Chapter 27 Miles
Miles
It’s quiet except for the sound of her breathing. Uneven. Small. Every few seconds, it hitches, like she’s still trapped somewhere between sleep and the kind of panic that doesn’t have words.
I sit across from her, her journal open in my hands. I shouldn’t be reading it, but I can’t stop. The words are small, neat, almost obsessive in the way she arranges her thoughts. The kind of handwriting that comes from someone who’s been taught to be careful.
She writes small and neat. The pen is a little shaky when she writes the worst sections, the ink blots where a hand must have paused. I read it like a confession and like a map, every line tells me where she hurts and why.
August 14—court day she calls it, but she dates it as if it were a holy thing. She remembers the room, the gavel, how everyone’s faces turned into something else when they saw her name. She remembers Nate’s hands, the way the town pivoted. She writes, I learned how quickly people will erase you.
Another page, ink dark and cramped. I found the trust paperwork. I thought I could fix it. I thought I could make it right. I was nineteen and stupid. I thought responsibility was math, but it’s rope, and its mouths and it becomes a debt you breathe.
And then there’s a day she sketches out in blunt strokes—the day I helped my uncle and Rico drag her into our world, remembered from the other side by someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and then never knew what would happen.
She writes, I was running my car because I had to get away.
The black car followed, and when it hit my bumper I thought it was an accident.
I thought that at first. Then there were two men.
Hands. The road smelled like tires and gasoline, and I remember a suitcase rolling under my foot.
The world compressed down into a narrow tube.
When they hit me with something, I thought at first it was pain.
Sharp, sudden, and then nothing at all. I woke up in a place that smelled of old vinegar and dust. I felt small.
I felt stupid. I remember thinking only, Why me?
I remember begging. I remember trying to bargain with the dark.
I remember a face with no name that pressed too close and the grip that made me soft with fear.
I remember losing myself and promising to be someone who could not be taken again.
She isn’t blaming anyone here, she blames herself.
The paper catches and holds the shame she wore like a second skin.
I read her open, angry and raw about the way people who should have protected her folded like paper.
She writes, I deserved that for failing, a line that lands in my chest like a stone.
I want to stand up and smash the lamp. I want to tear every page out and burn them and turn the whole world upside down for ever thinking she deserved any of it.
Instead I fold the corner of the last page she read and close the journal with deliberate slowness.
The thing becomes weight in my hands. It is not evidence.
It is not an easy ledger of profit and loss. It is somebody’s life.
She writes about how she thought she was going to die in that warehouse.
I didn’t think she’d remembered that much. Didn’t know she’d written it down.
Her words are raw—fear bleeding through the pages. He had gray eyes. That line hits me so hard I have to set the notebook down. She doesn’t know it was me, but she remembers my eyes.
I look at her. She’s still tied to the bed, sheets knotted around her ankle, one wrist cuffed to the headboard. I used the softest ones I could find. Like that makes it any better.
Jamie’s gone. I told him to go to the bar, act normal. He’s good at pretending. He’ll laugh, make jokes, order a round, and keep his head down. That’s the part I can’t do. I can’t pretend none of this is happening.
The phone buzzes on the nightstand. Rico.
I step outside to take it, closing the door behind me. The cold hits me, sharp and grounding.
“Where the hell are you?” Rico’s voice crackles through the line.
“Dealing with something.”
“Well, deal faster. Victor wants us to head to the girl’s apartment. He’s getting impatient and wants her.”
My stomach drops. I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”
“Sooner,” he says, and hangs up.
I text Jamie—head back now.
The message sends, and for a second I think about disappearing. Taking her and driving until the road runs out. But where would we go? Every highway leads back to the same end.
When I walk back inside, she’s crying. Quietly, like she’s trying not to make a sound. The sight of her guts me.
I drop to my knees beside the bed. “Hey.”
She flinches. Looks at me like I’m the monster in her story. Maybe I am.
She wipes her face with her free hand. “Are you going to kill me?”
The question rips through me. “No.” I reach up, brush a tear from her cheek with my thumb. “No, Chloe. I don’t want to hurt you. I’d never want that.”
