Page 146 of Dex

I told her I needed time, but all that matters is every moment spent with her.

I might have made it too easy for her to leave me.

I call her security detail in a panic.Only to be told that Daniela hasn’t left the apartment, as far as he knows.

“She’s not here, you idiot!”I yell down the phone.

“She hasn’t left the apartment, sir.I’ve been stationed in the lobby all day,” the guy says.

My blood runs cold.

“She fucking has!“She’s not in this apartment.”I nearly put my fist through the wall.Has this fucking idiot let her slip past him?

Asshole.Daniela gave him the slip.She got away, I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I intend to find out.She didn’t want me to know.

I call Rio and show up at his place moments later, falling to pieces.A frantic, hot mess.I pace around his apartment.“She’s gone.She’s disappeared.Or something’s happened to her.”I stop and gape at Rio.But he’s calm, arms folded.Not feeling my panic.

“I’ll tell you what’s happened,” Rio says.“But I don’t know if you can handle it.”

My head whips to him.“You know where she is?”

“I just found out.An hour ago.I was going to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“She’s back in Brazil?”The words hit like bricks.I stumble back, bumping into the edge of Rio’s kitchen island, gripping it like it’s the only thing holding me up.

“She … w-what?”My voice splinters, I feel it sharp across my throat.“She’s gone back to Brazil?”My knees threaten to give way, and I brace myself, bracketing the counter with both hands, my knuckles white.“She left the country?”I choke out.“Without telling me?Without her security?”It’s like she was escaping.

Escaping from me.

Rio doesn’t answer.He looks at me, eyes wide with worry.“Take a breath, Dex.We can fix this.There’s also something else you should know.Something Raquel told me.”

My lungs struggle to work.I’m not sure I can take any more.“What?”I croak.

“The old man was going to do it anyway, get control of AO Eletronica.It was in the original contract, pages of fine print and bullshit, but this was his intention all along.”

I shove both hands through my hair, fingers digging hard into my scalp.The room starts to spin and I feel uncertain.Unsteady.Like my life is not worth living.“That sonofabitch.Greedy as fuck.I would never have married her had I known.”

“That’s just it.You didn’t know.”

I recall asking him for the contract.He never gave it to us.“Raquel knows a lot.”

“Don’t even ask,” Rio mutters.“She says she’s not supposed to say anything, but she thinks you need to know, she figured you’d be worried.”He clears his throat.“Daniela went to the Dominican Republic, likely for a quickie divorce.”

“What?”

What fresh hell is this?I hold my stomach, feeling like a wrecking ball’s hit me.The only reason she’d be getting a quickie divorce is because she’s not just divorcing me.

She’s planning to marry Oscar Ramos.

I press my palms to my face.I want to scream, but I can’t find the air.

Daniela hasn’t just left me.

She’s gone forever.

And now she’s planning to marry another man.

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