Chapter Twenty Six
Mario
I am not going to Victoria’s office.
That is what I tell myself as I leave mine.
There are other reasons to take this corridor. Real reasons. Practical ones. The outside counsel offices sit along this side of the floor, and I have every right to pass them on my way to the elevators if I choose.
It is my building.
No, it is not the shortest way.
No, it is not the way I usually go.
But it is not so unusual that anyone would question it.
Least of all me.
I am not looking for her.
I am not checking on her. I am not wondering if she is sitting behind her desk with that focused line between her brows.
I am not wondering if she is wearing something I bought her under one of those sensible suits.
I am not thinking about the message she did not answer yesterday.
I am walking.
That is all.
The corridor is quiet. The morning rush has settled behind closed doors as meetings are well underway and emails are sent off.
I pass one conference room.
Then another.
By the time I reach the turn toward Victoria’s office, my irritation has turned inward.
I should not have sent the message.
No. I should not care that she did not answer it.
I have no interest in chasing a woman. Victoria is not some frightened girl who needs managing. She is an intelligent, grown woman with a steel spine.
If she needed space, she could say so.
If she regretted Friday, she could say so.
My mouth tightens.
I have not yet rounded the corner when Lorenzo’s voice reaches me.
“She’s gone. Left in a hurry.”
I stop for only a moment, then finish rounding the corner.
Lorenzo stands in the hall, one shoulder against the wall, his expression as controlled as ever. He has that look he gets when he has something he needs to tell me and thinks I need to be managed.
I do not care for that look today.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean, she left.” His eyes move briefly toward her door. “Quickly.”
I look past him.
The door to her office is not fully closed, which is not usual. She usually closes it firmly when she’s gone. Even when she’s wandering about within the building.
This time, her office door is ajar. Behind it, there are no signs of life. No usual movement of Victoria and the click of her keyboard or the flurry of paperwork.
She is, indeed, gone.
“When?”
“A few minutes ago.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
I bring my gaze back to him. “And?”
“She looked pale.” Lorenzo pauses. “Unsteady.”
Something moves through my chest before I can stop it.
Not panic.
No.
I do not panic.
But concern comes fast, and I dislike that even more.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing to me. I was coming to speak with her about the operations follow-up. She stepped out before I reached the door. She didn’t notice me.”
“And you let her leave?”
His eyebrows lift slightly.
“She is not one of our soldiers, Mario. She is outside counsel. And she looked like a woman trying very hard not to be sick. In fact…”
He nods toward her door.
“I went in after she left.”
Of course he did.
Lorenzo does not simply walk away when something feels off.
“And?”
His gaze holds mine. “She had been sick.”
The words affect me in ways I can’t say.
I step into the office before he can say anything more. I step to the trash can.
My expression does not change, but inside, something in me does.
Victoria had been sick. Sick enough to empty her stomach in the trash, yet composed enough afterward to rinse her mouth, if I’m gauging things correctly, gather her things, tidy up, and leave.
That bothers me more than if she had simply fallen apart. A woman who runs without thinking leaves evidence everywhere.
Even sick, even shaken, she was thinking.
I scan the desk.
No briefcase or phone. No coffee mug. Tissue box pulled close to the edge of her desk. Not a single thing out of place, except in the trash can.
Nothing else obvious.
No note.
No explanation.
No message to me.
That last thought irritates me enough that my voice comes out sharp.
“Where did she go when she left here?”
Any woman who shares my bed becomes a point of vulnerability the moment she does. It does not matter whether the world knows.
It does not matter whether she knows.
She is watched. Protected.
From a distance, without interference, unless a threat appears.
Victoria has had someone on her since that first night in her apartment.
Lorenzo’s eyes move once toward the hall, a brief check for proximity, habit more than concern.
“The pharmacy on Wabash,” he says automatically.
I look back at Victoria’s empty office.
“She should be going to the doctor,” I say tightly.
There is only silence from Lorenzo.
“You have something to say,” I tell Lorenzo.
“I have several things to say.”
“Choose one.”
“Do not make it worse.”
My eyes cut to his.
He does not look away.
Of all my brothers, Lorenzo has always been the one most willing to step in front of me when I am moving too fast in the wrong direction.
Ricardo will challenge. Diego will mock until I either laugh or threaten him.
Lorenzo simply puts a hand on the door before I can open it and makes me decide whether I am willing to break it.
Today, I might be.
“You don’t know what the problem is,” I say.
“No. Neither do you.”
That is the problem.
I know nothing, and I do not like knowing nothing.
I know only that Victoria ignored my message, came into my building, became sick enough to vomit in her office, gathered her work, and left before I could see her.
Those facts leave too much possibility.
“She is ill,” I say.
“She could have eaten something bad.”
I look at him.
He lifts one shoulder. “It happens.”
“She should have told someone,” I say.
“Perhaps she did.”
I glance toward him.
Lorenzo’s face gives me nothing.
He does not know. He is reminding me that other people exist in her life, that she has employees, colleagues, people who answer her when she reaches for them.
The reminder does not improve my mood.
She is not family. She is not mine in any way that gives me the right to follow her out of this building and demand an explanation.
But she is under my protection.
There is a difference.
Lorenzo watches me.
“Mario.”
I look at him.
His expression remains even. “At least call her before you go after her.”
My jaw tightens.
“She will not answer.”
“Then you will have your answer about whether she wants to speak to you right now.”
That is exactly why I do not want to call.
“I have a meeting in ten minutes,” Lorenzo says.
“Then go.”
He does not move.
I look at him. “What?”
“Whatever is happening, do not treat silence as defiance.”
I feel my expression harden.
He sees it and continues anyway.
“She is not one of us. She does not know how to read you yet.”
“She reads me well enough.”
“That is not what I mean.”
No, it is not, and I know it.
And because it is Lorenzo, because he is usually measured enough not to step where he does not need to, I force myself to hear it.
Victoria does not know all the rules.
She does not know what silence means in my world. She does not know what it costs to leave questions unanswered around men like me. She does not know that walking away sick and scared, without telling me why, feels too close to insult, fear, and rejection all at once.
She only knows whatever is happening inside her own head.
And if that head is as sharp and unforgiving as I know it to be, then it may be doing more damage than I could from here.
My phone remains silent in my pocket.
I step out of her office and pull the door mostly closed behind me.
Not all the way.
I do not know why I leave it cracked.
Maybe because closing it feels too final.
Maybe because I do not want anyone else walking in and seeing what Lorenzo saw.
“Have someone handle the trash,” I say curtly.
“Already done.”
I nod once, then walk back down the hall to my office.