THE WIFE THEY TRIED TO ERASE

CHAPTER 1

Lena’s POV

“Damien, please! You’re scaring me!”

I stumbled back as the man in front of me let out a terrible growl.

His hands trembled at his sides. His breathing grew rough, and sweat rolled down his face. He stared at me with his sharp gray eyes, but something about his expression had changed.

He looked afraid.

Not of me.

Of himself.

“Lena,” he forced out. “You need to leave.”

I shook my head. “Not until you tell me what is happening!”

“Get out!”

His voice shook the room.

I flinched, but before I could answer, he dropped to his knees, a painful cry escaping his lips as black fur spread across his skin.

He was changing.

The man I knew was vanishing into the terrifying shape of a beast right before my eyes, locked away behind the heavy iron chains of the Vale estate.

The loud crack of his bones echoed in the quiet room. It showed the big secret he had hidden from everyone. As the big black wolf growled under the heavy iron chains, my mind flashed back. I realized that everything had started a long time before this scary night.a so

It pulled me back to the exact moment my nightmare began.

Three years earlier.

My small room smelled like old paper, worn leather, and liquid used to fix pictures.

I leaned closer to my wooden desk under the soft light of my lamp. I held a heavy magnifying glass in one hand and a soft brush in the other.

Fixing old pictures took a lot of time and care.

One bad move could ruin a piece of history forever.

My fingers gently touched the edge of an old black-and-white picture. The woman in the photo had soft, pretty eyes and curly hair. I had spent four hours fixing the rips around the edges, carefully matching the colors so the damage would go away completely.

That was what I did for a living.

I rescued forgotten memories. I took things that were broken, stained, or torn by time and brought the truth back to the surface.

If only fixing real life was that simple.

“Lena! If you don’t stop obsessing over that portrait right now, we are going to be late!”

I looked up from my desk.

My older sister, Vivienne, was standing in the doorway of our small Queens apartment.

She looked absolutely breathtaking.

She wore a pretty green dress that looked nice on her smooth skin, and her long black hair fell over her shoulders in soft, shiny curls. She looked like a model in a picture book instead of standing in our small hallway.

I smiled, put down my brush, and wiped my hands on a clean towel.

"I was just finishing these pictures for someone, Viv. You know how picky Mrs. Higgins is about her old family things."

"You say that every single night," Vivienne said, walking over to tap my desk. "Come on. Stop working for a few minutes and help me pick a necklace."

I stood up and stretched my sore back and shoulders.

Vivienne was twenty-six, two years older than me, but she always took care of our little family. Ever since our dad died five years ago, she worked hard to keep us safe. She was smart, brave, kind, and always looked out for me.

And tonight was an incredibly important night for her.

She was meeting her fiancé, Damien Vale, for a high-society dinner in Manhattan.

I walked over to her vanity table, scanning the small velvet jewelry box resting on the glass surface. My eyes caught a delicate silver chain with a tiny sapphire pendant.

I picked it up and held it against her neck.

“This one,” I said softly. “It highlights your skin, and the color matches the dress perfectly.”

Vivienne picked up the necklace, but as she tried to fasten the small clasp behind her neck, her hands began to tremble.

She fumbled twice, dropping the chain onto the table.

I caught her wrist gently.

“Viv? What’s wrong?”

She paused, staring at her own reflection in the mirror.

For a second, the polished, confident mask she always wore slipped away. Beneath her dark brown eyes lay a deep shadow of stress—a silent exhaustion she had been carrying around for weeks, even though she always brushed it off whenever I asked.

“I’re fine, Lena,” she said quickly, forcing a light chuckle. “Just pre-wedding jitters.”

“You don’t look fine,” I pressed, stepping closer to look into her eyes. “You’ve been jumpy for weeks. Every time the doorbell rings, you flinch. Every time your phone lights up, you look like you’re waiting for bad news. Is something going on between you and Damien?”

Vivienne turned around to face me, placing her hands on my shoulders.

She forced a small smile, though it didn't come close to reaching her eyes.

“Damien is... complicated, Lena. He’s powerful, wealthy, and his family is extremely guarded. But he cares for me. He really does.”

“Then why do you look like you’re terrified of him?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.

Vivienne’s smile vanished completely.

She opened her mouth to answer, but before a single word could escape her lips, her phone vibrated sharply on the vanity table.

The loud, buzzing sound made her flinch violently.

I watched her eyes dart to the glowing screen.

The moment she saw the caller ID, all the color drained from her face. Her caramel skin turned pale, and her breathing grew shallow.

“Who is it?” I asked, reaching for the phone. “Is it Damien?”

Vivienne grabbed the phone before I could touch it and slid it instantly into her evening purse.

“No one,” she stammered, her voice suddenly tight. “Just an automated notification from work.”

She snatched her trench coat from the back of the chair, her movements frantic and uncoordinated.

“I have to go. Damien’s driver is already waiting downstairs in the courtyard.”

