Chapter Thirty-Nine

Lucas was going out of his damn mind. Nowhere to be found. Kara was gone like a fucking mirage. How on earth had she managed to disappear so quickly? He sighed and leaned his head back against the elevator.
They’d combed the entire town and a little outside it, but came up with not even a single trace.
“She ran from me,” he murmured roughly, pushing his messy hair back with a hand.
Raphaël loosened his tie. “She might have… or she might not have. Kara is probably used to doing things her way and she might have just decided to leave.”
The doors glided open and they strolled easily out of the elevator into Raphaël’s gleaming penthouse.
Justin appeared, twice as pale as they’d left him.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
Lucas said nothing, only walked with sole purpose and disappeared into Kara’s make-shift studio.
Justin turned away from the closed office door with a grim expression.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
Raphaël walked over to the kitchen counter and poured himself a glass of whiskey.
“Girl’s gone, Justin.”
Justin shook his head from side to side. “But she was just here this morning, Mr Sauvage. I remember perfectly! She was suffering from jet-lag. Did you check under every park bench? She might’ve just fallen asleep on the…”
“We left here before noon and it is now nine pm…” said Raphaël with a raised eyebrow. “There’s nowhere we didn’t check.”

“I’m sorry,” Justin said with slumped shoulders. “I should have taken better care of her.”
Raphaël nodded. “Yes, maybe you should have, but don’t worry about it. Lucas is going out of his mind so I put someone on it. They’ll find her by morning.”
Risking a step forward, Justin glanced cautiously at Raphaël. “Well… what if she doesn’t want to be found?”
Raphaël glanced up at the closed office door and thought that it was most likely Lucas would lose the rest of his mind and everything would go to shit if Kara refused to be found, but he only shrugged. “If she insists on being left alone then… we’d have to respect it.”
When Justin remained quiet, Raphaël dug out his phone with the intention of calling Isabelle and filling her in on the most recent occurrences.
Before he could dial, however, the office door swung open and Lucas stalked out, his hands full of a neat stack of Kara’s art.
Justin hesitated. “Uh… should you be taking that, Sir? What if she returns and wants her art?”
Lucas halted and turned a frosty glare in his direction. “If she returns and she wants her art, she knows where to find me. She can come and get it.”
Without another word, he walked over to the elevator and Raphaël, still with his glass of whiskey, joined him.
When the two were settled in the back of a car they were both too antsy drive and Luc had thrown back Raphaël’s whiskey, Raphaël finally turned to him.
“So, resorted to stealing drawings now, have you?” he questioned neutrally.
Luc’s jaw clenched. “I have the one at home… I’m keeping these ones too, Raphaël,” he defended, staring down at a drawing of himself.
Dark eyes and frowning brows gave a menacing air to the image and Lucas wondered how many times Kara had seen that side of him. The rough, intimidating man that made everything go his way or go fucking home.
How many times had he yelled at her and rough handled her? Lucas sighed. Clearly, she’d seen him that way enough times to perfectly draw him in his angry state.
God, if she hated him, Lucas would count it as less than what he deserved. But she couldn’t possibly hate him still, could she? After turning him into such exquisite art, could she hate him, really?
He stared out of the window.
Where on earth could she have gone? He knew that she was probably safe because New York had absolutely nothing on Rein, but still… she wasn’t with him.
Never had he thought it possible to have such a profound physical ache from missing another human being. Even after he’d lost his mother, he’d simply rebelled under François’s care until the hurt of her loss faded.
But he hadn’t ached this way. Nothing seemed right anymore. It was as if the world was suddenly standing on its ear. Work was about as inviting as a graveyard and every single one of his three houses seemed like a ghost town.
Especially the one he’d brought Kara to. Every time he’d walked through the hallways, he could have sworn he could smell her scent. Sometimes, it was as though he could hear her laughing, her bubbly giggle carrying through the bedroom when he stood before the mirror and stared at his deteriorating self.
Worse was whenever he’d attempted to lay on the bed he’d taken her in.
In the end, Lucas had given up and moved back into his home for the time being. The first house he’d bought with his own money. At first it had been an act of defiance against François, but the place turned out to be more than that. It carried an air of stability and warmth. He’d dreamed of taking his mother there. Surprising her with a brand new home and reveling in the praise she’d shower on him. But she was dead, so he’d lived there alone.
And for the first time, Lucas found himself wanting to take someone else home.
He didn’t let himself entertain the worry that Kara might not like the place because, she wasn’t there in the first place.
It made no difference. She was gone.
