Page 26 of Jay Bird

Willow had done the one thing Chen had spent three years making sure she was too afraid to do—she had left him. And even though she tried not to dwell on it, a quiet certainty lingered in her chest. When he eventually found her, he would make her pay.

CHAPTER FOUR

“That answer isn’t good enough, Edwin.” Chen’s voice came out low and controlled, which only made the anger beneath it more obvious. “Willow has been gone for three weeks. Three fucking weeks. How the hell is she surviving out there on her own?”

Edwin shifted his weight but didn’t look away. He had worked for Chen long enough to know when anger was about to turn dangerous.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Obviously she’s more capable and resourceful than any of us gave her credit for.”

“Bullshit.” Chen slammed his fist against the desk hard enough to rattle the glass sitting near his hand.

His gaze locked on Liu, his head of security and one of the few men in his inner circle who could speak honestly without immediately regretting it.

“What’s your read on this? Anything at all?”

Liu hesitated before shaking his head. “Nothing solid. No confirmed sightings, no financial activity we can trace, no contact with anyone connected to her old life.” He paused, studying Chen carefully. “She’s gone.”

Chen’s jaw tightened.

Liu exhaled. “Maybe you should let her stay gone. You have an entire warehouse full of women who could replace her,” Liu continued, apparently deciding he was already committed to the argument. “Pick one.”

Chen slowly leaned back in his chair and looked toward the photograph of Willow sitting on the corner of his desk.

The image had been taken at one of the events he’d brought her to nearly a year earlier. Her light brown hair had been swept back from her face, and her eyes—those mocha-brown eyes he had noticed almost immediately after she was brought to him were fixed somewhere beyond the camera.

She had always been different from the others.

Not because she was the most beautiful woman he had ever possessed. There had been plenty of beautiful women.

But it was the fight buried beneath the obedience.

Willow had learned quickly. She had become quiet when he expected quiet, agreeable when he wanted compliance, and polished enough to stand beside him in rooms filled with men who could never know what she truly was to him.

He had mistaken that adaptation for surrender.

That was the part that almost amused him now. She had fooled him.

For years, she had stood beside him when commanded, played the role he demanded, and all the while there had apparently been a piece of Willow he had never managed to break.

Then she had used it against him.

She had struck him hard enough to split his head open, tied him to the floor like an animal, stolen from him, and disappeared with that brat of hers before any of his men realized what had happened.

The humiliation still burned. So did the scar near his temple.

Yet when Chen looked at Willow’s photograph, anger wasn’t the only thing he felt. He wanted her back.

“She isn’t replaceable,” Chen stated firmly.

Liu gave him a disbelieving look. “How can you say that? You gave her more than you ever gave the others. You kept her for yourself. You got what you wanted from her from the beginning.”

Chen’s gaze snapped toward him. “You misunderstand.”

“Then explain it.”

Chen rose slowly from his chair. “When Willow was brought to me, she was supposed to be sold.” He walked toward the desk and rested his fingertips beside the photograph. “I changed that. I chose her. I kept her. I gave her privileges nobody else received because she understood what was expected of her.”

Chen picked up the photograph. “She became mine.” His voice remained calm, but the conviction behind the words was absolute. “She can run halfway around the world. She can hide under another name. She can surround herself with whoever she thinks will protect her.” His thumb moved slowly across the edge of the frame. “It changes nothing.”