Chapter 6: The Vanishing Act

The house was like a tomb. I stood in the doorway of what used to be our bedroom – now just mine, I guess – staring at the empty spot where Bella's dresser had been. No note. No address. Nothing to show that my wife of three years had ever even been here.

She was gone. They both were.

"Sir?" Marcus, my head of security, showed up behind me with that "I've got bad news" look. "We've checked the house."

I turned around, but I really wanted to keep staring at that corner, wishing I could bring Bella back with my mind. "And?"

"Serious operation, sir. Whoever set this up knew their stuff." Marcus looked grimly at his tablet. "No signs of a fight, but they took everything carefully. Not just belongings – they got rid of any signs that a family lived here. Photos, documents, the works."

My family. I'd blown it all up because of my stupid pride and anger.

"What about online stuff? Bank accounts, cards, phone?"

Marcus looked even more neutral. "This is where it gets interesting. Mrs. Sterling closed all her accounts yesterday morning. Canceled her cards. Cut off her phone. It's like she had a plan down to the second."

*Yesterday morning.* I was sitting in that hospital, dealing with Elena Romano's stuff, and Bella was making her escape. As I started to realize how badly I'd messed up, she was disappearing from my life.

"The Mercedes?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Returned yesterday afternoon. Lease is transferred." Marcus paused. "Sir, this level of planning… It took some serious help."

Elena Romano. The woman who turned my hospital room into a command center with just a phone call. She looked at me like I was a bug bothering her granddaughter.

I walked to the window overlooking our – *my* – backyard. Bella spent ages out there when pregnant, talking to Emma through her belly as she took care of the roses she planted when we first moved in. The roses were still there, but they looked smaller without her.

"Get everything you can on Romano Enterprises," I said, my voice rough. "Money, structure, holdings. I want to know what I'm really dealing with."

"Already on it." Marcus swiped on his tablet. "What we've found…it's troubling. Romano Enterprises isn't just some European company. They're huge. They own everything from tech to medicine to security. Maybe fifty billion euros large."

Fifty billion. I was so proud of my money, but suddenly it seemed like nothing. Sterling Industries, my company, was just a start-up compared to Elena Romano's.

"There's more." Marcus sounded worried. "It's not just money. They have friends. Contracts in three continents. People on boards of huge companies. The kind of people who can make problems go away."

Or people. That hung in the air between us.

My phone buzzed. For a second, I hoped it was Bella. But it was Richard Blackwood, my lawyer, with a message that made my blood freeze: *Need to talk about custody stuff. Call now.*

I called him, my fingers shaking.

"Mikel," Richard said grimly. "We have a problem. A big one."

"Bella's gone," I said. "She took Emma. I need you to—"

"You can't file kidnapping," Richard cut me off. "That's what I'm calling about. That custody thing you wanted? You can't use it."

I gripped the phone. "What are you talking about?"

"The woman you made sign those papers after surgery wasn't just Bella Sterling, single mom. She was Izabela Romano, who would be in charge of one of Europe's largest business empires." Richard sounded frustrated with me. "The second she went back to being a Romano, those papers were useless."

The room spun. "Say that again."

"Romano Enterprises has lawyers in twelve countries, Mikel. The best you can get. They're saying she only signed those papers because she was sick and didn't know what she was signing." Richard stopped. "And they're not wrong."

I fell into the chair by the window, where Bella used to sit and read as Emma slept. "So what now?"

"She can take Emma anywhere, and you can't do a thing. You have no rights until this is in court. And with the Romano family's money…" Richard trailed off.

"How long?" My voice was rough.

"Years. They'll drag this out in courts all over the world. By the time you get a hearing, Emma could be a teen."

Emma. My daughter, with dark hair and Bella's eyes and my stubbornness. She wrapped her little hand around my finger and looked at me like I was everything.

I had held her for just seventeen minutes before Bella left.

"There has to be something—"

"There is." Richard sounded like he felt sorry for me. "You could try to say sorry. Try to show you deserve another shot. But Mikel, after what you did to her…" He sighed. "I've been your lawyer for years. I've seen you do billion-dollar deals easily. But this? This is going to take more than money. This is going to need a miracle."

After I hung up, I walked through the house like a ghost, remembering where Bella and Emma should be. The kitchen, where Bella hummed while she cooked, her pregnancy making her gentle. The nursery I barely saw, now empty. The living room, where we planned to watch Emma walk.

All gone. All erased.

My phone rang. It was Victoria Chen – Sophia's sister – sounding panicked. "Mikel, is it true? Bella left with the baby?"

"Yeah," I said flatly.

"Oh, God. Sophia is going to be so sad. She was so worried about you—"

"Don't." I felt pure anger, cutting through the sadness. "Don't you talk about her to me."

"Mikel, Sophia loves you. She's been helping you through this—"

"Sophia is why my wife and daughter are gone," I said quietly. "Sophia is why I'm in an empty house instead of with my family. So I don't want to hear about how she feels. I want her out of my life."

I hung up and blocked the sisters, but it was too late. Soon I got calls from friends and family who'd heard about Bella. Each call hurt, reminding me that I'd ruined the most important thing in my life.

That night, I sat in my office, surrounded by the stuff of my failed marriage: divorce papers, custody agreements, and a business that meant nothing without my family.

Then I got a text from a ghost number.

*Mikel,*

*By the time you read this, Emma and I are gone. Not hidden – gone for good. You forced me to pick between what I'm worth and my daughter's security, and I chose her. You want to know the real truth? I loved you more than I valued myself, and that made me weak. I accepted less than I deserved because I was scared of losing you. I gave up my family, my money, who I am – all for a man who threw me away when someone whispered lies.*

*Emma should have a better mother. She deserves to see strength, not weakness. Being Romano means never bowing down to men who think women can be thrown away.*

*You had a family, Mikel. You had a wife who loved you and a daughter who would wonder why you thought your pride was more important than her. You gave up forever for nothing, and that nothing is what you have now.*

*Don't look for us. Don't send lawyers. We are not your problem, and you are not ours. You wanted us gone, and you are getting that.*

*The girl you married is dead. She died in that hospital. The woman that is here now rises like a phoenix, and is no longer in need of your concerns.*

*Goodbye, Mikel. I hope Sophia was worth it.*

*Izabela Romano*

Not Bella Sterling. Not Mrs. Sterling. Not even Bella.

*Izabela Romano.*

The name was full of power I never knew, a strength I missed. She didn't just leave, she was going back to who she truly was, an identity that I had not been paying attention to.

I read it once, then again, then again until it sank in. Then I did something I had not done since I was little: I cried, like when my dad had given up on us.

Afterwards, I sat in my empty house trying to connect the dots to how I managed to get here and how I let Sophia and my hurt ego destroy what was supposed to be mine. I should have just stood up for the best outcome that I could possibly have.

My phone buzzed and someone was saying something but I stopped paying attention until I asked that it all be stopped altogether. My meetings and everything. I was just tired. I could not go on. I was the far opposite of being okay.

I stood still for a moment, went back to the nursery, and closed the door, leaving all of it behind.

Izabela Romano was starting a new life with what remained to us, and she was going to build what I had destroyed into something new. In exchange, I continued to stay here and have all of this guilt and the empire that was supposed to give satisfaction for what was supposed to be. All these things that I had never wanted.

The house was dead, and for the first time I had a feeling of emptiness. I had everything but nothing behind me. My family was gone and it was all on me.