Bound by Deception

Chapter4

Chapter 4

- Marcus -

The phone was dead. Again.

I threw it against the wall, watching as it shattered. That was the third one this week. Ten days since Emma disappeared, and her phone had been disconnected for the last seven.

"f**k!" I slammed my fist on my desk, making the whiskey bottle jump.

Where the hell was she? My pathetic little wife who couldn't even order coffee without stammering couldn't just vanish. She had no money, I'd made sure of that. No friends, I'd isolated her from everyone. No family except whatever distant relatives she didn't know about. She should have come crawling back by now.

The office phone rang. Mother. Of course.

"Have you found her?" Margaret Chen's voice was ice.

"If I had, would I be sitting here?"

"Don't take that tone with me, Marcus. You're the one who f****d this up. Three years I've been waiting. Three years of watching you play house with that girl, and you couldn't even do that right."

"She was insufferable and you never told me the little secret you kept away! How should I have known?"

"She was necessary!" Mother's voice cracked like a whip. "Do you understand what you've done? She turned twenty-five four days ago. Twenty-five, Marcus! The Blackwood trust is now active, and the heir is missing because you couldn't keep your d**k in your pants."

"How are you even sure about this. We don't even know if she's really—"

"Of course she is, you i***t. The DNA test confirmed it years ago. Emma Chen is Emma Blackwood, whether she knows it or not. Ten billion dollars, and you let her walk out the door."

I poured another whiskey. "She'll come back. She has nowhere to go."

"It's been ten days."

"She's probably staying with some bleeding heart friend—"

"What friends? You made sure she had none. She's out there, alone, with no idea who she really is or what she's worth, and if something happens to her, we lose everything."

"Nothing will happen to her. She's too pathetic to get into real trouble."

"Pathetic?" Mother laughed bitterly. "That pathetic girl is worth more than our entire company a hundred times over. And you treated her like garbage."

"The plan was to divorce her after five years—"

"The plan was to make her dependent on you! To make her grateful! So when she inherited, she'd share it with her loving husband. Instead, you humiliated her, cheated on her, and drove her away. You absolute fool."

The door to my office opened. Jessica walked in wearing red lingerie under a silk robe. Perfect timing.

"I need to go," I told Mother.

"Find her, Marcus. Find her and fix this. Grovel if you have to. Beg. Cry. I don't care what it takes. That girl cannot divorce you, and she cannot disappear. The entire Chen empire depends on this."

She hung up.

Jessica sauntered over, running her manicured nails down my chest. "Still upset about the mouse?"

"Don't call her that."

"Why? You do." She straddled my lap. "Marcus, baby, let her go. She's probably halfway across the country by now, crying into some cheap wine. You're free."

"I'm not free." I pushed her off. "I need her back."

"Why? You have me now. We don't have to hide anymore."

"You don't understand—"

"Then explain it to me. Why do you need that pathetic little—"

I grabbed her throat, not hard enough to hurt but enough to shut her up. "Because without her, I lose everything. The company. The money. The future. Everything."

Jessica's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

I released her and poured another drink. "It doesn't matter. What matters is finding her."

"Maybe she's dead. You said she had no money, no friends. Maybe she killed herself."

The glass shattered in my hand. Blood dripped onto the white carpet.

"She's not dead."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know Emma. She's too stubborn to die. Too stupid to give up. She's out there somewhere, probably washing dishes or cleaning toilets, thinking she's proved something by leaving."

Jessica wrapped a handkerchief around my bleeding hand. "Then let the private investigators find her."

"They've found nothing. She used cash for everything, took a bus to God knows where. The trail went cold three days ago."

"So what are you going to do?"

I stood up, pacing to the window. The city sprawled out below, millions of lights hiding one small woman.

"I'm going to find her. And when I do, she's going to regret ever leaving."

"Marcus, you're scaring me."

"Good. Everyone should be scared. Emma most of all." I turned back to Jessica. "Get dressed and get out."

"But I thought—"

"I said get out!"

She scrambled for her clothes, hurt flashing across her face. I didn't care. Jessica was a distraction, a toy. Emma was necessity, now.

After she left, I called my head of security.

"Double the reward. Fifty thousand for anyone who finds her. Check every homeless shelter, every cheap motel, every minimum-wage job application in a five-hundred-mile radius."

"Sir, that's going to be expensive—"

"I don't care if it costs millions. Find her."

I hung up and walked to the bedroom Emma had slept in. Her clothes still hung in the closet. Her pathetic jewelry box sat on the dresser - empty except for costume jewelry I'd bought her to keep up appearances. The only thing missing was her mother's silver earrings. She'd taken those.

The sheets still smelled like her. Vanilla and something floral. Innocent. Clean. Everything I'd corrupted.

I'd been so stupid. So focused on my hatred of the arrangement that I'd failed to see the bigger picture. Emma wasn't just my burden, she was my ticket to unlimited power. The Blackwood fortune was old money, real money. The kind that bought countries, not just companies.

And I'd let her walk out with nothing but a suitcase and those damn earrings.

The first few days, I'd expected her to come back. She'd never been on her own. Never had a job. Never paid a bill. She'd realize how hard the world was and come crawling back.

But she hadn't.

Then I'd gotten angry. Had Jessica call pawn shops looking for the earrings. Had security check credit cards, bank accounts, anything in her name. Nothing.

Now, ten days later, I was beginning to panic. Not because I missed her, I'd never miss that mouse. But because without her, I was nothing. The Chen company was built on loans against the future Blackwood inheritance. Loans that would come due if I couldn't produce the heir.

I never knew what I was getting myself into or throwing away. I would have done better. This was all mother's fault.

I sniffed angrily. If only I had known. But this was not the time to bawl over that. I have to find her by all means.