Chapter 177 - 0177: Don’t Leave A Single Piece Of That House Standing

Chapter 177: Chapter 0177: Don’t Leave A Single Piece Of That House Standing

Jaxx’s Point Of View

The hum of the laptop faded into silence, the only sound left in the room, until the glow of the screen dimmed as I shut it closed with a sharp click. My fingers rubbed at my temples, tension coiling there like a live wire, thrumming with the aftermath of hours spent buried in spreadsheets and contracts, in numbers and deals that meant nothing when compared to the gnawing unease in my gut.

Every figure had blurred into meaninglessness an hour ago, but I’d kept working anyway, because work was the only thing that kept my mind from spiraling somewhere far darker. It was a poor substitute for peace, but it was the only one I had.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly, mocking me. 4:47 PM. "Whoa." My voice came out a low mutter, rough from disuse, as I realized just how long I’d been glued to that damn chair. "It’s been this long?"

I stood, stretching the kinks out of my back, my muscles protesting after hours of being hunched over the desk. The penthouse was bathed in the heavy, golden hue of the setting sun, light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and painting the sleek Italian leather and polished concrete in warm, amber tones. But it didn’t feel warm.

It felt empty. Cold. Like the whole place was holding its breath, waiting for someone to fill the silence. I’d built this space to be a fortress, a monument to everything I’d clawed my way toward, and yet without her in it, it felt like nothing more than an expensive, hollow shell.

Every square foot of marble and glass had been chosen to intimidate, to impress, to prove something to a world that had once looked at me like I was nothing. None of it mattered anymore. Not without Elena moving through it, filling it with her laughter, her stubbornness, her light.

Elena.

Her name flashed through my mind like a jolt of raw electricity, sharp and unexpected, sending a surge of something hot and dangerously restless through my veins. I paused, my hand hovering over the glass desk, my fingers itching to dial her number. She should’ve been out of that godforsaken house by now.

Hours had passed since she’d stormed out of mine, her dark eyes burning with that fierce, uncontrollable fire I couldn’t get enough of, her voice sharp with defiance even as her skin flushed under my gaze. She should’ve packed her things hours ago, slammed the door on Graham’s pathetic, sniveling excuses, and been long gone by now.

She was supposed to be free. She was supposed to be on her way back to me. I’d replayed that goodbye a dozen times already, the way her fingers had trembled slightly even as her chin lifted in defiance, the way she’d looked at me like she was daring herself to walk away and daring me to stop her.

I could still smell her perfume lingering faintly on my collar, a ghost of her presence that refused to let me think of anything else.

So where the hell was she?

I stood motionless in the middle of the quiet room, amber light casting long, dark shadows across the floor. My heart beat a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs, each thud laced with a growing, ugly sensation I hated more than anything else in the world: helplessness.

I wasn’t a man who waited. I didn’t sit in empty rooms wondering what other people were doing. I took what was mine, calculated every risk, and controlled every single outcome.

But Elena was the one volatile element in my entire structured universe. She was a wild spark, unpredictable, stubborn to a fault, and far too noble for her own good, and it was precisely that unpredictability, that refusal to bend to my will like everyone else in my life did, that had hooked me from the very beginning. I had built empires on certainty, and yet this one woman had made a fool of every instinct I possessed.

My brows furrowed, a slow, simmering irritation building in my chest. Was she avoiding me? After everything, after the way she’d looked at me this morning, after the way she’d let me touch her, taste her, promise her things I fully intended to deliver, was she really going to play this game?

Fuck that.

Did she change her mind? The thought crept into the corners of my mind like black ink spreading on paper, cold and vile. Did that spineless bastard somehow convince her to stay? Did he beg on his knees, pull on her soft, forgiving heart, and manipulate her into giving him another chance?

My jaw clenched so hard a muscle in my cheek twitched violently. No. Not a fucking chance. I knew the look in her eyes when she left me this morning. She was done with Graham Sinclair. She wouldn’t go back on her word. I’d watched her fight her way free of that gilded prison one furious, tearful admission at a time, and I refused to believe all of it had been for nothing. I had held her while she cried through the worst of those memories, and I would burn the world down before I let anyone drag her back into them.

Unless he didn’t give her a choice.

The thought hit me like a physical punch to the gut, making the blood in my ears roar. Graham was weak, arrogant, and desperate. A cornered, desperate coward with a fragile ego was capable of doing anything when his precious world started crumbling around him.

If he realized she was truly walking away, if he realized he couldn’t control her anymore, there was no telling what lengths he might go to in order to keep her.

I grabbed the phone off the desk, my thumb hovering over her contact before I pressed call. The phone went up to my ear. The heavy ring echoed once, twice, three times. Nothing.

"Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system..."

I ended the call with a sharp flick of my thumb, jaw clenching tightly. I tried again. One ring. Two rings. Three. Voicemail.

I called a third time. A fourth.

Nothing. No answer. No text message. No fucking sign of life.

My brows furrowed deeper, a slow, simmering irritation building in my chest, rapidly turning into an explosive rage. Was she avoiding me? Was her phone dead? Or was she currently sitting in that mansion, trapped in some dramatic, drawn-out confrontation while I sat here like an idiot, twiddling my thumbs? Each passing minute felt like a small betrayal, though I couldn’t have said by whom.

Fuck that.

I scrolled through my contacts with ruthless speed, my fingers stabbing at Marcus’s name before I could second-guess myself. Marcus was my top operative, a shadow who could blend into any background without leaving a single trace. I’d placed him outside the Vance estate the second Elena left my penthouse, explicitly instructed to track her movements and make sure she walked out of that gate safely.

It was a precaution I hadn’t wanted to need, but some part of me had known, even then, that Graham wouldn’t let her go without a fight. I trusted Marcus with my life; I had never once had to trust him with hers, and that distinction gnawed at me more than I cared to admit.

