Broken and rebuilt

The devil himself

>>Javier's POV<<

A coughing fit wakes me up again. I don't like sleeping anyway, it makes me feel vulnerable. I'd never sleep next to anyone besides Jenna. I laugh at my own cruelty. I trust that b***h completely. She can't do anything to me, and she knows it.

I roll over and try to go back to sleep, but the stupid curtain isn't pulled properly, and a sliver of light is in my eyes. f*****g annoying, I've got a splitting headache from the rum, and a de-stress session with some b***h called Trina, or Tracey - something like that. I don't care, those bitches are just a means to an end. They get me off, they leave. Easiest money I've ever spent.

I suddenly feel the urge to pee, so I flick on the bedside lamp next to me. After living here for so long, I can make my way to the bathroom with my eyes closed, so I do. With a massive yawn I stretch and sit up. I don't care if I wake up Jen, she hates me anyway so what's the point? I pretend I don't care, but it pisses me off a little that she won't f**k me. 

Still with my eyes closed, I walk groggily to the bathroom and do my business with the faint light from the lamp still on in the bedroom. It's been more than a year since I bought this place for me and Jenna. I was in love with her at the start. She was so beautiful and lethal - like a female version of me. I met her overseas - I like to throw money around at things like hospitals and military funding - it keeps their eyes from looking too deep into my business, but sometimes I have to actually show up to things I fund. That's what happened a couple years ago. I had funded some new medical treatments for soldiers injured in the line of duty. It meant I had to report to the front line, a positive news spin for the government (and it helped my business a little, too).

After we had finished the photos and interviews, I was getting into a helicopter to get the f**k outta there when, over the radio, they announced an incoming chopper. The pilots jumped out and raced over to the landing chopper with a stretcher. Pissed that I was going to be delayed from sipping pina colada's on a beach in the South of France, I jumped back out of the chopper. What I saw racing past me on the stretcher broke my heart. She was unresponsive, blood pouring from a cut above her right eye. One of the soldiers raced alongside the stretcher telling the pilots about how she got her injuries. I overheard tank and minefield, and knew it wasn't good. I followed the pilots to the med tent, thanking myself for having a fucktonne of money to spend on helping her. My personal doctor (among other things) was a German guy called Hans. He and I had been working on something revolutionary. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he turned and walked into the tent behind the stretcher. It would be done.

My bladder was finally empty, pulling me back to reality. Now I was wide awake, for f***s sake. I wash my hands and splash my face. My breath smells like s**t, the aftermath of rum, cigarettes and sluts. I don't even remember last night, I probably hit Jenna a couple times. She's just so goddamn irritating.

I walk out of the bathroom and glance to her side of the bed, but she wasn't there. The time was around 2am, so where would she be? Kitchen. I felt like a drink too, actually. The hangover headache was starting to seep in. Taking the steps slowly, I walk into the kitchen. I don't bother calling her name, I can tell she isn't there. Panic. Surely that b***h wouldn't have left?

I walk to the front door and turn on the floodlights. The whole front of my estate lights up. The swirling snow would be quite pretty if it wasn't so damn cold. Her boots are missing, as is her coat. You f*****g b***h!

I press the intercom which links me to all the guards' earpieces. "Jenna's running. Catch her, do not harm her, and bring her back here now! She's trained, don't underestimate her," I yell into the speaker box. f**k I'm so livid I'm shaking. I'm gonna beat her ass so bad when they drag her back.

The speaker crackles, I hear a mixed response. They can't understand me. f*****g earpieces are full of s**t! I throw on a coat and stick my feet in my snow boots. I open the door as a swift wind slams into my face. I hesitate, thinking about wanting to kill her with my bare f*****g hands, before I scream and walk back in, slamming the door behind me. I need a f*****g drink.

By the time the guards contact me, I'm dressed and ready to kill. I walk down to my office where they're holding one of my guards - Bryan. When I walk in, I see this useless lump passed out on my leather couch. Anger growing within me, I start shaking with fury. My head guard senses my fury, I swear it radiates off me in waves. "Sir, Bryan is out cold. He was on shift with Christian. Christian is now missing. We found tire tracks leading out from the trees where Bryan was found. When you're ready, we will wake him up and begin the interrogation."

I nod, afraid that if I speak, I'll lose control and rip Bryan's f*****g head off. I swear if his alcohol problem has caused me to lose my wife, I will kill his f*****g wife. The guard waves a small packet of salts in front of Bryan's nose. He doesn't stir right away. "Sir, perhaps he was tranq'd, he's out pretty cold. There is a small prick of blood in the middle of his forehead, could've been a dart" he proffers. 

"Yeah, could've been where he fell and hit his head, the drunk prick!" I retaliate. "Get out."