“Viv, wait..”

She didn't give me a chance to finish. She stepped forward and pulled me into an intense, desperate hug.

She wrapped her arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe.

It didn't feel like a goodbye for a dinner date.

It felt like she was holding on for dear life.

“Viv?” I murmured, wrapping my arms around her back. “You’re shaking.”

She pulled back just enough to look at me, her brown eyes shining with unshed tears. The emotion in her face was raw, heavy, and terrifying.

“Remember that I love you, Lena,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “No matter what happens, no matter what people say... always remember how much I love you.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, before I could grab her hand and demand answers, she turned away, pulled open the door, and hurried out into the hallway.

The door clicked shut behind her, leaving me standing in the sudden, eerie silence of our apartment.

I ran to the living room window and pulled back the sheer curtains.

Down below on the rain-slicked street, a massive black luxury sedan was parked by the curb. The rear door was opened by a tall guard dressed in a sharp dark suit. Vivienne stepped inside, the door slammed shut, and the car melted into the glowing red lights of Manhattan traffic.

My heart felt heavy, a cold knot of anxiety settling deep in my stomach.

Something was terribly wrong.

I turned back toward Vivienne’s bedroom. The door had been left slightly open, and the faint breeze from her bedroom window made a stack of papers rustle on her desk.

I walked inside her room, intending to close the window.

The air inside smelled of her signature jasmine perfume, mixed with a strange, metallic scent that made my nose sting.

I approached her wooden writing desk. Resting right beside her laptop was a small leather-bound journal. It was her private diary—the one she kept her most secret thoughts in, locked with a brass clasp.

The brass clasp was snapped in half.

I stopped in my tracks.

The lock hadn't been picked. It looked as if someone had forcibly yanked the cover open in a panic.

I swallowed hard. I had never invaded my sister's privacy in my entire life. We trusted each other implicitly. But the sheer terror in her eyes before she walked out that door echoed loudly in my head.

My fingers trembled as I pulled the leather cover back.

The first fifty pages were filled with her elegant, neat handwriting—notes about her job as an archivist, quotes from historical books, and happy memories of us.

Then I reached the pages dated four months ago. The exact time she began dating Damien Vale.

The handwriting changed drastically.

The letters became sharp, rushed, and pressed so hard into the paper that the pen tip had nearly torn through the pages.

May 14th: He watched me again today. He doesn't look at me like other men do. It’s like he’s calculating something... testing me. His eyes aren't gray when the light hits them. They flash silver.

I frowned, my eyebrows pulling together. Silver?

I flipped to the next page.

June 2nd: I went to the Vale estate for dinner tonight. It isn't a home; it's a fortress built of stone and secrets. Shadows everywhere. Carlos Vale stared at me all night like I was a piece of meat on an altar. Damien tried to hide it, but he knows what his father is planning. They are hiding something horrible.

My skin prickled with cold goosebumps.

June 28th: I found the old room in the east wing. The lock was rusted through. There are names carved into the floorboards under the heavy rug. Women’s names. Dates going back decades. Eleanor. Margaret. Clara. They disappeared, Lena. All of them. If you ever find this... run.

A sharp gasp tore from my throat.

I dropped the journal onto the desk, staggering backward as my hands flew to my mouth.

“What is this?” I whispered to the empty room, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Vivienne... what did you discover?”

Eleanor. Margaret. Clara.

Names of forgotten women. Wives who had vanished from the earth.

I clutched the edge of the desk, my mind racing. Before I could read another line, my phone rang sharply from the living room.

I bolted out of her bedroom and snatched my phone off the counter.

It was an unknown number.

I pressed answer, bringing the phone to my ear with shaking fingers.

“Hello? Viv?”

“Lena Ashford?” a stern, mechanical voice answered.

“Yes! Who is this?”

“This is Officer Martinez from the NYPD 17th Precinct. We are calling regarding your sister, Vivienne Ashford.”

My blood ran cold as ice.

“What happened to my sister?” I screamed into the phone. “Where is she?”

“Her vehicle was found abandoned near the harbor bridge ten minutes ago, Miss Ashford. Her purse and personal belongings were left behind on the front seat.” The officer paused, his tone solemn. “I need you to come down to the station immediately.”

The phone slipped from my fingers, shattering against the hard floor.

Four days later, Vivienne was officially declared missing.

The police closed the case within forty-eight hours, citing a lack of evidence and claiming she had simply walked away on her own accord before her wedding. But I knew the truth.

The Vale family had scrubbed the investigation clean.

They thought they could buy my silence. They thought they could erase my sister like she was nothing more than a faint stain on their pristine corporate reputation.

They didn't know me.

Standing in the middle of our empty apartment, staring at the locked diary and the dark New York skyline, my grief transformed into a cold, relentless fury.

I was going to find out what happened to Vivienne.

And if Damien Vale was the monster who erased her, I would walk straight into his lair and tear his entire world down until I brought my sister home.