Chapter 12 Jensen
TWELVE
JENSEN
My heart slams in my throat the moment she walks out of the gallery alone. Neither Theo nor Mike goes after her and I could kill them both for that.
I’m glued to the camera feed, expecting her to return. She doesn’t. I try her phone again, even though I know she’s not going to answer.
On the monitor, Theo moves to the desk and his voice comes over the line. “Sir?”
Barbed wire tightens around my rib cage until I like I’m drowning.
“Where the fuck is my wife?” My voice is low and dangerous, threaded with pure violence.
I flex my fingers into a fist, my nails biting into my palm.
“She was upset.”
“About what?”
Mia still hasn’t come back, and a suffocating pressure is building in my chest. My sanity is hanging by a thread the longer she’s not on my screen. Come on, baby. Where are you?
I pull up the cameras for the back rooms and rewind the footage.
She appears on the monitor, and everything about the way she’s moving is wrong. It’s as if she’s folding in on herself. I track her on the footage until she slips out of the back door. Then she’s gone, disappearing up the street.
Away from safety.
Away from me.
My breath stutters. It feels like there is a hand wrapped around my heart, squeezing so tight I feel lightheaded.
“Mr. Rivers—”
I cut Theo off before he can make excuses. “She’s gone. Shit. You’re supposed to protect her, Theo. That’s what I pay you for.” My head is pounding. I’ve never felt terror like this. My pregnant wife is wandering the streets of New York without protection, without me.
I lean against the desk, sucking in a breath, but it doesn’t reach my lungs. “You get off your ass and you go after her. Right now.”
Theo hesitates, and I watch him on the screen, glancing at Juno. I watch the way his shoulders square, the way his head drops just a fraction, how he tightens his hand around the phone.
Mia’s phone.
“With all due respect, Mr. Rivers, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The storm building inside me is catastrophic. I want to unleash a hail of rage. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea? “She’s pregnant, Theo, and she’s wandering the city alone.”
I’m already pulling up the tracking software for her, clicking through an endless amount of menus with a frustration that could level the city. But her purse isn’t moving, neither is her coat.
Which means both trackers are still at the gallery—and she’s not with them.
Fuck.
“Mrs. Rivers is… Breaking.”
That gets my attention. Why the hell is she breaking? “Explain,” I growl the word, halfway to feral.
He doesn’t answer, and it doesn’t matter. The only thing I care about is finding my wife and getting her somewhere safe. “If you still want a job tomorrow, I suggest you get the fuck out there and find her.”
I end the call and grab my jacket from the back of my chair. I don’t say a word to anyone in my office as I move to the elevator like a hurricane. My brain is a reel of worst-case scenarios. What if someone grabs her off the street? What if she gets hurt? What if the baby is—
I cut that line of thought before I let it settle.
Theo said she’s breaking.
I’ve been a lot. I know that. Did I… fuck. Did I push her to take off?
I stab the elevator button until the doors slide open. Fear and guilt batter my skull. My body is wired, electrified.
Where the hell are you, Mia?
My hands are shaking by the time I get into my car. It’s only a short drive to her gallery, but it feels like it takes an eternity. As I move through the traffic, I scan the streets, but in a city as big as New York, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. She could be anywhere by now.
With anyone by now.
I squeeze the steering wheel until the skin pulls tight over my knuckles. “What the fuck are you doing, Mia?”
I keep driving, circling the blocks surrounding the gallery. I ignore the beeps of frustration from other drivers as I crawl along the sidewalks, scanning, searching.
As the minutes edge closer toward the hour mark, I start to fear the worst. She’s never been out of contact this long before. Then again, she’s never been anywhere without somebody tailing her.
Not since I had the money to protect her.
I try to stifle the panic blooming in my chest, but it’s no use. It feels like my insides are being shredded. Every fear I’ve tried to avoid when it comes to her is bearing down, demanding attention.
I tap the steering wheel. “Come on, baby. Where are you?”
An alert pings through my dashboard. I glance at the screen, splitting my gaze between that and the road. Someone beeps and I slam the brakes on before I collide with the side of a yellow cab.
Shit.
I lift my hand in apology and pull over in the first available space at the curb. As soon as the car rolls to a stop, I drag my phone out of my pocket. The alert was for the penthouse.
