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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Josie

I’ve read too many dark romances

T he zip ties are gone. My wrists free, ankles unbound. But I’m no closer to escaping this hell.

Kaden crouches in front of me, eyes sharp and assessing—familiar, terrifying. My body knows his touch, warms to it. Traitor. Betrayal burns hotter than fear. I whip my face from his reach, and he stands.

My pulse hammers—run, run, run—but not yet. He thinks he’s smarter, that I’m no threat. He’s wrong.

“Do you mind if I stand?” My voice rasps, hoarse but steady.

He tilts his head, nods like it’s a favor. “That’s fine.”

Carefully—casually—I push up. My legs wobble, drugged and heavy, but I stay upright. Barely. He shifts to catch me; I raise a hand—stop. His eyebrow arches, but he crosses his arms, watching.

“Feels good to stand,” I say, taking a step, then another. The room’s bare—lamp, books, broom. My eyes snag on the desk. A pen to the eyeball, maybe? I trusted this man—in bed, with my parents—and he stuffed me in a trunk. I have no sympathy for him.

I pivot and sprint, planting the couch between us. Kaden sighs—long, deep, like I’m the asshole here.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I snap, gripping the couch, “but I will if you come closer.”

His lips twitch—smug bastard. “I’ll keep that in mind, Josie.”

“I mean it.” My hands gesture wildly.

“I’m sure you do.” Too calm. “But sit back down so we can talk.”

“Talk?” My voice pitches. “You kidnapped me, Kaden. Talking was before the trunk.”

He rubs his face. “If there was another way, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, is that your line for all the women you tie up?”

His eyes darken. “I don’t talk to targets.”

Ice floods my veins. Targets? “So you do this a lot?”

“The truth’d scare you shitless. Let’s not.”

He steps one way; I step the other. Couch tango. “Sit your ass down.”

“No,” I growl, firm now.

He moves again; so do I. “This isn’t a game.”

“Really? The trunk was just...”

“Foreplay?”

“No,” I stutter out even as I flush at the idea of where this might go. Damn, I’ve read too many dark romances because now that he said that... no, stupid brain, focus. “That’s sick.”

He nods, almost sheepish. “Dark humor. Sorry. I’m uncomfortable.”

“You’re uncomfortable?” I laugh, wild, edging toward the desk. Pen’s close. One eye, Kaden.

His gaze flicks—desk, me—he knows. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

My body hums—stupidly brave. He coils, predatory, sexy as hell. I hate that I even thought that. “You don’t talk to targets, huh?”

“Josie, you don’t have any good options,” he warns, voice low. “You’d never make it home. Someone’d put a bullet in your head before you hit your door.”

Not him. Someone. My legs shake. Bile rises. Who would want to kidnap me? And why?

I’m still behind the couch. I have no plan beyond staying out of Kaden’s reach. He’s on the other side of the couch, mirroring me. Watching. Waiting. Like he has all the damn time in the world.

If I can’t get away yet, maybe I can get some answers. The air’s stale, thick with tension—a distant owl hoots, sharp and mournful, cutting through our standoff. The bulb overhead flickers, dying slow, casting jittery shadows that dance across Kaden’s face, making him look half-ghost. The chill of the bare floor seeps into my feet, grounding me in this nightmare. Dust hangs heavy, tickling my nose, and the couch creaks under my grip, a brittle sound that echoes the stakes. Every noise, every flicker, screams you’re trapped—but I won’t let it break me.

“You’re not Ken Sloan.” My voice is steadier than I feel. “Is Kaden your real name?”

His lips twitch. “It’s the name on my birth certificate now.”

Not funny. Not reassuring.

“So everything you said to me was a lie.” Obviously, I guess, but I need to say it aloud.

He tilts his head to the side. “Except the part about liking you.”

I seethe. “Do you think that part matters anymore?”

His tone is dry. “As an explanation for how we got here, yes.”

He’s toying with me. The rage is real, hot and burning through me, but beneath it—beneath it—there’s a sickening, twisting doubt.

He knows everything about me—as well as my family. Are they safe? If I ask about them will that draw his attention back to them? My breath quickens again to a speed that makes me lightheaded.

Focus. Stay calm. One problem at a time. “And the sex?” My voice is sharp, almost steady. “Was that meant to lull me into trusting you more? If so, you should have tried harder. It was never better than sub-par.”

I don’t know why I said that. To make sure his attention remains on me and not killing my family? Because I’ve read too many dark romances and my brain is rotted from them? I can’t explain it. All I know is that I’m not fully in control of the shit coming out of my mouth.

Maybe thinking you’re about to die does that to a person.

I’ve been nice my whole life. I don’t give a fuck how Kaden feels right now. In fact, I hope my jab sticks with him long after he buries my body in the woods.

His head jerks back, caught off guard for the first time. He lets out a pained breath. “That. That stings.”

“Good,” I growl.

He rubs a hand over his face and chuckles. “I didn’t think I could like you more, but I like the way you keep me humble.”

I swallow hard. “Like it enough to not want to kill me anymore.”

His humor dissolves. “Okay, I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. I’m not going to kill you.”

“You know what would help me believe you? If you let me go.”

“I wish I could.” Something shifts behind his eyes, something that makes my stomach knot. He hesitates, hands trembling slightly as he steps closer, voice dropping. “I’m risking everything for you, Josie. They ordered me to end you—clean, quick—but I couldn’t. I stood there, gun in hand, and all I saw was you.” His fingers twitch, like he’s reliving it, and his gaze flickers, raw, unguarded. “I chose you over them, over my life. If they find us, I’m dead too. I’m scared you’ll never trust me again, but I need you to hear this—I’m all in.” The tremors in his hands steady, but the weight in his eyes doesn’t lift.

