Chapter 13

(Julian's POV)

I hadn't slept properly in over a week. Maybe two. The days flew by, all running into an  endless period of staring at my phone and praying for it to ring.

My office looked like a mess. Empty coffee cups covered every surface, some with mold growing at the bottom because I'd forgotten they were there.

Crumpled papers littered the floor, all printouts of Evelyn's last known locations, credit card statements, anything that might tell me where she'd gone.

The cleaning crew had stopped coming after I yelled at them for touching my desk. My assistant barely looked at me anymore when she brought in messages.

Not that any of them mattered. The only message I wanted wasn't coming.

I pulled up Evelyn's contact on my phone for the thousandth time. I was still blocked. I'd tried calling from other numbers—burner phones, office lines, even a worker' line. She blocked every single one.

My wife was a ghost.

No, not my wife. My ex-wife. The divorce papers sat in my desk drawer, signed and finalized. I'd stared at them for an hour before finally scribbling my name across the bottom line.

What choice did I have? That lawyer, whoever the hell he was, had made it very clear what would happen if I didn't sign. My company would be destroyed. My reputation will be ruined. Everything I'd built would crumble. So I signed.

And hated myself for it.

I loved Evelyn. God, I loved her more than anything. She was my partner, the woman who'd stood by me when I was building Hart Industries from nothing. When investors laughed me out of their offices and everyone said I'd fail, Evelyn believed in me.

She was the only person who ever really believed in me.

But Serena...

Serena made me feel young again. Reckless and alive in a way I hadn't felt since before the company took off. Before the endless board meetings and investor calls and the weight of being responsible for two hundred employees.

With Serena, I could just be Julian. Not CEO Julian Hart. Not Evelyn's husband. Just me.

I never meant for it to go this far. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. A moment of weakness at a company party where Serena looked at me like I was still some normal guy, not the guy who spent his life managing other people's expectations.

But one time turned into two. Then five. Then I stopped counting.

I kept telling myself I'd end it. After the anniversary party. After the merger went through. After the quarterly reports. There was always an "after," always some excuse to put off doing the right thing.

Until Evelyn made the choice for me.

A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts.

"What?" I snapped.

My assistant poked her head in, looking nervous. "Mr. Hart, the private investigator is here."

Finally.

"Send him in."

The Private investigator walked in clinging to a folder.

"Mr. Hart." He sat down without being invited, dropping the folder on my desk. "I'm afraid I don't have good news."

I grabbed the folder and flipped it open. Three pages. That was it. Two weeks of work and he gave me three pages.

"What the hell is this?"

"Everything I could find. Which isn't much." He leaned back in his chair. "Mr. Hart, your wife has gone extinct. No credit card usage since she left. No phone activity. No security camera footage. It's like she vanished into thin air."

"People don't just vanish." I threw the folder back at him. "Find her."

"I've tried. Her lawyer isn't returning my calls. Her friends claim they haven't heard from her. I checked with her book club—they don't know where she is either. Her assistant at your company said she's on personal leave and won't say more than that."

I slammed my fist on the desk, sending coffee cups rattling. "I'm paying you five hundred dollars an hour. FIND HER."

He didn't even flinch. He'd probably dealt with desperate husbands before.

"Mr. Hart, I'll be blunt. Your wife doesn't want to be found. She's either gone underground with help from someone who knows what they're doing, or she's left the country. Either way, unless she makes a mistake, we're not going to track her down."

"She has to use her credit cards eventually. She has to access her bank accounts."

"I've been monitoring those accounts." He pulled out another sheet of paper. "They've all been drained. Every cent she had access to is gone. Transferred somewhere I can't trace."

My stomach dropped. "What do you mean you can't trace it?"

"I mean whoever helped her cover her tracks knew exactly what they were doing. This isn't an amateur move. Your wife had professional help."

Professional help. Who the hell did Evelyn know with those kind of resources?

Then it hit me. Her lawyer. That smug bastard at Greystone & Associates.

"I want you to look into her legal team. Find out who's funding this."

The PI shook his head. "Attorney-client privilege. They won't talk, and I can't make them."

"Then find another way."

"Mr. Hart—"

"I don't care what it takes or what it costs. Find my wife."

He stood up, adjusting his jacket. "I'll do what I can. But I'm going to be honest with you—if she doesn't want to be found, she won't be. Not unless she contacts you first."

He left, and I was alone again with my disaster of an office and the heartbreaking realization that Evelyn was really gone.