Chapter 10 #7
Something in me fractured completely.
I pulled more clothes free—dresses, blouses, scarves—letting them spill onto the floor as I dug deeper, frantic, desperate.
I buried my face in silk and cotton, clutching armfuls to my chest as if I could conjure her body through fabric and memory. As if holding the things she had worn could somehow absolve me of what I had done to the woman herself.
My breath came apart in broken gasps.
Then something slipped from the pile and fell to the floor with a soft, accusing thud.
I froze.
A slim, leather-bound book lay at my feet, its spine worn smooth, corners rounded from being handled too often.
Not expensive. Not decorative. Private.
A diary.
My heart began to hammer violently, each beat echoing in my ears. I bent slowly, as though sudden movement might shatter it, and lifted it with trembling fingers.
The leather was warm.
I carried it to the bed with reverence bordering on terror, placed it carefully at the center of the mattress, and just... stared.
Minutes passed. Or hours. Time meant nothing anymore.
Finally, I sat on the edge of the bed.
The frame creaked under my weight, a tired, familiar sound—one I suddenly realized she must have heard often, alone, listening to the house settle around her while I slept elsewhere.
My hand hovered over the cover.
Then I opened it.
The first page held no words.
Only a single tear stain.
Dark. Irregular. Dried stiff into the paper. It had soaked through the page, warped the fibers, leaving a pale halo like a bruise that never healed.
I stared at it, unmoving.
That tear had fallen here. In this room. In this house.
Under my roof.
While I had been convinced she was my enemy.
A sound tore out of my chest—low, ugly, animal. Half sob, half howl. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it didn’t help.
The grief forced its way out anyway, bending me forward until my shoulders shook.
I hadn’t read a single word.
And already, I knew this diary would destroy whatever illusions I had left.
I turned the page.
Her handwriting was small, neat, carefully controlled—like someone afraid of taking up too much space.
The tear stain on that first blank page was only the beginning—a mute warning of the devastation bound within those covers.
My fingers hovered above the paper, trembling as if the diary itself breathed, as if it carried a pulse that matched the frantic beat of my heart.
The leather creaked softly beneath my grip, worn thin at the edges from being opened and closed in secret, night after night.
The date glared up at me.
January 12, 2026.
The day after our wedding.
The day after I had bound her to me in name and law and then abandoned her in every way that mattered.
I could see it with cruel clarity: Elena sitting alone on the edge of that enormous bed I had never shared with her, the satin sheets untouched, the chandelier casting too much light on too much space.
A pen clutched too tightly in her fingers, knuckles white.
Tears blurring her vision before she even knew what she wanted to say.
How many times had she opened this diary only to cry instead of write? How many pages bore nothing but the ghost of her grief?
I swallowed hard.
The paper buckled in places, rippled where tears had soaked through and dried, leaving permanent scars.
Another day in this gilded cage, she had written.
The house is so big, so empty. I wander the halls like a ghost, listening to the echo of my own footsteps. No one speaks to me unless it’s to give an order.
My jaw clenched.
Ruslan... he looks at me like I’m poison. Maybe I am. Loneliness claws at me every hour. I miss the noise of the city, the anonymity of the club. Here, I’m invisible—yet trapped under his gaze.
Loneliness.
The word bled from the page, soaking into me like acid.
My mind supplied images I had refused to see at the time:
Elena curled into one corner of the vast library, knees drawn to her chest, dwarfed by furniture chosen to impress oligarchs and kings, not to comfort a young woman who had never belonged anywhere. Her reflection faint in the rain-streaked windows, watching the world outside move on without her.
I saw her padding barefoot into the kitchen long after midnight, careful not to wake anyone, brewing tea she never finished.
Sitting at the marble counter while the house slept, fingers wrapped around a cooling mug, whispering nothing into the silence because even the walls felt like witnesses.
Control, I had called it.
Order.
Discipline.
In truth, it had been isolation—clinical, deliberate, devastating.
I kept reading, each line tightening the vise around my chest.
Today I tried to talk to one of the maids. She smiled politely but hurried away. Am I that tainted? Or is it his shadow that scares them off? God, I just want someone to see me.
My vision blurred.
I scrubbed a hand down my face, smearing moisture I refused to acknowledge.
I had done that too. Without lifting a finger. My reputation, my presence, my silence—everything about me had warned the staff that she was untouchable. Dangerous by association. A wife in title only, stripped of protection.
The entries moved forward. Days bleeding into weeks.
The tone shifted—not lighter, but... complicated.
