From Ashes: The Unwanted Wife's Return

Jace Sharpe POV:

The minutes ticked by. Twelve-oh-five. Twelve-ten. The crowd of reporters was getting restless, their questions growing more pointed, more aggressive.

"Mr. Sharpe, where is your wife?"

"Is it true she's refusing to cooperate?"

"Are you holding her against her will?"

I kept my face a mask of calm, but inside, a knot of anxiety was tightening in my gut. This wasn't like Ellie. Even in her anger, she was punctual, professional. Annoyance began to curdle into a genuine, prickling sense of unease. Something was wrong.

My head of security, a stoic man named Peterson, appeared at my elbow, his face grim. "Sir," he murmured, his voice low enough that only I and Fallon could hear. "There's a problem."

"What is it?" I snapped, my patience worn thin. "Is she refusing to come?"

"No, sir," Peterson said, his eyes avoiding mine. "The car arrived at the penthouse. She wasn't there. The doorman said she left on foot about twenty minutes ago."

The blood drained from my face. "What do you mean, she left? Where did she go?"

"We're checking the security footage now, sir, but... another car picked her up. A black sedan. Unregistered plates. We don't know who it belongs to."

The world tilted. The clamor of the press faded into a dull roar. She hadn't just been late. She had planned this. She had run. The press conference, her easy compliance-it had all been a diversion. My own tactic, used against me.

A strangled sound escaped my lips. I stumbled back a step, the carefully constructed facade of the calm, powerful Jace Sharpe cracking for all the world to see.

"Jace, what is it?" Fallon hissed, her hand gripping my arm, her perfectly manicured nails digging into my skin. "Pull yourself together! They're all watching!"

But I couldn't. A cold, terrifying realization was dawning. This wasn't just Ellie running away. The untraceable car, the timing... this was an extraction. Someone had helped her. Someone powerful.

"We have to go," I said, my voice a strangled whisper. "Shut it down. Now."

"Are you insane?" Fallon hissed, her eyes wide with fury. "We can't just leave! It will look like we're guilty!"

"I don't care!" I roared, finally losing control. I shoved her hand off my arm, my mind consumed by a single, frantic thought: I had to find Ellie. "She's gone, Fallon! Don't you understand? She's gone!"

My outburst was captured by a hundred cameras, my desperation broadcast live across the globe. I saw the shock on the reporters' faces, the way they surged forward, their questions turning into a frenzy of accusations.

I turned and fled, pushing my way through the throng, ignoring Fallon's furious cries behind me. I had to get back to the command center. I had to find out who had taken her. I had to get her back.

A part of me, a small, rational part, wondered why I was so frantic. I had wanted her gone, hadn't I? She was a complication, a reminder of my misdeeds, a stain on my perfect new life with Fallon.

But as I raced through the halls of my own building, a deeper, more primal truth rose to the surface. It was the same possessive instinct that had made me recoil when she was "compromised." She was mine. Mine to cherish, mine to discard, mine to break. But she was not, under any circumstances, allowed to leave. Her walking away was an act of defiance I could not tolerate. It was a rejection that cut deeper than any of her angry words.

For five years, she had been a constant, a bedrock of devotion in my turbulent life. Her love was a given, something I had taken for granted, used, and abused. Now that it was gone, its absence was a gaping wound.

I burst into the security command center, a room filled with monitors and technicians. "Find her!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "I don't care what it takes. Lock down the city. I want every camera, every satellite, every informant on this. Find that car. Find Ellie."