She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the bathroom or the walk-in closet.
Since she was too angry to sleep in the room the night before, I concluded she spent the night in her old room. But I thought she would be back in our bedroom today. Clearly, I was wrong.
I went straight to her old room and opened the door.
When I didn’t find her there, the tremor in my chest intensified.
“Where is Marielle?!” I practically barked at my men as I joined them in the sitting room.
“She hasn’t come downstairs today, Boss,” Ruslan answered, his eyes enlarging.
“Downstairs? She was downstairs throughout last night!”
They looked around one another, moving in different directions to look for her.
Throwing my suit jacket on the dining table, I went to the study.
The first thing I saw as I moved toward the chairs was the broken windows.
Then I saw the note. It was a small, neat cutout that read:
“I don’t belong with you. I never did.”
It blurred and clarified before my eyes, almost bringing me to my knees.
She’s gone.
***
“I didn’t resume duty until 3:00 p.m., sir!” the bald guy shouted, wiggling his upside-down body.
I was in the basement with all the guards on duty when Marielle got out, the useless bastards who didn’t know when the study window was broken or when the CCTV sensor was sealed off.
It had been two hours since I got back to Marielle’s absence, and I still couldn’t bring my body to stay calm.
When Ivan shot one of the guys dead, one of them shouted, “I have information! I do!”
I signaled for him to be let down.
He stumbled to the floor again as he tried to stand.
“We found the back gate open. It wasn’t broken into.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, sir. We were scared that you would punish us for negligence, so we thought not to tell you. We didn’t know they got to the house at all.”
Pulling out my gun, I shot him in the head. His body fell to the floor.
“When did you notice the gate?!” I asked the others.
“Last night!”
“Yesterday.”
They prattled.
“Boss, that means it was an inside job,” Leonid remarked, wiping sweat off his forehead.