Chained (Caged #2)(26)

My body shivered when I thought about what my basement held. My instinct was to go down those stairs and drive a f*cking knife straight through Terry’s heart.

Yet, I wouldn’t.

It would be Kloe’s job.

And I felt no greater pleasure than knowing I had to keep Terry alive while he waited for Kloe’s redemption. At least I would get some fun before…

“Mr Cain?” Caroline’s voice broke me out of my daydream.

I turned to look at her. “Yes?”

“Miss Grant is comfortable. I’ve washed her and she looks much more…”

I nodded, thanking her with a small smile. “Thank you. I’ve made up the guest bedroom for you.”

“Then I’ll retire for the night, if that’s okay? Miss Grant should sleep for the night but please come and fetch me if the sedation wears off.”

Pushing off the sofa, I gave Caroline a nod and made my way back up to my bedroom where Kloe rested.

She looked so small and pale against the darkness of the black sheets. She lay on her back and now her face was clean, the bruises that painted her skin made me catch a breath. Her beautiful face was dark, her eyes rimmed with black circles. Her cheekbones looked harsh, the weight she had lost making them protrude angrily against the other soft contours of her face. Her once long, luscious waves were gone, a short crop of matted curls resting around her face.

Settling myself on the mattress beside her, I gently lay my weary body down and carefully reached out to run my thumb over her pale and cracked lips. They were slightly oily and I assumed Caroline had applied some lip balm to soothe the dryness.

Delicately I moved my hand down her neck and over the top of her chest that showed above the sheet that had been placed over her.

One long, angry gash disappeared under the cotton and I slowly moved it down.

Heat stung my eyes as I took in the numerous incisions that Mike and Caroline had sutured. There were so many that her body looked like someone had played noughts and crosses many times over her skin with a blade instead of a pencil.

And then my hand rested on the dip of her belly. Once, her stomach had held a faint roundness to it, but now it hollowed inwards.

“Hey, little guy,” I whispered. “I’m praying you’re still in there. I’m praying you’re as strong as your Mamma.”

It was too soon for the doctor to tell whether Kloe was still pregnant. He’d tested her urine and it was still showing that she was pregnant, but he said that it could take a while for the pregnancy hormones to subside. He was bringing in a vaginal scanner tomorrow. Yet I’d seen the blood.

Exhaustion hit me suddenly and my eyes grew heavy.

Just as I closed them, my phone vibrated against my leg, notifying me of a text.



Ivan Moritz: Fight set for 4 weeks to give you time with your woman.



Me: Ok. I’ll make sure everything is set.



I sighed, flinging my phone onto the side. Four weeks. That was it.

Four weeks until I had to throw a fight and give Ivan Moritz his payment for getting Kloe to safety. My life.





MIKE ARRIVED EARLY THE NEXT day. He was smiling, but I could see the worry in his eyes, the apprehension at how I would react if things didn’t go how I wanted them to go.

I’d known Mike a good few years. He was a friend of Marty who owned the fight ring, and he knew how to be discrete. He was the guy we all saw after a fight when we needed patching up. He charged a f*cking whack, but paying for silence cost money.

“How was the patient overnight?” he asked as soon as he stepped foot in the door and proceeded to take himself up the stairs.

“Quiet. Caroline set up a drip and Kloe slept most of the night. She was feverish though, but I’m not sure if that was because she woke up screaming. A nightmare maybe.”

He nodded but didn’t offer me anything more.

Kloe lay, as yesterday, on her back, the arrangement of the sheet flat against her thin frame. Her hipbones stuck out and I had to look away. It did make me wonder what state I would have found her in if Terry had had her for longer than a week. I couldn’t believe the difference in her after just seven days, so longer would have been so much more torturous.

Doing his initial checks, Mike mumbled, “She does have a temperature. I’ll start her on some antibiotics just in case, and hopefully paracetamol will help.”

Every minute watching her like this broke my heart. I wanted to take away her pain, from both her wounds and her soul. I should have sought Terry out earlier. I should have seen to it before he even had a chance to realise I was back. He’d tormented Kloe well before I had found her again, killing her friend and her dog. He’d had no intentions of killing her, he just wanted to taunt her, play his sick f*cking games with her.

Kloe had surprised me, though, with everything she had found out. A part of me had just wanted to take her into the lion’s den blind, walk her straight through Terry’s front door and take great delight in the sight of their joint shock. Except she’d discovered who Richard really was – Robert, Terry’s youngest son - and then found the connection between my father and her step-father. And exactly who I was.

It had taken me longer than Kloe. It hadn’t been until I had delved into Kloe’s life that I found out exactly who her step-father was. My shock had been devastating. Hank and Mary had often goaded me with the fact that I had been born solely for their sick and twisted entertainment. A part of me hadn’t wanted to believe it; I’d wanted to think it was another of their cruel ways. Yet deep down I had known, believed. And finding various newspaper articles that led right back to Kloe confirmed it.