ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED TO THE BILLIONAIRE SINGLE DAD (Gabrielle and Damon) novel Chapter 19

DAMON’S POV

I retraced my steps through the entrance, scanning the hall as I walked.

She wasn’t there.

Rhys was still seated where I had left him, speaking with a group of men.

I walked straight to him. “Where is she?”

He frowned slightly, then dismissed the people he was talking to. “What are you talking about?”

“Where is Gabrielle?” I asked, my voice louder than intended.

His expression fell, like he suddenly realized he was supposed to be looking out for her.

“She stepped out back a few minutes ago.”

“With who?”

“She was alone.”

I nodded once and turned away, ignoring the rest of what he said and Fiorella’s questions.

I didn’t waste time asking anyone else.

I stepped outside and headed toward the back of the building without breaking stride.

I dialed her number again.

It rang once before going straight to voicemail.

Fuck!

A few steps ahead, I spotted her bag on the ground. I checked but her phone wasn’t in it.

I stopped for a moment, scanning the area around me for any possible threat before checking the ground for footprints.

There was none.

I was slowly beginning to lose my mind.

I pulled out my phone and sent a message to my security team.

“Find my wife now. Lock down every exit. Nobody leaves the property without a thorough search."

Another message followed immediately after.

“You are all dead if she is not found in the next five minutes."

I shoved the phone back into my pocket and forced myself to think clearly. Acting blindly could only make things worse.

But every second felt like a nightmare.

Until I remembered the necklace I got her earlier today.

Whenever I bought her jewelry, I always had a tracker placed inside the pendant in case of a situation like this.

I had been doing it since Rocco took her.

I opened the tracking app immediately. A second passed, and there was nothing.

Then the signal appeared.

Relief hit me quickly, but not completely.

She was close, only a few feet away from where I stood.

I looked up toward the woods behind the building as the signal was moving slowly deeper into the trees.

I moved without hesitation.

The night was awfully quiet.

It sent a dreadful feeling through me.

My grip tightened around my phone as I followed the tracker farther into the dark path.

If I had taken care of Aiden, this would never have happened. I would give anything just to hear her voice and to know that she was still alive.

As if she heard my thoughts, a high-pitched scream echoed through the woods.

I ran towards her.

In less than a minute, I reached a clearing and saw them.

Aiden held Gabrielle against a tree. Her dress had been torn off and discarded on the dirt beside them.

She was standing in nothing but her black lingerie.

A grave had already been dug a few feet away.

My steps faltered.

I couldn’t hear anything except the sound of my own breathing—and Aiden’s voice.

“…then it would stick in your brain,” he said, leaning in too close. “Plus, I can make you come harder than your husband—”

I’d heard enough.

I closed the distance between us and dragged him away from her by his shirt.

Aiden turned in time and that was when I saw a gun in his hand. He lifted it, as if to shoot me, then fired it right in my face.

I dodged quickly, expecting impact but nothing came.

The gun wasn’t loaded.

A grin crept on my face.

I knocked his forehead down with my elbow, and when his head snapped back, I drove my fingers straight into the front of his neck.

He fell to the ground and held his throat, wheezing for air.

Gabrielle ran into my arms, her body shaking and tears streaming down her face. “Oh my god, Damon.”

“I didn’t touched her!” he gasped. “I swear to god—”

I pressed harder until another scream tore out of him.

“But you were going to, weren’t you?”

His breath stuttered. “Please… I have a fam—“

“You should have thought about that before you threatened her,” I cut him off coldly. “Before you dragged my wife into the woods like an animal to slaughter.”

My pulse was out of control.

Every second I looked at him, I saw Gabrielle half naked against that tree beside a fucking grave.

I wanted him dead right there.

Aiden’s hands shook violently as he grabbed my ankle. “She’s—”

I grabbed him by the throat and hauled him upright before slamming him against the tree so hard the bark cracked behind him.

“Be very careful with your next words,” I warned.

His eyes watered from pain and lack of air.

Behind me, Gabrielle stayed quiet.

That alone should have calmed me down.

Instead, it made me worse.

Because she was still shaken and trembling. Still standing there in nothing but black lingerie meant for my eyes only while this piece of shit breathed the same air as her.

I exhaled deeply and reached for the gun on the ground. “If you couldn’t afford bullets, then you shouldn’t have a gun, Aiden.”

He groaned in pain as a response like a pathetic loser.

I tilted the gun under the moonlight, turning it slowly in my hand.

An unsettling feeling rose in my chest.

I had seen this gun before.

My grip tightened around it as I looked down at the engraving near the trigger.

There was no mistake.

Slowly, I turned around.

Gabrielle was staring at me quietly.

Her cheeks were flushed with arousal and her breathing was uneven, but there was something dark in her expression that wasn’t there before.

My chest tightened.

I looked back at the gun once more before lifting my eyes to hers.

“How did Aiden get my gun, Gabrielle?”