Chapter 87
After that day, things didn’t get easier. They actually got harder.
Kade didn’t speak to me, not even once. He didn’t look in my direction.
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We still had no clue where Rosette was, or Silas. We had contacted her school and were informed that she hadn’t been to any class. I even had to reach out to Sofia, but I had the same answer. Sofia had even threatened me, saying that if anything happened to Rosette, she would hold me responsible.
I went to London, tried to find a clue, but nothing–absolutely nothing–came out of it.
It was like she was gone. Just vanished into thin air.
And we couldn’t find Christopher. Not even a single trace of him. The same way we couldn’t find Vera, or Gabriel, or fucking Silas.
He had prepared for this. Totally prepared. Because even when we tracked his cards, they showed that they hadn’t been used for a while.
There was nothing. Fucking nothing that could even give us a clue as to where she was.
This was even worse than the one year I spent without her. At least then I knew where she was but just chose to stay away, but now I had no idea.
Was she okay? Safe? Was she dropping out of school? But how could she when she tried so hard to get in? How could she let go of me like that? Did she think this was okay?
A month passed, and yet nothing.
Two months. I visited the beach often. The beach where I realized my feelings for her were more than mere obsession and addiction. The beach where I watched the sunset with her, and I pictured how heavenly she looked that day.
Three months had gone by.
If I said I was miserable, it would be a fucking understatement. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I took some of her things from her house so I could at least have her scent to keep me grounded, but that was barely doing
shit.
But the tether… That tiny bond, I still felt it, beating, pulsing. And when I shifted, I could feel it even more. And sometimes it would tug, as if she were reaching for me.
Those were the only times I felt alive, like I could breathe again. It made me know she was thinking of me. And that was the only thing that kept me going.
I never stopped searching for her, not once. We hired high–tech teams, people who could track, both digitally and physically. We spent millions, and yet we have nothing.
The fourth month passed without any results. Fifth month and it was the same. And then the sixth month came, and Silas slipped.
19:07
Jan 30
Chapter 87
ROSETTE
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There wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t think of Axel. Not a single day. I dreamt of him when I slept, dreamt of him when I woke, thought of him when I was doing everything.
And there were days when I was tempted to call him, to just hear his voice, even though it was just once.
I would dial his number and then stare at it before I cleared it.
I was doing this for him–that was what I kept telling myself. I was doing the right thing. But why did doing the right thing make me so miserable?
Silas had totally cut me off from the rest of the world. He gave me a new phone, sure, but he knew I didn’t have the guts to call anyone.
He said we could be tracked so I should be careful.
I was on an island, far from any civilization, and… utterly alone. I had a whole beach house to myself, but that didn’t make anything easy.
Silas had actually really prepared for this, and I hated that he had what he wanted at the end, but I had no choice.
He was also on the run–that was the only thing that made me feel intense satisfaction. He knew what his son was capable of and he knew that he wouldn’t take this lying down, so he ran along with me, cutting ties with the outside world.
At least, I wasn’t the only one miserable.
I had a friend… in the house.
Emily. She was one of my househelp that Silas had hired to take care of the house. I didn’t get along with the others, but she… she stood out like a flame in the dark. She didn’t walk on eggshells around me, she was free and loud and I felt more at ease with her.
And I told her everything, how Silas took me away from my lover and my life. How he had paid the owner of my school directly and made sure my name was in every attendance and it felt like I was still a student.
She listened and she didn’t judge, but one day, it seems she had had enough of my miserable sob story and couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are you sure you really did the right thing?” she asked, her hands on her hips, her eyebrows raised, looking at me like I was stupid. “You love him, yeah. You don’t want him to lose everything because of you, yeah. But if you’re this miserable, then are you really doing the right thing? Shouldn’t doing the right thing feel so…right? But with what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen, I’ll say this doesn’t feel so much like the right thing.”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, my heart kicking against my rib. If I were being honest with myself, I would say I was actually looking for someone to tell me that I was stupid and why the fuck was I living like this when I clearly wanted to go back to my lover?
19:08 Fri, Jan 30
Chapter 87
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ལྦི7
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“What I’m saying, Miss Rosette,” Emily responded, “is you shouldn’t be miserable if you’re doing the right thing. Think about Axel, and what he wants. If you ask me, I’ll say you’re being selfish, because you’re not thinking about what he wants.”
That night, I stared up at the ceiling, the blanket drawn up to my chin, hearing the beach waves, and thinking, thinking, and thinking. And I didn’t sleep a wink.
And then, when the sun was slowly rising, chasing away the night, something unexpected happened.
Axel came.
B
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
