Chapter Thirty
“No.”
The word landed heavy and absolute, vibrating in the tight space beneath the auto shop.
Kayne turned toward Chloe so fast she barely registered the movement, just the sudden size of him, solid and furious and scared in a way he was fighting hard to contain.
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m going,” she said, meeting his eyes without flinching. “Alone.”
Anja swore softly under her breath. Leo opened his mouth, then shut it again, likely realizing this wasn’t going to be won with volume.
Kayne’s voice dropped, roughened. “Cher, listen to me—”
“No,” Chloe cut in, sharper than she meant to be, but she didn’t soften it. She couldn’t afford to. “If whoever did this is watching, and I think he is, he expects me to be by myself. If he sees all of you coming, he tightens his grip on Danica. Or worse.”
Saying it out loud made it real, made the risk solid and unforgiving. The words tasted like blood, but they were true. She could feel it in her bones, the same instinct that told her when to push through one more rep, even when her muscles screamed in protest.
Kayne stared at her as if he was memorizing her face, committing every detail to memory in case this went sideways.
Anja stepped closer, her expression steady but eyes searching Chloe’s. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I know,” Chloe said. “I’m not trying to.”
She reached for Kayne’s hand and squeezed once, taking comfort in the solid warmth of him. “If I don’t come back in five minutes, you follow. No hesitation.”
Five minutes felt both impossibly short and dangerously long.
Kayne’s jaw flexed. “If you run into trouble, you call for me.”
“I will,” she promised. “But I need to do this.”
For a long moment, no one moved. The tunnel waited, dark and patient.
Then Kayne nodded once, but she was afraid it had cost him something vital. “Five minutes.”
She didn’t wait for him to change his mind. The tunnel swallowed her the second she stepped inside.
It was narrower than she’d expected, concrete walls damp and uneven, the air cooler and carrying a faint metallic tang. Her footsteps echoed too loudly, every sound magnified, her breath suddenly something she had to manage instead of take for granted.
She forced herself not to rush. Panic made noise, and noise got people killed.
She pushed forward. Hold on, Danica, she thought. I’m coming.
The passage sloped upward slightly, then leveled out. A faint light glowed ahead, leaking through a crack in the wall. She slowed, heart hammering.
A figure stood just beyond the opening.
“Evan?” she whispered.
Evan Calder turned toward her, staring at her beneath the dim light. For a split second, her mind scrambled to reconcile the sight of him here.
“You?” she breathed. “Why are you doing this?”
Disappointment came crashing in so hard it stole her breath. She had trusted him, had spent hours with him and his team building her website, trading ideas, and laughing at bad jokes. He always seemed kind, even when she spurned his advances.
She focused on him again. His eyes were wide. Not guilty.
Terrified.
“Run,” he mouthed, shaking his head frantically. His hands lifted, palms out, a silent warning. A plea.
Confusion flickered, and then the crack of a gunshot shattered the tunnel.
Evan jerked violently, the impact knocking the air from him as he collapsed forward. He hit the ground hard, the metallic smell suddenly sharp and unmistakable.
Chloe screamed.
Behind him, as Evan’s body fell away, another figure stepped into view.
Aiden Kerr.
He didn’t look timid now or afraid. His face was calm, almost reverent, the gun steady in his hand, smoke curling lazily from the barrel.
Chloe couldn’t process what she was seeing. The sweet, shy man Sandy had taken under her wing had shot Evan in cold blood.
“Aiden,” she said, her voice breaking around his name. “What’s going on?”
#
If Chloe thought Kayne would simply let her walk into trouble alone, she thought wrong.
He stayed a few steps back in the tunnel, close enough to cover Chloe, but far enough not to crowd her or alert her to his presence. Close enough to intervene. Far enough not to be seen. A balance he loathed.
Every instinct he had was screaming.
His muscles were clenched so tightly they ached. His SIG Sauer was in his grip, ready to fire. Anja was right behind him, and probably Leo, too, despite explicit instructions to stay back since he didn’t have the training. Yeah, Leo followed orders about as well as Kayne did.
The air down here clung to his skin like something that didn’t want to let go. He saw the movement ahead just as Chloe did.
“Evan?” Chloe said.
Kayne’s gut dropped straight through the floor.
Evan Calder turned, and in the half-light, Kayne clocked the fear instantly, not guilt. The way his eyes went wide and frantic. The sharp shake of his head.
A warning that came too late.
Kayne opened his mouth to shout as a gunshot exploded through the tunnel.
Evan’s body snapped forward, the sound of impact sickeningly solid as he hit the ground. Blood bloomed fast, dark and spreading, and Kayne surged forward, rage detonating inside him.
“Chloe!”
He was too late.
Aiden Kerr stepped out from behind Evan’s falling body. He was calm and focused, the gun still warm in his hand. He wasn’t shaking, nor remorseful about what he’d done.
Kayne raised his weapon, finger tightening, but Chloe was in his line of fire.
Aiden spotted him and moved fast. He grabbed Chloe and yanked her sideways into a narrow opening Kayne hadn’t clocked until it swallowed her whole. The wall slid shut behind them with a soft, final sound that was worse than any slam.
“No!” Kayne roared.
He hit the wall at a dead run, smashing into it with brutal force, bruising the hell out of his shoulder and possibly dislocating it.
He ignored the pain to shove and search for a handle, a latch, anything.
Smooth concrete stared back at him. It was seamless.
An invisible door designed not just to close, but to disappear.
“Chloe!” He pounded it with his fist, pain flaring up his arm. “Chloe, answer me!”
No vibration or give. It was as if she’d been erased.
The tunnel rang with the echo of his harsh breathing and the distant drip of water. Kayne forced himself to step back and think. Panic was useless. It got people killed.
But God help him, it clawed at him anyway.
He glanced once at Evan’s body, fury burning hot and focused now. Anja and Leo rushed to him.
“He’s got her,” Kayne said. “She’s behind a hidden door with no visible release. He planned this.”
Anja sucked in a breath. Leo shook with rage, mirroring Kayne’s feelings.
Kayne pressed his forehead to the wall for one brutal second, letting the fear cut clean and deep, and then he straightened.
“I’m coming through this wall,” he said quietly. “One way or another.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a statement of fact. Aiden Kerr had just made the worst mistake of his life. He’d taken Chloe.
Kayne was done playing by anyone else’s rules.