Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The shrill ringing of his cell phone from atop his home office desk made him drag his gaze from the bustling, snow-cloaked city sprawled out beneath the windows of his palatial penthouse, one hundred stories into the sky.
He hadn’t slept a moment the night before, and not just because he’d refused to climb into a bed that still smelled of his wife.
Sugar cookies, warmth, goodness, woman…his.
She smelled like his…but was that even true anymore?
His thoughts still raced, still screamed at him, repeating, in shrieking wails, the words he’d said to her. Words that had burned like acid on the way out. Words that were malicious, manic, and utterly wrong.
So fucking wrong.
And he couldn’t put the blame on anyone but himself.
He’d taken the rage that had been boiling in his gut for the last two days, and he’d spewed it all over his soft, kind, innocent wife—a woman who’d been cooking him dinner.
A woman who’d seen him at his worst in that moment and offered him a glass of wine, a gentle smile, and the comfort of her sweet spirit.
And he’d shit all over it, letting the Mancini’s and their bullshit drive his actions.
Walking into the warm, welcoming penthouse apartment, a home he’d never quite felt he’d deserved, and seeing the Christmas decorations—bright, cheery, all Kendra—and then hearing her in the kitchen, so fucking eager and happy to serve him, to please him, to soothe him—it had been too much for a man who’d spent decades holding up a steel wall between him and anything that could make him weak.
Kendra made him weak. Left him exposed to enemy eyes.
Made him susceptible to enemy plots. She was his vulnerability, the only fucking thing in his life he couldn’t completely defend against. She was the soft pieces of him, the sensitive, naked, raw parts of him that he’d spent years telling himself didn’t exist. That he could hide it so well no one would ever find it—not even his brothers, not even Kendra.
But he hadn’t hidden it as well as he thought.
Like that one tiny area on the belly of the dragon without the scale—too small to see, but it only took one person, armed with a bow and arrow, a single shot to bring the great, fire-breathing beast down.
And fucking Adolfo Mancini had skillfully spotted that crack in Gideon’s otherwise impenetrable armor, and he’d struck a blow straight to Gideon’s core.
And then Gideon had struck out at the one thing he’d been so desperate to protect all along.
Even now, his beast was snarling, snapping, then whimpering, whining—missing her, his peace, his home, his kind and beautiful master.
Madness—absolute madness….
It was impossible to feel those things for someone he only ever meant for his convenience.
“…no one fucking wants you, you little shit…that’s why your mama left….” His father’s voice, slurred and malicious, sounded in his head.
Nathaniel Maddox was a real piece of work—a philanderer, a gambler, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a terrible husband, and an even worse father—nothing like his own father, Henry Maddox, who’d had the foresight to leave most of his fortune to his four grandsons.
That money had meant the difference between him and his brothers being homeless after his father drank and snorted and whored away his own inheritance, nearly bankrupting Maddox Enterprises before Gideon could take over.
He’d been terrified, inexperienced, vulnerable, and dealing with the abandonment of both his parents—and that’s when Adolfo Mancini had found him, sinking his claws into him.
And that fucker just drew blood….
Groaning, Gideon rubbed at his unshaven face, his hands aching from the three hours he’d spent that morning beating his knuckles bloody against the punching bag.
His neglected cell rang again, this time it was Adrian’s ringtone. As much as he wanted to ignore his brother, Gideon knew that if he didn’t answer, the little asshole would just come to the penthouse uninvited to check on him.
Swearing, he grabbed the cell from his desk, and answered, “This better be life and death.”
Adrian’s dry chuckle preceded, “Mine or yours.”
Gideon growled. “Just tell me why you called—I have things to do.”
He had an empire to run, billions of dollars to manage, three brothers to lead, and a marriage to—
No…he couldn’t think about that right now, not with those words—those ugly, poisonous words—still oozing through his soul.
You were the most na?ve and desperate choice….
You honestly think I married you because I loved you?
You fucking failed, wife, at the one thing women are made to do….
“Just calling, asshole, because Cora is worried. Kendra was supposed to watch the kids tonight so Cora could some errands, but she never showed and she never called. Cora’s been trying to get a hold of her.”
That’s because she left her phone behind when she walked out last night.
Kendra left.
Left him.
An invisible hell horse kicked Gideon in the chest, and he grunted at the staggering blow.
