Chapter 22 Gaven
Gaven
The epitome of arrogance was thinking you knew all and that nothing could surprise you.
As I stood in the empty private room I’d left hours before to meet with Archer, I had to admit, I was surprised.
The emptiness of the room was especially shocking considering that when I left it there had been a sleeping woman in the very bed that now sat with its sheets in disarray.
The woman, however, was nowhere to be seen. A low whistle sounded behind me. “Looks like your pretty little bird flew away.”
Cutting a dark look to Archer, I didn’t dignify his words with a response. Instead, I returned my attention to the room before me. How the hell had she managed to unlock her cuff? The answer was scattered on the floor at the foot of the bed.
I strode forward and crouched down, lifting the thin chain with one metal nipple clamp still dangling on one side. The cuff had been left behind with a piece of metal still sticking out of it.
A low chuckle rumbled in my chest. I shook my head as it bent down and my eyes shut. How shortsighted of me, I thought. I hadn’t given her enough credit. I reopened my eyes and stood up, turning back to the others.
“Looks like your wife,” Ian’s brother—though not by blood—Jensen began, looking over the room as he spoke before stopping on me, “wants a divorce.”
My fingers closed around the chain, my grip tightening. “She won’t get it,” I snapped. “The three of you know as well as I do—once a mafia princess marries, she doesn’t do so again.”
Ian sighed and stepped forward between his friends.
Though he wasn’t taller than me, he was undoubtedly wider.
He gestured to the room and then to me. “I doubt you’ll let something like this stop you,” he said.
“But if she’s smart enough to leave the club undetected, then I have no doubt she’s smart enough to evade you again.
” Despite the calm tone, Ian’s words were not meant for reassurance.
I’d gotten cocky. I’d thought myself invincible. I thought I’d had her right where I wanted her.
I’d been wrong.
So incredibly fucking wrong.
I shook my head. “The only one of you I need is Archer.”
Archer, in response, groaned. “Come on, man. I’ve already told you before—Hadrian is a much better—”
I didn’t let him finish his sentence. Before the last syllable of that last word had left his lips, I’d reached into my jacket and withdrew my gun. Without blinking, I centered the barrel on him and paused with my finger on the trigger.
“Friend or not, Archer,” I said in warning. “I will find my wife and if I require your assistance, you will provide it.”
Without hesitation, Ian stepped in the way. “Put. Your. Fucking. Gun. Down.” The man’s nostrils flared and he seemed to swell with rage as he stood before me.
Archer, unperturbed, poked his blonde head around him. “How the hell did you manage to sneak one in anyway?”
I shrugged. “You have your ways, and I have mine.”
He sighed and shook his head. “You know I was gonna help you, you asshole. Put it the fuck away before Ian blows a gasket,” he said. “I was just complaining.”
The gun was returned to its holster, but Ian didn’t move as he glared at me.
I waited, half curious and half already knowing how he would react.
He moved forward until we were nearly chest-to-chest. “If you ever bring a weapon into my club again without my permission,” he said, his voice low and cold, “I’ll shove it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger. ”
Silence stretched between us. My nerves were laced with a barely repressed rage, and though I knew none of it was directed at him, I needed an outlet. Seconds passed until finally Archer broke the tension with a short, “Kinky” sending Jensen into a fit of chuckles.
I inhaled sharply and stepped around the man before nodding to Archer. “Check CCTV footage,” I ordered. “I want every single file from the Club’s footage the second you have it—anything that pertains to her.”
“What are you going to do?” Archer asked.
I scowled as I moved further into the hall. “I’m going to pay my sister-in-law a visit,” I hedged.
It was time to cut the head off of the beast—literally rather than figuratively. The second Jackie was gone, Angel would have no more reason to run. Unless, of course, it was never her sister that kept her away, but me.
That wasn’t a possibility I wanted to consider, though.
Just when I thought things had gotten easier, that we were coming to understand each other once again …
it all went to shit. Every time I got close, Angel disappeared on me.
I grasped at her, only to be disappointed again and again.
Another man might have given in and finally let her go.
A normal man certainly would have taken the hint.
I was anything but normal. I was Gaven fucking Belmonte.
The only outcome I wanted was one where I woke up again with Evangeline Price in my bed, in my arms. I wanted her belly swollen and round with my child—our child.
Still, heir or no heir … she was mine. I’d laid claim and no other woman could affect me the way she did.
No one else could drive me to the brink of insanity the way she did.
Now, she was gone. Again and again, I would hunt her.
Even if it meant we circled this path over and over for the rest of our lives.
Catch and escape. Hunting her as my prey.
I would do it as many times as it took for her to realize that I wasn’t going away.
I was never going to stop. Not until she realized that she belonged with me. That she was mine.