Chapter 163
LEVI
The memory slammed into me again and again, sharp and merciless no matter how hard I tried to push it away, dragging my heart down with it every time. What if Jenna hadn’t called me? What if she hadn’t told me to check the restroom when she saw me searching?
I had been tearing through that party like a madman, hunting for Isabella. One moment she was there—sitting, quiet, in my line of sight—and the next she was gone. My father’s voice had caught me, weighed down with talk of property he wanted to buy, his friend chiming in with figures and prospects. I let myself get pulled into the conversation for a single breath, a single minute, though my eyes had been tracking Isabella across the room. And then, when I looked back, she wasn’t there.
The space she had occupied was empty. My gut clenched. I scanned the crowd again, frantic, searching every face, every shadow. That was when I saw the waiter by the desk, restless, fidgeting, looking anywhere but where he stood.
Panic clawed at my chest like fire, choking me as I stormed through the hall, calling her name in my head though my lips stayed pressed shut.
And then Jenna appeared. Out of nowhere. “Did you check the restroom?” she asked.
The words had barely left her mouth before I was snapping at the nearest server, demanding to know where the restroom was. The moment he pointed, I strode toward it, Jenna trailing on my heels. I didn’t know why she followed, didn’t care to ask. My focus was singular—finding my wife. Making sure she was safe.
I exhaled hard as the image forced its way into my mind—the restroom, Isabella… that bastard. My heart thrashed violently, my head threatening to split apart. Fuck.
I shut my eyes, desperate to erase it in the darkness.
But then another image twisted the knife deeper, forcing them open. The dress. That damned dress.
Was it the dress?
I had wanted her to shine, to stand at my side like the queen she was meant to be. I told myself it was pride—that I wanted the world to see her as I did. But now—now I wondered if I had set her in Julian’s path like prey before a predator.
No.
The blame wasn’t mine. It wasn’t the dress. It wasn’t Isabella. It was his. His hands. His sickness. Julian carried the full weight of what had happened. Him and him alone. And yet it was us who bore the aftermath—the pain, the fury, the scars he left behind.
It wasn’t fair. And I am not a man who would ever be content playing the victim.
I wanted him dead. Wanted it with every breath in me. And that desire burned even hotter when I finally gathered the courage to look at her. Isabella’s tears slipped silently down her face, each one cutting into my heart like a blade.
She didn’t sob. She didn’t cry aloud. She only sat there, quiet and broken, as though even her grief had been stolen. And that silence was worse than any scream. It weighed on me like a stone.
I shifted closer, careful but sure, giving her enough space to breathe and enough of me to lean on if she wanted. Then I pulled her gently against me. Her head rested on my shoulder, her trembling body fitting into the curve of mine as though she had always belonged there. My hand slid through her disheveled hair in a gesture so unfamiliar it almost startled me—an attempt at comfort, at warmth, though all I felt was the cold bite of rage. The chill in the car didn’t help.
But she didn’t resist. She sank into me, drank me in as though my presence was the only thing holding her together.
For a moment, in that quiet car, it was just us. The city lights blurred past the tinted windows, the world outside dissolving into nothing. All that remained was the girl clinging to me as though I were her last anchor, and the storm raging inside me that wanted to burn the earth for her sake.
Her fingers tightened around my arm, desperate, refusing to let go. And I held her tighter, vowing silently, fiercely, that I would never let anyone touch her again.
Not while I still drew breath.
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