Chapter 157

Chapter 157
Olive's POV
I watched Gordon tear past me like a man possessed, and I had absolutely no idea what had just happened.
Had seeing Nydia's body broken something in him? Had the shock finally pushed him over the edge?
I scrambled to my feet and rushed down into the cellar to find out for myself—and immediately regretted it. The smell hit me like a wall. My eyes watered, my stomach lurched, and I was back outside gasping for fresh air before I'd taken three steps inside.
I stood on the back steps, bent over with my hands on my knees, waiting for my lungs to remember what normal air felt like.
When I finally pulled myself together and made it back upstairs, I stopped in the doorway.
Gordon wasn't curled up in a corner with a bottle. He wasn't staring at the ceiling with that hollow, haunted look he'd been wearing for weeks.
He was in the shower.
The shower.
Maybe the sight of that decomposed body had finally done it—shocked him out of his grief, snapped him back to reality. Maybe this was the reset I'd been waiting for.
I settled onto the bed to wait.
When he came out and found me still there, his expression curdled instantly. "Get out."
"Gordon." I kept my voice gentle. "Are you okay? You came running up from the cellar like something was chasing you—"
He laughed. Actually laughed—bright and sudden and completely unhinged. "I'm great. Nydia's alive, Olive. That body down there? It's not her. It was never her."
"That's not possible." The words came out before I could stop them. "I pulled that body from the morgue myself. How could it not be—"
"Because Nydia doesn't have a burn scar." His voice rose, sharp and certain. "Not on her arms, not anywhere. But the woman in that cellar does—a big one, right above the elbow. That is not Nydia." He was nearly shouting now. "My Nydia is alive. And I'm going to find her. Don't you dare try to stop me."
Something cold settled in my stomach.
He wasn't raving. He wasn't falling apart. He was completely, terrifyingly sure of himself.
I went back down to the cellar.
I held my breath, pulled back the sheet, and forced myself to look at the arm.
There it was. A patch of old scar tissue, silvery-pink, unmistakable.
And Nydia's arms had always been smooth. Flawless. I knew that. I'd always hated that about her.
Damn it.
I drove my foot into the body. Then again. And again, until my rage had somewhere to go and my breathing evened out.
When I came back upstairs, Gordon was standing in the entryway with a bag over his shoulder.
"Gordon—" I moved to block him. "Where do you think you're going?"
He shoved my hand off. "To find Nydia."
"She's been missing for over a month. You don't even know where to start."
"That's my problem."
"Our wedding is your problem! We have a date, we have vendors, we have—"
"You wanted that wedding." He looked at me with something so flat and final it made my chest tighten. "So go ahead and have it. I won't be there. The only woman I'm ever going to marry is Nydia, and I'm not stopping until I find her."
"And if she's already dead?" The words came out ugly and mean and I didn't care.
His hand connected with my face before I even saw it move.
"She's not dead." His voice was quiet now—which was somehow worse than the shouting. "She's waiting for someone to come for her. Say something like that again and I will hurt you."
I believed him. The man standing in front of me was not the Gordon I'd spent the last several years managing and manipulating. Whatever had been soft or spineless in him was gone.
I stood frozen, one hand pressed to my cheek, and watched him walk out the front door.
---
Nydia's POV
Over a month.
That was how long I'd been on Tanner's island.
I'd gone through every stage of it—the hunger strike in the first week, the exhausted surrender after that, and finally the careful, calculated performance of someone who had decided to make peace with her circumstances. Tanner bought every bit of it. He was a man who trusted his own charm above all else, and with no news of Vincent surfacing, he'd long since convinced himself that I was slowly, inevitably coming around.
I was not coming around.
What I was doing—every single day, with meticulous patience—was building an escape.
During my morning walks with the housekeeper, I kept the conversation light and let her fill the silences. She told me more than she realized. During my afternoon strolls with Tanner, I memorized landmarks, noted which paths looped back and which ones led toward the water. From my window each evening, I tracked the guards—their rotations, their gaps, the small human inconsistencies in their routines that repeated like clockwork after the third week.
A month of this, and I had a clear picture of the island's layout and a rough route to the perimeter.
The problem—and it was a serious one—was the water.
Tanner's estate sat on a private island. Open ocean on every side. Even if I made it out of the compound, I had nowhere to go. I couldn't swim my way to freedom.
I needed a contact on the outside. I needed Lima.
What I didn't have was any way to reach him.
I'd been sitting with that problem for days, turning it over and finding no good answers, when the housekeeper knocked and told me Tanner wanted me to join him in his private screening room.
A movie night.
I couldn't say no—not without giving something away. Our relationship had warmed just enough that a refusal would register as a step backward, and I couldn't afford that. So I smoothed my expression, told her I'd be right down, and made my way to the screening room.
Tanner was already sprawled across the couch when I arrived. He lit up the moment he saw me, patting the cushion beside him with a grin. "There she is. I've been waiting forever—you owe me."
"I'll give you two punches as payment," I said, dropping down next to him. "Take it or leave it."
He burst out laughing—genuinely, helplessly, the way he always did when I pushed back. "No deal. Your hands are too small. They'd hurt me more than you."
"Please." I rolled my eyes. "Can we just watch the movie? I'm not here for the commentary."
He was still grinning. He reached over for my hand, and I deflected it without breaking eye contact.
He arranged his face into an expression of profound injury. "Nydia. I'm going to be gone for two whole days. Can't you be a little nicer to me before I leave?"
That got my attention. "You're leaving the island?"
"Surprised?" His smile took on something slightly off—a curl at the edge that didn't quite match the warmth in his eyes. "You're not already thinking about making a run for it while I'm gone, are you?"
I met his gaze without flinching. "Obviously. You know I want out of here. I'm always thinking about it."
He made a dismissive sound—almost fond, almost contemptuous. "I appreciate the honesty. But I'll save you the effort. You won't make it."
I couldn't tell if he'd found something, if he was fishing, or if this was just Tanner being Tanner—so confident in his own systems that the warning came out almost bored.
I smiled back at him. "How do you know if I don't try?"