Unseen

Chapter Eighteen

By late morning, Simon already sensed something had unraveled.

He had checked Olivia’s new phone twice before leaving for a meeting. No message. No missed call. Nothing. He dialed her number in the car. Then again after. The line rang, rang, and then, abruptly, the phone stopped responding altogether.

Turned off. Not broken. Not drained. Turned off.

His expression did not shift, but something colder slid behind his eyes. A quiet, lethal stillness. He canceled the remainder of his schedule with a single clipped instruction and told his driver to head toward Data Center College.

Classes were in full swing when he stepped onto the campus. Students paused mid-conversation, instinctively sensing the shift in the air. Whispered questions rippled behind him. Everyone recognized the man whose family name was etched into the walls of the province and the country. Everyone recognized the hard lines of his face and the storm coiled beneath the surface.

He reached her classroom and found her seat empty.

Mae stood near the doorway, arranging her notes. She looked up, saw him, and froze as though struck still by lightning. Her breath caught. Fear scattered across her features.

Simon walked toward her without hesitation.

“You are Mae,” he said.

His tone was not a question. It was identification.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, her voice thin.

“Olivia,” Simon said. “Where is she.”

Mae swallowed. “She… she did not come. Not today.”

“Did she report to work?”

“No, sir. Mart One said she never arrived.” Her eyes darted nervously. “Jonathan went to check the house before class. No one answered the door. We thought maybe she was sick.”

Simon’s jaw clenched. Not visibly. But Mae saw the tightening in the air around him.

“She never misses school,” Mae added quietly. “Never.”

Simon didn’t speak. He simply turned away, the kind of turn that said everything, judgment, fury, decision.

Mae watched him leave, a hand pressed to her trembling chest. She knew she would remember the look on his face for the rest of her life.

Minutes later, his SUV tore through the streets toward the Salvador residence. The gate was half-shut, as though attempting to hide something behind it. He pushed it aside without slowing.

Inside, Helena stood in the living room, shock flickering across her features. Clarisse straightened on the sofa, startled. Renato rose to his feet, pale.

Simon did not greet them.

“Where is Olivia.”

His voice cut through the room like a cold blade.

Helena smoothed her blouse with trembling fingers. “Simon, there seems to be some misunderstanding—”

“Where is she?” his voice low and dangerous.

The words landed with the weight of a verdict. His hands hung at his sides, fists so tight the knuckles had blanched to white.

The silence stretched. Shallow. Terrified.

Simon moved, abrupt and final. He stalked past them, up the stairs, as if he could smell the truth in the walls. He stopped at a door. Olivia’s door. He didn’t knock.

His first kick shook the entire frame. The second shattered the lock. The third tore the door open.

Olivia gasped as the light spilled in.

She was curled on the floor, cheeks stained with dried tears, a dark bruise splayed across one side of her face. Her hair was tangled. Her breath came in small, frightened tremors. She looked starved, exhausted, stripped of hope. As if the room had been devouring her piece by piece.

Simon froze for half a second. Then something silent and murderous ignited in him.

He crossed the room in one stride. He knelt and helped her up, movements surprisingly careful, as though she were made of something breakable. Olivia clung weakly to his sleeve, dazzled and frightened and unsure if this was real.

Behind him, Helena stood rigid with shock.

Simon turned his head slowly toward her.

“What did you do?” he asked, his voice so frigid it scraped against the air, a cold that slid under skin and made Helena’s breath falter.

The quiet was more terrifying than if he had roared.

Helena lifted her chin, scrambling for dignity. “She disobeyed. She needed discipline.”

Simon stepped toward her, each step controlled and precise, like a verdict walking toward its execution.

“And who,” he asked, “gave you the right to lay a hand on her?”

Helena stiffened. “She is my daughter—”

“No.” The single word cut through her protest, his eyes narrowing into something sharp enough to flay.

The word struck the air like a hammer.

“She is my fiancé. My wife beginning tomorrow. And no one touches her.” Even the furniture seemed to shrink from him.

He continued, voice calm as sharpened steel. “From this moment forward, no one raises their voice at her. No one threatens her work. Her friends. Her safety. Not one soul in this house will so much as breathe wrong in her direction again.”

Helena’s face twisted. “You cannot dictate how we run this household—”

Simon turned his head slowly, the movement controlled, deliberate, the kind that made the room hold its breath.

“You misunderstand,” he said. “It seems you have not listened to anything I have said since the first day I stepped into this house.”

The stillness that followed was suffocating. His next words fell with the weight of law.

“Check your business.”

Helena’s breath stuttered. “What?”

“You heard me,” Simon replied, each syllable clean and lethal. “Consider that your warning. And when I talk, listen. I do not repeat myself. I do not negotiate. And I never stutter.”

The meaning hit like a blow to the chest.

Renato sank back into his chair, his face the color of ash.

Simon stepped forward, the quiet of his movement more terrifying than shouting ever could be. He towered over Helena, his shadow stretching across her like a verdict already cast.

“This,” he said, voice soft enough to freeze the air, “is only the beginning.”

Helena’s knees trembled.

“If you harm her again, if you even think of touching anyone connected to her,” he continued, “I will not stop with contracts or suppliers. I will dismantle everything your family stands on. I will break every protection you believe you have. I will drag your empire by its roots until bleeding feels merciful.”

Helena’s lips parted, but no sound came out. Her face drained of all color.

Simon’s gaze hardened further.

“And by the time I am done, you will crawl,” he said. “You will beg to vanish rather than endure what comes next.”

Silence crashed into the room like a final sentence.

Helena trembled. Renato looked ready to faint. Clarisse stared with wide, hollow eyes, understanding for the first time what real power looked like.

Simon didn’t look at them again.

His voice softened only when he turned back to Olivia.

“You are leaving this house.”

And no one dared to stop him.

They had indeed crossed the wrong man. And Simon Jimenez never forgave.