Deal

TWO WEEKS LATER

I miscalculated. Misjudged. Bottom line, I fucked up.

Staring at the text message, I was left hollow. Empty. For a week straight, I’d gone back to the message and read it again and again.

Pregnant. Twins. Left.

My gut wrenched. My chest cracked.

I pushed her too hard and wanted too much. My jealousy. My fucked-up, arrogant ways. My temper. My blind jealousy. I fought so hard to keep her and lost her anyway.

After that text, I drove to her house to find it fucking empty. I called her. Over and over again. I had private investigators looking for her. Her house in Croatia, the one she let my mother use. Nothing. The town where she lived with her parents. Nothing. I even went after Rick and Noona, until those two disappeared too. They landed in Zagreb and then fucking nothing.

The day she walked out my door replayed over and over again. Every look. Every word.

She’d said goodbye that day. Except I was too stupid to hear it.

I recalled the way her dark eyes flashed with hur