CHAPTER 168: CHAPTER 168

Olivia’s POV

This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. Not tonight. Not after everything I’ve been through today.

I spun in a circle, searching the room again like Mitchell might suddenly materialize out of thin air. "Where is she? Where the hell is she?"

"Okay, okay, let’s think about this rationally," Kira said, "When was the last time we saw her?"

"Before we left! She was sleeping on my bed, all curled up on and cozy."

"So sometime between when we left and now, she... what? Learned how to pick locks?"

"This isn’t funny, Kira!"

"I’m not trying to be funny! I’m trying to understand how a cat - a pampered, royal cat - managed to escape from a locked apartment!"

I grabbed my phone from my purse with shaking hands. No messages. No missed calls. No magical explanation for how Maxwell’s beloved cat had vanished into thin air.

"Maxwell is going to kill me," I whispered, staring at my phone screen. "He’s going to actually kill me."

"He’s not going to kill you..."

"He might! You didn’t see how he was with her when he caught me trying to steal her. Mitchell is like his child. His baby. And I lost her. I lost his baby."

The room started to spin slightly, and I had to sit down on the couch before my legs gave out. This was a disaster. An absolute, complete, catastrophic disaster.

First, my stranger was avoiding me. Then Maxwell had shown up at the club and made everything weird and tense and confusing. And now - the cherry on top of this horrible sundae - I’d lost his cat.

How did my life become this much of a mess?

"We’ll find her," Kira said firmly, kneeling down to check under the couch for the third time. "We have to. She couldn’t have gone far."

But as I looked around our small apartment, at all of Mitchell’s belongings sitting there, I couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that things might get much more worse.

If Maxwell found out Mitchell was missing...

No. I couldn’t think about that. Not yet.

"Mitchell!" I called out again, louder this time, desperation enveloping me. "Please, baby, if you can hear me, come out! I’ll give you all the treats you want! I’ll let you sleep on my face! Just please, please come out!"

Silence.

We tore through the apartment again - more frantically this time, checking places we’d already checked, calling Mitchell’s name until our voices went hoarse. I pulled out every drawer, looked inside the oven, even checked the washing machine in case she’d somehow crawled inside.

Nothing.

"This is insane," I said, my voice cracking. "Maxwell is going to lock me up for life when he finds out his baby is gone. He’s going to actually murder me, Kira. Like, legitimately murder me and dump my body in the Hudson River."

"He’s not going to..."

"He will! You saw the note he left in her suitcase. Mitchell is everything to him. She’s probably the only thing in this world he actually loves. And I lost her." My hands were shaking so badly I had to clasp them together. "He’ll never forgive me. Never."

Kira grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "Then we’re not going to tell him she’s lost. We’re going to find her. Right now. Tonight."

"How? Where do we even start?"

"Outside," she said firmly. "She has to be somewhere in the building or on the street. Cats don’t just vanish into thin air. Come on - change into something comfortable. We’re going on a cat hunt."

The determination in her voice snapped me out of my spiral. She was right. Standing here panicking wasn’t going to bring Mitchell back. We had to move, had to search, had to do something.

I ran to my bedroom and threw off my club dress, throwing on the first comfortable things I could find - sweatpants, an oversized hoodie, and sneakers. No time for anything else. Kira did the same.

We grabbed our phones, our keys, and a bag of Mitchell’s favorite treats - maybe the sound of the bag would lure her out if she was hiding somewhere.

"Flashlights," Kira said, pulling out her phone and turning on the flashlight feature. "It’s dark out there."

The street outside our apartment building was quieter than usual for a Tuesday night, but there were still people around - couples walking home from late dinners, a few stragglers from nearby bars, someone walking their dog.

"Excuse me!" I rushed up to an older woman with a small terrier. "Have you seen a white Persian cat? She’s really fluffy, kind of chubby, with green eyes?"

The woman shook her head sympathetically. "Sorry, dear. Haven’t seen any cats tonight."

We moved on to the next person - a young guy smoking outside a bodega.

"White Persian cat?" he repeated, taking a drag. "Nah, haven’t seen it. But you might want to check near the dumpsters. Cats like hanging around there."

The mention of dumpsters made my stomach turn, but I thanked him anyway and we hurried toward the alley he’d pointed to.

"Mitchell!" I called out, shaking the treat bag. The sound echoed in the quiet alley. "Mitchell, baby, please come out!"

We searched behind every dumpster, under every parked car, in every shadowy corner where a cat might hide. Nothing. Just garbage bags, empty bottles, and the rustling of rats.

For the next hour, we walked up and down every street in a six-block radius, stopping everyone we encountered.

"Have you seen a white cat?"

"Persian, really fluffy?"

Most people shook their heads. Some looked at us like we were crazy. One drunk guy asked if we were talking about a real cat or a euphemism for something else, which earned him a withering glare from Kira.

My feet were starting to hurt, my whole body ached from not fully recovering, and the panic in my chest was building with each passing minute. Every dark alley we searched without finding her, every stranger who said no, every empty corner made the reality sink in deeper.

Mitchell was really gone.

"Maybe she went back upstairs?" Kira suggested hopefully. "Maybe she found her way back while we were out here?"

"Let’s check."

We ran back to the apartment, bursting through the door with hope. "Mitchell? Are you here, baby?"

But the apartment was exactly as we’d left it. Empty.

"Back outside," I said, not allowing myself to break down yet. "We can’t give up."

We headed back to the streets, this time going in the opposite direction. The time was around 12 midnight now, the neighborhood was getting quieter, fewer people to ask, more shadows to search through.

I was starting to lose hope when we approached an older man sitting on a stoop, smoking a cigarette.

"Excuse me, sir? Have you seen a white Persian cat? Really fluffy, green eyes?"

The man looked up at us, squinting through his cigarette smoke. He was silent for a moment, and I was about to move on when he finally spoke.

"White Persian cat, you said?"

"Yes! Have you seen her?"

He took another drag, then pointed down the street with his cigarette. "Saw something like that up ahead. ’Bout twenty minutes ago. But..." He paused, shaking his head sadly. "Didn’t look too good, if I’m being honest. Was just lying there in the street. Didn’t move when I walked past."

My world stopped.