Chapter 55 Silence in the Bond
Kier’s POV
As the morning progressed, Ironclad Tower was chaos.
Word had traveled fast—too fast. Every glance from my employees was heavy with speculation. Liora’s absence was noticed. Her office was in the process of being emptied, her security clearance stripped, and yet no one dared ask me why. They whispered instead, voices trailing in the corners, eyes darting away when I caught them.
In the boardroom, my executives circled like wolves smelling blood. Files stacked high. Phones buzzing. Questions veiled as “concerns.”
“What happened with Liora?” one of the VPs finally asked, his tone cautious. “Her departure… it was abrupt.”
“Liora is no longer a part of Ironclad. ” I answered flatly. The words cut sharper than I intended, but I didn’t soften them. “She overstepped and undermined her place here. And when someone does that, I don’t hesitate.”
A murmur rippled through the room. Some were relieved, others rattled. Liora had been clever, visible, always close at my side. They’d believed her untouchable.
“She won’t be coming back,” I added, cold as stone. “If anyone has questions, let them die here. Ironclad stands because we do not tolerate weakness—and we do not tolerate lies.”
I moved on with the agenda before anyone could breathe another word.
But beneath the hard edges of my voice, I was unraveling.
Every decision I made was jagged without my wolf. Normally, he lent instinct to strategy, a rhythm to the flow of meetings, the steady hum of dominance that made people fall in line without a word. Now, it was just me—sharp, tired, and alone. The silence in my mind was deafening.
And worse, the silence stretched toward Sable.
I tried, more than once during the day, to reach for her the way I always had—through the mate bond, a thread pulled taut between us. But there was nothing. No tug, no warmth, not even the faint ache that had always told me she was there in the world. The separation from my wolf muted everything.
By noon, the panic had sharpened into something raw. I forced myself to act human, to act CEO, to act as if the board’s questions and my investors’ calls were all that mattered. But every moment my phone didn’t light with her name, the knot in my chest tightened.
Finally, I gave in. I drafted an email.
Subject: We need to talk.
Body:
Sable,
I know last night was a disaster. I should have stopped her before you ever saw what you did, and I should have told you the truth sooner. I never wanted you to believe what she tried to show you. I need a chance to explain. Meet me. Please.
—Kier
I stared at the screen long enough the letters blurred. It was rawer than I wanted, more vulnerable than a man like me should admit. But it was honest.
I hit send.
And waited.
Every meeting after that was a countdown. Every vibration of my phone snapped my head around, only to find some trivial update from operations, another financial report, another reminder that the empire was demanding while the woman I wanted to share it with was silent.
By evening, the inbox still mocked me. No reply.
My jaw ached from how hard I ground it. The board had been restless all day, employees edgy, investors circling like vultures. Liora’s shadow still poisoned the air of the company, but none of it mattered as much as the single unanswered message in my inbox.
She was ignoring me. Again.
The sting was sharper than her slap, sharper than the distance she’d carved between us five years ago. Because this time she knew what the mate bond could be, what it felt like to be in the arms of your mate. She’d felt it as much as I had when we kissed. She’d trembled under me, gasped my name, burned as hot as I did—and still she walked away. Still she chose silence.
I poured myself a drink when the tower finally emptied, scotch neat, the bite of it matching the heat in my chest. I stood at the window and watched the city burn with lights.
The wolf stayed gone, crouched deep in some place I couldn’t reach, punishing me for what I’d let happen, punishing me for letting Liora slip close enough to shame us both. And without him, I was just a man—tired, furious, craving a woman who refused to answer.
I swallowed the last of the scotch and set the glass down too hard, the crack ringing sharp in the quiet.
“Fine,” I muttered, the word half a vow, half a curse. If she wanted distance, I would give it. If she wanted to ignore me, I would let her. But she couldn’t pretend forever.
Because when the mate bond woke again—and it would—the silence would break, and she wouldn’t be able to run from me anymore.
I told myself I believed it.
But as the night stretched on, and her reply never came, the truth gnawed at me: maybe she already had.