Chapter 5

Maverick’s POV

The first thing I noticed after Patricia left...

...was how quiet the house had become.

I sat at my desk in the home office, staring at the dark wood surface where her daily cup of coffee usually sat every morning. It was six o'clock, the time she would normally walk in wearing one of those simple dresses, asking if I slept well.

I told myself I had made the right choice. A man in my position could not afford a security risk, especially not when billions of dollars in company patents were at stake.

I threw myself completely into work, spending eighteen hours a day at the office to keep my mind off the empty master bedroom. I ignored the strange feeling in my chest every time I saw her spot on the couch sitting bare.

Four days after she walked out into the rain, my head of corporate security, Marcus, knocked on my office door at headquarters.

"Mr. Anderson," Marcus said, his face pale as he set a thick tablet down on my desk. "We finished tracing the external IP address from the second patent leak. The digital footprint was masked, but we managed to break the encryption on the primary server."

"And?" I asked, keeping my voice cold and focused. "Did it lead back to Patricia's personal laptop?"

"No, sir," Marcus said, looking down at the floor like he was afraid to meet my eyes. "The authorization code was stolen from Mrs. Anderson's old tablet during a local network sync, but the destination server belongs to an off-shore account registered in New York."

He tapped the screen, pulling up a series of bank transfers and verified personal log-ins.

Every piece of evidence points to Darbie.

"Miss Harrington downloaded the files herself using Mrs. Anderson's saved credentials while she was staying at your house," Marcus explained quietly. "She sold the blueprints to your main competitor three hours before she alerted you to the breach."

The air completely rushed out of my lungs, my hands gripping the edge of the desk so tight my knuckles turned white.

"Get her in here," I choked out, my voice dangerously low. "Now."

Ten minutes later, Darbie walked into the corner office wearing a bright yellow dress, holding two coffee cups with that usual sweet smile on her face.

"Maverick, honey!" she beamed, stepping toward my desk. "I bought you that double espresso you love so—"

"Where did you put the money from the New York account, Darbie?" I interrupted, my voice dropping into an icy whisper that made her freeze in her tracks.

Her smile faltered for a second, her big blue eyes blinking fast as her lies unravelled right in front of me.

"W-what are you talking about?" she stammered, dropping the paper cups onto the carpet. "Maverick, you know I would never—"

"I have the server logs," I barked, standing up so fast my leather chair knocked against the glass window behind me. "I have your offshore bank receipts. You framed my wife."

"She was in the way!" Darbie suddenly shrieked, her sweet act completely vanishing as her face twisted with pure greed and hatred. "She was just a boring nobody who didn't deserve you or your money! You were supposed to love me, Maverick! We were supposed to be together!"

"Get out of my sight before I have you arrested for grand theft and corporate espionage," I growled, pointing a shaking finger toward the door. "If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you spend the rest of your life in a federal prison."

She scrambled out of the office, sobbing hysterically, but I didn't even watch her leave.

A sudden, crushing wave of guilt crashed into me, so violent it felt like a physical blow right to my chest.

I remembered the way Patricia had looked at me when I called her a criminal. I remembered the absolute silence in her voice when she asked if I had ever loved her.

She hadn't fought back. She hadn't even tried to defend herself because she had realized I trusted a liar over my own wife.

I sprinted out of the office, ignoring the calls from my assistants, and drove my car back to the mansion like a complete madman, breaking every traffic law in the city.

I slammed the front door open, running up the stairs two at a time into our bedroom, praying to God that she might have left a forward address or a note.

Her room is empty.

The closets were stripped bare, the vanity cleared out, and the whole space smelled like nothing at all.

I began wildly tearing through her side desk, pulling drawers open in a desperate search for anything that could tell me where she went.

Among the few things left behind is a hospital envelope.

It was tucked under a stack of old magazines in her nightstand drawer, the paper wrinkled like it had been held tight.

He opens it absentmindedly.

I tore the seal open, expecting a medical bill or a simple check-up receipt from last month.

The words stop him cold.

Printed in sharp black ink across the top of the official document was the department name. Women's Health & Obstetrics Clinic.

My eyes moved down the page, skipping past the insurance numbers until they landed on the diagnosis line.

Pregnancy.

My breathing stopped completely, a loud ringing sound filling up both of my ears as my hand started to shake uncontrollably.

Then another line.

Four viable fetuses. Gestational age: six weeks.

His world collapses.

Four.

Patricia was carrying four of my children.

She had been standing in this very house, carrying four tiny lives inside her, while I pointed a finger at her face, called her a liar, and handed her divorce papers.

"No, no, no," I muttered out loud, my knees buckling as I slammed my fist against the wooden nightstand.

I pulled out my phone with numb fingers, dialing my head of security.

"Marcus!" I roared into the receiver, rushing back down the stairs toward my car. "Track Patricia's maiden name! Check every flight leaving the city in the last twenty-four hours! Find out where she is right now!"

"Sir, a passenger under her mother's name checked in for a direct flight to London forty minutes ago," Marcus reported after ten agonizing seconds. "The gate is closing right now."

I slammed my foot on the gas pedal, the engine screaming as I raced toward the international airport through the heavy afternoon traffic.

I threw my car into the drop-off lane, leaving the engine running as I bolted through the sliding glass doors and sprinted past security barriers, ignoring the shouts of the airport guards behind me.

I reached the massive glass terminal window just as the huge commercial jet pushed back from the gate, its jet engines roaring to life as it taxied down the long runway.

Too late.

I pressed both of my hands against the cold glass, my chest heaving as I watched the plane lift off into the gray sky, turning into a tiny black speck above the clouds.

The plane carrying Patricia has already taken off.

I stood there alone in the middle of the crowded airport terminal, completely destroyed, surrounded by strangers who had no idea my entire world had just flown away from me.

As the aircraft disappeared into the clouds, one thought drowned out every other.

Find her.

No matter how long it takes...

I'll bring my wife and my children home.