EVERY TIME MY HEART BREAKS (Forbidden Men Spin-Off)

PROLOGUE CHLOE [WELCOME TO THE PSYCHO STALKER’S BASEMENT]Well, it was official. My taste in men sucked ass. I sent a glare to one of the handcuffs holding me prisoner; this one pinning my left wrist to the floor and forcing my arm out away from my side, and I blew at a bloody clump of hair that kept getting into my eyes. But movement like that caused pain to scream through my jaw because that’s where Dax had hit me to knock me unconscious and bring me here in the first place. I closed my eyes and sniffed in self-pity while a tear trickled down my cheek and dripped into my ear. At least, I think it was a tear. Could’ve been blood. That eye felt pretty f****d up, so who really knew what was dripping from it. Whatever it was, now I had a wet ear on top of everything else. Didn’t that just take the cake? It beat focusing on the fact that I was chained, spread eagle and fully naked, to the freezing concrete basement floor of my psycho stalker ex-boyfriend’s house, though, while I listened for approaching footsteps overhead and wondered when he might return for more...cleansing...as he had called it. I hadn’t even gotten any wetness in my ears when he’d turned the hose on me, although plenty had gone up my nose and into my mouth, which I had to admit, was way worse. Ugh, okay. Fine... The wet ear was nothing compared to everything else. But everything else was too big to deal with right now. Lucy and the baby seriously better be okay, or I was going to… Damn. The panic returned from just thinking about them. A sob tore its way up my raw, dry throat, burning and clawing the whole way. I was going to start hyperventilating any moment if I didn’t get my s**t together. And that was going to help absolutely nothing. The only things I could control right now were my emotions, and I couldn’t even seem to do that. Come on, Chloe, I gave myself the mental pep talk I knew I needed. Get it together. You’re doing okay. You’re alive, not currently being tortured, and at least he hasn’t r***d— The floorboards above me creaked. Oh God. My entire body jolted in fear, knowing all the positive bullet points I’d just listed could be destroyed at any moment. I swallowed harshly and held my breath, my muscles tensing as I peered up at the ceiling, praying that Dax wouldn’t return. The top step creaked, and I whimpered. Dammit, I’d told myself I wasn’t going to cry, no matter what happened. I wasn’t going to break. But the footsteps started to move faster down the stairs as if he were jogging. Dread flooded my system so fast that I went into distress. My skin prickled with cold fear, and my heart beat hard enough to make my vision blur. He called something through the door—my name, I think, as if he were looking for me, even though that made no sense; he was the monster who’d trapped me here in the first place—but I couldn’t be completely sure what he actually said over the terror pounding through my ears and fogging my brain. Then, the knob twisted, and the door swung open.