Chapter 10
Nikolai stared at that blank screen until his eyes felt like sandpaper, finally accepting the impossible: Veloura was actually fucking done with him.
He hurled his phone across the room hard enough to crack the wall, then lit a cigarette with shaking hands. The smoke burned going down, but not as much as the gaping hole in his chest.
This couldn’t be real. Veloura leaving him? After ten years of him being her entire universe? She had nothing without him. Nowhere to go. No one else who’d put up with her damaged ass.
She was just having a tantrum. A really elaborate, scary tantrum.
The cigarette burned down to his fingers, pain finally breaking through his spiral. He flicked it away, mind racing through every possible hideout she might have chosen.
His phone buzzed where it had landed.
He dove for it like a drowning man. “Vel, okay, you win. You made your fucking point. Come home.”
Dead silence. Then his assistant’s voice, small and terrified: “Mr. Virellic, we can’t locate Mrs. Virellic anywhere. All her government records have been wiped. Like she never existed. The only digital footprint left is some old social media that’s still active.”
Nikolai’s vision went white around the edges. She was trying to erase herself? From him?
“The hospital,” he snarled. “Put it on every news channel–tell Veloura if she doesn’t show her face in the next hour, her precious brother’s life support gets unplugged. On live fucking television.”
“Sir…” The assistant sounded like he was about to vomit. “Mr. Austin isn’t at the hospital anymore. He died three days ago.”
“What?” Nikolai’s voice cracked like ice. Suddenly he was back in that hospital room, watching Veloura fall apart, begging him not to take the
ventilator.
“He’ll die! You’ll fucking kill him!”
But how could Austin be dead? Nikolai had arranged new equipment. Had the best doctors on speed dial.
Unless…
The clever little bitch. She’d played him. Made him think Austin died so she could disappear with a clear conscience.
She thought faking her brother’s death and going underground would stop him? He owned half this city. Had connections in every government office, every police department. Unless she’d literally died and gone to hell, he’d drag her back.
‘Dead. He died three days ago,” the assistant repeated, clutching what sounded like paperwork.
“How long have you worked for me?” Nikolai’s voice dropped to that deadly quiet that made grown men piss themselves.
“Eight years, sir.”
“Then you know I don’t fall for amateur hour bullshit. This whole fake death routine? It’s got holes you could drive a truck through. Find my wife and her brother. You have twenty–four hours.”
“But sir, Mr. Austin really is-”
Nikolai hung up.
The assistant stood there holding Austin’s death certificate, too terrified to call back and explain.
Nikolai dropped the phone and felt something inside him just… break.
Ten years. Ten fucking years of having her there whenever he needed her. Available. Devoted. His.
1715
Go Play Your Duet with Your Mistress: My Life’s Melody is Going Solo on My Own
6.6%
Chapter 10
Now there was just this screaming emptiness where she used to be, like someone had ripped out his lungs and left him suffocating.
He drove to the office at three AM, thinking work might stop the panic clawing at his throat.
It didn’t.
Every few minutes he’d grab his phone, fire off another message:
“This is childish, even for you.”
“I’m giving you one more chance to come home.”
“When you’re done playing victim, we’ll talk.”
Dawn broke. No response. The read receipts weren’t even showing up anymore.
Nikolai stared at quarterly reports without seeing a single word. His brain felt like static, every thought dissolving into white noise panic.
He’d never felt this out of control. This powerless.
He yanked off his tie so hard the silk tore, then swept everything off his desk in one violent motion. Papers exploded everywhere, his laptop crashing to the floor.
“VELOURA!” He was screaming now, voice echoing off empty office walls. “HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP THIS SHIT UP?”
He slammed his fist into his desk so hard something in his hand cracked. Blood welled up between his knuckles, but he barely felt it.
“You think you can just disappear? You think you can leave ME?” He was talking to the empty room like she could hear him. “If you don’t come back soon, don’t you fucking dare show your face again! You hear me? DON’T YOU FUCKING DARE!”
His voice broke on the last word.
And in the silence that followed, for the first time in his life, Nikolai Virellic felt completely and utterly alone.
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