The Unwanted Wife's Return (Ex-Husband Wants Me Back) novel Chapter 213

Standing in the Dark

ELIJAH’S POV:

The fear that moved through me was not the paralysing kind. It was the sharp and clarifying kind, the sort that burns off everything that is not essential and leaves you with only the things that actually matter. And the thing that mattered was this: whoever this was had now made two very clear statements. They had burned what she loved most to hurt her and they had stood outside in the dark watching her rebuild it.

They were not finished.

I picked up my phone and called Kojo.

He answered in two rings. “Morning,” he said.

“I need the security detail on my wife doubled by this evening,” I said. “Not visible. She will not accept visible. I need it quiet and I need it thorough and I need it in place before she leaves the house today. And I need you to start pulling everything you have on Frerus connections to the fashion industry in this city. Investors, competitors, anyone who has had dealings in Frerus in the last eight years. Anyone.”

“Understood,” Kojo said. There was a brief pause. “Elijah. Is she safe right now?”

“She is upstairs getting dressed,” I said. “She is safe right now. I am going to make sure she stays that way.”

I put the phone down and looked at the photograph again.

Whoever you are, I thought, you have made a mistake. Not because I am frightening or because I have money, though both of those things are true. You have made a mistake because you underestimated what it means to come for someone who has people who love her.

And the people who love Hannah Martinez do not back down.

Not now. Not ever.

Because thirty days or not, this was not going to wait any longer.

Before I started the next call I did one more thing.

I took out my phone and opened our messages. Scrolled up past the “five more minutes” exchange from the warehouse Past the pictures she had sent me of the sketches on the wall. Past the string of messages from the beach house before everything changed, the ones full of laughter and ease and that particular lightness that a few days away from real life gives you.

I found a photo she had sent me about three weeks after we got married the second time. It was a picture of her feet in the sand at the beach house with the ocean in the background and all it said underneath was: this is the happiest I have ever been.

I looked at it for a moment.

Then I put the phone face down on the desk, straightened my jacket, and made the call.