Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
“No.” The word rips from my throat as I lunge forward, jabbing at the button. Down arrow lights up mockingly. Too late. Always too fucking late when it comes to understanding what matters.
My fist connects with the elevator panel. Pain shoots through my knuckles, sharp and real and welcome.
The stairwell door crashes against the wall as I burst through. Five flights down, taking them three at a time, my Testoni loafers skidding on concrete. My lungs burn but not as much as the panic clawing at my chest.
Mine. She’s mine. They can’t take what’s mine.
Except she isn’t, is she? Not when I’ve spent ten years treating our marriage like a business merger. Not when I filed those fucking papers. Not when I let another woman touch me while my wife watched.
The lobby is empty.
Silent.
Wrong.
Marble and glass and sophisticated emptiness where my whole world should be standing. The security guard barely glances up from his newspaper. Normal Tuesday afternoon in Monaco. No sign that everything has just gone catastrophically wrong.
The air conditioning hums, people walking all around me, the world spinning the way it always has...even when my own world has crashed into an agonizing stop.
Fuck, no.
A sound has finally permeated my shock, the distinctive whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades cutting through sea air, and my blood becomes ice water as I sprint outside just in time to see the family chopper lifting off from the building’s pad. Through the glass bubble, I catch one last glimpse of dark hair, of slim shoulders curving inward like she’s trying to disappear.
My phone is in my hand before conscious thought. Speed dial 1 has always been my trainer. But sometime in the last week of hell, muscle memory has changed that.
But before I can even call her, my own phone rings, and of course, of course...
It’s my wife’s kidnapper calling.
“We do not hurt our own, Aivan.”
And he’s no one else but my own father.
“I know how it looks,” I grit out, watching the helicopter become a speck against the azure sky. My free hand clenches and unclenches, still feeling the phantom weight of her in my arms from all those mornings I carried her back to bed. “But I swear, I never touched another woman—”
“Then that makes it worse.” The temperature in his voice drops another ten degrees. “You broke your wife’s heart for nothing, and that brings even greater shame to our famiglia.”
Shame.
That word.
It lands between us, heavy as stone.
“Just let me explain—”
“It is too late. I made a promise to Sienah’s mother. If you hurt her daughter, she could ask to have her back.” A pause weighted with finality. “She has asked.”
No.
No.
No.
“And so I must keep my word.”
“I will never give Sienah up—”
“I know.” My father sighs, and in the background I can hear the helicopter rotors, can hear my whole life flying away. “Why do you think I’m flying her out myself?”
The line goes dead.
My phone screen cracks under the pressure of my grip. Or maybe that’s the sound of my ribs cracking, heart trying to beat its way free from the chest that’s caged it for thirty-eight years of emotional cowardice.
The concrete burns through my suit as I stand there. Watching. The helicopter is gone now, swallowed by sky and distance, but I keep staring at the empty blue like she might rematerialize.
She won’t.
Back through the lobby. The guard looks up this time, something like pity in his weathered face. Back up the elevator. The ghost of her still clings to the small space. Back to Adriano’s office where Myca is standing too close to my friend, probably already calculating her next move.
Her smile falters when she sees my face.
Good.
“You’re fired.”
The words come out arctic, final. Myca’s perfectly outlined mouth falls open.
“Excuse me? You can’t just—”
“I can. I am. HR will send your final check and a generous severance package.”
My voice sounds dead. Matches how I feel.
“This is about that little scene earlier, isn’t it?” She steps closer, swaying her hips in what she probably thinks is enticing. “I was only trying to help. You looked so tense in the limo, so I offered to...relax you. It’s not my fault your little wife got the wrong idea.”
Little wife.
The words echo in the space between us.
How dare she call my Sienah like she’s something insignificant and disposable?
“Nothing happened,” I say flatly. “Because I don’t cheat on my wife. Not with you. Not with anyone.”
The truth of it sits heavy on my tongue. Ten years. Ten fucking years and not once did I stray. Not because of honor or love or any noble emotion.
Because no one else was her.
“You’re insane, you know that?” Myca spats. “That mouse of a wife obviously can’t keep you satisfied if you’re already filing for divorce after ten years.”
My hands curl into fists, the knuckles I bloodied on the elevator panel throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I want to throttle her for talking about my wife in such a wife, but I despise myself even more, knowing that the only reason she’s here in the first place is because of me.