Samuel didn’t slow down as he climbed the stairs to Talia’s penthouse. The nurse behind him barely managed to speak before he was already halfway up.
“She’s in her room and-”
He ignored her.
The second floor echoed with shouting. Female. High-pitched. He recognized the voice.
Talia.
He followed the sound and pushed open the bedroom door.
ss crunched under his shoe.
Talia stood near the center of the room, her face wrapped in gauze and medical tape. Her arms iled as she shouted at her manager, who was crouched beside the bed, silently picking up shards of what used to be a decorativemp.
Samuel didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t need to. The broken ss across the carpet and the cracked vase near the wall already told the story.
He sighed and gestured for the manager to leave.
The man nodded, said nothing, and walked out.
Talia turned sharply. “Why are you here?”
Samuel stepped inside and closed the door. “I canceled the engagement ceremony.”
Her body stiffened.
He continued. “The wedding will be dyed. One year. Minimum.”
Talia’s eyes widened, visible even through the wrappings. “What? Why?”
“You’re not in any condition to marry anyone,” Samuel said. “The ident-”
A vase flew past his head before he finished.
It smashed into the wall behind him, exploding into pieces.
He ducked, barely missing the impact, and let out a sharp curse.
12:58 Tue, 9 Sept
“Talia, what the hell is wrong with you?”
She pointed at him, trembling. “You promised me-‘
“I’m not marrying someone who’s hurling ss at my head,” he snapped. “You need to focus on getting better. Whatever that means for you.”
“I’m not insane!”
“I didn’t say you were. But you need help. This,” he motioned to the mess around them, “this isn’t normal. I already book an appointment with your shrink and some counseling. I want you toplete those appointments in the next six months. I already talked to your father about this and…” he eyed her stomach. “Take care of yourself.”
She stood frozen, chest heaving.
Samuel didn’t wait for another outburst. He turned and walked toward the door.
“I’ll send someone to check on you tomorrow,” he said. “Don’t call me until you’ve calmed down.”
The moment Samuel stepped out of the room, he shut the door behind him and exhaled slowly. Talia’s screams were still audible, but muffled now. He nced at the manager waiting by the stairs.
“Make sure she doesn’t do anything else stupid,” Samuel said, adjusting his cufflink. “And keep the press updates vague. No direct statements from her. Take away her phone too. She doesn’t need more stress after losing the baby.”
The manager nodded, then disappeared down the hall without a word.
Samuel pulled out his phone and checked the time. He already had Roni working on it-feeding a carefully worded tip to the paparazzi: Samuel Dwight now staying at Talia Arden’s residence to personally care for her during recovery.
– It was the kind of headline her fans would eat up. Sympathetic. Devoted fiancé. Perfect image.
Of course, none of it was true.
Samuel had already purchased a separate apartment two floors below. The lease was under a shellpany-quiet, untraceable. He had no intention of staying under the same roof as Talia, not after the tantrum she just threw.
But optics were everything.
He didn’t need love. He needed headlines that worked in his favor.
12.00
Let the public believe he was the doting partner. Let Talia’s fans gush online about how lucky she was. Meanwhile, he’d stay out of sight, keep her stable, and slowly move public interest toward something more useful-his foundation, his business, anything else.
As far as the world was concerned, the wedding dy was out of care and love for someone who just had an ident and lost the child. Nothing more.
He stepped into the private elevator and pressed the button for the basement garage. His car was already waiting.
Everything else was just noise.
Samuel slid into the back seat of the car and shut the door behind him. The vehicle was already moving before he even buckled his seatbelt.
“Do you have anything?” he asked, eyes locked on the back of Roni’s head.
“Unfortunately not,” Roni said from the driver’s seat, tapping a few keys on the smallptop mount-d near the dashboard. “I went through every trace we had.”
Samuel leaned forward. “Start from the top.”
Roni nodded. “First, I checked Nina’s building. Miss Vaughn moved out four days ago. No forwarding address. The doorman said she left with just a few bags and didn’t mention a destination. Since then,
no one’s seen her there.”
Samuel’s jaw tightened. “Nina?”
“I’ve had two of our people trailing her. She’s kept a low profile. Grocery runs, her office, nothing unusual. No contact with Emery. No calls. No in-person meetings. Nothing.”
Roni reached to the side and handed Samuel a folder. “I also had a team pull all recent flight manifests-private charters,mercial, even international departures from nearby cities. I checked under her name and several known aliases she used during college. Nothing.”
Samuel flipped through the folder, his brow furrowed. All dead ends.
“I pulled CCTV from around the building and found her using an ATM. It was near a pharmacy, three days before she disappeared. After that, no withdrawals, no credit card activity.”
“She’s not traveling under her name,” Samuel muttered. “Someone’s helping her.”
“I thought the same. So I started digging through her friend’s activity. But aside from Miss Nina, she’s not close to anyone else.” <ul><li>2/5 </li></ul>
12.00
Samuel stared out the tinted window, the city lights flickering across his reflection. He tapped the folder resting on hisp once before speaking.
Ahat about the orphanage?” he asked without looking at Roni.
“I went there myself,” Roni answered. “The ce is barely standing. It’s been unde; renovation for years, but more importantly, there was a fire. Ten years ago…”
Samuel turned his head. “Emery turned eighteen ten years ago.”
“Exactly.”
Samuel narrowed his eyes. “Coincidence?”
“Doesn’t feel like one,” Roni said. “I questioned some of the older staff still around. Most of them don’t remember her. A few mentioned a girl with the samest name, but no one could confirm what she looked like. The fire apparently destroyed all paper records. Birth certificates, guardianship details, school logs-gone. And the digital backup system they had? It only started logging data a year
she left.”
“Convenient,” Samuel muttered.
after
“I thought so too. I pulled city records, fire department reports. The official story is faulty wiring. But there’s no insurance im on file. No inspection report filed in the six months prior either.”
Samuel’s fingers curled against the leather seat.
“She was erased,” he said under his breath. How could Emery just vanish as if she never existed in the first ce? He gritted his teeth, irritation apparent in his eyes. He knew that Emery was just trying to y hard to get after what happened. A girl like her doesn’t have anywhere else to go. She can onlye back to him.
“Possibly,” Roni replied. “Or someone made sure no one could find her origins.”
Samuel stared straight ahead. An orphan with no paper trail. No surviving family. No witnesses. It didn’t make sense. She had no one aside from him. And since he already blocked all her credit cards- and savings ounts, she shouldn’t have any money left.
“Dig deeper. If there’s someone who pulled her out of that system, I want a name.”
“And if I don’t find one?”
“Then look for someone who paid to make it look like she never existed,” Samuel said tly. “No one disappears by ident.”
Aft
“Sir…” Roni said. “I apologize for saying this, but… don’t you think it’s too suspicious?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… even if she wanted to disappear, she shouldn’t have the money to do so.”
“You mean?”
Roni sighed. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I remember Madam Dwight talking about bribing her with money in the past, so I-”
“You think my mother paid Emery to stay away from me!?”