Chapter 56 The Hollow Days
Kier’s POV
By the third day without a reply, the city felt like a place made of glass—hard, cold, and one sound away from shattering.
Work moved, because I made it move. Meetings happened, because I ordered them to. Ironclad’s machine didn’t stall, even with Liora gone and dozens of tasks added to everyone's work load. But everything that should have felt like momentum tasted like ash. Decisions came out of me jagged. The board read my mood and kept their distance. My executives turned deferential, the way wolves belly lower when the Alpha’s patience thins to a thread.
Through it all, the bond stayed quiet. Not severed—never that—but muted to a dull hum under my ribs. My wolf kept his distance as if I’d locked him in a room and thrown away the key, only this time I wasn’t the one holding it. He’d chosen the silence, and I lived inside it like a punishment.
Near noon, my office door clicked once, without a knock. Jaxon. He slipped inside, closing the door with the care of a man defusing a bomb, then stood in front of the desk with his hands braced on the back of a chair.
“You hear from her?” he asked, skipping the pretense of greeting.
"Hear from who?" I growled, irritated by his question.
he narrowed his eyes "Sable, who else?"
My jaw tightened. “No.”
He watched me for a beat, hazel eyes steady, then scraped a hand over his jaw. “She missed our dinner.”
I looked up properly. “What dinner?”
“Last night.” He said it flat, but I heard the thread of something brittle underneath. “We set it after she found me here last week. I’ve been out with legal and logistics cleaning up the Liora fallout. I was late.” His mouth pulled tight. “She never showed.”
A hard, clean sound cracked down my spine. “She confirmed?”
“Twice.” He hooked a thumb toward his phone. “Text and call. ‘I’ll be there, Jax.’ Her words. I haven't heard from her since Monday.”
My throat worked. “And you didn’t think to tell me last night when she didn't show for dinner.”
His eyes cooled. “I thought she might be ignoring you.” He let that land, then added, softer, “Or cooling off after… whatever happened between you two the night you invited her here.”
I didn’t answer. The memory of Sable against the glass hit like a fever, followed by the slap, followed by the steam-thick shower and the moment I made the biggest mistake I would never recover from. The wolf moved in that distant room he’d chosen, not coming closer, not leaving. Waiting to see if I would deserve him again.
Jaxon took the silence as admission. “Anything happen that would make her ghost all of us?”
“She walked out,” I said. It wasn’t enough and too much, and he knew it.
Before he could press, the receptionist’s voice crackled through the intercom, harried. “Mr. Blane—there’s a… visitor. She insists. Says it’s urgent.”
“Name?” Jaxon and I asked together.
“Jenna Fields,” the receptionist answered. “She says it’s about Ms. Hale.”
The air changed. Instinct flicked like a blade.
“Send her up,” I said.
Jenna Fields entered ten minutes later with the energy of a thunderhead. Petite, sharp-eyed, she moved like caffeine and concern stitched into one person. A security officer trailed behind her until I waved him off. Jaxon stayed beside me, arms folded, a Beta’s wall.
“Mr. Blane.” Jenna didn’t offer a handshake. “I’m sorry to crash your tower, but Sable’s missing.”
The word hit my sternum like a fist. I didn’t let it show on my face. “Sit.” It came out a command. She sat, spine straight, hands twisted in each other.
“Explain,” I said.
“She hasn’t been to work in three days,” Jenna said without preamble. “No texts. No calls. I went to her apartment last night and this morning. No answer and her neighbor hasn’t seen her. She missed a meeting with Donovan yesterday and a client sync this morning. That has never happened.” Her gaze cut to me, accusation and fear alloyed. “The last I heard, she was coming here. You asked to see her. Alone.”
Jaxon and I traded a look. He leaned forward, voice level. “We met with Sable a few times last week. I’m Jaxon, by the way.” He paused, then offered her the truth she wasn’t expecting. “Her brother.”
Jenna blinked, mouth opening. “Her— I thought— Hale?” She pointed between us, recalibrating. “You work here.”
“I work with him,” Jaxon said. “And yes. I’m her brother.”
Jenna’s eyes went glass-bright with relief and fury. “Then help me find her.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. The bond didn’t flare. It didn’t do anything at all. The wrongness of that scraped my nerves raw.
“When did you last hear from her,” I asked, “exactly?”
Jenna pulled her phone free. “Monday night, a text before eight: ‘Heading to Ironclad. If I’m not out by ten, send a search party.’” She tried to make it a joke and failed. “At nine fifty-seven I texted a knife emoji. At ten thirty I asked if she needed wine. At eleven fifteen: ‘U good?’ Five minutes later: ‘Sable?’ Tuesday: nothing. Wednesday: nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. She hasn't responded. This is not like her."
I turned to Jaxon. His face had gone still, a soldier bracing for bad news. “She never made it home,” he said.
The room seemed to narrow without moving. The city beyond the glass sharpened into a million tiny edges.
My mate was missing.