Chapter 8
Xander
Two months.
That’s how long since she vanished.
Two months of hunting for the woman who’ll be my wife.
She’d left me with nothing. No ID. No records. No digital trail. As if she never existed.
I sit in my office, a watch worth more than most men’s yearly salary ticking on my wrist, useless against time I can’t control.
My hand rakes through my hair, elbows digging into the desk. The silence weighs heavily, broken only by the faint hum of the city twenty floors below.
I came to New York and built empires, turned billions into more billions. I bend governments, industries, men. None of it matters. Not the Order. Not the money. Not the power. Nothing matters when she’s out there without me.
So I built an entire network around her shadow. Hospital alerts. Credit flagging. Facial recognition buried in systems people don’t even know they use. I hacked, bribed, threatened, and burned through every resource the Order of Saints could put its hands on.
I pried her name from Bradley’s mouth.
Dahlia Sinclair.
He’d given it easily, too easily, the instant I leaned on him, desperate to save his skin. I barely had to touch him before he started running his mouth, spilling everything he knew. Her name. Her habits. Then he called her nothing special. Shrugged, said she was just a good lay.
My fist connected with his face before the words finished leaving his mouth. By the time my brothers dragged me off, he was broken on the floor with blood pooling beneath him. My brothers stepping in was the only reason he was still breathing.
I’ve buried men for less.
That name allowed me to access her past. I thought she was soft, too trusting. The reports made me see the rest. Tenacity wired so tight it kept her alive. Not innocent. Not soft enough to break.
Her dad had never been in the picture, and her mom had married three times before she was six years old, each one shorter than the previous. I nearly lost it as I read through the police reports.
My Dahlia was scared, alone. Abandoned before she even knew what that meant. Her mom would come back just long enough so that she didn’t lose custody, then disappear again.
When a marriage finally stuck, she never came back. It didn’t take me long to track her down. New family, two daughters and a son. Middle class in the suburbs. Her mother had traded her daughter for a new life.
The only thing stopping me from tracking that bitch down and tearing the pristine life she created apart is that all of my energy is channeled into finding Dahlia.
Once she’s safe and back with me, I’ll help her be the one to do it. Teach her just how sweet revenge can taste.
There was an ache deep in my chest at the trail of paperwork of my girl bouncing from foster home to foster home, none lasting more than a few months. It’s the type of life that leaves a bone-deep scar.
It wasn’t until an older lady took her in that she finally found a place to settle. They lived in a small apartment above a flower studio. It barely cut a profit, but it was enough to maintain their lives. Dahlia’s grades went up. Her attendance finally settled.
My throat constricts, thinking about the way it was ripped away from her. There’s a record of an ambulance bill. Her guardian going to the hospital and never making it out. A lien on the shop to cover the cost of her treatment.
Leaving Dahlia with no choice but to sell it.
My knuckles whiten as my fists clench.
I should have been the one who was there for her. To hold her together as she fell apart. I could have saved the remnants of the only secure place she’d known.
Instead, it was Bradley who was there. He’d taken advantage of that wound, used the fear of being rejected to manipulate her into doing whatever he wanted.
He had taken what was left of the money after she sold the shop and used it to fund their move and support his career.
I’m going to fucking kill the bastard, but not before making him feel just as helpless as she felt. Not before he kneels at her feet, begging for her forgiveness.
A ping cuts through the silence. New email. Subject line: Possible Matches.
My pulse jumps. I click it open before a second notification finishes chiming.
The screen fills with attachments. Dozens of photos, thumbnails blurry with bad lighting. Hotel lobbies, alleys, bars, parking garages. Grainy images of women stepping out of cars, caught mid-step on security cameras, faces tilted toward the lens.
I go through them one at a time.
The first woman turns her head. For a second, hope lodges in my chest. Not her.
The next. My stomach knots. The cheekbones are wrong.
Another. Wrong hair.
Another. Wrong eyes.
