But all he got was her telling him to leave a voicemail.
“Fuck, I’m not good at voicemail,” he told her after the beep. “I’m in Hawaii without you. And the ocean’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have anything on you. So I guess I’m just calling to say I….”
So many words trembled on his tongue, including one that started with L. But that wasn’t a phone conversation. He wanted to do that shit in person as soon as he saw her again. So he opted for, “I miss you. That’s all. See you tomorrow.”
Phantom decided to cut out of the reception soon after that without bothering to say goodbye. He’d flown down here private with Victor and Han, and the flight back wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow.
But maybe he’d look into paying for an earlier flight. He wanted to get home. He wanted to get back to Olivia. The desire to be with her beat crazed and urgent inside his chest.
His phone rang just as he made it to one of the many Hawaiian Silent Triad fleet Infinitis parked outside the mega villa.
And Phantom’s mood immediately lightened when he saw Olivia’s name pop up on the Caller ID.
“Hey…” he started to say.
But she cut him off before he could tell her that he’d been thinking about her and coming home early. “Hak-kan...”
Phantom stilled. She sounded upset. She was over four thousand miles away, and she was upset.
“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Are you hurt?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” she answered. Though the tears in her voice told him she wasn’t. “It’s just—I’m sorry, but I can’t…I can’t marry you.”
“What?” That was the only word Phantom could get out with the triple bomb explosion going off inside his mind, chest, and stomach.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it this week, and we’re just too different. You’re barely two steps from being a criminal, and you were right about the danger—I’m not safe with you. I should have given that more consideration.”
Somehow, he managed to push words past the throat that had closed on him. “I’m going legit—you know that. That’s the whole reason I moved to New York to take over VIP Bai3. And you’re the one who said you didn’t want a guard escort to work. I can keep you safe. Just let me—”
“I don’t want to be kept safe. I want to live my life without looking over my shoulder for your enemies,” Olivia answered, her voice flat and resolved. “That’s why I’ve decided to end this relationship.”
Phantom clawed at his chest. Her tone was so cold and impersonal, no flowers, no molasses. Did she not understand that she was ripping his heart out of his chest? “No, no, you can’t do this. I’m coming home right now. We’re going to talk.”
“No, stay in Hawaii, please. I’m not going to be here when you get home. It’s my life, my decision to make—please, don’t be like Han and Victor. Just stay away.”
“O, I can’t. I can’t do that.”
“You can!” she insisted, her voice more vicious than he’d ever heard it. “This is a breakup. I’m breaking up with you. I’m allowed to do that. So please, don’t embarrass me by making me take out a restraining order against you.”
Cracks. Cracks were running up the seams of everything he knew. In his body. In his reality. Threatening to shatter him. “O, why are you doing this? Don’t do this. Don’t—”
The line went dead before he could finish begging her to stay with him.
27
She hung up. She just hung up.
Not that it mattered. Phantom still did exactly what he’d been planning to do when she called.
He took the first direct flight out of Honolulu, headed to New York, and landed at JFK around the next morning. But the penthouse was empty when he arrived, all her things gone, just like she promised.
And when he went to find her at her brownstone, he found it also empty with a For Sale sign in the window. Even weirder, when he checked on the listing, the realtor told him it was already in escrow.
“Would you like me to put you on the list of potential buyers if it falls through?” she asked.
The house was already off the market? Real estate was The Silent Triad’s money-washing bread and butter, so he knew how long it took to get something on the market and all the way into escrow. One to two months minimum.
How long? How long had she been planning to leave him?
“Sir? Sir, are you still there? Would you like me to put your name on the list?”
“No,” he answered the real estate agent, his throat raw even though he’d barely said a word to anyone since getting that call.
Next stop, the clinic.
“She’s not available,” Bernice told him as if he was a stranger who’d just walked in off the street.