“Then what the hell is this?” Her voice cracks, and it hurts to hear it. “You’re keeping me against my will. I’m tied up—”
“I’m doing this to keep you safe,” I say, too fast.
“Safe?”
I admit, “I know things you don’t. You need to trust me.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll never trust you.”
That hits harder than any punch.
I stand up, pace the room. Her words are stuck in my head now.
My girl had grown up in an abusive household, much like mine. Was that why her soul called to mine? Is that what bound us together? Is that why I love…
Her eyes narrow. “Untie me!”
“I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not, Miles!?” she fires back, and there’s something feral in her voice now. “You and Jamie—secrets, half-truths. I didn’t know who you really were. Can you just let me go please? You have no idea what’s going to happen if you don’t let me go right fucking now!”
I kneel in front of her, take her face in my hands. “Princess,” I say, and her breath catches. “He hurt you. That’s not something you deserved.”
She blinks, confusion flickering behind her eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Your dad.”
Her face hardens. “How would you know?”
“Because I’ve seen men like him. I’ve done things for men like him.” My throat tightens. “I’ll make him pay.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But I will.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy. Her lips tremble. I don’t think. I just move.
I kiss her.
It’s soft at first, a question neither of us wants to answer. Then she stiffens, pushes back, and before I can react, pain explodes across my lip.
She bit me. Hard enough to taste blood.
I pull back, breathing hard. She’s glaring at me, eyes blazing. “Don’t touch me,” she says, voice shaking. “Ever again.”
I drag my tongue across my split lip, the metallic taste grounding me.
And then, despite everything—the guilt, the fury, the mess of it all—I find myself smiling.
Because even now, she’s fighting.
I reach out, brush a kiss against her forehead, and when I pull back, there’s a smear of red where my blood touched her skin.
She’s trembling. I want to tell her I’m sorry, that I’m trying to save her, that none of this is what it looks like. But the words stay stuck in my throat.
She’s so damn beautiful like this. Terrified, furious, alive.
If only my uncle didn’t have a price on her head.
If only I wasn’t the one sent to collect it.
I keep my head tilted toward the passenger window, pretending to look for her through the streaked glass even though I know she’s nowhere near this place.
Rico’s got one hand hanging out his window, cigarette balanced between his fingers, ash fluttering into the wind.
He looks restless like he always does when we’re on the kind of errand that promises nothing but trouble.
We’ve circled her building twice. My chest tightens when I see her bedroom window. But I keep up the act. It’s what my uncle expects—obedience and blindness, both in heavy doses.
Rico turns down the radio, glances at me. “You sure this is the right address?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, pretending to check the crumpled paper Victor gave us. “She was living here. Maybe she skipped town.”
He snorts. “If she did, Victor’s gonna lose it. He said we need to find her today.”
I just hum, letting the words sit heavy between us. The air smells like old upholstery, cigarettes, and fear.
We park a block away. The building’s got that same tired look every cheap complex carries—paint peeling, mailboxes dented, the scent of someone’s burnt dinner drifting from an open window. Rico steps out first, stretches, then looks up toward the top floors like he’s expecting her to wave down.
“Let’s get it over with,” he says.
Inside, the hallway is dim. Fluorescent lights flicker overhead. We walk past door after door, every number a small mercy that it’s not hers. I knock anyway when we reach her floor. Once. Twice. Silence.
“Guess she’s smarter than she looks,” Rico mutters.
I press my hand against the door, half-hoping, half-praying for it to open. But it doesn’t. The air behind it is still. No music, no footsteps, no trace of her perfume. Just absence.
Jamie must have locked up after he took her.
“Nothing,” I say, stepping back.
“Do we break in?”
I look at him intently. I have no idea what she has in there.
Maybe Rico can see something that ties to the time me and her were together.
That would unravel everything. There is no way I am risking that.
“So we can get caught for a B&E? How about we wait it out? I’ll check the school again tomorrow. ”
Rico smirks. “You gonna tell Victor that, or should I?”
“We’ll both tell him,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t notice how tight my hands are balled at my sides.
