested against her hair, his breath warm and steady.
“No, it won’t,” he said, low and absolute. “I swear to you. I will burn this place to the ground before I let that happen.”
She clutched his shirt, fingers digging in as the weight of it all finally crushed through her defenses. Chloe had been outrunning fear, grief, guilt, and terror since the first note.
Outside, the machines kept arriving. Inside, Chloe finally let herself cry.