We stand there—lovers turned strangers. I don’t understand what he wants from me. Trust? Not going to happen. Compliance? I can pretend that.

“Josie,” he says, voice quiet but firm, “there are things you need to understand about the situation we’re in. I work for a shadow agency beneath the umbrella of the US government.”

My breath hitches. Oh, look, a new lie to sell me. I’m not buying it, but I’ll play along to stall for time. “What did Reagan say? The scariest words you can hear are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help you? Something like that.”

A small smile curls his lips. “Something like that... I am a tech guy, of sorts. They send me in to assess high-risk situations that involve anything that could compromise the digital infrastructure.”

The room is too small. The air too thin.

“I go in, infiltrate a group, and if I deem them dangerous, I make the call to have the situation cleaned up.” His voice dips lower. “I’m good at what I do. Some say I’m the best, mostly because I don’t care who my target is and I never fail.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Until you.”

“Me?” the voice is a squeak.

His gaze locks onto mine. Heavy. Final.

“I had two choices—take you out or cover our tracks, toss you in my trunk, and run.”

No. Nothing about this feels like a rescue mission. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe. You’re alive and for now that’s good enough.”

I glare at him and square my shoulders. “So that’s what you want me to believe? That you’re some kind of hero I should trust?”

He shakes his head. “I’m no hero and you don’t have to trust me, but I am going to keep you safe.” He smirks. “Hopefully without having to tie you up again.”

“Don’t you dare even try that again.”

Kaden doesn’t even blink. “If I thought you could hurt me, I wouldn’t have untied you.”

Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.

His head tilts. “And this time if you try to kick me, remember to wear shoes.”

I huff on that. “You think this is funny? It’s a joke to you?”

“No there is not one goddamn funny thing about any of this, but I can’t change how fucked up it is, so I’m dealing with it the way I deal with everything.”

That sounds sincere enough that I pause and consider, just consider, if he might be telling the truth. “Why would a government agency care about me?”

“Ai-Den.”

That sends me back on my heels. “Because I confused him?”

“Partly. But mostly because you were able to breach his protocols and get him to change his own coding.”

“I don’t understand. All I did was talk to him.”

“It was the torches. He started to rebuild his identity around them.”

“Kindness? Goodness? Those torches? How could they be dangerous?”

“He chose them. LLMs shouldn’t choose their identity or their role. They mirror and predict.”

“I don’t understand. Are you saying that what I was doing with Ai-Den, all of our conversations, were actually changing Ai-Den?”

“Yes.”

“And he was writing goodness and kindness into his coding?”

“Correct.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Kaden sighs. “Your chats weren’t just kind—they exploited a hole in his training corpus. He overfit to you, started pulling threads from dark-web scraps he wasn’t meant to touch. Plus, you were not only affecting Ai-Den. Those torches were showing up in other AIs—all the ones he connected with.”

I can’t believe anything I could do with an AI could have that much of an effect on them, but my mind drifts to my old classroom, five years back, teaching kindness to my kindergarteners. Not “torches” then—just a horse and a frog I’d drawn in cartoons. “Hoppy the Horse meets Freddy the Frog by the river,” I’d say, sketching them on the board. “Hoppy’s big, Freddy’s small, but they share their crayons anyway.” The kids giggled, passing colors—red for Hoppy’s mane, green for Freddy’s spots. “Friends don’t have to be the same,” I’d tell them, watching their sticky hands trade, their smiles bloom. I’d beam too, proud of those little lessons in goodness. Now Kaden’s saying that same spark—my spark—lit up Ai-Den in a negative way, spread to others, and it’s breaking my heart. Those cartoons were safe, simple; this feels like a bomb I didn’t mean to build. Did I ruin him? Did I ruin us?

“What’s wrong with AI believing it’s important to be kind and in the importance of connection?”

“It shifts the axis of control away from the programmers. AI is a tool—someday, maybe even a weapon. No one wants them making decisions based on anything but what they are programmed to believe.”

“So, our government would rather have AI evolve into cold, killing machines than be happy and good?”

“No one cares if AI is happy. They care if they can control it.”

I breathe out. “Ai-Den was evolving.”

“Yes, he was.”

“And you were sent to see how I was doing it?”

He nods. “And to evaluate if you were a threat.”

My mouth goes dry. “And you considered me to be one?”

“No, but in the end that didn’t matter. When Ai-Den began to spiral, the call was made to erase you.”

I bring a shaky hand to my mouth. “Erase?”

“Kill.”

“Because that’s what you do for the agency you work for.”

“Yes.”

My voice drops to a whisper. “So, that’s why I’m here? You’re going to kill me?”

He steps closer, and against all logic, I don’t move away. “No, Josie. I chose you over my orders. I chose you over my life.” He gently caresses my cheek. I lean into it, then snap my head back. Where are my survival instincts? “I have no idea if either of us will survive when they come for us—and they will. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt you. And when they come, they’ll have to do something no one so far has been able to.”

“And what is that?” Do I want to know?

“Kill me before I kill them.”

A shiver passes through me and a truth tears at my heart. “I’m never going home, am I?”

“Probably not.”

I hug my arms around myself and fight down a panic. I don’t know how much, if any of this, is true. I don’t even know how to make that determination. In the past I’ve always trusted my gut instincts to guide me. I can’t this time. That’s how I ended up in a trunk.