---- Chapter 99 Maya Evans breathed in the crisp, clean air of Bozeman, Montana Freedom. It smelled like pine needles and independence. "The Wandering Quill," her small bookstore and coffee shop, was thriving. She had found a quiet peace she never knew in New York. She was herself here. No facades. No lies. Back in Manhattan, Liam Goldstein returned to an eerily silent penthouse. He'd spent the morning with Ava, smoothing over her latest drama, promising her the world. He remembered Maya's text. "Open your gift now." A surge of unease hit him. Maya had been too calm, too quiet. He'd been a fool to think a box of cronuts would fix everything. He walked into the living room. The "Maya's Horizon" necklace box was on the coffee table. He picked it up, a nervous tremor in his hand. He thought of their last real conversation, his choice to run to Ava during his "vow renewal." He'd told himself Maya would understand. That she always understood. He'd failed her, again. He knew it. ---- He opened the box. No glittering necklace. Just papers. Official-looking. Divorce papers. Signed by Maya. His blood ran cold. "No," he whispered. "No, no, no." He frantically searched the penthouse. "Maya! Maya, where are you?" Her closets were half-empty. Her personal effects, gone. The cronut box sat on the kitchen counter. He opened it. A snapped SIM card. He grabbed his phone. He saw the flood of forwarded messages from Maya. Ava's taunts. The sonogram. The pictures. The full, sickening extent of Ava's malice, and his own blindness, hit him like a physical blow. He sank to his knees. "Maya..." He called her phone. It went straight to a disconnected message. He called her friends, her estranged family. No one had heard from her. He called Marc. "She's gone, Marc! Maya's gone!" "Relax, Liam," Marc said, unconcerned. "She's probably just angry. She'll be back." "No, you don't understand," Liam choked out. "She left divorce ---- papers." He remembered her wedding vow. "If you ever lie to me, truly lie, | will vanish." She had meant it. Every word. The destroyed rose garden at the Hamptons estate - the call came from his horrified groundskeeper an hour later. Leveled. Gone. The finality of it, the meticulous planning, crushed him. She had erased herself from his life, just as she'd promised And he, in his arrogance, in his deceit, had handed her the knife.