It isn’t fair that I might.
Chapter 23 - Iosif
Close to nightfall, the buzz of my phone steals my attention from the surveillance footage of Viktor’s last known location.
It’s a bank notification alerting me to a transfer from the joint account I gifted to Janella in the prenup agreement.
She uses it, but who the hell’s account would shemovemoney to?
Realization carves into me.
I’m moving before I’ve fully processed it. My feet carry me down the hallway to the room Janella’s forgone for my bed the past week. What I’m bracing myself to find, I don’t know. When I throw open the door, my chest aches. The ache worsens as I tear through her things.
There’s only one reason she’d transfer money to a secret account.
“Fuck.” The word drips with the anguish that seizes me.
She’s going to leave me. She’s going to run away.
There’s a tremor in my hands as I pull up the full transaction history on my phone. I must’ve dismissed the notification before, wrapped up in spending time with Nadya before she went back home. Now, I can see Janella made another transfer five days ago.
I don’t have to consult any calendars to know it was the night she’d come home looking out of sorts, and I’d coaxed her into bed with me.
There’s only one person in the world who rattles her like that. And he wanted her to run away with him. He wanted them to get money and start over anew.
The clarity is devastating when it dawns on me.
She’s been so distant. She has been coming home later and later—and when she does, she swears she’s too gross and needs to have a shower, or has a headache and needs to lie down. When she lies against me, she won’t look at me. I don’t think she’s fully looked me in the eye in days.
I’m a fucking idiot, giving her space.
She’s going to use that space to leave me.
I haven’t thought of my father in years, but now, I remember how he used to say love makes men stupid. There’s a reason men go to war for it, and it isn’t ever a good one. It blinds them.
Is that what Janella has done to me?
All this time, I’ve thought of her opening my eyes. Has it just been the edges curling in on themselves amidst the fire, concealing the fine print? The man I was six months ago would’ve been in his car by now.
It would cost me nothing to yank answers from Cillian Driscoll himself, one nail at a time. He’d fold like a cheap suit. And then, I’d deal with her. I’d drag her out of that quaint fucking café and force a fucking explanation out of her. Make her tell me why she made me need her. If she was going to flee all along, why make my family care about her if she could sell them out like it was nothing?
That man wasn’t in love with her.
I’m no longer that man.
Where the fuck does that leave me?
My phone is still in my hand, and it automatically pulls up Janella’s number. My thumb hovers over the button. I want to call her and scream myself hoarse.
Instead, I call Ivan.
“Boss?”
“I need more equipment. Not just imaging; I want to be able to hear like she’s talking right into my fucking ear.”
“She?” Ivan is perplexed.
I’m just astonished my voice doesn’t waver. “I want it installed all over my wife’s café, her car, and the penthouse before the end of the day.”
