Kairo didn’t sleep.
He hadn’t really slept since the night he woke to find Arielle gone. It had been three days now, and every second of it gnawed at him like something sharp lodged under his skin.
The penthouse was silent without her. Too silent. The absence of her soft footsteps in the hallways, the faint clatter of cups in the kitchen, even the quiet sighs she gave when she thought no one was listening — it was everywhere.
He’d thought he wanted this once. Control. Distance. Detachment. But now that it was real, it felt like suffocation.
The only person who had made this cold, empty life bearable had slipped through his hands.
And he’d driven her away.
“Sir, we’ve expanded the search radius.”
His head jerked up from the map spread across his desk. His security chief, Marcus, stoo
