Chapter 28
“I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about the press. I don’t care if the whole empire burns. I want Harmony. I want her where she belongs.”
Marlo spoke up again. “Sir, she’s with Cassian. His people have locked every route. That woman’s untouchable now.”
I didn’t respond. Just stared at the screen again, watching her speak to the world like she wasn’t the same girl who once begged me not to hurt her.
“I’ll find her,” I said. “I don’t care how long it takes. She can wear a new name, but I’ll remind her exactly who she belongs to.”
Because Harmony may call herself Celeste now-
But to me? She’s still my wife. And I’m not done.
I stayed in my office long after everyone left. The TV was still on, muted, stuck on her face.
Harmony.
Celeste.
Whatever she wants to call herself now.
I lit another cigar with shaking hands and stared into the smoke. I didn’t even feel the burn in my lungs anymore.
My head leaned back against the leather and suddenly I was twenty–four again. Fresh off taking the southern port. Blood was still drying on my knuckles. I didn’t want to celebrate with anyone. Not my men. Not the council. Just her.
I remembered waking her up at 3AM and dragging her to that rooftop with a flask in my coat and a stupid blanket that barely blocked the wind. She was shivering, annoyed, but stayed anyway. I sat her on my lap and wrapped my arms around her. And when the sun cracked the sky open, she was already asleep breathing soft against my chest. I looked down at her and whispered, “I don’t need the world to bow. I just need this… you beside me when no one’s watching.”
She smiled in her sleep like she heard me. I kissed her forehead like she was mine. Because she was.
I shook the memory off, but it hit harder when the next one came. That stupid accident. Harmony had been out doing her charity thing, handing out school supplies in a sketchy barrio even after I told her not to. Her driver skidded near the bend and the car slammed into a post. Minor bruises, they said but I was livid. I was ready to destroy everything when I arrived. But the moment I saw her limping, laughing, and waving at me like nothing
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happened, I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t even curse.
I dropped to the ground and wrapped her ankle myself. She flinched but giggled through it and looked me straight in the eye, saying, “You always act like a monster, but your hands feel like home.”
That wrecked me. I cupped her face, kissed her temple, and said it like a vow, “Don’t ever leave me, Harmony. I won’t survive it.” And I meant it.
Back then, I didn’t know how fragile time was.
I dragged my cigar along the rim of the glass ashtray, jaw clenched. Then the worst memory hit me… the night she found me bleeding on the floor. One of the deals went south, and I got knifed during a back alley standoff. I barely made it back to the house. Harmony opened the front door and screamed.
She dragged me in, hands trembling as she stitched me up, her tears falling on my chest. No medic. No maid. Just her. I remember her pressing a towel on the wound, kissing my hand over and over like she could stop me from fading.
“You promised me ten lifetimes. You can’t leave me first.” That’s what she said.
And fuck, it wasn’t even the pain that got me. It was the panic in her voice. Like she already
lost too much.
I stood up now, pacing in the dark, heart kicking against my ribs.
And then there was that stupid birthday dinner.
I never told anyone when my birthday was, but she found out anyway. I came home to a tiny room decorated like a college dorm–balloons, hand–cut banners, and her standing in the middle wearing my apron. She cooked for me herself, probably burned half of it, but it smelled like comfort. She handed me a small box with a smirk on her face.
It was a watch. Simple. Black. My initials on the back with a note: “So you never forget the time I gave you all of me.”
I didn’t smile that night. Couldn’t. But she leaned in, kissed my cheek, and whispered, “It’s okay. I’ll wait until you thaw.”
God, she did.
She waited for years while I iced her out, used her as a shield, handed her pain on a silver tray–and still smiled like she believed I could be something more.
Now she’s gone.
Now she’s a fire. And I’m the ash. I don’t even know how to beg her to come home without setting everything else on fire again.
And now, she’s everywhere…
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I hear her laugh when I open the door to the penthouse. I smell her perfume clinging to the sheets I haven’t washed in months. I see her shadow moving past the kitchen where she used to hum and stir coffee that only she could make right. Every night I pour two glasses
of whiskey and set hers on the table like she’s just late. Like she’ll walk in any minute, roll her eyes, and call me dramatic.
Sometimes I talk to her photo, the old one I hid from Margaret. The one where she wore that pale yellow sundress and smiled like the world hadn’t ruined her yet. I hold that frame like it’s flesh and I whisper to it like she’s listening. I tell her she can change her face, call herself Celeste, act like she don’t know me–but her soul still fuckin‘ belongs to me.
I don’t care how many people she fools. I see her. I see Harmony in every word that girl spits on camera. And the more she burns me publicly, the more I crave to pull her close and lock every door until she remembers who made her scream in pleasure and cry in
pain.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve sent spies. I’ve tracked her flights. I’ve hacked her damn emails. Still nothing.
And then I remembered the boy.
Aziel.
That kid was always her soft spot. Her trigger. He’s the one thing that ever made her crumble. I called Marlo into my office, blood still fresh on my knuckles from punching the cabinet earlier, and I looked him dead in the eye.
“Take the boy.”
Chapter 28