I open the app, the footage playing automatically. And for the first time in an hour, I breathe.
It’s Mia, entering our home.
She doesn’t look hurt, just tired, like she’s dragging the weight of the world behind her. Ice fills my stomach, but she’s safe, behind walls designed to protect her. That’s all I care about.
I toss my phone into the cup holder, glance over my shoulder and slide back into traffic. By the time I guide the car into the parking garage under our building, I’m vibrating with a mix of emotions I can’t even name anymore.
The ride up in the elevator is torture. Every part of me itches to get my hands on her, to make sure she’s unharmed. I’m twitchy, coming out of my skin in a way that I won’t be able to control until she’s in my grasp.
As soon as I open the front door, I’m drawn to her like gravity. She standing in front of the window, looking out over the Hudson. Her arms are folded around her body, like she’s stitched herself together and is holding the threads.
Mia’s eyes lift, locking on mine, and I don’t like how pale she is, how tight her expression stretches.
I move before I consider if she wants me to and, to my relief, she doesn’t protest when I crush her against my chest. Damn. She’s here. She’s safe. I cling to her like I can hold the demons at bay just with my embrace.
She’s so small, so fragile.
So breakable.
Every instinct flares to life inside me, demanding that I keep her safe, lock her behind the doors of the penthouse where no one can touch her.
“Fuck, Mia.” I breathe into her hair.
I can smell the strawberry of her shampoo and the light floral scent of her perfume—a scent that is all her. It wraps around me like a blanket.
Mia doesn’t hug me back, but I don’t care. I’ve got her, and that’s all that matters.
I pull back, scanning her face, but she keeps her eyes averted.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” It’s not what I mean to say. I want to ask her if she’s okay. If she’s hurt. But my fear is in the driver’s seat. “Do you have idea what I’ve gone through in the last hour?”
Mia steps away from me, like she needs the space. Breaking, just like Theo said. I scan every inch of her for bruises, for blood, but she looks fine—tired and pale, but unharmed.
“Do we have to do this now?”
Yeah, we fucking do. I’m vibrating with tension that I need to get out of me.
“You left the gallery alone.” She stays quiet.
“You were gone for an hour, Mia. I didn’t know if you were safe, hurt, kidnapped—” I trail off, the words trapped in my throat like shards of glass.
“You left without a phone. No guards. Without telling anyone where the hell you were going.” My voice breaks.
She has no idea I’ve spent the last hour building her eulogy in my head and she doesn’t seem to care either, which scares me the most. “Say something,” I snap at her silence.
“I didn’t realize I needed permission to exist,” she mutters. “I must’ve missed that part of our wedding vows.”
“You could have been taken!” My pulse is pounding like a war drum. There’s a roaring in my head so loud I can’t focus past it. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
She turns slowly and when her eyes meet mine, they’re flat, empty, like she’s given up. That hits me like a punch because I know those eyes. I’ve seen them laugh, lit up with excitement, hot with lust or need.
But this?
This is wrong.
“As you can see, I’m fine.”
But she’s not. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not fucking fine. “You were reckless.”
“I went for a walk, Jensen.”
“Alone.”
Mia closes her eyes and that pulsing in my chest picks up speed again. “I didn’t realize being loved by you would come with chains.” She doesn’t even raise her voice, but her words land like an explosion.
“It… it doesn’t.”
She glances down, and her hands spread over her belly. There’s nothing there yet, no sign of the baby we made with love and obsession.
“I’ve always accepted your need to control everything.
” Her smile is a little sad. “Even at fourteen, you wouldn’t let me walk home alone.
I was fine with Theo because I understood the risks of our life.
I never complained about the tracking software on my phone, or that my schedule had to be planned.
I didn’t push back enough you when you brought in Mike.
” She laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “I should have said more because that was the moment I stopped feeling like your wife and started feeling like your responsibility.”
Every word she says hits like a bullet. My throat locks. There’s nothing I can say that doesn’t sound like control disguised as care. No defense for a prison made of gold.
“I know I’m a controlling bastard,” I say, hoarse. “I’m terrified of something happening to you, Mia. To our baby.”
“Why did you marry me, Jensen?”
My stomach plummets. That’s not a question. It’s a loaded gun. “Because I love you. Because I can’t breathe without you.”