23. Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-three
C amille
I stare at my phone, screen still glowing softly from his call.
The echoes of Kane’s voice, dark, restrained, laced with an intensity he tried to bury beneath his calm still ripple through me.
Something violent had happened tonight, something final.
I felt it in the way his breath caught, how carefully controlled his words were.
He never breaks control unless he’s holding something back.
My heart pounds unevenly, pulse fluttering erratically.
Another sharp wave of nausea hits, deeper this time, as though the anxiety and uncertainty carved from Kane’s voice have found their way into my body.
I press my hand firmly against my abdomen, feeling the heat seep into my skin.
A quiet reassurance, but also a confirmation.
There’s no hiding from this anymore.
A quiet certainty blooms within me…fragile, undeniable. My body knows something my mind still struggles to accept. Something delicate and powerful, binding me even closer to Kane, anchoring me deeper into his world.
Our world.
I roll onto my side, pulling the sheets tighter around my shoulders, eyes tracing the empty pillow beside me. It’s cold now, vacant without him. My gaze drifts to the clock, watching minutes crawl by with agonizing slowness.
He told me to wait for him, but my eyelids grow heavier with each passing second. I blink stubbornly, pushing away exhaustion, determined to keep my promise. My limbs ache with tiredness, bones heavy, fatigue pulling insistently at the edges of my consciousness.
Still, I fight it, because tonight feels different.
Because Kane will come home changed, raw, maybe broken in ways he’ll never show me. And I need to be here for him, awake, warm, ready to hold him through the storm that always simmers behind his silence.
But tonight, it’s more than just us. More than Kane and Camille tangled together, wrapped up in shadows and secrets. Tonight, there’s something else, something tiny, precious, terrifying, already reshaping our lives in ways we’ve barely begun to imagine.
I slide my hand lower, flattening my palm gently, protectively over my belly.
“I’ll wait up for you,” I whisper softly, closing my eyes briefly.
But the dark behind my eyelids is heavy, comforting, and I slip further beneath its weight. My breathing slows, deepens, pulling me down into sleep.
I fight against it, reaching for consciousness even as it slips further away.
He’ll wake me when he comes.
He always does.
***
It all happens so fast.
One second I’m drifting, nausea swimming through my body, the sheets twisted around my legs, my mind hazy with fragile dreams and the quiet awareness of something changing inside me.
The next, a distant, chilling pop slices through the dark.
My eyes snap open, instantly alert, heart crashing wildly against my chest. I hold my breath, straining to hear. Another shot cracks the air, closer, unmistakable now.
Gunfire.
My blood runs ice-cold, adrenaline spiking through every nerve ending, setting me painfully awake.
I jerk upright, gripping the sheets tightly, gaze whipping around the room.
It’s too dark, shadows crawling like living things across the walls, floor, ceiling, my imagination supplying threats lurking just out of sight.
Instinctively, I reach across the empty space beside me, Kane’s side, searching for strength, comfort, reassurance. But he isn’t here. He’s out there, handling whatever nightmare has just crashed violently back into our lives.
Another blast echoes below, louder now, followed immediately by muffled shouting and chaos, the sounds unmistakably frantic and dangerous.
I lunge toward my phone, fingers trembling as I fumble to unlock it, needing Kane, needing his voice, needing help…
But the bedroom door explodes inward before I can dial, the wood slamming back into the wall so violently the room rattles. My heart leaps into my throat as Joaquin rushes in, blood streaked across his shirt, eyes wild with panic and urgency.
“Get up, Camille!” he shouts, voice hoarse, sharp. “Now!”
“Joaquin…what’s going on?” I gasp, stumbling from the bed, legs shaking beneath me.
“Rojas’s men breached the compound,” he snaps urgently, jaw clenched, hand gripping the pistol so tight his knuckles turn white. “They’re here for you. We have to move. Now.”
Fear stabs deep into my chest, cutting through the fog.
I nod, no questions, no arguments, following him barefoot across the cold marble floors, his hand iron-hard around my arm.
Joaquin’s gun is raised, eyes scanning frantically, checking corners, corridors, shadows expecting threats from every angle.
Halfway down the hall, an explosion rips through the lower floor. It feels like the world cracks open beneath us. The blast rattles walls violently, glass shattering with a deafening crash. I lose my balance, stumbling forward, ears ringing painfully, vision blurring with panic.
Joaquin steadies me roughly, fingers digging into my skin. “Stay with me,” he orders sharply, eyes fierce. “Stay right behind me, Camille. Do not stop.”
We move faster now, racing toward the back stairwell, smoke thickening in the air, hot, acrid, choking, burning my throat. My pulse thunders, fear pounding in sync with the piercing alarms shrieking through the halls. Each step feels heavier, like nightmares weighing me down, dragging me back.
We burst into the garage level, the emergency lights pulsing erratically, washing everything in sinister, blood-red shadows.
And then Joaquin freezes.
My heart stops.
Standing directly in front of us, utterly calm, terrifyingly poised, is a man I’ve never seen before, but whose gaze sinks into my bones like frost. Dark hair swept back from a face carved from cold marble, eyes glittering with merciless amusement, as though he finds the chaos around us utterly charming.
