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 someof 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.
