4. Chloe
CHAPTER FOUR
CHLOE
NOW
Shock morphs into sheer terror at the sound of Damon’s voice.
The boy I once loved. The one who went from being my best friend to my worst nightmare overnight.
He turned from someone who protected me to the person I needed protection from most.
And worst of all, he’s the reason my whole world came crashing down ten years ago.
I step toward Bishop without conscious thought, the need to flee from the man who helped to torture my father in front of my eyes tugging at every muscle.
The men of the Legion may have an allegiance with the Lombardi family, but their loyalty to Camilla will protect me…I hope.
My eyes dart around the room, looking for the only person I fear seeing more than Damon.
His brother.
The boy I loved with every single piece of my soul.
The one I thought I would marry.
And the person I’ve spent years trying to get over.
When you’ve felt true love like ours, it’s impossible to ever truly recover.
“Chloe.” Kaos steps forward, his appearance just as ragged as his cousins. The sweatpants and black T-shirt that cling to his huge frame are beyond disheveled, but all I can focus on is putting another person between me and the threat.
Before I get a chance to step behind him, he swipes the heavy bags from my shoulders like they weigh nothing.
I mean, to him they probably do.
I have a feeling he could throw a grown man across a room without breaking a sweat, so a few bags of food won’t make any difference.
Once I have two of Camilla’s men between Damon and me, I force myself to relax. I will not have a panic attack in front of a room full of mafia leaders, no matter how much terror races through my veins.
I’ve spent years imagining what I would do if I ever ran into the brothers that broke me, how I would react, what I would say, but I never truly prepared myself for the possibility.
Years of staying under the radar, never having a social media account, and wearing a cap and glasses anytime I left the house just in case I was recognized. I did everything right. I was so careful.
And yet here I am at the mercy of Damon Lombardi’s cold, ice-blue glare.
It’s a look I became used to during the last few years of life at the compound. One day he was my best friend, and the next he was my enemy.
I begged him to tell me what I’d done, to explain why he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me anymore, but he never did.
He just loathed my existence, and I grew to accept that, even when it broke my heart.
His huge frame tries to move past Bishop, but he doesn’t let him past.
“How do you know Chloe?”
Damon flicks his eyes from me to the man who asked the question, my stomach rolling as I wait for his answer. “We grew up together,” he answers simply.
For some reason, that’s the last thing I expected him to say.
It’s objectively true, of course.
I’ve known Damon and his brother my whole life. From birth to eighteen, I don’t have a memory without one of them involved.
We lived together, played together, went to school together. Everything we did, we were together. Until we weren’t.
Bishop glances over his shoulder, meeting my eyes from where I peak out around Kaos’s huge frame. This is the last thing he needs to be dealing with right now. His father and the woman he loves are missing, presumably being held hostage, and here he is mediating my worst nightmare?
“K, take Chloe into the bedroom. I’ll be in soon.”
I open my mouth to argue, because the last thing I want to do is extend my stay here, but I don’t get a chance before Kaos is ushering me down a hallway I didn’t notice until I was walking down it.
We pause at the end, and he leans past me, pushing the door open.
Kovu paces back and forth across the small space, his eyes full of wild terror. Until now, I wondered if the man the whole city believes to be a heartless killer was capable of an emotion like fear. But now I see it.
Camilla being in danger is the one and only thing that can bring him to his knees, and I’m certain that’s at least some of why he’s stalking around, unable to expel the feral energy buzzing inside him.
He pauses when he sees me, gaze flicking from me to Kaos and back before he resumes his pacing without a word.
If I wasn’t certain that the unhinged man in front of me would never do anything to upset Camilla, maybe I’d be afraid of being locked in a room with the human equivalent of a wild animal, but instead I’m weirdly at ease.
Kaos closes the door behind him, returning to the living area while I take a seat on the edge of the bed, my hands tangled in my lap the only outward sign of my anxiety.
I need to call Ryker. I can’t leave here alone knowing I’d likely be leading Damon straight to where I’ve been hiding all these years, but I don’t want to ask for help.
Not from him.
Not from anyone.
I press my eyes closed and drag in a long breath.
Breathe in for four.
Hold for four.
Breathe out for four.
The only exercise that ever worked to quell my anxiety repeats in my mind, but it does little to calm my racing heart.
“Are you okay?” Kovu asks after a few minutes, his voice coming out rougher than normal.
“No. Are you?”
“Fuck no.” He scoffs, but there’s no humor in the sound. I need to ask if they’ve made any progress finding Camilla and Crew, but I can’t find the words.
If I’m honest with myself, all I can think about is the icy glare that’s haunted my dreams all these years and the urge to run as fast and as far as I can to stop myself from being caught in his snare.
He doesn’t get a chance to ask any other questions because the door swings open and Bishop strides in, quickly slamming it shut behind him.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out, dropping my head into my hands.
Today was already one of the worst days of my life, but now? Now it’s solidly in the top three.
The day I ran.
The day I lost everything.
And now the day my past came back to haunt me.
A gentle hand touches my shoulder, and I know without looking that it’s Bishop. He’s the softest of the four of them.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Chloe,” he says carefully.
“Your priorities should be on finding Camilla and Crew, not me. I should have stayed home like you told me.”
He sighs and drops to the mattress beside me. “We appreciate the food you brought. It’s been too long since any of us thought to eat.”
I nod, dragging my bottom lip between my teeth.
There’s still a nagging worry that Bishop’s allegiance to the Lombardis will make him inclined to hand me over, but I push it down.
“Tell me how you want to handle Damon and Ronan.”
I glance up at him, shock moving through me slowly. Every man in my life has always dictated how things are going to go, and they’ve made decisions for me rather than asking for my opinion.
“Kaos has them in the living room and I swear they won’t make it past that door, but I need to know how you want to proceed.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek as I consider what I want to do, but I don’t know.
He must sense my hesitance because he reaches out and takes my hand with a comforting squeeze. “We have your back, just like you’ve always had Camilla’s.”
“Please don’t let them take me,” I whisper, the words as broken as my heart when I think of the boys I once loved.
“Never,” he swears. “You’re Camilla’s family, and that makes you our family. We won’t let any harm come to you. Ever.”
I want to believe him. I want to lean into the safety his words offer. But I’ve heard them before.
And if there’s anything I know about a promise like that, it’s how easily it can be broken.