Chapter 11
When you wake up alone every day, you don’t even think about it. Your routine is locked in place; you get up, shower, have breakfast, go to work, live your life. But when you’ve slept next to someone every night for weeks or months—or years, even—it’s nothing short of devastating to roll over in the morning and find nothing waiting there but the cold, empty bed instead of the body of your lover, warm and inviting.
I tried to avoid the whole thing by spending the night on the couch. The last time Tori had “moved out” and into the guest room, I’d slept like shit in our bed. But it was no use. In fact, I probably slept worse this time around. Because she wasn’t just down the hall.
She was gone.
Every part of me was exhausted the next morning. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I’d spent hours last night pacing the living room with my phone in one hand and a black coffee in the other, running through my contacts one by one as I tried to find my wife. From Tori’s dad to my brother Luca and my sister Emzee, all of Tori’s girlfriends, even my former nemesis Gavin Chase. I’d reached out to everyone. Nobody knew where she was. I’d had to leave messages for both Tori’s father and Gavin, but I was just covering my bases at that point.
It seemed unlikely that she’d gone back to the senator’s mansion. Tori hadn’t spoken to her father since the day she’d stormed into his office begging for his help in bringing KZ Modeling’s sex trafficking activities to justice. I’d had to stand there and watch silently as he both admitted his complicity and flat out refused to help—and she’d told him he wasn’t her father anymore. So it was hard, if not impossible, to imagine her running back to her childhood home with her tail between her legs.
I also doubted she was with Gavin. Initially he’d seemed the most likely person she’d go stay with, but Bruce had been posted outside Gavin’s apartment since last night and his surveillance report thus far hadn’t turned up anything out of the ordinary. Tori was also smart enough to know that Gavin’s would be the first place I’d look.
After instructing Bruce to keep an eye out on the UChicago campus, I brewed a fresh pot of coffee, choked down some toast, and sat at the kitchen table with my head in my hands. Tori wouldn’t skip town this close to finals, would she? Her education was everything to her. I couldn’t imagine her dropping out of school. In fact, getting her degree was the whole reason she’d agreed to our marriage in the first place. And the tuition was already paid for. She’d have to show up in class eventually. At least, that’s what I told myself. It was my only consolation.
But I couldn’t help the panic edging into my thoughts. This was exactly like what had happened with Anja all those years ago. One day I was in love, and the next? The woman I loved had disappeared. Gone without a trace. I dialed her cell for the tenth time, but to no avail.
As much as I loathed to do so, I finally admitted to myself that it was time to call my father. It was getting more and more difficult to believe that he wasn’t involved.
When I confronted him, though, he just laughed at me.
“She really is quite clever,” he cackled. “Knows when she’s no longer wanted, and removes herself from the equation before anyone else could! That’s called self-preservation, kid. I’ll bet she learned it from her old man. You should try it yourself sometime.”
If he had been standing in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself. I would have knocked him to the floor. Instead, I hung up on him and took several deep breaths. This was no time to let my temper get the better of me. I had to focus on Tori.
Checking my watch, I realized Tori’s first class of the day was letting out in less than thirty minutes. Bruce was posted outside the building on campus, and hadn’t confirmed seeing her enter, but I was going to stand right outside that classroom door and wait for her. She couldn’t hide out in a lecture hall all day.
Guilt tore me up on the ride over to UChicago. As worried as I was about Tori, the last thing I wanted to do was infringe on her privacy. But she wasn’t picking up her phone, and I had no idea where she was or if she was safe. I just had to know she was okay. I wouldn’t force myself on her. In fact, if she didn’t want to talk to me, I’d let her walk away. Maybe seeing me in person would give her second thoughts about leaving, though.
The whole thing had felt so abrupt, so unexpected. When I’d seen Tori last she’d seemed shaken by the whole Anja and Max situation, but understanding as well. I’d felt grateful to have a wife who realized that what I was going through was complicated and confusing.
Now, it seemed like maybe I’d read her reaction all wrong.
One minute she was here and we were committed to navigating this hurdle together; the next moment, she was gone.
I had already gone through a life-altering loss like this before, with Anja. I couldn’t do it again with Tori. Especially since things were different now. The love I’d felt for Anja when I was seventeen—practically a kid—was nothing compared to how I felt for Tori. She understood me like no one else did. I had believed we were building a life together. That we were a team.
Yet the only thing she had left behind were the diamond earrings. A symbol of the fact that we were meant to be together.
I’d seen them in the bedroom before I left for UChicago, so I had slipped them into my pocket. My fingers were wrapped around them now, even as my driver was pulling up to the curb at East 59thStreet.
“Find a parking spot nearby,” I told him as I stepped out of the car and into the cold air. “I’ll call when I need you.”
“You got it, boss,” he said before driving off.
Heading across the quad, my Italian loafers slipping a little in the mud, I saw Bruce and gave him a nod. He was posted exactly halfway between the Harper Library, Tori’s favorite study haunt, and Stuart Hall, where her first class of the day was held. I’d told him to keep an eye on all the doors and call me if he saw her.
If she didn’t walk out of that lecture hall when class got out in ten minutes, maybe I could speak to one of her school friends and try to find out if someone—anyone—had finally heard from my wife. Or if they had any more suggestions or theories on where she might have gone.
I wasn’t entirely comfortable violating her privacy like this, but she had to know me well enough to realize that since I hadn’t heard from her, I’d be doing everything I could to find her. If she wanted to be left alone, she could have easily called or texted me to say so.
As I paced in the hall outside the classroom, my entire body was practically vibrating with anxiety and stress. Admittedly, some anger as well. Of all people, Tori should know exactly what Anja’s disappearance had done to me. How it had affected me. Changed me.
Why would she put me through the same thing again?
Even though my father had insisted he wasn’t involved, that he’d said nothing to her, I could easily imagine him poisoning her thoughts. Telling Tori she was better off leaving, that I was divorcing her to be with Anja. Maybe even offering her money. If I ever found out that was the case, I’d make him sorry. Sorrier than he’d be when I put his ass behind bars for trafficking.
The thought of me choosing Anja over Tori, of course, was absurd. Tori was my wife, my family—the woman I had chosen to spend my life with. Come hell or high water, or ex-girlfriends, or even children I never knew I’d had. We’d find a way through.
