Chapter 3
James said nothing. He simply flung the thin medical report at her.
The edge of the paper grazed Lily’s cheek, leaving behind a faint red mark.
“Read it yourself.” Her eyes dropped to the page, “NO SIGNS OF CANCER”. Her pupils shrank violently.
It was over.
Michael stepped toward her, one slow step at a time. The barely restrained violence aura rolling off him made Lily’s body shake on instinct.
“Why?” His voice was low, dragged up from deep in his throat. “Lily. Why did you lie to me?”
“I... I did it because I love you too much!”
She finally latched onto an excuse. Tears burst out instantly, falling fast and hard. “I can’t lose you! When I heard you were getting married to Emily, I was terrified. I didn’t know what else to do…”
“So, you cursed yourself with cancer?”
Ethan cut her off, his tone dripping with mockery. “You used a fake death to destroy a real wedding? Lily, you’re such a genius. Even the Oscars owe you a trophy. Honestly, I’d crowdfund one for you.”
Her act stopped working. A flash of resentment and something close to madness flickered through Lily’s eyes.
She suddenly shoved Michael away and screamed, shrill and hysterical: “You forced me into this! All of you forced me!”
Like a lunatic, she bolted down the corridor, her piercing cries drawing stares from every direction.
The three men stayed where they were, stiff and silent, watching her disappear at the end of the hallway.
No one chased after her.
And even if they did, what difference would it make?
In this colossal lie, the most ridiculous people of all were them.
Just then, Michael’s private phone rang.
The sharp ringtone sliced through the dead silence of the corridor. It was the butler from the family estate.
The moment Michael answered, the man’s voice exploded through the line, shaking with panic and tears. “Sir! bad news! Madam… she...she left behind a divorce agreement and disappeared!”
Divorce agreement?
The words slammed into Michael’s chest like a sledgehammer, knocking the air clean out of him.
He had to brace himself against the wall just to stay upright.
“Where did she go?!”
He roared into the phone, his voice cracking beyond recognition.
“I... I don’t know, sir,” the butler was on the verge of breaking down. “All I found was a note on the table. Madam said… from now on, we owe each other nothing. Wishing you well.”
Owe each other nothing.
Michael hung up.
The last trace of color drained from his face.
James and Ethan had heard everything. For the first time, panic, real panic, surfaced on the faces of two men who were never supposed to lose control.
“Emily…” James’s voice came out hoarse.
Ethan suddenly remembered her eyes in the church.
That wasn’t sorrow, and it wasn’t grief.
It was utter, unrelenting despair.
“Find her.”
Michael shot to his feet like a cornered beast, eyes bloodshot as he charged for the elevator. James and Ethan followed immediately.
Three men and three cars, they tore into the city traffic, launching a search that was doomed from the start.
They went to the gallery Emily used to visit. The landscapes she’d painted herself now looked unbearably lonely.
They went to the design firm where she once worked. The receptionist told them she had resigned long ago.
They even tracked down the old apartment she’d rented years earlier but it had already been emptied.
Emily vanished like a drop of water into the ocean, completely and decisively.
Night fell and streetlights flickered on.
By the riverside parking lot, three luxury cars were left haphazardly parked. Inside them, exhaustion and terror swallowed the men whole. They couldn’t find her.
Nowhere.
Then, in the suffocating silence, Michael’s work phone rang.
