Lahat ng Kabanata ng Divorced by my Billionaire Ex, Now He Wants Me Back! : Kabanata 171 - Kabanata 180

170Stella.The photo had burned itself into my brain before I even had a chance to look at it fully. Alex had shown it to me quickly, just long enough for me to gasp at the familiar shapes of Emma and Eli, and then he’d immediately turned away, his jaw tight, his face hard and unreadable. I had wanted to reach for the children, to curl them into my arms and shield them from whatever nightmare had abducted them, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing. Not from here. Not from inside this house that should have been our fortress.I wanted to scream, to grab the phone and call the police, to flood the news with that photo, to make the world see the threat and rise with me. I wanted someone, anyone, to stop this. But Alex had been faster than I could react. His hand was on mine, firm, unyielding, and his eyes were sharp, cutting into mine with that quiet authority he could wield even in the most tense moments.“No,” he said simply, shaking his head. “You don’t call them. Not yet.”I fr

172Stella.I sat in the living room and my hands shook as I stared at the still-glowing screen. The message from Caleb had been there for nearly an hour now, and I hadn’t moved from this spot. Fifty million in cryptocurrency. Forty-eight hours. My mind kept circling the same terrifying thoughts: where are the kids? How are they? What kind of monster does this to a family?I couldn’t sit idle. My stomach twisted, my pulse thundering in my ears. I picked up my phone and scrolled until I found Josh’s number. I dialed without a second thought, desperate for anything, someone, anyone who might help me find my children.“Stella,” Josh answered immediately, his voice low and steady, calm where I was anything but. He had always been the quiet anchor when things spiraled, and I clung to that now.“Josh… I don’t know what to do. Caleb… he—he has them,” I choked out. “Alex… he’s planning, strategizing, but I can’t just sit here waiting for him to figure it out.” My voice cracked, and I felt a s

174Stella.I should have known following Alex was a bad idea from the moment we left the house. The air had that dense, heavy stillness that comes before something terrible happens, like the world itself was holding its breath. Anna drove with both hands gripping the wheel, her eyes flicking constantly between the road and the dark stretches on either side. She didn’t complain, didn’t question me, but I could feel her tension thrumming through the car like a second heartbeat.“Are you sure this is wise?” she asked quietly when we reached the outskirts, where the road thinned into cracked asphalt and abandoned warehouses dotted the horizon.“No,” I admitted. “But I need to know what’s going on. I can’t just sit at home and wait for updates like a… like a spectator in my own life.”Anna exhaled sharply. “Stella, you are Alex’s life. You and the twins. That’s why he—”“I know,” I cut in. “But that doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”A beat passed before she nodded and eased the car forward.We

176Alex.The moment Marcus said the words, the ground under me changed shape.“She’s missing too.”For a second I could not process the sentence. The warehouse smelled like dust and rusted metal, the twins’ backpacks still sitting on the cold concrete like discarded pieces of their childhood. Their little shoes. Their purple lunchbox with the cat sticker Emma made me promise never to peel off. Eli’s comic book folded at the corner the way he liked. All of it arranged like a quiet, cruel message.But none of that compared to the ice that slid through my veins when the meaning finally landed.Stella was gone.Not just out of reach. Not just unreachable. Gone.I stared at Marcus, but my mind was no longer in the room. Every muscle locked, every heartbeat sounding wrong in my ears. My world had already been bending under the weight of losing the twins. Now it tipped fully on its side.“How,” I forced out. The word felt foreign, like something shaped out of smoke.“We don’t know yet,” Mar

178Alex.The shipyard smelled like rust and old storms, the kind that settled into metal and never left. I stepped out of the car with Marcus at my side, the wind cutting through my clothes, the air heavy with salt and something darker. The headlights behind us cast long shadows across the abandoned containers, making everything look like a place designed for loss.I wasn’t prepared for how empty it would feel. How hollow. How wrong.We moved silently, weapons drawn, sweeping each row with precision. Every footstep felt like an accusation. I had chased dozens of leads in my life, led dozens of security operations, but this one felt personal in a way I wasn’t ready to face. Stella was out there somewhere. My kids were somewhere. And I was one step behind, every damn time.“Movement, left,” Marcus said.We followed the motion—quick, light, like someone darting behind one of the containers. My pulse kicked hard. Stella? No. Too small. Too fast.Then I saw it—the edge of a black van’s do