Chapter five- The devil doesn’t let go

Chloe's POV

The man who stepped inside was tall—taller than the guards who’d dragged me here. Broad shoulders filled the doorway, the kind of solid, controlled power that didn’t need to announce itself. Strong arms under a dark shirt. Wide chest. Sharp jaw. Dark hair.

The air tightened the second he crossed the threshold. Every instinct screamed that running from him would be useless.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t even look at me for more than a second. He walked past me as if I were furniture, crossed to the bar, and pulled out a bottle of whisky. The glass clinked once, sharp in the silence. He poured without hurry. Only then, when he turned slightly under the light, did I see his face clearly.

My breath left me.

I knew that face.

I'd longed to meet him face to face.

I’d rehearsed it in the dark, staring at his photograph. I’d practised the words I would say when I finally stood in front of Spencer McCartney and made him answer for what he did to my mother. In those fantasies, I looked him in the eye and forced the truth out of him, like pulling a knife from a wound.

But I never imagined standing in his bedroom, barefoot, shaking, and about to explain to one of the most dangerous men I’d ever researched that I wasn’t his wife. Or that I was the daughter of the woman he put in a wheel chair and covered it up.

He sat on the couch, glass still in his hand, and stared at me. The silence stretched long and heavy. There was nothing soft in his eyes. Only a cold, simmering anger.

Then he spoke.

“Who was helping you escape?” His voice was flat. “My boys told me everything. Start talking.”

I went completely still. My pulse hammered against my throat. Every sleepless hour of wanting justice crashed into the reality of the man sitting in front of me. None of it made sense. But one thought cut through the rest: I had to prove I wasn’t Ruby. I had to get out of this house.

“I’m not Ruby,” I said. The words came out rushed, thin. “Your men took me because we look alike.”

He lifted the glass and drank like he hadn’t heard me. Slow. Unbothered. The anger in him didn’t flare—it simply waited.

Hope still flared anyway. He was her husband. He had to know his own wife. If he just looked properly—

“Look at me,” I said, stepping closer. My voice cracked. “You should know your wife better than anyone. I’m not her. Just look at me.”

I waited. The silence pressed harder against my chest.

“Spencer McCartney,” I said, irritation flaring through the fear, “say something.”

Still nothing. Only that cold, waiting stare.

Panic cracked open inside me. I stepped closer, voice rising.

“Please—listen to me. I have a disabled mother. She won’t make it past today if I don’t get back to her. Just let me leave. Please. She needs me. She’s all I have left, and she’s running out of time—”

He moved so fast that I never saw him leave the couch. His hand closed around my throat and drove me backwards until my shoulders slammed into the wall. The impact knocked the air from my lungs. His eyes locked on mine—terrifying. The pressure of his fingers was enough to make every breath a struggle. Terror flooded me in a hot, shaking wave. My hands flew up, grabbing at his wrist, but he didn’t move. The room narrowed to the weight of his grip and the knowledge that this man could end me without raising his voice.

“Let me make something clear.” His voice stayed low. “I don’t have time for games, Ruby. I understand you want to keep pretending you're insane. Fine. Keep that up, and I’ll have a doctor declare you mentally unfit and lock you up in the farthest psychiatric hospital money can buy. You can scream that you’re not Ruby until your voice disappears. It won’t change what I need from you.”

His eyes dropped briefly to my throat, then lifted back to mine.

“I only need your blood.”

His words—your blood—lodged somewhere inside me.

Why did he need my blood?

The question tore through me, bringing a new kind of fear—deeper than the fear of his hand around my throat. My skin prickled. My fingers went numb.

He held me there a second longer. Long enough for the fear to sink all the way into my bones, thick and choking. Long enough for my vision to blur at the edges and my knees to start giving out. The room tilted. I couldn’t get enough air. Every heartbeat felt like it was trying to escape the grip of his hand. Then he let go.

I dropped to the floor, coughing hard, one hand pressed to my throat. My eyes watered.

"Get up.” The command cut through the air like a blade. “We’re not finished.”

I looked up at him.

The cold fury in his eyes. The absolute control in the way he stood over me. The certainty that I was his to break.

No. I won't let him. Not him.

I forced myself up on shaking legs, wiped my face with a trembling hand, and dragged in a painful breath as I straightened my spine, met his stare.

“You’re just… a bully.”

His eyes narrowed.

My legs wanted to lock, and my voice was already cracking.

“And a c-coward.”

He blinked once. “What did you just call me?”

“A bully.” My hands were shaking so hard I had to press them against my sides. “And a coward.” The words came out broken, desperate, forced past the raw ache in my throat. “Your power isn’t impressive. It just shows you're a weakling.”

His jaw flexed. He closed the distance in two steps. Something dark moved behind his eyes. I knew things were about to get worse, but I couldn’t stop. Not while the image of my mother in a wheel chair was still burning in my head.

“You should stop talking,” he said. Quiet. Final. “I mean it.”

I pointed at him anyway, finger trembling so badly it almost didn’t hold steady.

“So what if you have money?” I swallowed hard and pushed through. “So what if your family has influence? People hear your last name and panic, and you mistake that fear for respect.”

I saw it in his face—something tight and angry that wasn’t just irritation. It looked like I’d cut him somewhere he didn’t expect.

My courage was falling apart under the way he looked at me. Tears burned at the edges of my vision again. But I forced the last of it out, voice shaking.

“With all your money and influence and power, you’re just a sick bully who put his hands on the throat of a woman who’s begging to go home to her sick mother.”

For a second, the room felt completely still.

Then, his hands closed around my arms. Hard. Not bruising yet, but close enough that I felt the threat of it.

“You are Ruby,” he said, voice low and absolute. “You are my wife. And I’m going to prove it to you right now.”