Chapter 13
Jul 18, 2025
Landon’s POV
The whiskey didn’t burn anymore. It slid down easy, dull and familiar, like everything else in my life lately.
I sat slouched in my study, the lights turned low, shadows crawling across the mess I hadn’t cleaned in days. My desk was a graveyard of false leads, flight records, blurry surveillance shots, receipts from cities she never visited. All of it is worthless.
My shirt clung to my back, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie half-undone. I looked like hell, but I felt worse. The investigator had just left, and he hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know.
“She’s been careful, sir,” he’d said, polite but useless. “No cards, no trail, no legal name. Whoever helped her made sure she disappeared.”
“That’s your excuse?” I snapped, pacing the room. “After six weeks and a small fortune, that’s what you’ve got?”
He raised both hands in surrender. “I’m telling you the truth. She doesn’t want to be found.”
“Then I’ll find someone who knows how to do their job.” I pointed to the door. He left without a word, like they all did.
The second he was gone, I grabbed a report off the desk, crushed it in my fist, and threw it against the wall. It hit with a hollow thud, landed in a pile of others just like it. I sat down again, elbows on my knees, the glass still in my hand.
My eyes burned, not from the drink, but from everything I couldn’t fix. She was gone. And I’d torn the whole world apart trying to undo it.
The door opened behind me, slow and deliberate. I didn’t have to look up. I recognized the perfume.
“Rough night?” Marian’s voice was soft, like she thought that tone could slide in where I was weakest.
“Don’t,” I muttered, staring at the floor.
She ignored the warning and stepped inside, her heels tapping quietly across the hardwood. “You’ve been in here for days,” she said. “This isn’t good for you.”
“I’m fine.”
She set a coffee cup on the edge of the desk, the ceramic clinking faintly. “I thought you could use something warm. Maybe someone warm too.”
Her hand brushed my shoulder, fingertips lingering. “You don’t have to be alone tonight,” she whispered.
Then her fingers moved lower, trailing down my arm toward my chest, and that’s when I snapped. I stood so fast the chair groaned, nearly toppling behind me.
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
She flinched, clearly not expecting that. “Landon-”
“Stop it,” I said, my voice sharper now. “Stop pretending this is anything but a performance.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t back down. “I waited, you know. While she ran, I stayed.” I stepped toward her, not to intimidate, just to make it clear.
“You didn’t stay,” I said evenly. “You circled. You watched. And when she finally broke, you were right there waiting for the fallout. Like it was your turn. Like you earned it.”
She blinked. “I care about you.”
“No,” I said. “You care about what comes with me. The name. The estate. The seat at the table.”
She folded her arms across her chest, trying to shift the blame. “You don’t even know where she is. Why keep chasing someone who didn’t bother to say goodbye?”
My jaw clenched, the words scraping their way out of me. “She didn’t leave me. I drove her away.” She went still.
“I know exactly what I did,” I said, quieter now but every word sharp. “I ignored her. I dismissed her. I let my mother and sister humiliate her every chance they got, and I sat there like a goddamn coward.”
Marian opened her mouth, maybe to argue, maybe to lie again, but I was already done.
“You should go,” I said. “There’s nothing here for you.”
She hesitated, as if she still thought she could win this, but the silence between us was final. I walked past her without looking back, my hand reaching for the door.
My chest ached, the kind of ache that sat in your bones, the kind you couldn’t drink away.
Just before I stepped out, I let the name I hadn’t stopped whispering inside my head slip into the open.
“Emery.”