Swallowing, Gideon said, “I’m sure she’s fine,” or as fine as she can be after learning her own husband only saw her as a broken baby-making tool instead of his wife.
There was silence, then Adrian remarked, “That doesn’t sound like you’re certain.” He wasn’t. “Did something happen?”
Loaded fucking question—something didn’t happen; he happened…to Kendra, and he had no idea where she went, if she was safe, if she was okay, if she even had someone to help her.
Did Kendra have friends other than Cora?
You’d know that if you’d actually taken the time and energy to learn about your wife outside of the nights you fuck her. Like it takes an act of God to just ask her about her day.
It was too late for that, though…right?
Last night, by the time he’d shaken off his shock at her departure, she’d been gone. He’d noticed her purse was on the foyer table where she often left it, which meant she didn’t have money, and he found her cell on the kitchen counter, next to her iPad, so he knew she didn’t have her phone.
Clearing his throat, he answered, “She isn’t home, and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
Matter of fact, he didn’t even know where she was. For the first time in the three years they’d been together, he was out of communication with his wife. Usually, he could reach her whenever he wanted, because she’d always answer.
Because she loved you and wanted to speak with you whenever you pulled your head out of your ass and deigned to call her.
Now, without her cell, he’d need to use drastic measures to find her. Hell, she hadn’t even taken her credit cards, so there was no way to trace her through her spending or even know if she used her cards to get a hotel room or take a taxi or even buy a fucking coat, since she’d left hers behind.
It was fucking winter, for fuck’s sake, and she’d just walked right out the door into the frozen world without even the basic protections against the weather.
Like you give a fuck; she’s just a convenience, right? Just an empty womb with a “broken” sign on it, right?
“Honestly,” he bit out, hating how powerless he was, “I have no idea where she is.”
Again, silence, then, “Gideon, what the fuck is going on?”
He wanted to tell Adrian that Adolfo and Isabella Mancini happened, but he couldn’t truly blame them for the horror-movie scene that played out when he’d come home to his loving wife, making dinner in the kitchen, and unloaded his rage, feelings of helplessness, and frustrations on her.
“I was an asshole to her,” he finally admitted, the words like acid eating away at his tongue.
Adrian snorted derisively. “What’s new there?” he drawled flatly. “You’re always an asshole, especially to Kendra—hell, I’m surprised that woman didn’t leave your ass years ago.”
Sneering, his voice a dark rasp, he accused, “Coming from you that’s like the pot calling the kettle black—”
“We’re not talking about me,” Adrian broke in, snarling, defensive.
“We’re talking about how you’ve treated Kendra like a pretty accessory with a full Stepford Wife package.
She is a lovely woman, inside and out, and she loves you like crazy.
So much so that she became the cliched billionaire’s house wifey—cooking, cleaning, decorating, running fundraisers, volunteering at homeless shelters and food pantries—doing everything she could to live up to the nearly impossible expectations you have of her. ”
Growling, Gideon snapped, “The only expectations I had were for her to be my wife and give me an heir—”
“Oh ho! How fucking medieval—the bought bride, required to hold down the keep and pop out an heir and a spare, while her lord husband fights battles, rules with an iron fist, and fucks the scullery maid—”
That made every nerve ending in his body fire at once—and it stirred rage within him. “I have never cheated on Kendra—”
“Let me tell you, brother, it doesn’t take much to fall off the treacherous cliff…and you’ve been teasing the edge with Isabella Mancini for years now.”
At the sound of that woman’s name, Gideon cursed.
Isabella had never been a temptation for him, even when he was single.
He’d watched her grow up, from child to teen to woman, and he hadn’t liked her at all.
With her, it was like the slow, hideous metamorphosis of tiger cub—claws and teeth, but still mostly harmless—into a vicious, rabid, man-eating beast that ripped open bellies and tore out throats.
Adrian, the shark in a man’s body, smelled blood in the water, because his next words were, “What did she do?”
It wasn’t just her; it was also her father…and him—three toxic chemicals, poured recklessly into a glass jar, shaken, and then thrown into a gasoline fire—and the explosion had been catastrophic…and he’d taken that damage, the still throbbing, bleeding flesh wounds, home to his wife.
And she’d borne the brunt of the poisonous fallout.
Fuck.
Kendra…what the hell did I do?
All too late, that question circled his battered mind, like a wash of blood and regret down a storm drain.