The flight back home didn’t seem as urgent as when they had been going to the states and although Raphaël busied himself with paperwork to prepare for the coming week at work, Lucas only let himself study every detail in the art of every portrait Kara made of him.
He found slight differences between himself and her drawings. In her art, she had made him nearly flawless… perfect to every eye. He looked at the art and found the perfection she saw in him intimidating. What if he never could be what she saw? He was flawed, he knew that and Kara had to know too, but by her art, it was easy to tell that in her heart, she still saw him as perfect.
The thought made the blood rush in his veins.
If only he could find her. He’d be so damn perfect for her, he’d be that and everything else that she wanted him to be. She deserved that at least.
If she loved him… then, by God, he’d let her have all of him and more. He’d give her the world.
If he could only find her.
They arrived in France at about three thirty in the morning and were driven back to Raphaël’s house, Lucas letting himself be convinced that he was too jet-lagged and tired to drive all the way to his place.
The house was quiet when they entered and Luc disappeared up to his room, muttering in the darkness as he went.
Raphaël looked quizzically after him, wondering if Lucas knew he’d left all his work documents and his bag in the car, carrying only the art pieces into the house.
With a shrug, he silently went up his staircase to surprise his wife in bed.
Lucas walked into his usual room and turned on the light.
It was the way it always was whenever he stayed over. Pristine and luxurious. But Luc wouldn’t have noticed the luxury of the room if a harping angel had stood on the gleaming headboard and pointed down at the expensive bed covers.
Walking slowly over to the empty dresser table top, he set Kara’s art down on it.
Luc found himself staring again and was struck anew at how talented she was.
He loved the hell out of every single piece she’d done on him. He’d get each one canvas framed and would hang them up. Not in the ballroom of his biggest house or in his dining rooms where nosy rich people would ask to buy them, but in his home. In the living room and his bedroom and the kitchen and goddamn everywhere.
He just wanted a touch of Kara everywhere in his house.
With a sigh after that thought, Luc shed off his clothes and rolled into the cold empty bed.
*****************
The sun was rising over the ranch and the early morning sounds rang harmoniously through the ranch. Very oblivious to the soothing neighs of horses and the buzz of the ranch, someone was in a great hurry to get away from the lot.
Kai dragged a bag over to his small bed and threw in as many of his clothes as he could fit. He had to get away and he had to get away now. If they caught him, he’d finish off worse than what Markos Vilmont had threatened him with.
Kai couldn’t believe it had come to this. He’d been scared when he’d failed to get Kara for Vilmont, scared that Vilmont would gut him like a chicken, but when the man didn’t, he’d assumed that all was forgiven.
Apparently not. The phone call had come a few hours before sunrise. Vilmont got caught by Lucas Cartier and had gotten the shit beaten out of him before they gave him to the cops.
That wasn’t all, the caller had said. Lucas was after every single person who had been involved with what had happened to Kara. He wanted blood, the caller had told Kai. They’d said that it was now every man for himself and that Kai could forget about the payment they owed him since he hadn’t gotten the job done in the first place.
Panicked, Kai rushed to put on his shoes. He didn’t care about the money anymore. The guilt of what he’d nearly done to Kara… and now the fear of getting caught by Lucas Cartier was eating him up from the inside.
He was just reaching for his bag when the door that separated his quarters from the outside rattled with a knock and then swung open with no warning.
François’s shoulders filled the doorway and Kai thought he’d crap himself.
“Hep, Kai, qu’est-ce qui se passe avec toi?” questioned François. “Why aren’t you working?”
Kai gulped and tried his best to hide the bag behind his back. “I'll be right there, patron.”
François shot him a concerned look, but nodded. As he turned to leave, his eye caught sight of the bag Kai seemed to be nearly sitting on and he turned back with raised eyebrows.
“What’s…” The sentenced hung unfinished in the air as François’s cellphone rang.
He glanced down at his pocket before pulling off his thick right hand glove and digging out the device.
He brought it to his ear. “Oui?”
Kai stood very still, studying François’s face as he listened to the person the phone.
When François’s gaze suddenly settled on Kai’s face with chilling condemnation, Kai knew it was over.
“Really?” said François. “Are your men sure, Raphaël?”
Kai nearly whimpered from fear.
François’s jaw clenched. “Very well… We’re on our way.”
The moment François began to hang up, Kai wasted not a second further, dashing across the room, making a beeline for the door.
He didn’t get far.
François’s firm grip held him back by the collar and Kai turned back to see nothing but disgust in his former idol’s eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going?”