All Chapters of His Wife or Her Grave : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Cold glass against her cheek was the first thing Ziva felt when she woke up.It took a few seconds for the sensation to register as wrong. Too cold. Too smooth. Not a pillow, not a couch, not the scratchy carpet in her apartment. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, like she’d bitten it, and there was a faint ringing in her ears that rose and fell with her pulse.She tried to lift her head. Nothing happened.Panic flared, sharp and sudden, but her body lagged behind it, heavy and unresponsive, as if someone had poured wet cement into her veins. Hospital, she thought hazily. Or maybe the backseat of a car. Somewhere safe. Somewhere that made sense.Her eyelids were heavy like someone had sewn weights into them but she forced them open anyway and blinked once, twice before the world swam into focus with lights too bright. She was sitting... No, kneeling on a cushioned platform.She was wearing a white dress that definitely wasn’t hers with silk thin straps, the kind of thing you’d wear

The bullets came through the rear window like the world ending.Ziva didn’t even get the chance to scream before Tyrell dragged her down to the car floor.His body covered hers completely. Heavy. Solid. Warm.“Stay down!” His voice was right against her ear, rough and commanding.Another burst of gunfire tore through the night making the car swerve more violently and Ziva’s cheek pressed against cold leather with Tyrell’s weight pinning her in place.She couldn’t breathe, not because he was crushing her but because she could feel everything, from his heartbeat thundering against her back to the way his chest expanded with each breath and the flex of his muscles as he shifted to shield her better. Ziva hated herself for noticing.“Marcus!” Tyrell barked. “Lose them!”“Trying, sir!” The car jerked left making Ziva slide across the floor and Tyrell moved with her, hand shooting out to cradle the back of her head before it could crack against the door.“I’ve got you,” he murmured.Her pu

Morning light hurt.Ziva woke in a bed that wasn’t hers, wrapped in sheets too soft to be real, like she’d fallen asleep in one life and woken up trapped in another.Her phone was buzzing. Not just buzzing but vibrating so hard it was rattling against the nightstand.She reached for it, still half-asleep, brain foggy from exhaustion and whatever sedative the doctor had given her last night after she got married.To Tyrell Smart.Her thumb unlocked the screen and suddenly she was drowning in notifications. Texts. Calls. Emails. Social media alerts flooding in so fast the phone couldn’t keep up.The first headline made her stomach drop.‘BILLIONAIRE CEO ACCUSED OF KIDNAPPING AND FORCED MARRIAGE’Her face was right there. Grainy photo from the auction, white dress, terrified expression. Next to it, a professional headshot of Tyrell looking cold and dangerous in a suit.Ziva’s hands started shaking as she scrolled.Each headline was worse than the last, louder, crueler, more certain of a

The phone felt like a live wire in her hand.Ziva stared at the photo on the screen of herself asleep, taken from inside what was supposed to be the most secure building in the city.Someone had been here. Watching her. Close enough to touch.Whoever it was hadn’t left.The realization shook her.She dropped the phone, stumbled backward. "Tyrell."He was already moving, fast. A hidden panel in the wall clicked open and he pulled out a gun."Stay behind me." His voice was calm. The kind of calm that comes when instinct has burned out fear, leaving only precision.Ziva's heart slammed against her ribs as she followed him through the penthouse.Tyrell moved systematically, checking the rooms, behind the furniture, and even the balcony forty stories up.Nothing.He spoke into his phone, never lowering the gun. "Marcus. Full sweep, there’s been a breach."Marcus' voice crackled through. "That's impossible, sir. All entry points are monitored.”"Then explain this." Tyrell stopped at the bat

The sunlight hurt.Ziva woke to it streaming through dusty windows. For one blissful moment, her mind was blank. Empty. Safe. Then memory crashed back like cold water.James Keene. Timothy's father. Ten years of surveillance. The man from Maine who'd groomed her at sixteen, watched her grow up, sent his son to reel her in like a fish he'd been baiting all along.It was always a trap.Ziva lay still, staring at water-stained plaster above her head. The bedroom was small. Sparse. A twin bed with sheets that smelled like mothballs. Furniture covered in white sheets like ghosts.Tyrell's childhood home.She sat up slowly. Her body ached, muscles sore from tension she'd been carrying for days. How many days had it been since the auction? Three? Four? Time had become a blur of terror and exhaustion.She was still wearing Tyrell's clothes. The sweatpants. The t-shirt that hung off one shoulder.The house was quiet.What if Tyrell had left? What if she was alone here, abandoned in this Gothic