Chapter Twenty-Seven
The phone buzzed on the nightstand, fierce and insistent in the dark.
Chloe surfaced from sleep with a gasp, heart already racing before her brain caught up. Middle of the night texts were never good, she thought, as she fumbled for the phone with shaking fingers.
Danica.
Her breath hitched. Relief exploded through her so fast it almost hurt. She’s okay. She found a charger.
Hope was a reckless bitch. It never learned.
It took Chloe a second to understand what she was seeing.
The image was grainy and brightly lit. It appeared to be taken in a hurry, or under a floodlight.
Danica was sprawled on a concrete floor, wrists bound in front of her with chains, hair tangled and makeup smeared.
Her eyes were wide and terrified, fixed on something just beyond the frame, something Chloe couldn’t see.
Chloe’s stomach dropped so hard she thought she might be sick.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
Kayne was upright instantly, hand on her arm. “Chloe. What is it?”
Instead of answering, she handed him the phone. Kayne’s body went rigid as he studied the image
“Damn it,” he breathed, the words torn straight out of him. He was already reaching for his own phone.
Somehow, she dressed, or attempted to. Her fingers didn’t want to work. Kayne had to help because she was useless. He guided her to the kitchen. Lights came on. Doors opened. Footsteps thundered down the hall.
Anja appeared first, hair loose and eyes focused despite the hour. Leo was right behind her, fury barely contained.
Chloe clutched the phone in her grip. “It came from Danica’s number,” she said, the words tumbling out. “She texted me. I thought—God, I thought it meant she was okay.”
Anja took the phone gently, studied the image, then flipped to the metadata with swift, practiced movements. “The phone was on briefly,” she said. “Seconds at most.”
“Location?” Leo demanded.
“Pinged near Danica’s apartment,” Anja replied. “But not inside it. More like in the vicinity.”
Chloe’s hope collapsed inward, folding on itself. “They want us to think she’s close,” she said faintly. “Or they want us looking in the wrong place.”
Kayne’s hand settled at the small of her back. “They turned the phone on long enough to send the message and disappear,” he said. “They know exactly what they’re doing.”
The kitchen felt too small suddenly. Chloe sank into a chair. “She’s alive,” she said, clinging to the one fact that mattered. “She’s alive. That means we can find her.”
Leo crouched in front of her, gripping her hands. “We will,” he said fiercely.
Anja was already pacing, mind clearly sprinting ahead. “The photo matters,” she said. “So does the chain, the lighting, and the fact that they didn’t say anything.”
Chloe swallowed hard. “It was a message.”
“Yes,” Anja said. “And messages are meant to be answered.”
Kayne met Chloe’s gaze, green eyes dark with something ferocious and unyielding. “They want you scared,” he said quietly. “They want you desperate.”
Her chest ached. “What if they hurt her because of me?”
“They won’t,” he said immediately. “Not yet. You’re the leverage.”
That didn’t make her feel better. Not even a little bit.
The four of them stood there in the middle of the night, the kitchen humming softly around them, knowing with brutal certainty that the line had been crossed. Danica wasn’t missing anymore. She’d been taken. And whoever had her wanted Chloe afraid and fully aware that this was no longer a warning.
#
Kayne didn’t enjoy days that started with nowhere to go. He preferred plans, coordinates, or a target you could circle, narrow, and pressure until it broke. Today had none of that. Just an absence so loud it rang in his ears, and a hollow that refused to be filled.
“No club,” he said for the third time, voice calm but immovable.
Chloe stood at the kitchen island, phone still in her hand.
He knew she didn’t want to let it go in case another call came in.
She nodded, but he could see the effort it took.
The gym was her anchor. Her instinct was always to do.
Show up. Fix something tangible. Lift heavy things until the world made sense again.
Not today.
“Construction’s done,” he continued, partly for her, partly to convince himself. “There are no deliveries scheduled. Nothing there needs you right now.”
