Chapter 5

Daniel stared at those words for a long time. He checked the member list one more time before he finally believed it. Emma Hayes had actually left the Hayes inner-circle group. He dialed my number immediately. All he got was the crisp, automated voice: "Sorry, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable." He tried again. Same result. It finally hit him. I had blocked his number too. A kind of unease he had never felt before surged up from somewhere deep inside him. He grabbed his car keys, ready to head home. Lily caught his arm, her voice wounded. "Daniel, my IV isn't even finished. Where are you going?" Daniel didn't hide it. "I can't reach Emma. I'm worried something happened. I'll be back later." My mother's face hardened immediately. "She's a grown woman. What could possibly happen? If you ask me, she's just trying to get attention. She wants all of us running after her." My father frowned too. "She's been like this since she was little. The second she's unhappy, everyone has to revolve around her." Mark nodded in agreement. "Just ignore her. Lily's birthday comes first. She has no money and nowhere to stay. She'll be back before dark." Lily relit the candles, ready to make her wish. But Daniel stood there, unable to move, his mind replaying the scene from last night. When I burned those photos, I had been too calm. Unnervingly calm. I used to treat those pictures like treasures, pulling them out to look at every few days. And the look in my eyes when I handed him the divorce papers. No testing. No plea to stay. Only finality. Daniel couldn't stand still any longer. He walked out of the hospital room over every single objection. When Daniel got home, every trace of me was gone. Clothes, makeup, diplomas, documents. Everything that had been mine had been scrubbed clean from the house. In the trash can, he found the souvenirs we had collected from our trips together. That mug. We had fired it ourselves in a ceramics studio. I had cherished it so much I never even used it for drinking. That matching shirt. I only wore it on our wedding anniversary. Now, I hadn't kept a single thing. Daniel's gaze landed on the coffee table. A new copy of the divorce agreement sat there quietly. At the bottom, my signature was clear and unmistakable. He crouched on the floor, and for the first time truly understood: I wasn't throwing a tantrum. I had made up my mind to leave him. He went back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, his mind cycling through every moment we had shared. But he couldn't figure it out. Emma had no money and hadn't worked in years. Where could she possibly go? Then something hit him. Emma had once told him that her former business partner, Adam Cole, had reached out to her about starting a venture together in Miami. She had been seriously considering it at the time. It was Daniel who had talked her out of it. Adam Cole. The Don of the Cole family in Miami. A man Daniel would never willingly admit he feared, but one he had no choice but to respect. If the Hayes family controlled the city's docks, hospitals, and a handful of gray-market shipping routes, then the Cole family controlled Miami's ports, casinos, and ocean corridors. Adam wasn't an ordinary man. He was the kind of boss who could smile across a negotiating table while bankrupting his opponent, the kind who could make someone vanish from the state of Florida overnight. What if... Daniel seized the thought like a drowning man clutching a lifeline. He dug out an old phone I had once used and, sure enough, found Adam's number in the contacts. The call connected almost immediately. Daniel practically roared into the phone: "Adam Cole, where is Emma?" A lazy, amused laugh came through the other end. "Don Hayes? I was wondering. Emma's right here next to me, so why would she be calling me? Turns out it's you." Daniel's eyes ignited with fury. So Emma really was with him. Back in college, Adam had pursued her. And she had always admired him. Even after Daniel finally managed to propose and Emma said yes, Adam never fully disappeared. He kept turning up in her orbit under the guise of work. This time, Emma wanting a divorce, it was probably Adam pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Daniel spoke through clenched teeth: "Put my wife on the phone. You and I will settle our score later."