"Sir, yes sir!" he says, standing to attention. He signals his team and they move out. No-one questions me...they know better, I smirk. I grab my phone and make a call. I let it ring 3 times, then hang up. I know they're on their way. I sit down with my glass of rum, and wait for the fun.

Within a few minutes, I hear the armored SUV pull up outside and footsteps head up the front stairs and through the front door. They know where they're going. I wait, emptying my glass before refilling it again.

"Sir!" the team chant in unison, forming a line across the front door of the office. I point to Bryan, still unmoving on the couch. "Just wake his ass up, I need to know what the f**k is going on." I spit angrily. All I want to do is run towards Bryan myself, shake the prick and scream at him "Where is Jenna, you f*****g sack of s**t!?" But I don't, I pay people to do that s**t for me, so I stay sitting, and sipping.

Bryan starts to stir, then opens his eyes and almost shits himself when he sees a private defense soldier right in his face. "Where the f**k is Mrs Smith?" he asks calmly. I wouldn't be calm, my fist would be clenched and hovering in front of his pudgy face. When Bryan registers what the f**k is going on, he starts to struggle against the soldiers hold. He throws him against the back of the couch and the other soldiers race to his sides and pin him down. 

I finally stand, trying to calm down, trying not to f*****g kill this bastard - although by the end of this, he won't be f*****g breathing anymore. That thought alone quells the fire in my veins a little, enough that I can start to control my breathing. I hear the soldier start the interrogation.

After a long, bloody interrogation, the top half of Bryan is carried out in pieces, whilst the bottom half is completely unrecognizable, like a very bloody, chunky soup. I feel a little better, still pissed but nothing like a good torture session to bring me back. 

Bryan remembered seeing Christian get shot by a tranq dart, before he too was shot. He said Mrs Smith, my Jenna, standing in a nightgown and trench coat, pulled a goddamn tranq gun out of nowhere and shot them. He didn't know how she got on the other side of the wall, and even checking the video footage, she was nowhere to be seen. She must've been working with someone. Maybe Christian? If he was shot too, why wasn't his body there? The one useful thing he said was that there was a red car, a Honda Civic, with tinted windows. I put out an APB on that car, my guys were trolling city cameras and liaising with the crooked cops I had on my payroll.

She had left no trace, taken no money. Her phone, wallet and credit cards were still on her bedside table. What about Christian, I thought. I remembered back to when I first hired him, about 3 months ago. 

"It's nice to meet you, Sir", Christian said at the start of the job interview, shaking my hand. I remember that he looked me in the eyes. I liked this guy. He had confidence. His muscles rippled under his shirt, clearly he kept up with his training after he left the military. 

"You've passed all the background checks, it's funny Jenna and I never met you while you were serving overseas. We spent some time over there too" I mentioned, finding the overlap of dates from his service to my wife's service too similar to be coincidence. 

Without missing a beat, Christian replied "It was a big clusterfuck, Sir. Many hundreds of soldiers fought for our freedoms over there. I'm sure if we had met, I would have remembered you and Mrs Smith."

Amused at his attempt to flatter, I let the nagging feeling slide. If he knew my wife from the military, he would have said something. 

Pondering that memory, my thoughts went back to Jenna. f**k, maybe they DID know each other. The b***h f*****g played me! 

She is so f*****g beautiful on the outside, but impossibly incorruptible which was highly disappointing. I was by her side when she awoke in that med tent, groggy from the painkillers (and the unnecessary surgery Hans had put her through) but still breathtakingly beautiful. When our eyes met, I know she felt it, a pull as if we'd met before. We would laugh and talk about the future, and she was falling in love with me...well, the fake me. We dated a few months. But she wouldn't sleep with me. She said she wanted to experience the kind of love her Uncle and Aunt had, so she wanted to wait for marriage to make love for the first time. I should've given up then, honestly I could've knocked her out, had Hans take out the 'present' he had left her, killed her and been on my merry way.  

But instead I got highly frustrated, and highly drunk, and I couldn't hide the real me from her anymore. She was just too f*****g perfect and it irritated me! Her moral compass was too f*****g high, I wanted to beat the innocence out of her. I hit her, hard. She was so shocked, but she snapped into survival mode and kicked my ass. Special ops trained, powerful and deadly. But I had a trump card, and I played it. She agreed to marry me, play the good wifey, take my beatings and never attack me again. I had this b***h wrapped around my little finger.

Now she was gone, and so was Bryan. Now I had to find Christian. I think that fucker knows where Jenna is. I had his file pulled. I read the name - Christian Sanders. Date of birth 23/10/92. No family, just military acquaintances. I scroll through the pictures but no-one stands out. He passed the background checks easily, and my guys look hard. Could he be using an alias? I empty my glass, but the warm liquid does nothing to ease my mind. I throw my glass at the wall and watch it shatter, before I walk out of my office.