We make it back to the car, and Rico’s humming something tuneless as he drives.
I stare at the reflection of the city sliding past the windshield, neon lights smearing against the night like spilled paint.
Every block we put between us and that apartment feels like another nail in a coffin I helped build.
When we reach the warehouse, Victor’s already waiting. His black SUV’s parked sideways near the entrance, headlights slicing through the shadows. The moment I see him pacing, I know this isn’t just about Chloe.
Inside, the air is thick with the smell of gasoline and steel. There are crates everywhere—some open, filled with smaller boxes wrapped in plastic. Two men are arguing in the corner, voices low and sharp.
Victor turns when he hears our footsteps. His face is red, the vein in his neck pulsing. “Where the hell have you been?”
Rico starts first. “We checked the apartment like you said. She’s gone. Must’ve packed up and—”
“Don’t tell me what she must’ve done!” Victor shouts, the sound echoing off the metal walls. “Do you have any idea what’s happening right now?”
He’s holding a tablet. On the screen, a news alert flashes—a raid. Police. Dock seizure. The shipment.
Rico’s grin fades. “You’re kidding.”
Victor steps closer, jabbing the air between them. “They hit my container tonight. Millions—gone. And that girl’s still missing. I should’ve never trusted either of you to handle this.”
I open my mouth. “Victor—”
He doesn’t let me finish. His fist snaps across my face, a sharp, burning sting that rings through my skull. I taste blood.
Rico moves instinctively, but Victor’s already on him. A blow to the gut, another across the cheek. Rico stumbles, hits the concrete hard.
“You were supposed to bring her to me,” Victor growls. “Are you failures? Is that what my team has turned into?”
I can barely breathe through the throbbing in my jaw. “We’re not—”
“Shut the fuck up,” he says, and the back of his hand crashes into my mouth again. I hit the floor this time, knees scraping against the rough concrete. He follows that up with very strategically placed kicks.
My ribs ache with every inhale.
He keeps shouting, pacing, muttering about betrayal and loyalty. I can feel the blood dripping from my nose onto the floor. Rico’s coughing somewhere to my left, but he’s alive. That’s something.
As I kneel there, tasting iron and dust, I realize I’ve been afraid of the wrong person. It’s not Victor who should be feared. It’s what fear like his creates—monsters shaped by greed, convinced that pain is currency.
My uncle thinks he’s untouchable. But everyone bleeds.
Chloe’s words in that small notebook ring in my head. He said I was useless. I should’ve been better. I should’ve known how to make him proud.
That day, her shaking hands, the way she flinched when anyone raised their voice—it all makes sense now. The thing that broke her isn’t just her father. It’s the same sickness running through this family, this world. Control disguised as protection. Violence sold as loyalty.
I lift my head, look at Victor pacing in front of me, and it’s not fear that fills me anymore. It’s clarity.
He stops when his phone rings, growls something into it, then turns to one of his guards. “Get them out of my sight.”
The guard grabs my arm, pulls me up. I don’t resist. My head throbs, but my mind’s already moving.
Outside, the night is cool, the kind of quiet that hums just before dawn. Rico’s leaning against the car, spitting blood into the dirt.
“He’s losing it,” he mutters. “He’s completely fucking lost it.”
“Yeah,” I say. “We’ll figure something out.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t believe it, then climbs into his seat. He’ll crash somewhere, lick his wounds, pretend we can go back to normal. But there’s no going back.
When I step away, I pull out my phone. Benny’s number is still saved from the nights I slipped him pills—painkillers, mostly, stuff he’d resell on the side. Easy way to keep him loyal.
He answers on the second ring. “Yo.”
“It’s Miles.”
“Yeah, I know. You got something for me?”
“Need a favor.”
He hesitates. “What kind of favor?”
“The kind that stays between us. You still got that encrypted line?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“I need a message sent. Anonymous. It’s for a high-profile inmate.”
“Jesus, Miles. You trying to get me killed?”
“You owe me. You remember that,” I say quietly.
He grumbles but finally sighs. “Fine. What do you want the message to say?”