Chained (Caged #2)(38)

“He screamed so loud,” she divulged with a slight shudder. “And his blood, it was so pretty. So riveting to watch it leak from him so effortlessly. I felt a strength I never had before. It grew in my belly until it completely took over.”

I tightened my arms around her when the repulsion in her eyes made her wince. “We do what we have to, Kloe.” I didn’t tell her that most people didn’t actually go as far as she had. Yet Kloe had been through so much that no one could quite understand where her state of mind was now. What should disgust so many of us was becoming the normal for Kloe. And although what I had witnessed had sickened even me, I was so proud of her. She proved to me that she was ready for me to leave her. She would survive this after all, and she would protect our baby with her life.

She blinked up at me. “I found it,” she whispered.

I frowned. “You found what?”

“Whatever I’d been looking for. The crack of thunder in the middle of the storm. The hottest fire in hell. The epitome of sin. I’d been looking for light, Anderson, for hope in the middle of hopelessness. For an escape from the middle of escapism. All along I’d been looking for the opposite of what I needed.

“Something clicked when I watched the blood drain from Terry, from the cut that I’d inflicted. The loss of his life gave me mine. His last breath was my first in a long while. Does that make sense?”

I nodded, pressing my lips to her forehead. “It makes perfect sense. We all tend to look for the things we think we need, when all along, if we’d just closed our eyes and really looked, we’d have found what lies within us is the very thing we’ve been looking for.”

“But it was you who opened my eyes, Anderson. It was you who found my heart.”

She pushed at me, rolling me over, and came over me, straddling my chest as she bent and pressed her mouth to mine. Her little tongue slipped between my lips and she adored me in that single kiss.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I know you can’t say it back, and that’s okay. But you need to learn to trust me, Anderson. I’m stronger than you think. I’d protect you with my life.”

Her words tapped at my conscience, telling me I should have questioned her statement more. But when her mouth slid down my body and her lips and tongue teased the head of my cock, all thoughts left me.

It wasn’t until the following week, the night before my fight with Ivan, that her words made perfect sense to me – and I discovered just how much Kloe Grant did love me.





Red could sense the sadness in me, the heaviness of my heart. The wind whipped across the park, the exposed area providing no shelter from its beating on my face. I needed the air. It had felt like my lungs were clogging up in the house.

Kloe and Robbie had been gone a while and I was growing nervous. I’d sent Kloe to pick up some of her things. She had questioned why I wanted her to stay at mine, but after her father had come back into her life it had been easy to give her an explanation as to why I needed her to stay. In reality, it was because she would need the comfort of my home, and Red, when she learned of my fate.

They’d left over three hours ago, and although I knew she would be safe with Robbie, I couldn’t help the twist of anxiety that grew deeper in my chest.

Over the previous week she had healed more and more. Her beautiful smile had returned and she was once again at ease with herself. However, I knew she still hid something from me. I’d catch her looking at me with sad eyes, and she frequently told me that she loved me, as though she needed me to feel every inch of her affection in case I never felt it again. If I didn’t trust Robbie with my life I’d have sworn he had told her, so it couldn’t be the fight that was troubling her.

I couldn’t tell her about my deal with Ivan; it would have broken her. I knew she’d feel guilty, that it was her fault I’d traded my life for hers. But the life of my child, and Kloe, meant more to me than my next breath. If I was left behind without them then my life was over anyway.

I wasn’t nervous about death, far from it, but I was sad that now everything in my life was coming together, it had to end.

Robbie had grown angry again last night. His suggestion of taking Kloe and leaving was ludicrous. Deals were deals; they would never be broken. Kloe was safe because of Ivan. I owed him my life, and I would do it over again if I had to.

Red’s ears whipped up in the air with a sudden strong gust of wind; she looked so comical I couldn’t help but smile. The cold started to penetrate the thickness of my coat and I shivered. “Time to go home, girl.”

I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t grieve, and although my heart was sad for Red, I knew she’d be okay with Kloe.

The walk home seemed to take longer than usual, dejection making me slow, but I sighed with relief when I spotted Rob’s car parked up in front of the house.

Rob was nowhere to be seen when I walked in, but Kloe sat at the kitchen table. She was miles away, her fingers clutching a cold cup of tea as she stared into space.

She jumped when I came behind her and dropped a kiss in her hair. The scent of honey and coconut invaded my senses and calmed the storm that had started to swell inside.

“Hey.”

She turned, giving me a soft smile. Her eyes were rimmed with redness. “Have you been crying?”

She shook her head. “No.”