Kade POV
The sound of crystal shattering under the soles of my dress shoes was the only thing grounding me to reality. Around me, the ballroom of the St. Regis had dissolved into a cacophony of gasps and frantic whispers, the scent of expensive perfume now laced with the metallic tang of blood.
But I didn't look down at the woman bleeding into the carpet at my feet.
My gaze was a physical weight, hooked into the back of the woman walking away from me. Isabelle. My wife. My property.
She was moving toward the exit, her spine stiff, her steps uneven. But she wasn't alone. Devon Walter, the Underboss of the rival family, was guiding her, his hand hovering near the small of her back. And then, he did the unthinkable. He stripped off his tuxedo jacket and draped it over her shoulders, covering the red silk that belonged to me. Covering the skin that I had marked.
A red haze clouded my vision. My fingers twitched, aching to wrap around the grip of the gun holstered beneath my jacket. Walter had just signed his death warrant. He had touched what was mine.
"Kade... please," Carla whimpered from the floor, her fingers digging into my pant leg, smearing blood on the dark fabric. "It hurts so much."
I ignored her. I took a step forward, the glass crunching violently.
"Isabelle!" My voice wasn't a shout; it was a command that cut through the murmurs of the New York elite like a blade.
She stopped. For a heartbeat, she hesitated near the heavy mahogany doors. She turned, her face pale, her eyes hollow but defiant. Walter turned with her, his jaw set in a protective snarl that made me want to tear his throat out with my bare hands.
I locked eyes with her, ignoring the hundreds of witnesses, ignoring the blood on my shoes.
"Three hours," I said, my voice low, lethal, and carrying across the distance. "Be back at the estate, on your knees, begging. Or I will burn this city to the ground to find you."
Fear flickered in her eyes—good. But then she turned away. She turned her back on her Don, on her husband, and walked out into the night with another man.
"Kade!" Carla shrieked, her voice pitching up in a way that sounded more calculated than pained. She slumped dramatically, ensuring the eyes of every influential family in the room were glued to my reaction.
If I left her here, the Cameron family would look like savages who abandoned their own. Reputation was currency, and right now, mine was plummeting.
With a curse that would have made a priest cross himself, I bent down and scooped Carla into my arms. She buried her face in my chest, sobbing, but I felt the rigid tension in her body. She was holding on too tight.
"Get the car," I snarled at a nearby associate, my eyes still fixed on the empty doorway where my life had just walked out.
The private wing of Lenox Hill Hospital was silent, a stark contrast to the storm raging inside my chest. The air smelled of antiseptic and lilies, a scent that reminded me of funerals.
I stood by the window, staring out at the skyline of Manhattan. Somewhere out there, Isabelle was hiding.
"Kade?" Carla's voice drifted from the hospital bed. She had been stitched up—twelve stitches in her arm. A tragedy for a socialite, a scratch for a soldier. "Are you still mad? It was an accident. I just wanted to stop you from making a scene."
I didn't turn around. I checked the Patek Philippe on my wrist.
Three hours and two minutes.
She wasn't coming.
The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. It wasn't heartbreak; it was the cold, hard shock of treason. She had defied a direct order. She had chosen humiliation over obedience.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out instantly.
"Talk," I answered.
"Boss," Marco's voice was heavy, hesitant. That was never a good sign. Marco was my best soldier, a man who could break bones without blinking, but right now, he sounded like he was walking into a firing squad. "We checked the penthouse. We checked her parents' old place. She's not there."
"Where is she, Marco?" My grip on the phone tightened until the metal groaned. "If you tell me you lost her, don't bother coming back."
"We tracked her phone signal, but she ditched it in a trash can on 5th Avenue," Marco said quickly. "But we got a hit on her passport. A private charter filed a flight plan forty minutes ago. Wheels up from Teterboro."
"Destination?"
"Chicago."
The word hung in the silence of the hospital room. Chicago. The Outfit's territory. A neutral ground that was anything but neutral. Why run to a city known for its brutality unless she had help? Unless Walter had arranged it?
The image of Devon Walter's jacket on her shoulders flashed in my mind again, fueling the fire in my veins. She wasn't just leaving me. She was running to an enemy.
"Kade, baby, come sit," Carla whined, patting the mattress.
I turned slowly, looking at her as if she were a stranger. "Stay here," I ordered, my voice devoid of any warmth. "Don't leave this room until I send for you."
"Where are you going?" panic edged into her tone.
"To catch a flight."
I walked out of the room without looking back, dialing Marco as I strode down the corridor, my footsteps echoing like gunshots.
"Get the pilot," I commanded, pushing through the hospital exit into the cool night air. "Prep the G650. We are going to Chicago."
"Sir," Marco paused, the sound of a car door slamming in the background. "If we go into Chicago chasing a runaway wife... the Outfit might take it as an act of aggression."
"Let them," I said, sliding into the back of the waiting SUV. The leather was cold against my back, but it did nothing to cool the inferno inside me. "If they stand in my way, I'll burn them down too."
Isabelle thought she could run. She thought a few hundred miles and a signature on a piece of paper could break the bond between us. She was wrong.
Marriage in our world wasn't a contract. It was a shackle. And I was coming to drag her back to her cell.
