Chapter 29- Mark
It had been six months since Zane disappeared. And not the kind of “I need space” disappearance. I meant gone. Vanished. Like someone wiped her off the damn map.
I’d sat outside her parents’ house for three days straight. Watched the door. Watched the windows. And still... not a single glimpse of her. Nothing.
The private investigator I’d paid good money—more than I should’ve—came up with less than nothing. He stopped answering my calls two weeks ago. And then, as if to rub salt in a festering wound, both Janet and I received divorce papers on the same day.
I didn’t need a damn psychic to tell me why. Sam.
I’d underestimated that bastard. Something in the back of my mind had told me he was involved.
I’d thought that since he showed up at my house that night.
But I also thought he was just a construction thug who lucked into a few good contracts and a pretty wife.
No way Zane would want someone like him.
And now he’d either brainwashed her, or she was too weak to say no.
I blamed Janet. She was the crack in the dam. If she hadn’t seduced me, none of this would’ve happened. It was too risky. Too close to home.
Janet walked into her bedroom, makeup perfect, sipping some overly sweet drink out of a wine glass like she didn’t have a goddamn care in the world.
“Stop staring at me like that,” she said casually, not even bothering to sit.
“If you’d kept your legs closed, none of this would’ve happened.”
She rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re the reason we both got divorce papers.”
“If you really cared about your wife, you wouldn’t have been fucking me. And it’s not like I’m the first woman you cheated on her with,” she said smugly.
The words were like a slap in the face. So I returned the favor. Literally.
My hand connected with her cheek so fast I didn’t even think. The sound echoed through her apartment. She staggered back, eyes wide, mouth open.
“You fucking bastard,” she whispered, one hand flying to her cheek. “You put your hands on me?”
“You better learn not to run your fucking mouth like that. Don’t talk about my wife like that.”
“I wasn’t talking about her,” she snapped. “I was talking about you. If you weren’t such a controlling, weak-ass man, you might’ve kept her.”
“I did keep her,” I growled. “For years. Until you ruined it.”
“No, Mark,” she said, voice shaking now—but not with fear. “You did that all by yourself.”
She stepped back, toward the phone on the counter. “I’m calling the police.”
I froze. Just for a second. Long enough to realize the panic thudding in my chest wasn’t fear of her— It was fear of losing everything I’d built.
My reputation. My career. The power I’d spent years wrapping around me like armor. All unraveling because one woman walked away.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was the one who was supposed to leave. The one who filed. The one who got the last word.
Instead, I was standing in someone else’s house, desperate, humiliated, and seconds away from a police report.
“Janet,” I said, breath ragged. “Don’t do this.”
“Get out,” she snapped, pointing at the door with tears pooling in her eyes. “I already signed the papers. Sam gave me a hundred grand just to walk away. I don’t need you anymore.”
I clenched my jaw. That bastard bought her off. I turned, walked out before I did something worse.
I barely remembered the walk home. My mind was running wild with pieces I couldn’t put together. All I knew was this— Sam and Zane had been cheating before she left. They had to be.
And somehow, he’d convinced her to vanish and erase me from her life like I was some minor footnote in her past.
I realized how illogical my thoughts were, but they also sounded true to me. This shit was driving me crazy.