A fragile yearning threaded its way through the despair, tentative and ashamed, as though she were confessing a crime even to herself.
I watch him from afar.
The ink was smudged there, the sentence blurred where a tear must have fallen mid-word.
He’s so fierce. So commanding. Even in his anger, there’s something that pulls at me. Last night he stormed into the dining room, yelling at Petros about a deal gone wrong. His voice filled the room like thunder. I hid in the doorway, heart racing.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, guilt roaring in my ears.
Why does he affect me like this?
I should hate him—for forcing this marriage, for treating me like an enemy. But when he glances my way, even with that cold stare, I feel... alive.
Alive.
The word struck deeper than any accusation.
Yearning for what? she’d continued, the handwriting tighter now, more frantic.
A touch? A kind word? It’s pathetic, Elena. Stop.
I exhaled a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
She had been starving.
Not for luxury. Not for safety.
For acknowledgment.
For warmth.
And I had starved her of it entirely, blind to the ache I inflicted daily.
Then came the confessions, written in trembling, tear-stained ink that blurred and warped the paper.
Pages flecked and crinkled, as if she had cried openly while writing, incapable of restraining her sorrow. “I love him,” she had scrawled—words so simple, yet seismic, shaking the foundation of everything I had believed about control, hate, and possession.
“God help me, I never stopped. Even after everything—the accusations, the cold shoulders, the way he looks at me like I’m the villain. I love a man who hates me. Why can’t I stop?
Love. She had loved me. Despite the suspicion, the cage I had built around her with walls of fear and power.
I gripped the diary until my knuckles ached, the leather groaning beneath my trembling hands.
I slammed the diary shut, leather creaking like the chest of a man suffocating.
My hands shook violently, my mind spinning with the weight of all I had ignored, all I had inflicted, all I had lost.
I collapsed against the edge of the bed, the strength draining out of me all at once, knees hitting the carpet with a dull thud.
The mattress loomed above me like a witness—still warm with memories, still carrying the faint imprint of her body.
My forehead pressed into the quilt as words spilled out of me, broken, desperate, barely coherent.
“Elena... I’ll find you,” I whispered into the emptiness, my voice hoarse, unraveling. “I will. God, Elena, I did the worst thing to you. The worst.”
My hands clawed into the sheets like I could anchor myself to her ghost. “But I’ll find you. I need to. You’re my wife, right? You still are.”
The room answered with silence.
“I caused you to lose your voice,” I went on, the confession slicing me open.
“I caused you to lose our baby. God knows how much you suffered in there—the injuries, your hand twisted like that, the scars climbing your legs...” My breath hitched violently.
“Elena, you must forgive me. You must. E...le...na...”
Her name fractured on my tongue, splintering into sobs I could no longer hold back.
Then I lurched to my feet and fled the room like a madman, as if staying another second might crush me completely.
The estate blurred as I stormed through it—hallways, marble floors, priceless art reduced to meaningless smears.
My heart hammered like a war drum, grief and fury and terror colliding until I could barely think.
“Gear up,” I barked at the first man I saw. “All units. Now.”
The mansion erupted into motion.
Doors slammed open. Boots pounded against stone. Weapons lockers screamed as they were yanked apart, metal clashing against metal.
Orders ricocheted through corridors. Radios crackled to life. Men ran—not with questions, not with hesitation, but with the instinctive obedience of soldiers who recognized the sound of a man unraveling.
I moved through the chaos like something unleashed, issuing commands with ruthless precision.
This wasn’t planning born of patience.
This was a man preparing to tear the world open with his bare hands.
I would reach her.
I would burn through anyone who stood between us.
Harris Thompson. The California families. The Voss brothers. Any syndicate foolish enough to think they could take what was mine.
Anyone. Everyone.
I could not exist another second without her. The separation alone felt like slow, deliberate suicide.
I was just about to step into the armored vehicle when my phone vibrated sharply in my hand.
An encrypted message.
Unknown source.
Three words.
We have her.
My blood turned to ice.
No.
No—God, no.
Better not be my wife. Better not be Elena. She had already suffered enough. She couldn’t—she—
The phone rang again before I could even breathe.
Petros.
I answered before the first ring finished, my voice raw, violent. “Tell me Elena is with her brothers. Tell me she’s safe.”
There was a pause on the other end.
A pause that felt like a blade sliding slowly between my ribs.
“Sir,” Petros said, his voice tight, controlled with effort, “the six Voss brothers were attacked on their way to their private airstrip by an unidentified mafia faction.”
My vision darkened.
“Elena has... been taken.”