Chapter 2
Meanwhile, Edward sat in what had once been our home, the space where I had lived for three years, and he stayed there the entire night.
He opened the photo gallery on his phone and scrolled through pictures of me, one by one.
The pathetic thing was, in every single photo, I was standing behind him or watching him from a distance, wearing a timid smile, my face always a blur.
For the first time, he realized he couldn't even picture my face clearly. All that remained was that submissive posture, etched into his memory like a faded shadow.
At that same moment, I sat on the terrace of a private vineyard overseas, wrapped in a silk robe as the cool night breeze drifted past.
I swirled a glass of rich Burgundy in my hand and watched the wine catch the light.
Across from me, Lucas Hayes lounged on the sofa. He was striking and refined, with the kind of effortless elegance that most men could only pretend to have.
He slid a tablet across the table toward me, and on the screen, a live news feed showed Edward losing his composure at city hall for all the world to see.
I studied his face, twisted and ugly with rage, and felt nothing. No satisfaction, no pity. Just a cold, steady silence.
Lucas raised his glass to me with a faint smile. "Congratulations, Athena. Phase one was a success."
I clinked my glass against his, and the crisp sound rang out into the dark.
"No." My voice came out cool and smooth as moonlight. "The real show is just getting started."
That untouchable man had finally gotten his first taste of what it felt like to lose control.
*****
Edward's rage had burned for twenty-four hours before it finally hardened into cold, calculated action.
He pulled every string he had, even reaching out to a few contacts embedded in overseas intelligence agencies, and tried to tear open a crack in the international marriage registry system at its source.
He was certain that a massive conspiracy lurked behind all of this.
Natalie Carter, that spineless, useless woman, could never have pulled off something like this on her own.
Someone had to be using her name, a dead woman's name, to wage war against him and the entire Sinclair family.
But his investigation was like punching into a wall of cotton. Every blow landed silently, absorbed by some invisible force he couldn't overpower.
Every lead was severed at a precise point, as if someone had known exactly where to cut.
The private investigator he sent out barely scratched the surface before local police showed up the very next day, slapping him with a warning for "unlawful invasion of privacy" and escorting him out of the country.
What stung even worse was what happened to one of his most powerful allies. After the man failed to pull the records, he received an anonymous, encrypted email.
It contained a single line.
[Your little fishing expedition ends here.]
This wasn't just a warning. It was pure, undisguised contempt.
Edward swept everything off his desk in a fury.
An antique vase shattered against the floor, but even the sound of something so expensive breaking into pieces couldn't quiet the storm raging inside him.
In all his years at the helm of Sinclair Holdings, he had never once been shut down like this.
He felt like a fool who had been toyed with, jerked around by an unseen hand that controlled every move he made.
Vivian stepped in at just the right moment, her voice soft and soothing.
She said, "Edward, let it go. Maybe it really was just a coincidence. She's gone, and we shouldn't let someone who's no longer here keep affecting our lives. Okay?"
She played the part of the gracious, understanding woman perfectly, but a flash of urgency and something cold flickered deep in her eyes.
The people she had sent out came back with nothing.
Natalie had vanished without a trace, as if she had never existed. There was no sign of her, alive or dead.
A fear unlike anything Vivian had ever known settled into her bones.
Edward stared at Vivian's carefully composed face, the one that always looked so warm and understanding.
For the first time, it brought him no comfort. Instead, a strange, restless irritation stirred inside him.
He waved her off and told her to leave.
Once he was alone, the memories came flooding in like a tide he couldn't hold back.
It was our second wedding anniversary.
I had started preparing at noon. I cooked all his favorite dishes by hand, put on the first dress he ever gave me, and lit the candles on the dining table.
I waited from dusk until well past midnight.
The food on the table had gone completely cold, and the candles had burned down to nothing.
Finally, I heard the front door open.
He walked in reeking of whiskey, and underneath it, I caught another scent I knew all too well. Vivian's perfume.
He didn't even glance at the table. He walked right past me and tossed his coat onto the couch.
"Stop doing this pointless stuff." His voice was heavy with impatience and exhaustion.
In that moment, everything I had so carefully held together, every foolish hope, went cold right along with my heart.
Then there was the time his mother, the untouchable matriarch of the Sinclair family, flew into a rage over something trivial and ordered me to kneel on the stone path in the courtyard.
The early autumn rain was freezing, cutting straight to the bone.
I knelt there, soaked through, with rainwater dripping from the ends of my hair and blurring everything in front of me.
When Edward's car pulled into the courtyard, a small flicker of hope stirred inside me.
He stepped out and opened a black umbrella, then walked toward me.
He looked down at me like I was an inconvenience, something to be dealt with. "You upset Mom again?" His voice was colder than the autumn rain falling around us.
In that moment, the last bit of warmth I had left was stripped away completely.
These memories had been buried in the deepest corners of my mind for years, but now they replayed in Edward's head with brutal clarity.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration, trying to shake off the useless emotions creeping in.