---- Chapter 10 10 Liam's frantic calls continued for days. Airlines, private investigators, anyone who might have a lead. Nothing. Maya Evans didn't exist. Maya Goldstein had vanished into thin air. He sat in the empty penthouse, the silence deafening. The divorce papers lay on the table, a constant, burning accusation. He picked them up, his hands shaking. "This can't be happening," he muttered, pacing the vast, empty rooms. He felt her absence like a phantom limb. Every corner of the penthouse screamed her name. Her scent was fading from the pillows. Her favorite books were gone from the shelves. He broke down. Araw, animalistic howl of grief and despair. He, Liam Goldstein, CEO of a multi-billion dollar empire, a man who controlled everything, was utterly powerless He had lost the only thing that truly mattered. "| need her," he sobbed, clutching a silk scarf she'd left behind. "lL can't live without her." He kept checking his phone, a desperate, irrational hope that ---- she would call, text, send some sign. Nothing. Only the echo of her disconnected number. Then he remembered the "Maya's Horizon" box. Her "gift." He'd been so focused on the divorce papers, he hadn't looked closer. He fumbled with the box, his vision blurred by tears. Tucked beneath the velvet lining, something else. Asmall, folded note. His heart leaped. A message? An explanation? He unfolded it. It was a copy of her wedding vow to him, printed in elegant script. "If you ever lie to me, truly lie, | will vanish from your life as if | never existed." Below it, in her familiar handwriting, a single, chilling sentence: "You were warned." He stared at the note, the words burning into his soul. He denied it. He couldn't accept it. "She didn't mean it! She was angry! Someone put her up to this!" he yelled at his head of security, Johnson. "Find her, Johnson! | don't care what it takes! Find my wife!" Johnson, a stoic ex-military man, looked at him with something resembling pity. "Sir, we've checked everything. All legal channels. Credit cards, bank accounts, known associates. It's as if she evaporated." ---- "Then do illegal things!" Liam screamed, his voice cracking. "I own half this city! Use it!" Johnson returned hours later, his face grim. "We accessed CCTV from the service exit of this building, sir. Two weeks ago, the morning you... left with Ms. Sinclair." He played the footage on a tablet. Maya, calm, composed, walking out with a single suitcase. Getting into an anonymous cab. No tears. No hesitation. Just quiet, resolute departure. The date stamp on the footage seared itself into Liam's brain. The day he'd received her "gift." The day he'd chosen Ava. The truth was undeniable. She had planned it. She had executed it flawlessly. She was gone. And it was entirely his fault.