Max’s eyebrows lowered dangerously.“Evacuation, Wick.Now.”
“Yes, Sir.Right away, Sir.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rex
Rex’s private beachvilla, Pearl Paradise...
The sand was cold beneath his feet.Not a cold that came from the night air but one that seeped into your bones like a corpse’s touch.Rex didn’t bother to search for Xia anywhere else.He knew.The way a man knew when he stood at the edge of a cliff and the ground beneath him was about to give way.Dominic was here at his house.He could feel him.His presence was a pulse of malice thrumming in the air as thick as the salt on his tongue.
He was out for revenge.And revenge, Rex knew, was a dish best served slowly, brutally, and without mercy in an environment where he knew he was in control.
Rex’s breath came in ragged, uneven bursts.His lungs burned as if he’d been running for hours instead of minutes.His heart pounded a frantic, desperate rhythm that echoed in his skull.
Xia.Her name wasn’t just a thought.It was a prayer, a curse, and a blade twisting in his gut.He had failed her.The realization hit him like a physical blow, knocking the air from his lungs.
I failed her.The one person he had sworn to protect.The one person who managed to reach past all his walls and fill the hollow, gnawing emptiness of his own existence.He had let her down.He had been so wrapped up in his own games and needs, his own fucking arrogance, that he hadn’t even noticed she was gone until it was too late.
And now?Now she’s paying for it.
The silent cry was a live wire in his chest, burning through every nerve and shred of control he had left.His pulse hammered in his throat as his fingers bulged into fists—not from adrenaline, but from fear.A fear that stripped away everything—his billion-dollar empire, reputation, and the goddamn algorithm that had made him untouchable.For one blinding second, he wasn’t Rex Oliver, the man who’d outsmarted governments and hacked the global market.He was just a man who’d left the one precious thing he couldn’t protect in the hands of a bastard who had already proven his vicious nature.
The night was too quiet, a quiet that came before a storm.His skin prickled with unease.Rex’s footsteps were the only sound; even muted on the sand, they were the only aspect breaking the oppressive stillness.Each step felt like lead, like he was walking toward his own execution.His thoughts were a labyrinth of fear and fury, and a storm of what-ifs and if-onlys that threatened to drown him before he even reached the villa.
What if she was already dead?
Just thinking about it was a knife to the gut, a cold, sharp pain that stole his breath.He couldn’t bear the vision of her lifeless body, of her beautiful, vibrant soul snuffed out because of his mistakes.He couldn’t, he fucking refused to let that happen, but the fear was there, gnawing at him, whispering in the back of his mind with the voice of Satan.
What if I’m too late?
The villa loomed ahead, a sleek, modern monstrosity that now seemed like a tomb.The glass doors stood wide open, a gaping maw, an invitation—or rather, a challenge.The moonlight spilled inside, casting long, eerie shadows that danced and twisted on the walls.
He faltered when he saw her.Xia—his Xia.
Naked.Bound against a Saint Andrew’s cross in the middle of the room, placed strategically for him to see in the moonlight as he approached.
