Page 94 of Wanted

I feel the need to contain myself not to roll my eyes. Our wedding could’ve been very romantic, but according to what Felicia told me, what came later wasn’t that at all. Many pieces of this complicated puzzle are falling into place. His modus operandi comes to light step by step. He wanted no one to doubt their relationship, while his dominance would keep Stella submissive and under his control.

There was where he made a big fat mistake. By underestimating Stella.

Stella has an ethereal appearance, looks like a fairy with that long hair and skin so pale, and those eyes the color of the sky. Her appearance makes it seem that she’s calm and easy to handle, but what people don’t know is that my girl has fire running through her veins. That her spine is made of steel and that she has an abundance of sheer determination. Stella is strong, not everyone can stand toe-to-toe with my mother, and she did it more than once in the hospital. And that made my mother declare herself Stella’s enemy before getting the chance to know her.

After overcoming the fear of talking to who she thought was her husband, she refused to back down and has been doing it ever since. In the mornings while I was working, she studied for her SATs, in the afternoon she made her soaps, she reviewed inventories, sales, and updated the information with the accountant I assigned to help her. She’s one of those girls who doesn’t stop for anything or anyone when she wants something.

Nothing is impossible, I’ve heard her say.

That fills my chest with pride. I’m sure there are men out there waiting for a doll to play house with and to say yes to everything, but I want a woman.

And I found that woman in my wife.

Which brings me back to reality, to what I came here to do.

“Can I get a copy of our marriage license, please?”

The woman, Kathleen, rolls her eyes, as if my request is nonsense. “Of course, it’s five dollars, cash, card or check?”

I take a twenty-dollar bill out of the silver clip in my pocket and put it on the counter. “Here, and lunch is on me.”

I’m compensated with a smile from ear to ear. “As lovely as ever.”

Ten minutes later, I leave the town hall with the damn license in hand. I know I could have ordered it by mail, but this is faster. Now I have something physical to ask for a forensic document analysis, although I don’t have plans to get my marriage annulled, but I want to put the person behind bars who fabricated all this mess.

The same is true when I go to the B&B where we spent our wedding night. The owners vividly remember us and don’t hesitate to allow me to take a few photos of the record book. That makes me think whoever it was, was sure of the effectiveness of the attack, overconfident I wouldn’t be able to follow his tracks.

Even the way that motherfucker dressed, he didn’t attempt to imitate my style. He stole my identity, but not my personality at all. I guess being dead and six feet under, none of that would matter.

I say goodbye promising to return soon.

The drive back to Carrollton is smooth. As I drive, I can’t stop thinking about Stella and what we’ve been through. Our nights together. The same passion with which she lives her life comes to the surface when I have her naked and in my arms, when she isn’t afraid to ask for what she wants and to give me what I ask for. When she directs my hands on her body, when she moans my name just before she lets go.

But my favorite were our mornings, when in the midst of sleep we gave each other lazy kisses, and she spread her legs to fit me between them pushing inside her sweet and warm body over and over again.

And, as the caveman that I am, I hope that after solving our big problem, Stella agrees to use some form of contraception, although I’d love to have children with her, and soon. But I also know that she has plans to go to college and make her business bloom. But going back to what I was saying, the neanderthal living in me hopes not to have to use those fucking condoms that dull the sensations. I love to feel her close to me, and although I want to always take care of her, I also want to feel her with nothing in between us.

I have to find her first and make her forgive me, to believe in me again.

Upon returning to Stella’s house I realize Jackson’s people turned it into an operations center, the small kitchen table is stuck against a wall as a makeshift desk where two men are working on laptops. Mark is in the living room, pacing back and forth.

“Do you have any news for me?” I ask right after entering, I don’t care much for kindnesses.

“Jackson is investigating the orphanage you grew up in, in light of the note and the information your mother gave us, but apparently the place closed down years ago, a fire destroyed almost everything.”

“Dammit,” I mumble under my breath. When we finally think that we’re getting somewhere, it becomes another dead end.

“Jackson is determined to get to the bottom of all this,” he says, looking me straight in the eye.

“I hope so, because it has been too much already.”

At night I’m unable to go to sleep in the hotel room that Mark has reserved for me, but neither can I lay down in the bed that they shared. That’s how fucked up my head is.

I spend my nights on the little sofa looking up at the ceiling and asking whoever is listening to me for another chance.

“Where are you, Hvezda?”

Time is an implacable enemy, the days pass quickly. In the blink of an eye four days have passed and we still have no leads on where to find Stella. She has vanished from the face of the Earth.

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