The blank screen of my phone stared back at me, mocking my carefully constructed composure. No texts, no missed calls, no desperate pleas. Nothing. It was impossible. Amelia always contacted me, even after our most trivial disagreements. She was dependent on me, she loved me. She couldn' t just disappear.

A cold sweat broke out on my brow. Perhaps my phone was malfunctioning. I checked the network, rebooted the device. Nothing. The horrifying truth began to dawn, a cold, sickening realization. She wasn't contacting me because she didn't want to.

No. This was a game. A stubborn, childish act of defiance. She was trying to make me miss her, to make me chase her. My jaw tightened. Fine. Two could play at that game.

I furiously dialed her number, my finger shaking with a mixture of anger and a growing, unsettling fear. I would set her straight. I would remind her of her place, of her obligations, of the fate that awaited her if she truly dared to defy me. I would tell her, in no uncertain terms, that this charade had gone on long enough.

The phone rang once, twice, then a robotic female voice cut through the silence. "The number you have dialed is not in service."

My blood ran cold. The phone slipped from my grasp, clattering to the expensive marble floor. Not in service. My ears roared, a deafening white noise filling my head. My body stiffened, a paralyzing shock gripping me. She had changed her number. She had truly cut me off. She had blocked me.

A surge of white-hot rage, pure and unadulterated, consumed me. No one defied Blake Hodge. No one. I snatched up the phone, ignoring the cracked screen, and immediately dialed my head of security, Marcus.

"Find her!" I roared into the phone, my voice raw and unhinged. "Find Amelia Levine! Now! Bring her back!"

Marcus, usually unflappable, hesitated. "Mr. Hodge, she's... she's not in the city. We tracked her phone's last signal to the airport. She's gone."

Gone. The word echoed in my mind, hollow and terrifying. "Don't be ridiculous, Marcus! Where would she go? She has nothing! She's just hiding. Find her!"

"Sir, she purchased a one-way ticket, paid in cash," Marcus continued, his voice grim. "She boarded a flight to... to an unknown international destination. We've tried to trace her, but she used burner phones and cash. She's covered her tracks completely."

My mind reeled. International? Burner phones? Amelia? The quiet, unassuming Amelia? This was impossible. "Why wasn't I informed?" I snarled, my voice vibrating with barely contained fury. "Why was I not told she was leaving?"

Marcus sighed, a sound of heavy resignation. "Sir, I tried. Multiple times. But you had given explicit instructions not to disturb you or Ms. Hatfield. You were deeply immersed in your spiritual retreat, and your personal assistant had relayed specific orders not to interrupt you for any reason unless it concerned the twins. Ms. Hatfield also reiterated those orders, sir."

Chyna. My head snapped up, a dawning horror twisting my gut. Chyna had kept me from knowing. Chyna had orchestrated this. She had encouraged my isolation, my blind faith, knowing Amelia was slipping away. She had played me.

I slammed the phone down, ignoring Marcus's continued presence on the line. I raced out of my office, a dark fury propelling me forward. I sped through the city streets, ignoring traffic laws, my mind a maelstrom of confusion and rage. She was playing a game, a very dangerous game. She would regret this. She would come back. She had to.

I burst through the front doors of the mansion, my security detail scrambling to follow. "Where is she?" I roared, grabbing the nearest guard by his lapels. "Where is Amelia? What did she take?"

The guard, pale and trembling, stammered, "Sir, your instructions were... she was to be prevented from taking anything. But she came back while you were... unavailable. She insisted she had a right to her belongings."

"And you let her?" I snarled, my grip tightening.

"She had the divorce papers, sir. Signed by you." He managed to choke out. "She said she was legally ending the marriage, and she had the right to collect her property. Our orders were to prevent theft, but if she was lawfully dissolving the union..."

Divorce papers. The blank document. A symbol of trust, I had called it. A cruel, ironic twist of fate. I had signed my own freedom away. My own foolish arrogance.

I released the guard with a shove, my body trembling with a mixture of rage and a chilling despair. I stalked through the house, my eyes scanning the rooms. The master suite, now completely redecorated in Chyna' s gaudy taste, still felt empty. I walked into Amelia' s former study, the room filled with her calming presence. And then I saw it. The faint scent of smoke, the scorch marks on the carpet near the metal waste bin.

I stared at the bin, a cold dread creeping into my heart. I remembered the estate manager's report about the destruction of the garden. A detail I had dismissed as Amelia's irrationality.

A horrifying realization dawned. She hadn't left a message. She hadn't taken anything of mine. She had destroyed her own. My mother's roses. Her own paintings. All of it. She had burned her past. She had burned us.

A wave of nausea washed over me, a physical manifestation of the gut-wrenching pain. My chest tightened, a suffocating weight pressing down on me. She was gone. Truly gone. And I had driven her away. My empire, my legacy, my perfect life-it all felt hollow, meaningless without her.

Just then, Marcus, my head of security, rushed in, looking even more grim than usual. "Sir! I just remembered something. When Amelia left the hospital, she gave a message to one of the junior nurses. She told her, 'If Blake ever truly wants to understand what he lost, tell him to ask his mother.'"

My mother. Kyleigh. The matriarch. A cold, hard gleam entered my eyes. This wasn't over. Not yet.

Chapter 10

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