✓ WICKED VOWS| JAKE (Book II )

58-Vanished In Blood

Jake's pov

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

It had become an obsession, a dark and consuming force, burrowing deeper into the abyss of sleepless nights and endless records. My bloodshot, weary eyes scanned through the faces of countless women in newborn records, searching for anything that resembled Anastasia. But there was nothing. No face resembled hers. This ceaseless procession of mothers and babies, neither bearing any characteristics I had wished to see, merely jeered at me. She was gone, vanished into thin air, and with each passing day, the likelihood that I might ever find her or our child faded.

The strain coiled like a snake inside of me, growing tighter by the second. I knew she had a new name, a new life, far removed from the one we had shared. That knowledge gnawed at me, feeding my despair. Even the team of experts I had deployed, scouring the globe with the latest technology, found nothing. It was as if she had been swallowed up by the earth. The child. Had it been born? Or had she ended that possibility, too?

I saw my reflection in the glass of my office window. The man staring back was a ghost-one haggard, broken. Dark circles framed my eyes, my jaw taut with stress from endless and fruitless searching. The lines upon my face had deepened, hardened by the constant anxiety that gripped me. My hands shook as I continued riffling through the records, knowing it was in vain.

Two hours elapsed. The mind was a mess, a cacophony of despair and determination. Suddenly, my phone rang, dislodging me from the torture. I answered in my raw voice.

"Luca?" I asked, trying to summon the energy.

"Jake, I got something. It's not concrete but possibly worth following up," my uncle's voice came, steady, firm, like a lifeline in a storm raging within me.

"Tell me," I persisted.

"Anastasia's mother, Akira, has been to Australia twice since you got shot. She took her private jet both times, and both times she went to the same location—Australia."

"Do you have anything else?" I asked stronger now, a hint of resolve in my voice.

'We're working for it., Akira's not just anybody. She's a Yakuza and a sister to their current leader. If Anastasia is there, it won't be easy."

"I don't care, Luca. If there's even a chance she's there, I need to go. I need to find her." I was resolute, even at the cost of walking into the lion's den.

"Alright. I'll send the coordinates to you. But Jake, be careful."

I hung up the phone and stared at the orchid flower Anastasia had left behind, now withered and dying on my desk. I'd tried to save it, just as I'd tried to save us, but it was too late. It was a sign, perhaps, of how far she had slipped away from me. But I wasn't about to let that be the end.

Later that evening, I sat amidst the dim quiet of my office refuge that had become my prison. The master bedroom, which once was filled with warmth and her presence, was a hollow shell I couldn't bear entering. It was nothing more than a cold, empty space without her. I barely ate, barely slept, lost in an endless pursuit that had consumed every waking moment. Across from me, Ethan sat bathed by the soft light of the screen as we poured over the latest reports. We were looking for any trace, any record of birth in Australia, anything that could lead us to her. The silence between us was one of those heavy ones, with only the absolute seizing of a mouse or the rustle of paper cutting it.

A sudden knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts. David, ever watchful, opened it to reveal Natharia Aziz, head of the Special Operations Group that I had assigned from the FBI. With an air of authority, she strode purposefully and poised into the center of the room. Natharia was tall, her build muscular, and there was something unmistakably similar in the length of her frame as compared with Anastasia's. It felt as though someone was twisting a knife in my chest, and I clenched my fists, fighting to hold down a wave of anguish that threatened to engulf me. She wore a black long-sleeved shirt, a tactical belt and holsters around her pants, and combat boots that spoke of readiness for anything.