Chapter 5 He's Pissed

Wakes pov

I woke up to the harsh glare of sunlight pouring through the thin curtains, my head pounding like I'd been hit with a hammer. The room smelled of cum and alcohol, nothing like the warmth of our main bedroom. For a few seconds, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to piece together how I ended up here.

The guest room.

Of all places.

Then the blurry flashes of last night came back. A bar, too much whiskey, and a girl whose name I never cared to learn. Her perfume had been heavy, clinging to my shirt, her laugh loud enough to drown out the noise in my head. A mistake, sure, but one I'd chosen. One I could shrug off, because sometimes you need to sink low just to breathe.

I'd taken the guest room deliberately when I got back, not because it was comfortable, but because it was far from Aloe. I didn't want the questions. The quiet accusations. The way her eyes could strip me bare without her saying a word. I thought a few hours of silence would be a blessing.

Turns out, it was a curse.

Dragging myself out of bed, I ran a hand through my messy hair and headed toward the main room expecting to find Aloe there. Maybe sitting with that stiff posture she gets when she's angry. Or ready to throw a sarcastic comment my way. Anything.

But the bed was untouched. The sheets are smooth. Her pillow was exactly where it always was, only without the faint smell of her hair.

Something inside me twisted.

I searched the living room but she wasn't there. The kitchen was empty too. Even the terrace, where she sometimes went to cool off, was deserted. Each empty room fueled my irritation until it was a steady burn in my chest.

I went straight to the security post. The guard was leaning against the desk, half-distracted by his phone.

"Have you seen Aloe since last night?" I asked, my voice low but sharp enough to make him straighten.

He shook his head. "No, sir. Not since yesterday evening."

I stared at him, waiting for more, but he avoided my eyes. My patience was already thin, and his evasiveness pushed it to the edge.

"Pull the footage," I ordered.

The place where all the CCTV recordings were kept, felt colder than usual. The hum of the equipment filled the air as I rewound through the hours, my eyes locked on the screens.

I scrolled back to the day she caught me with the blonde girl on our bed..mm but it was filled with cries so I skipped till where she pulled out her phone, glanced around, then made a call.

I leaned closer to the monitor, but the audio was nothing but scrambled static. My jaw clenched. Who was she talking to, without my permission, I'm sure she's with whoever that person was. My worst mistake was giving her a phone.

I inhaled loudly, then skipped to the next day... I wanted to fast forward to evening time after the security man saw her last ... but I paused when I saw her suitcase, half-open on the floor, clothes spilling out everywhere. A few dresses, jeans, and shirts and.. few stuff but I quickly skipped till when I saw her carrying her bag outside.

I clicked on the outside camera as the video played full screen. And there was a Black SVC which she entered after a little talk with whoever that person holding the door for her was.

My heartbeat slowed, heavy, like my body was bracing for something my mind didn't want to accept.

Was leaving me, of course she can't, she can't spend more than 48 hours without my help.

I sat there longer than I needed to, staring at the paused frame of her stepping into the car. The Aloe I knew or thought I knew would never vanish in the middle of the night without saying a word. And yet here was proof.

By the time I left the surveillance room, anger was everywhere around me, because I got inside the main building, I had my phone and dialed my Tech guy's digits.

"Heron," I said immediately he picked up, "I need you to trace something for me. Last night, Aloe made a call. I want to know who she called."

There was a short pause, before he said. "Give me the time and the phone number she used in making the call."

I told him the exact minute I'd seen her on the footage, then called her phone digits for him. I could hear his keyboard tapping in the background.

"Got it," he said after what felt like eternity. "The call came from Blake Matthew's personal apartment."

I still went.

"That's impossible."

"No, it's not," Heron replied. "That's what the logs show."

I shook my head. "No one goes to Blake's apartment, not without an invitation. He meets people at his villa, his penthouse, his mansion... but never that place."

Heron didn't argue. "All I know is what the system tells me."

I ended the call without another word, my grip tightening around the phone until the plastic creaked.

Blake Matthew, my fucking enemy. And Aloe had gone to him.

The thought alone was enough to make my blood feel like boiling tar. It wasn't the fact that she'd left but she fucking went to my enemy, of all places to go.

I stood there in the middle of the room, and made myself a promise... one I had no intention of breaking.

She could run to the ends of the earth. She could hide behind locked doors and powerful names.

But I would find her. Because as long as we didn't end with a signature on some divorce papers, she's still my legal wife, and nobody takes what belongs to me.

And as for Aloe... she hadn't seen the lengths I could go yet.... She's about to bring out the monster that created the monster in me.