LOGINOCEANS.We sat in an uncomfortable silence since the moment her 'male' friend excused us and went upstairs.And every single word I had rehearsed on the drive over vanished the moment we were left alone with room to actually use them.Fuck.I'd never been this speechless around anyone before. I had always had the right words for every situation. Always known exactly which ones to reach for and exactly how to deliver them for maximum effect.Using the right words to describe the exact way I felt now would be an embarrassment to me.I could never use the word 'nervous' to describe how I fucking felt sitting on the edge of a couch in a stranger's apartment with both elbows on my knees and my fingers laced together, staring at a patch of floor that had done nothing to deserve this level of attention, completely and humiliatingly blank.I couldn't even bring myself to look at her.Looking at her right now felt like the kind of thing that would undo whatever thin thread of composure I was s
OCEANS.I barely caught any sleep. I have never had a night as long as this one in my entire life.I was at war all through the night with different versions of myself, and none of them were winning cleanly.The version that kept pushing me to call Reeves at three in the morning just to know what progress he had made.The version that had me three taps away from dialing the police and reporting a missing person before I caught myself and put the phone face down on the nightstand, while staring at the ceiling and asking myself some very serious questions about what exactly I thought I was doing.The one that made me search her up on all the social media platforms to see the kind of friends she keeps and if she had made any posts that could disclose her whereabouts...And there. That's the version of myself I allowed to take the lead.I spent almost an hour scrolling through every social media platform I knew of. It wasn't difficult to find her profile each time. Not many ladies bear ra
OCEANS."Any luck?" I asked Reeves, pressing the phone to my ear with more force than necessary."No, sir. She's not there," He reported."How sure are you?" I hissed."Very sure, sir. I even had one of my men pose as a delivery driver with a parcel addressed to her, just to find out. But he was told at the gate that she wasn't there." Reeves reported.I exhaled slowly through my nose and kept my eyes on the street outside the window, like some part of me genuinely believed I was going to look up at the right moment and find her standing on a pavement somewhere in eight million people, waiting to be located.She wasn't at Jace's.I turned that over for a moment, trying to decide what to do with it.I didn't know if it was a good sign I should be happy about, or a bad sign I should be even more concerned about.But underneath the ambiguity, if I was being honest about what I actually felt when Reeves said those words... 'She isn't there.'It was relief. Clean and immediate and complete
OCEANS.I kept my eyes on my phone.Three sixteen PM.For the better part of the one hour I sat in that conference room, I had developed a routine so consistent it had practically become scheduled.Pick up the phone. Look at the screen like it were a fucking ticking bomb. Register the absence of what I was yearning for. Place the phone face down on the table. And pick it up again.Rinse and repeat.For one hour.She still hadn't replied.Fuck.I picked up my pen and looked at Hargrove, the client across the table. He was a careful man in his sixties who managed a private equity portfolio that Stark Sovereign Capital had been courting for the better part of three months.I gave him the version of my attention that I had available right now, which was not the version he deserved and not the version I was known for delivering in settings like this one.She hadn't reported to work, either... I returned to my thoughts, keeping half my attention in the room.I tapped my pen against the edge
KISAREL."Can you stop already?" I pressed my palm against my forehead as I reached for the coffee pot."Non." Elgin followed me into the kitchen without missing a beat, barefoot, still in his oversized sleep shirt. He had obviously woken up this morning and decided that today was the day he was going to finish the conversation, regardless of whether I wanted to have it. "Not until you actually listen to me. And I mean listen, Arel. Not just hear and dismiss.""I am listening," I said, pouring my coffee without looking at him. "I have been listening since last night. I have listened so thoroughly that I could recite everything you've said back to you in chronological order.""Then why aren't you seeing it?""Because it doesn't make sense, Elgin." I turned to face him, mug in both hands. "You're talking about Ocean Stark. Cold, ruthless, unfeeling, heartless, gets-out-of-bed-in-the-morning-and-chooses-violence Ocean Stark. The man who took me apart in front of people. The man who calle
OCEANS.Harold was treading a dangerous path, and he fucking knew it."I'm asking because I genuinely want to understand." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at me with a careful, unafraid attention. "You buried her. You buried her that very night — the same night it happened — and you have never once spoken her name since, never grieved her properly, never spoke about what happened, never allowed anyone around you to acknowledge that she existed, and you built everything that came after on top of that. This office. This version of yourself. All of it." He paused. "And we both know that. We have always both known that.""Stop talking." The words came out absolutely quietly.He didn't stop."And now you are sitting here, unable to do anything productive, and a PA's name still live in the staff directory because you cannot bring yourself to close that file. And you want to look me in the eye and tell me this is all normal and professional?" He shook his head slowly. "Oce
OCEANS."What the fuck is going on, Oceans?" Logan asked the moment my door clicked shut behind us."What do you mean?" I rounded the table to my seat, undoing my suit jacket."The girl. Why were you standing so close?" He gestured outside at Kisarel's office, which was demarcated by a glass wall a
OCEANS."What the fuck do you mean he doesn't know?"I pressed the phone to my ear and kept my voice even, because the alternative was putting my fist through the mirror I was standing in front of."He said he found a girl, sir. She was conscious but barely. Begged him not to take her to a hospital
OCEANS.I tossed the paperwork on the upcoming Venzela project her way, and she picked it up without even looking at me.That frown had been living on her face since last night and had followed her all the way into this morning without any sign of vacating. I didn't particularly mind it. As long as
OCEANS.It was already past five in the evening, and it felt like I'd had one of the longest afternoons of my life.I stepped out of bed carefully, moving slowly enough not to disturb her. Not because I was the kind of man who concerned himself with things like that — I wasn't. I just didn't see th







