He Saved His Mistress, Not His Wife

Dante POV I didn't sleep. I spent the entire night ransacking the house, tearing it apart room by room, desperate for a clue. A note. Anything. But she had wiped her tracks. She was smart. She was a doctor; she knew how to be surgical, how to cut ties with absolute precision. I called my head of intelligence at 4:00 AM. "Find her," I ordered. It took them six hours. "Boss..." The voice on the phone was hesitant. "She left the country." "Where?" "She flew to Geneva yesterday. Then she boarded a UN transport." "Where, Damiano? Where did she go?" "South Sudan, Boss. Juba." The phone almost slipped from my hand. South Sudan. A war zone. Active conflict. Bombings. Militia raids. She had gone to hell. She had chosen hell over me. "She is working as a Trauma Coordinator for an NGO," Damiano said, his voice low. "Her flight into the interior leaves in twelve hours from Geneva." "Get the jet," I said. I hung up. I drove to the airfield like a madman. I broke every speed limit in the state. I didn't care. I had to stop her. I had to tell her... what? That I was sorry? That I was a fool? That I realized too late that she was the only real thing in my fake world? I boarded the Gulfstream. "Fly," I told the pilot. "Push the engines to the limit." The flight felt like a lifetime. I sat in the leather seat where she used to sit. I smelled the air, searching for a trace of her, but the cabin was sterile. Her perfume was gone. I remembered the look on her face when I made her stand in the sun. The pain. She was sick. She told me she was sick, and I thought she was lying. I was the liar. We landed in Geneva. I didn't wait for the stairs. I jumped to the tarmac. I ran. I ran through the terminal. People stared. The Ice Prince, running like a desperate teenager. I reached the gate for the UN transport. It was empty. I grabbed a ground crew member by the vest. "The flight to Juba! Where is it?" He pointed to the window. "It left early," he stammered. "To beat the storm." I looked out the glass. A grey C-130 was climbing into the sky. It was a speck against the clouds. She was on it. "Elena!" I screamed. My voice echoed in the empty gate area. She couldn't hear me. I watched the plane disappear into the cloud layer. My chest hurt. A physical, crushing pain. I pressed my hand against the glass. It was cold. Just like her eyes the last time she looked at me. She was gone. And I was the King of nothing.