I keep clicking. Hope spikes, crashes. Spikes, crashes. Over and over until my vision blurs.
By the time the last photo opens, I already know. Not her. It’s never her. The confirmation still lands like a blade sliding between my ribs.
A growl rattles out of me, low and sharp. My hand snaps out, closing around the nearest object. A glass paperweight. It smashes against the wall, shattering on impact. The crack echoes through the office like a gunshot.
The door swings open without a knock. Bash strolls in, smirk already in place. His eyes sweep to the broken shards, then over to the jagged dent in the wall.
“You redecorating?”
He’s only eleven months younger, but we’ve always moved as one. Together with our older brothers, we rule the Order of Saints. We’re men who tug strings governments pretend aren’t there. Bash loves every second of it. He grins at power like it’s a game.
Which is why he thinks he can stand there now, smirking at me like he’s untouchable.
I don’t answer, pulling up the same dead-end files again. The photos, the reports, the useless trail of nothing. My jaw aches from the grind of my teeth.
Bash steps closer, casual as ever, and drops a folder onto my desk. “Your team was arguing over who had to bring this in. You’re scaring the shit out of them.”
I don’t look up. “Good. Maybe they’ll work faster.”
“They’re not supposed to be working on this in the first place,” Bash says, voice light. “You’ve got them running down one girl? What happened to the control freak who micromanages every decimal? You forget you’re the cold, meticulous mogul now? Money doesn’t stack itself.”
I snap my gaze up, and his smirk only deepens.
The growl rises in my throat before I’m moving. I shove to my feet and grab Bash by the collar. The desk rattles when I yank him forward, the edge biting into his hips. Bash grunts but doesn’t flinch. His grin stays carved in place, smug and infuriating.
“You look like shit.” His tone is amused, not concerned. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“I’ll sleep when I find her.” My fist tightens in his shirt, knuckles digging into his chest. The coil inside me winds tighter with every hour she’s gone. The unease is constant, restless, gnawing. What if she’s hurt? What if she’s…
No.
I slam the thought down and shove him back, hard enough that he stumbles a step before catching himself.
Bash smooths his collar like I didn’t nearly rip it off. “Maybe it’s time you accept she’s gone.”
The words burn through me like acid. My head snaps toward him, heat flooding my veins. “If Anastasia vanished without a trace, how would you handle it?”
For the first time, his grin slips. His jaw hardens, his voice low. “I’d tear apart every street, every building, and every man in my path until she was back where she belonged.”
Exactly.
“Now you understand.” My voice cuts like a blade. “She’s mine. I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll find her.”
I drop into my chair, leather creaking under my weight. My elbows hit the desk, fingers dragging down my face. Exhaustion gnaws at me, but it doesn’t blunt the edge of her absence.
“I’m worried about her.” The words scrape out rough, unwilling but true.
For a second, Bash softens. “You’ll find her.”
A dark laugh escapes me, humorless. “I know I will. And when I do, no one but me will ever touch her again.”
Bash chuckles, then his tone shifts. “I’m glad you finally found her. I was starting to think that cold heart of yours would always stand in your way. Turns out you’re just like the rest of your brothers.”
“How’s that?”
“Just needed the right girl.”
A year ago, hell, three months ago, I would have laughed at him.
All three of my brothers have fallen hard.
I watched their obsession deepen, watched men who rule entire nations kneel for the women they love.
Even then, I knew that could never be me.
Nothing had ever mattered as much as power.
Sex was a necessity. Something to be taken, then forgotten. Nothing more.
Bash shakes his head, smirking again. “You’re just as much of a possessive psycho as the rest of us.”
“Worse.” The word leaves me calm, certain. “Once I get my hands on her, she’ll learn exactly how much I own her.”
Bash straightens, grin edged with warning. “Careful. That’s my future sister you’re talking about.”
I let the words sink in. I like how they sound. A claim. A promise.
My mouth curves. “Good. Then you know I’ll never let her go.”