Page 88 of Papers Don't Lie

When I woke up five minutes ago with his fist knocking angrily on my door with Esmeray nowhere beside me, I thought something happened to the security because my breakfast was on the table as always and Esmeray was walking in the garden. But when I opened the door and saw how hard he was breathing with a look of regret in his eyes, I knew.

“She’s gone, Kai. She’s gone," he told me, calling me by my name for the first time in ages.

Seeing my father die and talking at his funeral was so painful I felt the skin was ripped off my bones, but when Kendrick said those words, it felt like an out of body experience. I could hear him saying he saw the license plate number and that he thought it was Carter who got her. I could see him shaking, but I wasn’t there.

It’s my fault. I made her run away. If I hadn’t acted like a dick and forced her down on me, she would be still here in our bed.

Kendrick threads a hand through his hair, sweat gathering at the place between his eyebrows, and I dial Esmeray’s number for the hundredth time. Again, it doesn’t even ring.

“Got it,” Kendrick announces, straightening in his seat. “Let’s go,” he tells me and grabs his coat. When he sees me walking out of the office in my pajamas only, he stops me. “I can wait for you to change.“

I shake my head. “We’ve lost enough time.”

As soon as she left, Kendrick sent three cars on their track, but somehow they managed to get rid of my team. They’re all fired now.

They had the chance to save her and fucked it up. If they can’t take care of her in situations like this one, then I don’t fucking need them.

Kendrick hesitates but nods. We walk in silence to the car in the driveway, and I occupy the passenger seat, the blood pumping angrily in my veins. Kendrick starts the car, and in less than one minute, we’re flying on the streets of New York.

How could I be so foolish to lose the last person that mattered to me? She never hurt me, but I did more than hurt her. I humiliated her and thought about myself instead of considering her too. I don’t blame her if it was her choice to leave, but I won’t let it go this easily.

Did she choose to leave? Was she forced?

If Kendrick saw right and it is Carter who took her, it’s no doubt he forced her to go. Thinking rationally in moments like these is the hardest thing to do, but I have to think this through.

Carter must’ve threatened her. Esmeray would never leave. I know, I just know deep down in the depths of my heart that she wouldn’t leave.

She’s the only reason I breathed after my father’s death, and if she doesn’t come back to me… the last breath I take might as well be in her presence. I don’t want anyone else by my side;I want her. And I don’t know if I’m being selfish or not, but if being selfish means wanting the person that you love back, then that’s what I am.

I love her. I fucking love her, and I’ll do everything in my power to take her back, no matter what that takes. If she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll beg, I’ll kneel, I’ll do everything she asks me to do. I want her back, and that’s the only thing I care about. My only priority.

And in this moment, I regret I never told her I love her.

“Kai,” Kendrick says, his hands grabbing tightly on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “There’s something you should know.”

My eyes follow the path to him, silently demanding any information he has. Anything is valuable now. Esmeray doesn’t have anywhere to go except her house, and that’s exactly why I went there first. But she wasn’t there.

“The car is under Carter’s name, so it confirms what I saw.”

I’ll stop with the nice games and take my gentleman suit off. No one takes my wife from me. No human, no entity, not even death. Because if she dies, I’ll fucking die with her.

Yet, my mind forms another scene I hate more than the first one.

“What if she asked him to get her?” I ask, facing Kendrick’s profile. My blood boils at the idea.

He frowns, throwing me a look. “Why would she do that? She’s been very happy since you married.”

I mess up my hair, wiping my palms over my face. “She was. Until I fucked it up."

“What happened?”

I make a gesture with my hand, not in the mood to talk.

There are two versions of how this happened, and I don’t know which one I prefer. The one in which she never wanted to leave my side, no matter what I did, but Carter threatened her togo with him? Or the one in which she’s had enough of me, and I disgusted her so badly she never wanted to see me again, then chose him instead of me?

But then, if she was that mad and wanted nothing to do with me, then she wouldn’t have made me breakfast. Or maybe she made it one last time before she left.

God, my head hurts. If I acted with her the way she deserved, she would’ve come to me to talk about Carter, nonetheless.

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