10. Serving the Sentence #3
I did not turn around. Let the floor watch. Let the Sterling deal collapse and take the margins down with it. I walked the remaining twenty feet to my office and gripped the doorknob.
I stepped over the threshold and pulled the door shut. I flipped the deadbolt. It slid into place with a solid click, silencing my father’s screaming and the chaos of the executive floor.
The insulated quiet of my private office settled around me. I stood alone in the center of the room, still gripping the divorce petition in my right hand. The edges of the document were crumpled where my fingers dug into the paper.
I crossed to my desk, dropping the legal packet beside my computer monitor, the bold header impossible to ignore. “Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.”
Leaning over the desk, I planted my left hand on the edge and stared at the blue ink at the bottom of the fourth page. I traced her signature with my index finger, feeling the dried ink lie perfectly flat.
I had let her walk out into the freezing winter night with nothing but a battered suitcase.
I had let her take a public cab out of the city while she was pregnant, simply because I assumed she would break.
I expected the misery of a cheap motel would force her back to the penthouse to beg for my credit cards.
Instead, she used her last few dollars to hire a strip-mall lawyer. She demanded zero.
“Drop the act, Wren,” my mother’s voice echoed in my memory, polite and venomous. “You’re a pregnant gold digger who trapped my son. You got what you wanted, and now you’re set for life.”
I rubbed my thumb over the zero-dollar clause she had initialed.
“I am not a gold digger, Octavia,” Wren had said. “I haven’t asked this family for a single dime.”
I stared at the paper and swallowed hard.
“You really did it,” I whispered, my voice cracking in the quiet room. “You actually walked away with nothing.”
I pushed my weight off the edge of the desk.
The arrogance of the last few weeks vanished, leaving a cold sickness in my chest. Sitting in this tower and assuming she would return for access to my credit cards was the exact behavior that drove her away.
She did not want the money. She only wanted an escape.
I grabbed my phone, jabbing my thumb hard against the screen.
Ignoring the muffled shouts bleeding through the door, I pulled up John Vance’s contact. The line rang, the rhythmic tone pulsing in my ear. I paced the length of the office, my shoes digging into the carpet. My shoulders strained against the suit, the fabric suddenly feeling suffocatingly tight.
“Pick up the damn phone,” I muttered to the empty room.
His furious demands still echoed through the locked door. Dozens of analysts were likely panicking in the corridor outside. I turned my back to the noise. The Sterling merger meant nothing now. Corporate margins and hostile takeovers meant nothing now.
Billions of dollars could vanish while I hunted down the only thing that mattered. The ringing stopped abruptly as Vance picked up.
“Mr. Kensington,” Vance said through the earpiece. “The Sterling closing isn’t over yet, is it? Do you need a security escort down to the lobby?”
“John, the waiting game is over,” I said, turning from the window to pace back toward the desk. “I need your top investigative team deployed to the coast right now, and I want boots on the ground.”
Silence lingered on the line.
Vance was used to extracting me from corporate threats, not chasing down domestic ghosts.
I gripped the phone, my gaze locked on the empty carpet of my office.
My father continued to pound his fist against the hallway wall outside my door.
I didn’t have the patience to listen to Vance map out the search grid.
I needed his security contractors in vehicles ten minutes ago.
“Understood, Mr. Kensington,” Vance said, his voice dropping into its usual professional detachment. “We know she took the coastal Greyhound, but that route covers dozens of small towns. It will require a massive sweep. What are the parameters?”
I stopped pacing and planted my feet in the center of the office, looking toward the desk.
The blue ink of her signature stood out against the page.
She was out there right now, pregnant and braving the winter elements with nothing but a battered suitcase.
The image of her shivering in some run-down motel lobby turned my stomach.
I had to locate her before she slipped further off the grid.
“Sweep every single one of them,” I commanded, my voice sharp and absolute in the empty office. “Find my wife, but do not make contact or spook her. I just need a visual location by midnight, and I don’t care what it costs.”
“We are mobilizing now. I will text you the minute we have eyes on her.”
Ending the call, I dropped my hand, the screen going black against my thigh. The bright overhead lights glared down on the silent office. I braced my hands against the edge of the desk, looking down at the divorce petition. I had until midnight to find her.