His Wife (A Contract Marriage Story) by Heer Mangtani

Chapter 45

GABRIEL

When I discovered Sofia was gone, my first thought was to run after her (after giving her a few hours to sleep and meet her grandfather because she must be tired after everything that happened between us), then bring her back home (after drugging her if she doesn’t come voluntarily), and then chain her to my bed if insists on running away again. She can be

mad in front of me

All those plans went into the trash when I returned home after instructing my right hand man to take care of things at work for a few days more, asking the good-for-nothing Peter to give me hourly updates of things happening at work, and was on my way to ask the driver to pull out the car because I was going back to my wife’s hometown to get her stubborn a*s back to me, when my door bell rang.

I opened the door myself, eyebrows knit.

I never got visitors, and a part of me hoped it was my wife who came back.

It wasn’t.

The man on the other side was nowhere near the woman I wished would be.

The six foot something hunk just stared at me, looking more muscled than the last time I saw him, more inks lining the skin of his arm visible because of his rolled up white shirt, and a smug smile on his lips when he stepped inside my house uninvited as if he owns it.

“What the f*ck are you doing here?” I growled at him, partially in disbelief, partially in anger.

“I was offended when I wasn’t invited to the wedding.” The same sinile lined his lips, only getting more lopsided.

“And I was offended when I heard you changed your last name and went off grid.” I was a cold person, but never short tempered, but there was something about the man standing in front of me that made me want to punch his face off.

sound as powerful.” He seemed unfazed by my burning glare. “King

connected my fist to his jaw, his face turning aside. He let me

his lips even as the cut on lower lip bled when he looked back at me. “I missed you

I punched

well kept secret

child then who had held my mother and wouldn’t let her go. So, he was adopted into our

all dead because he was found in the

I was logical, he was strategic. While I was cold, he was ruthless. While I learned under my grandfather how to create in his company, all Damien learnt

for him. I protected him. I took the blame for him. But three “accidental” fires in

and grandparents recognised him for what he was- a psychopath, and shipped him off to

to know he was following down a path even I couldn’t bring him back from, and then we lost him completely when he just turned an adult. His existence became a secret in front of the world. His calls became few, visits even fewer, and he went off the grid two years ago. Even the

mafia. Damien King was leading

I was even warier about helping him. when he said, “I need your help.

wanting to blatantly

was that he would stay in touch after this, absolutely rubbishing his theory that

help Damien. The first definitely was letting Freckles leave in the

her hometown with her f*cker of an ex or ex best friend or whoever he was for five days. Five

to take me for a week, a heads up would’ve

Damien replied, uninterested. “But it looks like I’m

to not murder me and throw me in a ditch,” I joked while twisting the glass

hurt you think

“I think lower.”

brother’s lips. “Since when did you develop a habit

had to leave my wife with her f*cker of an ex. I