Love Like This

The Product Of My Father

Derrick's POV

" Knock! Knock!" West said and made his way into my office.

" Did you find her?" I asked him.

" No, sir, we can't find her," he said to me.

" You are supposed to be the best in the business, and yet here you are, two weeks into the job, and you have nothing! Tell me again why am I paying you so much money again?" I angrily said to West as I kicked the chair in frustration.

When he called me to tell me that he wanted to see me, I had hopes that he would bring me good news, it looks like I was wrong about that. From where I am standing, it looks like he is about to give me more excuses.

They say that you don't know the value of something until you lose it, I know that to be true. I have lost something very valuable to me, my wife.

Two weeks ago, I woke up in bed with an excruciating headache. Of course, at the time, I had no idea why. All that I could remember was that I fell asleep right after I drank the bottle of water left out for me. I had no idea that it had been laced with very powerful drugs.

Not only did I sleep throughout the night, but I slept the entire afternoon as well. By the time I woke up, my wife was nowhere to be seen. It didn't hit me at first. It wasn't until the house staff told me that they hadn't seen my wife that I began to get worried.

Naturally, I went back to the bedroom to check on her belongings. Everything was as it should be; her phone was still there, and her passport, driver's license, and everything else was still there.

It didn't make sense to me how they could have not seen her. I decided to check the security footage, and I couldn't believe what I saw. Chloe didn't just disappear. She left me.

At first, I thought that she was just angry that I slept with my PA again. Now I can see that it is more than that. She planned all of this, and she ran away from me, her husband. I will not let it slide. She will regret what she did.

When I find her, I am going to make her regret her decision to leave me like she did. When we got married, we said for better or for worse, she promised to love me through thick and thin. I know that we have problems in our marriage, but so what? No marriage is perfect.

She is not perfect either. All of that doesn't mean that we have to walk away from each other. I know that I might have handled the situation better a few times in the past, but that doesn't mean that I didn't love her, neither does it mean that I would have walked away from her.

I didn't know what was going on in her head, but when I said that I loved her to death, I meant that. If she thinks that she can leave me and run into the arms of another man, I won't allow that; I will kill her. She knows that.

I have never loved anyone like her, I don't think I will. I never thought that I deserved happiness, to love and be loved like this, and I didn't think that it was possible, especially for me.

Ever since she left me, it feels like I am going crazy, like I have lost a limb. Walking up alone is torture, I can't even think of anything except for her. She is my wife, and finding her is my top priority.

That is why I hired West here. I have used him a few times before, and he has always delivered. I thought that he would have found her by now, but I guess I was wrong about him. I mean, how hard can it be to find one single moment?

I know my wife. She is not some super spy who can disappear without a trace. She doesn't have a kind of knowledge, I refuse to believe that my wife can outsmart me.

" Sir, I don't know what to tell you, but I have done everything I can; I am keeping an eye on her mother; her whole house is bugged, still nothing," he said to me.

" Are you saying that you are unable to do your job, West? Am I to believe that you don't know what you are doing?" I asked him.

" What I am saying is that we need to come up with a plan. We need to smoke her out," he said to me.

" We have tried that already!" I said to him.

That is because I have tried to get her to come to me by making her options limited; I have reported her missing and then even went to the Media and offered a million-dollar reward to anyone who can help me find her.

It has been a few days, and still nothing. We have had a lot of people coming forth, but no one with anything that could help us. A lot of people have claimed to have seen her, but still, they too, couldn't help me get to her.

" I mean something different, sir. We could use her mother," he said to me.

" I thought you said that you couldn't find anything," I said to him.

" Yes, but if something were to happen to her mother, surely she would come for her, right?" he said to me.

He is right; she might have been estranged from her mother, but I know for certain that she will come back if something were to happen to her mother. I love my wife, and I do not wish to kill her mother.

" I will not kill my mother-in-law," I said to him.

" I am no murderer, but what I can do is to get her mother in hospital, perhaps a little accident, nothing too dangerous or hectic," he said to me.

" That could work, do it," I said to him.

" On it, I'll let you know when it's done," he said and left my office.

I am going back to the office in a couple of weeks; I have to be focused on my clients and their cases; I don't have time to deal with s**t; when I find her, she will not even think of leaving the house without telling me.

I don't get it. I mean, what is it exactly that women want? My wife has the life that many people can only dream of, women who would have loved to have that huge diamond on their finger.

She doesn't work, and yet she has everything that money can buy. She has everything at the tip of her fingers. I gave her everything a woman could want. What more does she want from me?

" Mrs Cartwright, Mrs Cartwright," I heard Wanita calling out for my mother.

" I know where he is," I heard my mother's voice. This is the last thing I need right now. I have been avoiding her for weeks.

The door opened, and my mother made her way into my office without even knocking; the only person who did that, even Chloe, knocked before she came in here.

" Son..." she said to me. She didn't look happy, and then again, she was never happy.

" Hi, Mother, you can take a seat," I said to her.

" No, I think I'll stand. This shouldn't take too long," she said and folded her arms.

" To what do I owe the pleasure?" I said to her.

" What did you do?" she said to me.

" I don't know what you are talking about," I said to her.

" Chloe! Where is she?" she asked me.

" Why did you come here? Let me guess, you heard that Chloe is missing and now you have come to what? Blame me for it? Like you blame me for everything else!" I said to her.

" She is not missing, is she? She left you, didn't she? She finally saw you for the monster that you are! I knew it, I knew you couldn't do it, you are just like your father!" she said to me. She looked at me with despise in her eyes and contempt in her voice.

" Don't you dare compare me to that man, I am nothing like him!" I said to her.

I already look like the bastard, but I can never be like him. I get it, I might have lost control a few times with Chloe, but it is nothing compared to what that man did to her, what he did to us.

" I should have killed you when you were born, I should have known that nothing good could come out of that man, that you would end up exactly like him!

I am not a fool, Derrick; I saw it: the marks on her arms, the heavy makeup on her face, the excuses about the injuries she had, everything about her reminded me of myself and what your useless father did to me.

You were there with me, I didn't think that you would be like him, that you would do to her what your father did to me, to us! I know she's not missing, she left you,

I guess she finally got some sense in her head; I hope she never comes back; I hope you end up alone and cold as you deserve!" She said and walked out.

My mother is wrong about me. I am not my father; I would never hurt Chloe like my father has hurt my mother; I love my wife, I would never hold a gun to her head and threaten to kill her, and I would never beat her into a comma.

I know I have problems, but I have been working on them, trying to be better, trying to be better than my father. I refuse to be like that man.

Everyone thought that I had a good life, but no one knew the truth, mostly because my mother hid the truth from everyone, including me. It wasn't until he started to put his hands on me that I realized that he had been abusing my mother.

I wish I could say that things were better with my mother, but they were not. She resented me instead. She stayed with him for me. She would have left him a long time ago if I wasn't there.

She hated me for it, hated that she couldn't leave me. She didn't put her hands on me, but I could feel her rage, her resentment towards me. She always said that I was just like my father.

Growing up, she always told me that I had a darkness in me. Maybe she was right, I fought everyone and anyone. I was an angry child, and for that, I blame her. Maybe she's right. Maybe I am like my father; I am his son, after all.

She was my mother. She should have done better to make sure that I felt loved. My father didn't love us; it didn't mean that she had to blame me for it, and it didn't mean that I had to lose my mother as well. She made me what I am today.