Shit.
But then the sound fades, and I realize how paranoid I’m being. Santiago can’t find me here. Not yet. I have some time. And I’m dead on my feet.
I’ll have a look around in the morning when I’m fresh. So I switch off the kitchen light, double-check that the doors are locked, and make my way to the bedroom where I make the bed and lie down, wondering if Hazel had slept on this very bed years ago. If this was a safe house for her, too. And if that was Dad’s doing. If he’d helped her run away.
38 Santiago
"Boss, I need a word with you." Marco pokes his head into Ivy's room, and I grunt a response.
"Give me a hand with these, will you?" I shift the window cover, setting one piece aside.
Marco doesn't move. "I think you should come down here so we can talk."
I glance at him over my shoulder and frown at the strained expression on his face. My fucking nerves are already shot, and this isn't helping. The moment I left Judge's house, I sent ten of my best guards to the hospital to collect my wife early while I came home to prepare for her arrival. That was an hour ago. They should have given me a status update by now.
My gut sours, and I know Marco came to deliver bad news. What else could it be?
I turn back to the window, tugging at the piece that won't seem to budge. Much like me, it's stubborn. Unyielding.
"Fucking piece of shit." I growl, slamming against it in frustration. "I need your help, Marco."
"Boss, I really think you should come down here." He's quieter now. Uncertain how to handle me like this. I can't say I blame him.
I don't want to hear whatever it is he came to say. Maybe that's why I'm still prying at the window cover as if I can alter it. Avoid it.
"I have to get this out," I snarl. "Her room has to be ready when she gets home."
Silence. He doesn't bother to respond this time, and a cold chill moves over me when I release the cover and finally turn to him. I look down at him from the sill, a lead weight settling over my chest.
Marco shifts from one foot to the other. He clears his throat then stuffs his hands into his pockets. And finally, he delivers the news he doesn’t want to tell me.
"Sir, your wife slipped the guard and escaped the hospital. I've had my men out scouring the city for her from the moment I became aware, but she hasn't turned up anywhere. I waited to tell you because I had hoped we might find her."
My hands fall open at my sides. My breathing slows. And I stare at him, blank.
Several minutes pass. Maybe more. Marco stares back, his face growing more uncomfortable the longer I stand there, silent.
I turn back to the window cover and yank again, grunting out in frustration when it refuses to budge. Marco doesn't say anything else as I continue to grapple with the piece. Or if he does, I don't hear it.
"I need to get this out," I bark at him. "She'll be home soon. Her room should be ready. It should have been ready..."
My voice falters, and a hand settles onto my arm, gently guiding me away from the window. Marco helps me down from the sill, meeting my gaze with sorrowful eyes.
"She's gone, sir. I'm so sorry."
A tremor moves through me. I can't accept it. She wouldn't leave me. Ivy hates me, but she wouldn't leave me.
"You're wrong." I brush past him, determined to prove it myself.
Marco follows me all the way down the stairs and to the car still parked in the driveway. When I try and fail to open the door, he unlocks it with the keys in his hand and gently guides me around to the passenger seat.
"I'll drive you, sir."
The ride is quiet. I can't accept that this is anything other than a mistake. Ivy wouldn't do this. She wouldn't take away my light.
Marco pulls up to the curb of The Society hospital and follows me inside. We take the elevator up to the fifth floor, passing the army of guards that has now multiplied under Marco's command. They are scouring the halls, some checking each room and peeking into laundry carts while others interview hospital staff.
I can't focus on any of it. I can only focus on each step. Each breath.
When I enter her room, I come to a halt just past the doorway. Her bed is empty, and a glance inside the bathroom confirms that is too. And for a minute, I don't know what else to do.
Marco lingers beside me, waiting patiently for my sanity to return. But it never does.
I move robotically, a phantom in search of the beating heart that's been ripped from his chest. There's nothing left inside that gaping space. Nothing but agony.
"I was going to make things right," I murmur as my hand settles onto the pillow where she lay this morning. "She would have seen it. The windows. Her new clothes. The lock removed from her bedroom door. I removed the rosary and the mask… I was going to make things right."
Marco has grace enough not to interrupt my fragmented thoughts as I bring the pillow to my face and inhale her scent. I breathe it in, and then it slips from my hands, falling to the floor as my gaze drifts out the window. At the vast city beyond. She is out there somewhere. My wife and our child.
I turn to Marco, a familiar anger steeling me against these unrecognizable weaknesses stirring up inside me.
"Where is Abel?"
"We haven't been able to locate him, sir," he answers apologetically. "But the nurse mentioned that Ivy's youngest sister came by to visit. We haven't spoken with her yet."
"Take me to her."
He nods, and thirty
