I Crawled Through Hell. Turned To Be My Don Husband’s Loyalty Test Chapter 07
Dominic’s POV
I was out of my chair before I knew I was standing.
“What the hell? That’s two people gone in ten minutes.”
I didn’t hear the rest. I was already in the parking garage, dialing Marco.
I’d had a man on Linnea since the day she started working the war zone.
“Marco. Is she back yet?”
My thumb pressed the steering wheel hard enough to whiten the knuckle.
The plain silver band I wore on my ring finger slipped off and rolled somewhere under the seat.
I didn’t reach for it.
“No, sir. She requested a few days off. She’s not due back until day after tomorrow.”
“The second you see her, you call me.”
I pulled over. Pinched the bridge of my nose.
Yesterday. I went too far yesterday. I knew that. But this wasn’t about yesterday.
Something had shifted in her.
A week apart and she came back cold. Distant.
She kept pulling away from me, from Luca. Flinching at touch she used to crave.
There was no warning. Nothing I could trace. And now I didn’t even know where she was.
I booked the last flight back to Aelbourne.
At the gate, Marcus Webb was sitting in the waiting area.
He looked up when I approached.
Something hard behind his eyes. He stared at me a beat too long.
“Dominic. You think men who betray the people who love them get what’s coming to them?”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Boarding was in six minutes. I didn’t have time for Marcus and his riddles.
My head was full of Linnea. Where she was sleeping tonight. Whether she’d eaten. Why her phone was dead.
I turned toward the check-in counter.
Behind me, someone walked out of the arrivals gate.
I didn’t see who.
…
I went straight to the apartment. Our apartment.
When Linnea was away, Luca and I never stayed there.
We lived across the river in the Belmont high-rises. Best address in Aelbourne.
But the apartment was hers. Her name on the deed. The one thing I made sure she had.
My key didn’t turn.
I tried again. Nothing.
The door opened from the inside. A young couple stood in the hallway. A woman in a bathrobe. A man in a T-shirt, one arm blocking the doorframe.
I stepped back. Checked the number on the door. It was right.
The guy’s jaw was set. “You were trying to break in. It’s the middle of the night. I’ll call the police.”
“Where’s Linnea?”
The question came out before the rest of it caught up with me.
I already knew. Some part of me already knew she wasn’t here anymore. But I still asked.
“She sold you this place. Didn’t she. When?”
“I’m… I’m her husband.”
The word tasted foreign. I almost never said it out loud.
Because the marriage certificate was a fake.
Another prop in a performance I’d been running for six years.
The guy blinked. “Yesterday. She was in a rush. Gave us twenty percent off. Didn’t even negotiate.”
She hadn’t mentioned a thing.
His girlfriend disappeared inside and came back holding a box. Small. Brown cardboard.
“This watch, I think it’s yours? Ms. Sorrento left it behind. We called her and she said to just throw it away.”
My hands shook when I took the box.
I thanked them. Apologized. Walked back to the car.
I sat there with the box on the passenger seat. I didn’t open it.
I already knew what was inside. Linnea had only ever given me one watch.
The one I’d tossed in the hospital trash months ago.
She’d found it. Taken it home. Replaced the strap. Wound it fresh.
And now she’d left it behind.
I sat in the dark replaying every word she’d said that night.
Every look. Every silence. Every moment I’d missed because I was too busy running the test.
The test.
I closed my eyes. Opened them.
We still had a son. That was the thread.
As long as Luca existed, she’d come back. She always came back.
I put the car in drive.