The phone rang once, twice, before his voice came through, calm, professional, completely devoid of emotion.

"Sir."

"Marcus." My voice came out sharp, clipped, dark irritation bleeding into every syllable. "Has she left the house?"

A short pause stretched across the line. The subtle sound of a car engine idled quietly in the background, the faint rustle of heavy tactical fabric shifting as he adjusted his position.

"No, sir." His voice remained firm, unwavering. "It’s been hours. She hasn’t stepped out."

My grip tightened on the frame of the phone, knuckles turning stark white. "You’re sure? She didn’t slip out through a back exit or a secondary vehicle?"

"Absolutely, sir. No hesitation, no doubt," Marcus replied, his tone smooth as ice. "I’ve had eyes on every vehicle gate and pedestrian exit surrounding the perimeter the whole time. I have secondary thermal feeds covering the rear garden walls. No one has left the main estate since 1:00 PM. She hasn’t shown up."

A heavy beat of silence stretched between us.

My mind raced, dark, bloody scenarios flashing through my head like a slideshow of worst-case situations. Graham putting his hands on her. Graham locking the doors. Her screaming in a locked room while his security guarded the halls. Her crying. Her hurting. Her trapped under the thumb of that arrogant, pathetic family. Each image cut deeper than the last, carving a hollow, desperate ache into my chest that no amount of control could smooth over.

Or worse, her choosing to stay behind to fix a marriage that was already dead in the dirt.

The thought sent a jolt of something hot, ugly, and lethal through my veins, twisting my gut into tight, painful knots. No. That wasn’t happening. She was mine. She belonged with me, whether she was ready to admit it to herself or not. She knew it. I knew it. And if Graham was stupid enough to think he could hold onto what was mine, I was going to tear his entire world down brick by bloody brick, and I would enjoy every second of watching it crumble.

"Sir?" Marcus’s voice cut through the dark storm brewing in my head, grounding me. "Should I breach the perimeter?"

I exhaled sharply through my nose, my free hand running through my dark hair, gripping the roots tightly as if I could tear the bloody answers directly out of my skull.

"Stay put." My voice came out as a low, dangerous growl. "Don’t move your position yet. I don’t want a public scene on the street unless I give the word."

I began pacing the length of the penthouse, my leather boots thudding heavily against the floorboards, my mind calculating timelines, security protocols, and tactical entries. "And Marcus?"

"Sir?"

"If she so much as steps one foot outside that house..." My voice dropped into a register that was deathly quiet, deadly serious. "You call me. Immediately. You don’t lose eyes on her for a single second."

"Understood, sir. I’m on it."

I ended the call, my thumb jabbing at the glass screen with far more force than necessary. The phone clattered onto the desk as I dropped it. The absolute silence of the vast, sunlit room pressed in on me again, heavy, suffocating, taunting my patience.

Fuck.

I grabbed the phone again, fingers flying over the screen as I pulled up Elena’s number one last time.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

"Your call has been forwarded..."

A violent growl tore from my throat, raw and utterly frustrated. I slammed the phone down onto the hardwood desk, the heavy glass of the table vibrating from the impact as my chest heaved. What the fuck was going on in that house? Why wasn’t she answering? Why hadn’t she left four hours ago like she said she would?

The unanswered questions pounded through my skull like a sledgehammer, driving me dangerously close to the edge. I needed answers. I needed to see her face, to know she was breathing, to feel the heat of her skin, to hear her sharp, beautiful voice, even if she was yelling at me, even if she was telling me to go to hell.

I just needed to know she was safe. The thought of anything else, of her hurt or afraid or crying somewhere I couldn’t reach her, was enough to make the walls of my own chest feel too tight to breathe inside.

The phone felt impossibly heavy in my palm as I picked it back up, the weight of my growing paranoia pressing down on my chest like an iron plate. My thumb hovered over the screen, my contact list blurring as my mind mapped out the layout of the Sinclair property: the security cameras, the guard posts, the electronic gate locks, the snobbish staff.

The imagery of Graham laying hands on her made a dark, ravenous animal break free behind my ribs, gnashing its teeth, demanding blood. I had spent years learning to cage that part of myself, to wear civility like a well-tailored suit. For Elena, I would happily let it loose.

I exhaled a long, sharp breath, my decision made. My fingers stabbed at the screen before I could stop myself.

The line rang once, twice, before Roman’s voice boomed through the speaker, loud and completely unapologetic, echoing off the high ceilings of my penthouse.

"Hey, boss."

"Are you there, Roman?" My voice came out low, deadly controlled, though the razor-sharp edge was impossible to hide, the kind of quiet, lethal tone that signaled I was in no fucking mood for games.

"Of course, dude." Roman’s booming laugh echoed through the receiver, easy and mocking, like he’d been sitting by his phone waiting for this exact call, finding my rare loss of composure endlessly entertaining. "You know I’m always ready when you need me. Especially when it involves your woman."

I ignored the tease, my jaw clenching so hard my teeth ached. "He did as predicted." My voice came out flat, final, the words hanging in the air like a bloody death sentence. "You know what to do, Roman."

A brief beat of silence followed over the line. The heavy background noise of Roman’s tactical garage, the clinking of heavy metal, the hum of modified engines, seemed to fade away entirely.

"I don’t need to be told twice, boss." Roman’s tone shifted instantly, sobering, all the casual humor dropping away as if it had never existed in the first place, replaced by the ice-cold precision of a seasoned predator. "Consider it done. I’ll have the team rolling in five minutes."

"Roman," I added, my voice dropping an octave lower, cold enough to freeze the air in the room, "if he touched a single hair on her head, don’t leave a single piece of that house standing."

"Understood, Jaxx."