10. Vows

#Xavier's POV

The echo of her heels faded down the hallway, and for the first time in years, I felt something I hated—hollow. Empty. Like something vital had been carved out of my chest with a rusty blade.

She didn't look back. Not once.

‘God, please look back. Just once.’

But she didn't. And that single act of indifference shattered something inside me that I didn't even know could break.

Layla had placed the ring in my palm as if it weighed nothing, as if 'I' were nothing. The gold band felt impossibly heavy now, like it carried the weight of every moment we'd shared, every glance, every breath we'd stolen together. My fist closed around it, the metal biting into my skin until I bled. The pain was welcome—it was the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.

"Finally."

The voice behind me was trembling, weak, pathetic. Yuri. Her swollen eyes were red from tears, her face pale but daring to smile through the aftermath of her destruction.

"You're free now, Xavier," she whispered, and I could hear the desperate hope clinging to her words. "Free from the act. Free from my mistake. Free from her anger. Isn't that what you wanted?"

The rage that consumed me was white-hot, blinding. It roared through my veins like liquid fire, threatening to incinerate everything in its path. My laugh was low, dangerous, humorless—the sound of a man who had nothing left to lose.

I stepped forward, and she flinched. Good. She should be afraid.

"You think I wanted this?" My voice was quiet, deliberate, deadly—each word a promise of violence. "You think I married your sister for convenience? For image?"

The truth clawed its way up my throat, raw and bleeding. I had fallen for Layla so completely, so devastatingly, that losing her felt like losing my ability to breathe. She had become my oxygen, my reason for existing, and now there was nothing but suffocating emptiness.

I leaned down until Yuri's pulse jumped frantically in her throat, until I could smell her fear. "Let me make something clear, Yuri… If she doesn't come back to me, I'll kill you. Slowly. Painfully. I'll make you beg for the mercy you never showed her."

Her gasp broke the silence, sharp and terrified, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore except getting Layla back.

I left Yuri standing there, drowning in her own terror, and walked out into the night. The cold air hit my face like a slap, but it couldn't touch the ice that had formed around my heart.

"Where is she?" I asked my men at the door, my voice barely controlled.

They hesitated. A mistake that made my jaw clench with murderous intent.

"Sir, Lady Layla said she had to fetch something urgent. We thought—"

"And?" The word came out like a gunshot.

"She… took your car."

The driveway was empty. The space where my car should've been gaped like a wound, like a physical manifestation of the hole she'd left in my chest. She was gone. My wife. My everything. 'Gone.'

The panic that seized me was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Xavier Russell didn't panic. Xavier Russell controlled everything. But standing there, staring at that empty space, I felt like a lost child.

But not for long.

Because Layla Russell could run as far and as fast as she wanted. She could hate me, curse me, try to forget me—but she was still mine. And I would crawl through hell itself to bring her home.

---

The mansion was too quiet when I returned. Too heavy with her absence, too full of memories that now felt like torture.

Every corner held her ghost. The living room where she'd laughed at something ridiculous on TV. The kitchen where she'd attempted to cook and nearly burned the place down. The bedroom where she'd slept beside me, close enough to touch but always just out of reach.

I tore my tie off with shaking hands, unbuttoned my shirt with fingers that felt numb, and sank into the leather chair in my study. The silence pressed against me until it felt like suffocation, like being buried alive in my own grief.

Her ring burned in my palm. A thin band of gold, so delicate against my scarred, blood-stained hands. I rolled it between my fingers like it was the last tether to my sanity, the only proof that she had been real, that what we'd shared hadn't been just another cruel dream.

'My wife.'

The words echoed in my mind, beautiful and devastating. She had been mine for such a brief, perfect moment. And now...

Now I was drowning.

---

Hours blurred into whiskey. Twenty-eight of them, each one more torturous than the last. The alcohol burned, but it couldn't touch the agony eating me alive from the inside.

"Boss?" Josh stood at the door, cautious, probably afraid I'd put a bullet through his skull just for existing. "Don't you want to search for her?"

"No." My voice was gravel, broken glass. "She's been betrayed enough. By her family. By fate. By everyone who was supposed to protect her." The words tasted like ash. "If I chase her, I'll become another chain around her neck."

'But God, I want to chase her. I want to tear this city apart until I find her.'

Josh frowned, confusion creasing his features. "But what if she doesn't come back?"

"She will." I had to believe that. Without that hope, I was nothing.

"For someone who trusts her so much… you're drinking like hell."

My glare snapped to him, sharp enough to cut, deadly enough to kill. The rage was always there now, simmering just beneath the surface, waiting to explode. "Leave before I fire you. Or worse."

He pressed his lips together and stepped out, probably thanking whatever god he prayed to that I hadn't painted the walls with his blood.

But another guard stormed in before silence could return, shattering what little peace I'd managed to find in my whiskey-soaked misery.

