Page 88 of Even if You Fall

Oh . . . my . . . gosh.

No. No, no, no.

I wasn’t sure when I moved or when my repeated thoughts started falling from my lips on a hushed, aching plea, but the next thing I knew, I was on my knees. Gripping the tattooed arms holding me upright as my body mercilessly shook and tears blurred the rug beneath me, all while flashes ofthat nightripped through my mind.

I absently noticed my hair being drawn away from my face. I vaguely registered the note of worry in the muffled voices around me. But it took far too long for everything to clear when all I could truly see and hear was the man at my door.

“...sick earlier,” Adam was saying when everything came into focus. “But she should be fine now that we’re back here.” Hisvoice lowered, at once worried and commanding. “Talk to me, Chloe.”

No, no, no.

I can’t—I have to be wrong. That couldn’t have been what nearly happened.

And yet, the more I tried denying it, the harder it became.

Even though that man had been at my door weeks ago, I felt overwhelmingly more terrified right then, than on the night it’d happened. But there was an unnerving feeling that came with the knowledge you’d narrowly escaped being kidnapped for trafficking. There was a nauseating sensation that accompanied it when you realized you’d been dismissing the entire event as something else. There was a strange hollowness that left you unbearably cold when you acknowledged a man you’d once loved had been behind it all.

My lips shakily moved around the words that had long since lost their sound until a panicked whimper wrenched from me.

“Chloe,” Adam softly begged.

“He—it wasn’t—I was wrong,” I choked out as the tears began slipping down my cheeks and onto the rug. “I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not. He came—I was wrong. I called. It was him,” I rambled around the sob caught in my throat and felt my entire body tremble when it finally broke free.

Bracing one shaky hand against the floor, I pressed my other hand to my mouth and tried pushing myself up as my head wildly shook, all while images of that night played out like a nightmare.

I’d been so, so wrong.

Theofficerhadn’t been there to scare me away from filing a restraining order, and he hadn’t been there to scare me back into Owen’s arms. He’d been there to take me, on Owen’s orders, for something so much worse.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you,” Adam whispered as he pulled me to my knees and twisted me so I was leaning into him. “Need you to talk to me,” he begged when I sank against him like dead weight. “What were you wrong about?”

“Chloe?” someone called out, sounding alarmed. But it wasn’t until Lainey rushed around us and dropped to her knees as Asher demanded, “What’s going on?” that I realized I knew the voice.

She reached for me, only to draw her hand back when Adam lifted one of his in silent protest. Her stare bounced between us a few times before settling on me, looking wholly alarmed when another muffled sob tried breaking free from behind my hand.

But this time, I didn’t know how to keep my emotions to myself. And now they were out there for everyone to see: real and stricken.

“What happened?” she asked Adam, accusation lacing her words, before her stare was back on me.

“Talk to me, Bubbles,” Adam murmured, ignoring her. “What were you wrong about?”

My head moved in quick, tight jerks before I finally dropped my hand as it all came tumbling free. “I thought he was trying to scare me,” I confessed, the words anemic and shaky. “I thought he was trying to stop me from filing a restraining order, or trying to scare me into going back to him. Something. But I didn’tknow. I didn’t have proof that?—”

Another choked cry left me, this one softer than the others, and I furiously wiped at the tears still falling before telling them everything about that night.

From going to bed early after Owen had shown up—which they already knew about from my confessions to Gray—to the fake officer waking me up a few hours later, and everything that took place after.

By the time I finished talking, Adam was crouched in front of where I was now sitting against the couch with my knees hugged to my chest. Lainey and the entire Shadow team were in the living room, along with Maverick.

Maverick passed his phone off to Adam, but Adam just released a weighted breath before briefly glancing at Beau.

Locking those copper eyes on me, he curled his free hand around one of my calves, offering strength and support when he softly asked, “Would you remember the guy if you saw him?”

I knew in an instant what my answer was, just as I knew I didn’t want to give it.

I’d given a detailed report to the deputies who’d shown, and I’d thought about that man every day since. But I knew then why it looked like Adam was holding the weight of the world on his shoulders—why he’d looked at Beau.

“It’s okay,” he whispered encouragingly.

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