Page 160 of Sweet Obsession
I told myself she’d understand. She always did.
But now, standing in our room, the silence screaming at me, I knew I’d miscalculated.
It hit me the second I walked in. Her perfume was faint, faded, like a memory. The bed was untouched. The books on her nightstand were gone. My blood turned to ice.
No. No, no, no.
I crossed the room in three long strides and yanked open the closet. My gut twisted as I looked at the empty space where her luggage used to be. Her coats. Her boots. The small suitcase she always kept ready for emergencies, gone.
Gone.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I turned, stormed into the hall, phone already in my hand. I dialed Sofia first. Then my chief of security. My voice was deadly calm when I spoke, but inside, a storm was ripping through me.
Sofia got there first. Her eyes widened the second she saw my face.
“Where is she?” I asked. My voice was sharp enough to cut steel.
“I... I thought she was here,” Sofia stammered, her eyes wide. “She said she was waiting for you. I didn’t know she planned to leave.”
The chief security officer rushed in behind her. “Sir, there’s been no record of her leaving the estate. No footage. No guard alerts. Nothing.”
“No?” I turned slowly toward him. “Then where the fuck is my wife?”
Sofia hesitated. Then her voice came again, quieter this time, careful, like she already knew the storm was about to break.
“I just checked the cellar,” she said. “The latch to the ravine exit was unlocked. I think... I think she used the hidden path.”
I froze.
She planned this.
She used my estate’s secrets against me.
The rage was instant. It shot through my veins like a match to gasoline.
I moved before I could think, closing the space between us in two long strides. Sofia flinched as I loomed over her, my shadow swallowing hers against the hallway wall.
“You knew,” I hissed, my voice low and lethal. “You knew she was planning something and you said nothing?”
Her breath hitched. “I didn’t—I swear, Misha, I didn’t know,” she said quickly, eyes flicking to the ground, then back to mine, wide and terrified. “I just found the latch. I thought she was still here until... until just now.”
My hands flexed at my sides. I wanted to break something. No—someone.
“You were with her all week! You didn’t see anything? Didn’t sense anything?” I grabbed her by the collar, slamming her back against the wall.
“Misha... please,” she gasped.
The security chief stepped forward. “Sir, we’ll find her. Let me just...”
I pulled my gun and fired at the floor near his feet. He jumped back, pale. “You were asleep on your fucking job. She slipped past every alarm, every checkpoint, and none of you noticed?”
Sofia was shaking in my grip. “Let me help you find her—”
I’d lost control. My hands still shook, not just from rage, but shame. I’d nearly hurt the only people who stayed loyal tome. And for what? To feel powerful when everything else was slipping through my fingers?
I released her with a shove. “Don’t help me. Don’t speak to me.”
I was already dialing.
