Page 12 of Torn By Fate

“She can run as much and as far as she wants,” I said, my voice low and dark. “I’m good at finding people.”

I turned back around, facing the windows once again.

Rocco understood that I was done with the conversation. He left the folder on my desk, and I watched in the reflection as he quietly left my office. The door closed behind him with a soft click, and I was once again alone in my office. In the silence that Serafina had left behind.

In the darkness of the night, my eyes landed on Nyx first as she pranced around the perimeter of the estate and then her two brothers following behind her, Orion and Shadow.

Nyx paused at the far edge of the grounds and lifted her nose to the air, trying to catch the scent of something she wouldn’t find. Looking for someone who had left them behind.

My Dobermans had realized that Serafina was missing, that she wasn’t home anymore. They liked her, had accepted her as a part of the pack… and now, they were confused by her absence.

It was time to bring my wife home. For all of our sakes.

“The girl said she wanted to be invisible.”

I smiled despite myself.

My beautiful wife believed she escaped me; she believed she could disappear.

How adorable.

She had recklessly forgotten one simple truth.

The world might lose her.

But I never would.

She could change her name, cross oceans and continents, and bury herself beneath thousands of unfamiliar faces, and I’d still find her. Her attempts to vanish were ultimately futile.

Serafina would never be invisible to me, no matter how hard she tried.

I’d know which one was her shadow in a frenzied crowd. I’d recognize the rhythm of her heartbeat in complete darkness.

She wasn’t running from me.

She was only delaying the moment I had my hands on her again.

I’d built a bloody empire on finding people who didn’t want to be found.

And yet Serafina thought I wouldn’t find her.

How. Fucking. Adorable.

The crystal glass shattered in my fist, and blood trickled between my fingers.

Let’s see how well you can play the game, wife.

CHAPTER THREE

SERAFINA

THE PAST

The apartment smelled of lemon-scented cleaner and new paint. The carpet even looked spotless, as if everything had just been newly done right before my arrival this morning.

I sat on the couch with my knees drawn up, my kindle balanced on my thighs as I scrolled through titles I had no intention of reading. I had bought so many new ebooks this morning, but I didn’t know which one to start.

Reading would always calm me, but I found myself not in the mood for… anything.