CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE RONAN
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
RONAN
NOW
Damon: Head to the airfield. Jet’s fueling up. Wheels up in two hours.
His words have been rolling around in my mind ever since I received the text.
He got her.
He has Chloe.
And we’re taking her back to Miami with us.
Guilt and regret swirl around in my gut, but I shake them off.
She betrayed me.
She knew I was watching, she knew it would hurt me, and she fucked him anyway.
His name on her pretty lips the way mine used to be as he brought her to the edge, and she tumbled over it.
I’m intimately aware of how her pussy feels when she comes, and I’m fucking furious that anyone, let alone that fucking smug asshole, knows how it feels to make her fall apart.
My fists tighten around the steering wheel as I pull into the private airfield the jet has been waiting at for almost a week.
When we came to New York, we expected to only be here for a few days at most, but that was before we took a trip down memory lane and had to chase her across state lines.
Damon’s SUV is parked and empty, meaning they’re already on the jet, and another wave of unease rolls over me.
Get the fuck over it, I snap at myself.
After all these years, I can finally get my closure and move on. No more wondering. No more longing for a ghost of my past.
I’ll finally be able to get on with my life, and that’s what I remind myself every step I take toward the jet.
Damon is chatting to the pilot when I reach the top, his shoulders tense. For someone that almost always looks like they don’t give a fuck about anything, Chloe has him rattled.
But then she has always gotten under his skin.
The two of them were best friends one day and at each other’s throats the next.
“Took your time,” he jabs.
I roll my eyes. “You said two hours. I was here in an hour forty.”
He doesn’t bother responding, so I push past him and drop my bag on an empty seat, my eyes searching for her even though I should keep my distance.
If there’s one of us she can manipulate, it’s definitely me, and at least I’m self-aware enough to know that.
I find her at the back of the jet, her head turned and tears rolling down her cheeks. The zip ties around her wrists have left angry red marks, making my fists clench with the need to make her more comfortable, as if her pain were still my own even after all these years.
She stiffens, telling me she knows I’m here, but she doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge me in any way as she continues to stare at the damp tarmac outside the window.
I drop into the seat on the other side of the aisle and fasten my seat belt, if for no other reason than to keep my hands busy.
If I allow myself to think about the zip ties around her wrists for long enough, I’m going to cut them off, and Damon is agitated enough without that.
He appears a moment later, glancing between us with an irritated huff before he takes the seat across from me.
I half expected him to sit as far away from Chloe as possible.
“Where’s the bodyguard?” I ask, forcing my voice to remain even despite the reminder of that cunt making my blood boil.
How dare he touch what belongs to me, what will always belong to me?
Damon shrugs, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “The side of some backroad somewhere.”
“You didn’t kill him?”
“And piss off De Marco and her band of psychopaths even more than we already are by taking her?” He gestures to Chloe, who still doesn’t acknowledge either of us. “Seemed like we’d have a better time reasoning with them if I hadn’t killed one of their guards and left him on the side of the road.”
“They don’t know we have her?”
“My phone’s not blowing up, so I assume not.”
“Dad’s not concerned about the blowback?”
“He’d rather kill a traitor than remain friendly with a family on the other side of the country.”
Chloe flinches, the first sign that she’s listening to us.
She lifts her bound hands to wipe the tears from her cheeks but still doesn’t look our way.
I can’t blame her. We are literally kidnapping her and taking her back to the place that she ran from almost a decade ago. But these are the consequences of her father’s actions, and she had years of freedom she never should have been granted.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself as my entire body pleads with me to stop this jet before it can take off.
If my past sins weren’t taking me straight to hell, this one certainly is.
Even as hurt I am by what she did last night, she doesn’t deserve this, no matter how much I try to convince myself she does.
“Do you think this will bring Kingston out of the woodwork?” I ask.
“I doubt it. I can’t see him risking his life to save her.” He spits the final word, and I don’t miss the way she flinches.
After the initial shock wore off, Chloe worked hard to make herself appear unbothered by my brother’s vitriol toward her, but I’ve always been able to see straight through the mask.
“He came to her rescue once before,” I remind him.
“Because she called him. There’s no way he could even know we’ve got her now.”
“Unless he speaks to Camilla or her men.”
He huffs out a sigh. “Even if he does find out, and even if he did come for her, he’s not getting past the front gate without a bullet between the eyes.”
Chloe’s soft sobs fill the cabin, and the urge to comfort her only grows by the second.
As soon as we’re back in Miami, I’m going to find myself something to do far from the compound, because when it comes to Chloe Weaver, I am weak.