My breath catches violently, dread pooling low in my stomach, acidic and bitter.
Rojas.
I know it instinctively, instantly, because Kane described him exactly like this: smooth, lethal elegance barely concealing ruthless cruelty, his calm presence a calculated mask for brutality. Everything about him fits Kane’s quiet, chilling warning perfectly.
Four heavily armed men flank him, guns trained unwaveringly at Joaquin’s chest.
Joaquin raises his weapon instantly, but Rojas merely arches an eyebrow, voice silky, accented, disturbingly calm. “Think very carefully, Joaquin. There’s a clean way this can end, or a very painful one.”
Joaquin’s jaw clenches, muscles vibrating with fury and desperation. His gaze flickers briefly to mine guilt and anguish written clearly in his stare. He knows we’re trapped. He knows he can’t save me.
“Give her to me,” Rojas says softly, cruelly. “And you’ll live long enough to deliver my message to Rivera.”
Joaquin’s reply comes like a blade, raw and savage. “Fuck you.”
Rojas smiles thinly, unbothered. A slight tilt of his head is all it takes.
The shot explodes from the shadows, catching Joaquin high in the shoulder. Blood sprays vividly as he stumbles backward, cries out, pain echoing in the enclosed space. He fires back, desperate shots, defiant, but another round takes his leg, dropping him to his knees, groaning in agony.
“No!” I scream, surging forward, heart splintering in my chest. Joaquin tries to push himself back up, teeth clenched, fighting even now, but rough hands seize me brutally from behind, jerking me violently backward.
I kick, thrash, nails clawing at the man who holds me, screaming Kane’s name helplessly into the chaos, but a soaked cloth slams roughly over my mouth and nose, chemical fumes flooding my senses, choking off my cries.
The world spins violently, darkness clawing aggressively at my vision.
“No…” My voice is muffled, weak, useless.
Rojas steps closer, a satisfied smirk curving his lips as he leans into my fading vision, whispering cruelly, “Sleep now, Camille. Rivera needs to know how it feels when everything you love is ripped away.”
I try to fight him, muscles failing, limbs growing impossibly heavy. My body betrays me, succumbing swiftly to the chemicals suffocating my consciousness.
No. No. Please, no.
Desperation tears through me in frantic waves as darkness swallows everything. My mind screams Kane’s name silently, my last desperate plea slipping away into oblivion.
Don’t let this happen…not now. Not now when I have something so fragile, so precious to protect…
But the darkness doesn’t care. It envelops me ruthlessly, dragging me down, down, down, into a silence blacker than nightmares, into nothingness.
And the last, desperate whisper of my heart fades unanswered, as the world disappears completely.
Kane
My phone lights up again ringing shrill, violent, relentless. Joaquin’s name flashes urgently across the screen. My pulse slams through my veins as I swipe to answer, ice flooding my gut.
“What’s happening?” I snap, the words clipped and deadly.
But it’s not Joaquin’s voice that replies.
Instead, Rojas’s voice seeps into my ear, smooth as silk, edged with venomous amusement. “Rivera. I have something of yours.”
The world tilts violently, blood turning to ice in my veins. Everything slows, narrows down to that voice, taunting, cruel, and savoring every goddamn second of this. My grip tightens brutally around the phone, knuckles aching.
“If you hurt her,” I warn softly, each syllable sharpened to razor-wire precision, “I’ll carve your heart out with my bare hands.”
“You’re not giving orders anymore, Kane,” Rojas interrupts coldly, calmly, as though he’s thoroughly enjoying this moment. “You’re listening. Very carefully.”
Fury ignites, white-hot beneath the surface, controlled violence simmering in my bones. “Where is she?” My voice is deathly quiet, steel wrapped in ice.
“She’s alive. For now.” He pauses, letting those words hang between us, savoring the cruelty. “But whether she stays that way depends entirely on you.”
My chest tightens, lungs filling with a fury so profound I can barely breathe past it. The darkness inside me snarls, the monster uncoiling, clawing desperately toward freedom. “Tell me what the fuck you want.”
“I don’t care about your money, your territory, or your power,” Rojas replies, voice dangerously soft. “I want you humbled. Broken. On your knees. Only then will you see Camille again…perhaps still breathing, if you’re very, very careful.”
My jaw clenches hard enough to break bone. The edges of my vision darken, red clouding the corners. My voice comes out deadly quiet, mercilessly certain. “You just made the last mistake of your worthless fucking life.”
Rojas laughs softly, a mocking sound laced with arrogance. “Come and prove it, Rivera. I’ll be waiting.”
The line clicks silent, abruptly leaving me alone with the deafening roar of my pulse.
My chest heaves, hands trembling with barely controlled violence. Images flood my mind, Camille, vulnerable, afraid, hurt, because I wasn’t there. Because I failed her. Because I let this happen.
I exhale sharply, every ounce of mercy and restraint burning away into ash. Nothing matters now, no rules, no boundaries, no limits.
They dared touch what belongs to me. They dared touch her.
Rojas took my entire fucking reason to breathe. My light. My life. My everything.
And now?
I’m going to burn his entire world to the fucking ground, piece by bloody, agonizing piece, until he’s begging me for death.