The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 385

Chapter 189-1

Locke

I step into the foyer, tossing my heavy truck keys onto the mahogany side table. I pull my leather jacket off my shoulders and hang it on the rack, my gaze immediately going to the clock hanging.

on the wall in front of me.

8:14 PM.

Without knowing why, I stop dead in my tracks, cold stillness settles over my chest

Zara sent me a text at four o’clock this afternoon saying her meeting with Willow went well and that she was heading straight back to the car to come home. That was over four hours ago.

Except the penthouse is completely dark. Her boots aren’t by the door. Her coat isn’t on the hook.

“Zara?” I call out, “Baby, where are you?”

Silence.

I walk through the apartment, heading toward the master bedroom first. The door is half-open, casting a narrow strip of soft light across the dark hardwood floor. I push it back gently, half-expecting to see her curled under the duvet, exhausted from the week, just gone to bed early.

The bed is empty. The sheets are pulled tight, neat and untouched, the pillows smoothed flat.

A sharp prickle of instinct sparks at the base of my neck.

I double back down the dark hallway into the open kitchen. That’s where the wrongness hits me

like a physical wall.

The blueprints me and Zara were looking at this morning are still laid out flat on the oak dining table, held down by my heavy brass shop weights. There are dirty mugs in the sink, and on the island there are plates with a few stray cinnamon roll crumbs. I walk closer and see that there’s a splash of spilled coffee on the counter, and an open carton of milk left sitting out.

Everything looks completely normal. Peaceful.

Except Zara would never leave mess and clutter sitting out for an entire day.

Except Zara isn’t here.

I pull my phone from my vest pocket and hit her speed dial. I lift the receiver to my ear, standing dead still in the middle of the mess.

One ring. Two rings.

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Chapter 189-1

“Hi, you’ve reached Zara’s phone. Leave a message –

Voicemail.

+25 Point

A sudden, sharp pulse of ice shoots straight through my chest, instantly freezing the warm blood

in my veins. Zara never ignores my calls. If she stopped for gas, if her battery was low, she would

have texted.

1 hit redial.

“Hi, you’ve reached Zara’s phone -”

Straight to voicemail again.

Every protective instinct I possess snaps to absolute, razor-sharp attention. The lingering fatigue of a long day vanishes into complete silence as my brain drops into a terrifyingly cold, hyper-logical

state of assessment.

She was at The Daily Grind. She sent the text at 4:02 PM saying she was walking to her car.

I tap the location-sharing app on my phone, the simple GPS link we set up after I got back from the dark run so we could always keep eyes on each other.

The small blue dot pulses on the map. It isn’t moving. It’s pinned static at The Daily Grind Café,

three miles down the valley road.

It’s been sitting in that exact spot for hours.

I don’t waste another second. I grab my keys off the table, hit the elevator button, and head

straight back down to the garage.

Twenty minutes later, my truck screeches to a halt at the edge of the café’s parking lot. I see a few

cars, but none of them are Zara’s.

The Daily Grind is still open, warm amber light spilling through the front windows onto the

pavement, though only a couple of late-evening patrons sit inside. I park near the side of the building, my heavy boots hitting the pavement with crushing weight as I step out.

I don’t go through the front door yet. I head straight around the brick corner toward the side exit alley. I spotted a second parking area down this way when I pulled in, and I’m seriously hoping that

her car is down here.

The darkness is dense here, illuminated only by the pale overhead security light mounted above

the service entrance.

About twenty feet down the narrow alley, Zara’s car sits parked in its spot, completely untouched. A light dusting of snow has settled on the windshield.

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Chapter 189-1

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