"Boss, you need to see this."

He shoved an iPad into my hands with trembling fingers.

The headline screamed across the screen like a death sentence:

"Betrayal at the Altar — Billionaire Xavier Russell Forced to Wed Sister of His Runaway Bride!"

Pictures. Stories. Lies. The world tearing us apart like vultures, feeding on our pain, turning our private hell into public entertainment.

The fury that consumed me was apocalyptic. They had taken the most sacred moment of my life and turned it into a freak show. They had violated something beautiful and pure, something that belonged only to us.

"Josh," I growled, my voice promising violence.

"Yes, boss?"

"I want this gone in an hour. Find out who's behind it. Burn them alive if you have to. Make them suffer."

Before he could answer, a shrill voice split the room like nails on a chalkboard.

"Don't you know who I am?!" Celeste shoved past my guards, fury and madness dancing on her face. "Xavier will kill you for laying a hand on me!"

I stood, slow, deliberate, every movement controlled violence. I placed the iPad down with the care of a man handling a bomb. My expression was ice, death incarnate. "What's the commotion?"

Her eyes glistened with false tears, crocodile grief that made my skin crawl. "Xavier, baby, I knew that wench was lying all along. That slut used you—"

The rage exploded.

"Celeste." My voice cut sharp as a blade, promising agony. "Say one more word about my wife, and I'll kill you where you stand. Slowly. While you watch me enjoy it."

She faltered, but the madness blazed brighter in her eyes, consuming whatever sanity she'd once possessed. "Xavier, can't you see? I love you! I've always loved you! Why do you keep taking her side?"

'Love?' She thought this obsession, this poison, was love?

"Because she's my wife," I said, and the words felt like a prayer, like the only truth that mattered. "I vowed to protect her. To cherish her. To die for her if necessary." My tone was a death sentence, final and absolute. "Find someone else to obsess over before I decide to end your pathetic existence."

I shoved her back, but she steadied herself, venom twisting her once-pretty face into something ugly and monstrous.

"Wife?" she hissed like the snake she was. "She won't be your wife once she's dead."

The room froze. Time stopped. My blood ran ice, then fire, then ice again.

I turned slowly, a predator scenting blood. "Say that again."

"Yes," she spat, and I could see the madness had finally consumed her completely. "She betrayed you. She took you from me. She deserves to die. I'll kill her myself. I'll watch the light leave her eyes and smile."

I stepped closer, shadows swallowing me whole, darkness claiming me as its own. My voice was a whisper of violence, a promise of eternal suffering.

"You just signed your death warrant, Celeste. And when I'm done with you, hell will seem like paradise."

Josh's phone rang, slicing through the air like a blade. He answered with shaking hands. His face drained of all color.

"Boss…" His voice shook with terror. "The Beths. They've declared bankruptcy. Every company pulled out after the scandal. They're finished. Destroyed. And… Layla. She's missing. We can't find her anywhere."

The words hit me like physical blows. My legs almost gave out. 'Missing. Gone. Lost.'

Before the dread in my chest could settle, before I could process the magnitude of this disaster, my phone rang. A landline number I didn't recognize.

I answered, my voice hoarse with desperation. "What?"

"Xa—vier?"

Her voice. Broken. Fragile. Terrified. My blood iced, then caught fire.

'Layla.'

"Layla?" I shot up, the chair flying backward. "Where are you? Are you hurt? Tell me where you are!"

She sobbed through the line, the sound tearing my heart into pieces. "Xavier… save me. Please save me. I'm being followed. I'm scared. I'm sorry for everything. Please don't kill me. Please."

The desperation in her voice, the raw terror, made me want to burn the world down.

"Layla—what? Where are you? Tell me exactly where you are!" I was shouting now, panic consuming me completely.

The line went dead.

"NO!" My roar shook the walls, rattled the windows. "FIND HER! Trace the number. NOW! MOVE!"

Chaos erupted around me. My men ran like their lives depended on it—because they did. Phones rang, orders flew, the mansion became a war zone.

Minutes blurred together, each one an eternity of agony. Every second that passed was another second she could be hurt, could be dying, could be slipping away from me forever.

Finally, Josh returned, pale as death. "Boss. We tracked the landline. A clinic. Small. On the outskirts. But—"

"But what?" My voice cracked with impatience, with terror I couldn't hide.

Josh hesitated, and that hesitation made me want to strangle him.

"But what?" I shoved him aside and stormed toward the car, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged animal.

---

The drive was a blur of speed and desperation. I broke every traffic law in existence, ran red lights, took corners on two wheels. Nothing mattered except getting to her.

The clinic reeked of antiseptic and despair, of death and broken dreams. My men parted as I walked inside, their faces grim, their silence speaking volumes.

And then I saw her.

Layla.

My wife. My everything. The woman I vowed to protect on the altar.

I fell to my knees.