Chapter 10 Ex-husband
After Jack said we should leave, all I could hear clearly was that sound. The lifeless body hitting the ground, again and again in my head.
The car appeared like it had been summoned, black and seamless, pulling up without spectacle. Jack opened the door, his movements sharp and efficient, the kind of precision that told me he’d done this before—handled emergencies, extracted people from danger, closed doors on chaos.
I slid inside without speaking.
The door shut with a soft, final sound that landed heavier than it should have. Maybe just too final like a lid being sealed. The world outside vanished.
I sat stiffly upright, hands resting uselessly on my thighs, fingers slack. I didn’t feel the heat beneath me or the leather against my skin. I barely registered Jack sliding in beside me. Sensation had drained out of everything, leaving only pressure and noise inside my head.
Silence rang in my ears—an oppressive, screaming silence that wasn’t really silence at all.
"Elena..."
I tuned it out.
My pupils felt blown wide, my eyes fixed on the black leather seat in front of me like it might crack open and swallow me whole. My breathing came wrong—too shallow, too fast, like my lungs had forgotten their rhythm.
The smell of blood clung to me. No matter how I shifted, how I swallowed, it stayed lodged in my nose. My dress stuck to my skin, damp with wine, sweat, and someone else’s death. Shock wasn’t cold or numbing but it was suffocating.
My fingers twitched faintly in my lap, curling and uncurling like they were searching for instructions. My chest lifted in short, fractured gasps. I shouldn't cry, I told myself.
"Elena..." Jack looked at me, and I felt it without really seeing it—the tension in him, the way his jaw locked, the way his hand hovered with uncertainty between us.
I must have looked wrong, like a statue about to split straight down the middle. My face felt frozen, porcelain-thin.
The only proof I was still alive was the tremor in my hands.
“Elena,” he said again softly.
The sound barely reached me. I didn’t blink.
Slowly, carefully, he adjusted the jacket around my shoulders, tucking it in like he was afraid I might unravel if the fabric slipped.
Then he took my hand in his, not tentative. Not crushing. Just firm enough to remind me that gravity still existed. His thumb brushed over my knuckles in a steady, grounding motion.
“You are safe,” he said again, slower and even more deliberate. “You’re with me now.”
My eyes finally shifted to him. Just a fraction. And what stared back at him wasn’t fear but disbelief. Like I didn’t trust that this moment was real.
Like I expected to wake up any second in a different room, in a different life. Or even from a dream.
When I spoke, my voice surprised me. It sounded thin and cracked like it had been dragged over broken glass.
“That man, did he… jump?”
Jack didn’t answer immediately. He studied my face, measuring something.
“We don’t know yet.” He said.
My throat worked around the words I hadn’t meant to say. “He looked… broken.”
His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. “Don’t think about that.”
But it was already carved into me. The angles, stillness, then there's the violence of it. It would live behind my eyelids now, waiting for the dark.
“This wasn’t random, I'm sure.” I said.
The certainty in my own voice startled me.
Jack didn’t argue. Instead, he pulled out his phone and typed rapidly, fingers moving with practiced ease. His expression hardened, lines sharpening like a blade being drawn.
This was a side of him I hadn’t seen fully yet—the one that lived in shadows, that understood systems and erasure, that knew how to trace threats back to their source.
The car turned, slipping away from the brightly lit streets and into something darker, quieter. Jack leaned forward and spoke to the driver in a low, precise voice. “Secure route. Elena's Penthouse. Notify the team.”
The driver nodded once and accelerated.
My head tipped slightly toward the window.
The city blurred past, lights smearing into streaks of gold and white, but none of it registered. My body felt heavy and distant.
Then my phone buzzed.
I flinched hard enough that my shoulders jumped.
Jack reached for it at the same time I did, but instinct beat reason. My fingers closed around it before he could stop me. I unlocked the screen with shaking hands.
Another message:
'Did you like the show?'
My stomach twisted violently. Nausea surged so fast it stole my breath. I barely managed to roll the window down before my body convulsed, retching everything I had onto the pavement below. The car slowed.
Jack was there immediately, holding my hair back, one hand firm and grounding on my back. He rubbed small circles, steady and patient.
“It’s okay,” he murmured over and over. “It’s okay. Let it out.”
When it passed, I collapsed back against the seat, trembling, my lips shaking uncontrollably. Jack handed me water and a towel from the glove box. I wiped at my mouth, my arms, the blood-stained skin, but nothing felt clean. Nothing felt enough.
“They killed him,” I whispered. “They killed someone just to get to me.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Jack said.
But I did.
I felt it in that frozen place inside me where instincts screamed even when logic tried to keep up. I didn’t know who the man was. I didn’t need to.
“What if this doesn’t stop?” I asked, barely able to hear my own voice.
Jack didn’t hesitate. “Then neither will I.”
The answer hit deeper than comfort ever could. It wasn’t actually soothing but it was real.
My thoughts spiraled. The messages. The timing. The spectacle of it all. This wasn’t just intimidation—it felt like theater.
A performance staged for me alone.
Who would do this?
Richard came to mind first—but no. He was calculated, political. He destroyed people with contracts and headlines, not bodies. Blood was too messy for him.
My father?
The thought chilled me more than the night air ever could. Conrad Vale manipulated lives like chess pieces, but he valued control over chaos. Murder—public, ugly, impossible to spin—was beneath his methods.
And then—
Daniel.
The name surfaced like something dragged up from deep water.
My chest tightened painfully as I clutched my dress.
Jack noticed immediately. “Elena,” he said gently. “Who has your private number?”
“My assistant. Layla. PR. My father. Richard,” I listed automatically.
He waited.
“And…” My voice fractured. “One other person from a long time ago.”
His gaze sharpened.
“Daniel Smith,” I whispered. “My ex-husband.”
Jack froze.
I didn't like to talk about him, because I'd rather he remained forgotten.
“You were married?” he asked, disbelief threading his voice.
“Yes,” I said. “Before all of this. Before I became a bargaining chip in all of this.”
Jack turned silent.
“Then, it wasn't about contracts, I loved him,” I continued, staring at my hands. “It wasn’t business. It was real until it wasn’t. He became… controlling and obsessed. He wanted access to everything. Then my father found out and for once, he protected me against him.”
Jack exhaled slowly.
“We divorced quietly. NDA. He disappeared. But I always felt like he was always in the background waiting...”
Jack looked back at my phone.
“Then maybe,” he said quietly, “the waiting is over.”