Anja leaned against the counter, eyes distant as she scrolled through data on her tablet. Leo paced near the back door, restless energy rolling off him in waves. They were four predators trapped in one kitchen, all of them frustrated by the same barrier.
Danica’s phone had been on for less than one minute. It was long enough to send the message, but barely enough to place her in the vicinity of her apartment. Then it went dark again. It was a cruel taunt.
Kayne had seen it before. Criminals liked to feel clever. What he hated was that it was clever.
“Whoever has her knows what they’re doing,” Anja said quietly, confirming what he already knew. “They didn’t want us tracking the signal. They wanted us rattled.”
Chloe swallowed. “It means she’s alive.”
For now, Kayne added silently.
He moved closer, sliding an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him immediately. He felt the tremor she didn’t want anyone else to see.
Four people were dead: Joel Erickson, Robin Day, Sandy, and Sandy’s husband.
Arson had been confirmed at Sandy’s house. No accelerant had been traced yet, but the fire had been set. Everything was converging, and he couldn’t see the damn shape of it, only the pressure of it closing in, the sense that they were being herded toward something inevitable.
“I don’t like this,” Anja muttered. “We’re reacting instead of controlling.”
Kayne agreed. He hated being on the defensive. And he really hated waiting. But there were no leads to chase. No warehouse glowing on a map or neon sign leading them to Danica. No careless mistake to exploit. Just a sister in chains and a monster who preferred silence to spectacle.
He tightened his hold on Chloe. Her breathing evened out, and the warmth of her body against his was the only thing that didn’t feel like a gamble.
Later, when the kitchen emptied and the house went into uneasy quiet, he took her upstairs. There was an urgency bordering on desperation. They needed each other too much. It was a frantic coupling of reassurance without words.
He made love to her like a promise. Like a spike driven deep into the earth. It wouldn’t stop what was coming, but it would remind them both that it was worth surviving it.
If everything really was coming to a head, then he would meet it moored to the one thing that mattered most. And God help anyone who tried to take her world apart.
#
Dark had lost meaning. Time too. Danica floated somewhere past hunger and thirst, past the acute edge of fear, into something duller and worse.
Her body had betrayed her hours ago, maybe longer, and the shame of it sat heavy and sour against her skin.
Cold seeped into everything. The wetness clung, impossible to ignore, a constant reminder of how far she’d fallen from the woman who once obsessed over appearances and control, over keeping everything just so.
There was no fixing this. No pretending it hadn’t happened.
She squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold, breath shallow, trying not to cry again. She’d already sobbed until her throat burned and her head throbbed. Tears didn’t help. Begging hadn’t helped either, no matter how many ways she tried it.
She owed people money. Bad people. Was this their way of making her pay?
Footsteps sounded close. It wasn’t her imagination. Her heart slammed so hard it hurt.
“Please,” she rasped, the word breaking as it left her mouth. “Please. I won’t tell anyone. I swear. Let me go. I won’t say a word. I’ll disappear. Please.”
Hands grabbed her arms, rough and efficient. She yelped as she was hauled upright, joints screaming in protest. Her feet barely touched the floor before she was shoved down into a chair, the sound of her bottom smacking against the wood echoing too much in the open space.
A heavy chain was draped around her waist and tightened, snug and final.
She shook, head dropping forward, breath coming in sharp, panicked pulls.
The blindfold was ripped away.
Bright light meant to disorient, not illuminate, exploded in her eyes. She cried out, squeezing her lids shut as nausea rolled through her. When she forced herself to look again, vision swimming, she saw it.
A phone mounted on a tripod, framed carefully. Waiting—no recording.
Footsteps retreated behind, fading into silence, leaving her alone with the low hum of electronics and the sickening cling of understanding settling deep in her gut.
This wasn’t about killing her. This was about knowing she was being watched, and that someone, somewhere, had decided her breaking was the point.