Nessa POV
The world dissolved into a smear of gray concrete and the pale, terrified faces of the clinic staff as Killian Qiro carried me out.
By all logic, I should have been terrified.
I was in the arms of the most dangerous man in Chicago, a man whose mere name made my father check the locks twice at night.
But all I registered was the rough texture of his wool suit jacket against my cheek and the steady, heavy thud of his heart beneath it.
It was a slow, controlled rhythm.
In stark contrast to the frantic staccato of my own heart, his was the sound of a predator who feared nothing.
He didn't run. He moved with a terrifying calm, his strides long and purposeful, carrying my weight as if I were made of smoke.
We burst through the back doors into an alley where the air smelled sharp with wet asphalt and ozone.
A sleek black helicopter sat idling on a private pad I didn't even know existed, its blades slicing through the rain with a rhythmic thwup-thwup-thwup.
"Put me down," I whispered, though my voice was barely a dry croak. "I can walk."
"You're bleeding," Killian stated flatly.
He didn't look at me. He looked straight ahead, his jaw set in a line of granite. "You don't walk until I say you walk."
He lifted me higher, stepping onto the metal rail of the chopper with effortless grace.
He secured me into the leather seat himself, his large hands moving with surprising precision over the buckles.
For a heartbeat, his knuckles grazed the swell of my stomach.
He froze.
His gray eyes locked onto mine, dark and unreadable.
"Mine now," he murmured, the sound low enough to be lost under the whine of the engine, yet it vibrated through my very bones. "Every cell. Every heartbeat."
He signaled the pilot, and the ground fell away.
I looked down at the shrinking city. Somewhere down there, in a cheap motel room, was the life I had tried so hard just to survive.
Gone.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
For the first time in two years, I didn't have to watch my back.
The monster had me, and he wasn't letting go.
Xander POV
The sun in the Maldives was oppressive, a blinding white glare that drilled into my skull.
Rissa lay on the lounge chair next to me, complaining about the humidity frizzing her hair.
"Baby," she whined, poking my arm with a freshly manicured nail. "When are you going to divorce her officially? I want a winter wedding."
I swirled the ice in my scotch, watching the amber liquid catch the light. "Soon, Rissa. You know the plan. We need her signature on the trust transfer first."
"She's probably crying in a corner somewhere," Rissa giggled, taking a sip of her cocktail. "She's so weak. It's pathetic."
A sudden, cold dread coiled in my stomach.
It wasn't the heat. It was instinct.
I hadn't checked the tracker on Nessa's phone in three days. I had been too busy drowning in Rissa's skin, celebrating a victory I hadn't quite secured yet.
I pulled out my phone.
The tracking app opened.
Signal Lost.
I frowned. Maybe the battery died.
I opened the banking app to check the joint account we used for household expenses.
Balance: $0.00.
My breath hitched.
I quickly switched to the credit card portal.
Account Frozen. Contact Administrator.
"Xander?" Rissa asked, sitting up. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"Shut up," I snapped.
I dialed the villa landline. No answer.
I dialed the security gate.
"Mr. Vane?" the guard answered, sounding breathless and nervous.
"Where is my wife?" I demanded.
"She... she hasn't been home in a week, sir. We assumed she was with you."
The crystal glass in my hand shattered.
I didn't feel the shards cutting into my palm.
"What do you mean she hasn't been home?" I roared.
"The house is empty, sir. And... there was a courier today. From the Qiro family. They dropped off a notice."
Qiro.
The blood drained from my face.
"What notice?"
"A cease and desist on the Lino assets, sir. And a demolition order for the guest house."
I hung up.
I looked at Rissa, who was applying sunscreen to her legs, oblivious.
She wasn't a prize. She was a liability.
I had played the long game for two years. I had romanced a woman I felt nothing for, just to get my hands on the clean millions her mother left behind.
And now, the mouse had not only escaped; she had burned down the trap.
"Pack your bags," I said, standing up.
"But we have three more days!" Rissa protested.
"We have nothing!" I screamed, throwing the phone into the sand. "She's gone. And she took the money."
