He Saved His Mistress, Not His Wife

Dante POV

I didn't sleep.

I spent the entire night ransacking the house, tearing it apart room by room, desperate for a clue. A note. Anything.

But she had wiped her tracks.

She was smart. She was a doctor; she knew how to be surgical, how to cut ties with absolute precision.

I called my head of intelligence at 4:00 AM.

"Find her," I ordered.

It took them six hours.

"Boss..." The voice on the phone was hesitant. "She left the country."

"Where?"

"She flew to Geneva yesterday. Then she boarded a UN transport."

"Where, Damiano? Where did she go?"

"South Sudan, Boss. Juba."

The phone almost slipped from my hand.

South Sudan.

A war zone. Active conflict. Bombings. Militia raids.

She had gone to hell.

She had chosen hell over me.

"She is working as a Trauma Coordinator for an NGO," Damiano said, his voice low. "Her flight into the interior leaves in twelve hours from Geneva."

"Get the jet," I said.

I hung up.

I drove to the airfield like a madman. I broke every speed limit in the state.

I didn't care.

I had to stop her.

I had to tell her... what?

That I was sorry? That I was a fool? That I realized too late that she was the only real thing in my fake world?

I boarded the Gulfstream.

"Fly," I told the pilot. "Push the engines to the limit."

The flight felt like a lifetime.

I sat in the leather seat where she used to sit. I smelled the air, searching for a trace of her, but the cabin was sterile. Her perfume was gone.

I remembered the look on her face when I made her stand in the sun.

The pain.

She was sick. She told me she was sick, and I thought she was lying.

I was the liar.

We landed in Geneva.

I didn't wait for the stairs. I jumped to the tarmac.

I ran.

I ran through the terminal. People stared. The Ice Prince, running like a desperate teenager.

I reached the gate for the UN transport.

It was empty.

I grabbed a ground crew member by the vest.

"The flight to Juba! Where is it?"

He pointed to the window.

"It left early," he stammered. "To beat the storm."

I looked out the glass.

A grey C-130 was climbing into the sky. It was a speck against the clouds.

She was on it.

"Elena!" I screamed.

My voice echoed in the empty gate area.

She couldn't hear me.

I watched the plane disappear into the cloud layer.

My chest hurt. A physical, crushing pain.

I pressed my hand against the glass. It was cold.

Just like her eyes the last time she looked at me.

She was gone.

And I was the King of nothing.