Chapter 166 - 165 Escape
*** ALISTAIR ***
The violent trembling slowly drains out of her.
I hold Emily firmly against my chest, anchoring her to the physical world while the phantom terrors of her nightmare burn themselves out. My hand rests against the back of her head, my fingers tangled in her dark hair. Her jagged, shallow breaths gradually deepen into a steady rhythm. The freezing, terrified sweat on her skin begins to dry in the cool air conditioning of the master bedroom.
She blinks. Her dark eyes, previously wide and completely unseeing, finally focus on the fabric of my tailored suit jacket.
Awareness hits her like a splash of ice water. The absolute, raw vulnerability of the moment shatters instantly.
Emily pushes her hands flat against my chest and creates physical distance between us. Her movements are entirely rigid. She doesn’t look me in the eye. The fierce, uncompromising walls she uses to survive slam back into place with deafening speed. She gathers the silver silk duvet, pulling the thick fabric defensively up to her chin.
"Thank you," Emily says. Her voice is completely stripped of emotion, hollow and deliberately flat.
She turns her back to me, sliding down against the mattress until she is completely buried under the covers. She faces the large glass windows, presenting me with a solid, unmoving wall of silver silk. The message is entirely clear. The moment of weakness is over, and the conversation is permanently closed.
I remain on the edge of the mattress for a long, quiet minute. My hands feel strangely empty. I stare at the subtle rise and fall of the duvet.
I want to demand answers. I want to know exactly what put that look of absolute, soul-crushing terror onto her face. I want the names of the people responsible for making her scream in the dark. But pushing her right now is a severe tactical error. Forcing a survivor to speak before they are ready only forces them to build their defensive walls higher. I will not interrogate her in her own bed.
I stand up. The springs of the mattress shift silently.
I walk across the plush gray carpet and step into the massive walk-in closet. I pull the heavy wooden door shut, the metal latch clicking quietly into place, sealing me off from the main bedroom. The air in here smells strongly of cedar wood and my own bergamot cologne.
I reach into my suit jacket and pull out my encrypted mobile phone. I dial a secure, direct line.
The call connects on the first ring.
"Mr. Wolfe," Leo’s deep, professional voice sounds through the speaker.
"Give me a complete operational report," I command, keeping my voice low so the sound doesn’t bleed through the wooden door. "I was in Aurora City for a week. Tell me exactly what my wife has been doing."
"She is establishing a commercial enterprise," Leo reports immediately, his tone clipped and precise. "A premium beverage and collectible art gallery located in the Vanguard Medical University district. She finalized a business partnership with three civilian associates. Zoe, a former cafe manager handling procurement. Fiona, a high school student assisting with physical labor. And Jessie, an art student drafting the architectural blueprints."
I process the names. Three ordinary girls. They possess absolutely no corporate leverage and pose zero physical threat. They are completely irrelevant to the immediate security perimeter.
"Go on," I instruct.
"She secured a thirteen-hundred-square-foot double-decker property for the storefront today," Leo continues. A rare, distinct note of tension enters the veteran operative’s voice. "The legal landlord of the building is Silas Hunt."
My jaw tightens. The name registers immediately in the mental database I keep of the Vanguard City underworld. Silas Hunt is a mid-level syndicate boss. He runs extortion rackets and illegal gambling dens in the southern commercial sector. He is a violent, unpredictable street dog.
"Why is she doing business with a syndicate boss?" I ask, my voice dropping into a lethal, icy register.
"She leveraged his mother’s cardiac surgery to extort a severely reduced monthly rent," Leo explains. "The negotiation took place this afternoon at the Lumiere restaurant. The interaction was highly volatile."
Leo pauses for a fraction of a second, clearly bracing himself to deliver the rest of the briefing.
"During the meeting, Silas Hunt explicitly insulted you," Leo reports smoothly, though the underlying disgust in his voice is clear. "He operates under the assumption that I am Emily’s husband. He mocked you directly. He called you a coward who hides behind hired security."
I stare at the row of expensive Italian leather shoes lining the closet shelf. A cold, dark amusement flickers briefly in my chest before dying out entirely. A street thug calling the CEO of the Wolfe empire a coward is a pathetic joke.
"He then demanded that Emily sign divorce papers," Leo finishes. "He proposed to her in the private dining room. He promised her his entire criminal fortune if she left you for him."
The amusement vanishes.
A sudden, overwhelming surge of pure, unadulterated violence rips through my bloodstream. The heavy plastic casing of the encrypted phone groans under the sudden, crushing pressure of my grip. My knuckles turn stark white.
Silas Hunt looked at my wife, insulted my name, and demanded she get into his bed.
The urge to execute him is massive and immediate. I could dial Warren Sinclair right now. I could order the Azure Syndicate to drag Silas out of his flashy Mercedes, drag him into a dark alley, and completely dismantle his entire criminal operation before the sun rises. I want to shatter the man’s fragile, arrogant ego and leave him bleeding on the concrete.
I take a slow, rigid breath, forcing the violent instinct back into a locked box.
I cannot touch him. Not yet.
If Silas Hunt suddenly disappears or suffers a brutal syndicate hit the very same night he disrespects Emily, she will immediately connect the dots. Emily is incredibly perceptive. She knows I have wealth, but she currently believes I am just a legitimate corporate executive. She does not know about my shadow war against the Obsidian Triangle. She does not know I operate under the alias Adolf to manipulate the criminal underworld.
If she realizes her husband commands actual assassins, her fragile trust in me will evaporate completely. She will view me as a monster.
I loosen my grip on the phone. Silas Hunt will die, but the execution must be delayed and perfectly insulated from the Wolfe family name.
"Stand down regarding Silas Hunt," I order Leo, my voice completely devoid of emotion. "Keep a strict, twenty-four-hour surveillance detail on the commercial property. If he attempts to physically touch her, break his arms. Otherwise, do not engage."
"Understood," Leo replies.
"There is another issue," I say, shifting the focus to the immediate problem sleeping in the next room. "Emily just woke up from a severe night terror. She was screaming for her mother. I need the trigger. Did anything else happen this week? Did she visit any specific locations, interact with any hostile relatives, or receive any unusual packages?"
I wait, my mind rapidly calculating every possible variable.
"Negative, Mr. Wolfe," Leo answers firmly. "Her routine has been entirely focused on physical combat training, medical textbook study, and the real estate acquisition. There were no altercations. She hasn’t crossed paths with Beatrice Wolfe or any other family members since they departed the estate. I have monitored her communications. Nothing out of the ordinary has occurred."
I frown, staring at the wooden door of the closet.
Trauma doesn’t simply erupt without a catalyst. Something in the last few days breached her mental defenses and pulled a nightmare out of the dark. If no one attacked her from the outside, then the trigger came from the inside.
"Keep digging," I instruct him. "Review the security footage at the estate. Track her internet search history for the last forty-eight hours. Find out what she was looking at before she went to sleep."
I end the call and slide the phone back into my pocket. I stand in the quiet, cedar-scented closet for a long moment, listening to the absolute silence of the bedroom on the other side of the door. I will find the source of her fear, and I will eliminate it.