Dominic
It's been nearly six months since Lila vanished.
Half a year.
One hundred eighty days marked by a silence that screams in every corner of this hollow house.
I sit alone in the vast emptiness of my study — a throne room stripped of its queen. The flickering glow of the city lights seeps through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but they don't illuminate the darkness inside me. They only remind me how cold everything has become.
Every day, I wake with the same bitter hope gnawing at my chest: Maybe today, there will be a sign. A message. A trace. But the cruel reality settles faster than my breath — there is nothing.
The staff moves around me like shadows, their pity well hidden beneath professional smiles, but I see it in their eyes. I'm a man unraveling, a titan reduced to desperation.
The empire I built — the company, the power, the influence — none of it matters anymore. It's all crumbling because the one person who mattered has slipped through my grasp.
The tabloids haven't forgotten her. How could they?
Every morning, my phone buzzes with the latest headlines:
"Lila Harper Missing Six Months: No Leads, No Hope?"
"Dominic Blackwell's Empire Shaken by Wife's Disappearance"
"Kidnapped or Running? The Mystery Deepens."
The rumors sting, but the truth cuts deeper.
She left.
Not taken.
Not lost.
Gone.
Because I broke her.
I run my hands through my hair until it's a tangled mess. My eyes burn from sleepless nights, but sleep evades me like her shadow.
I have spent a fortune on private investigators—experts with worldwide reach—and yet they all come back with the same answer: nothing. No sightings, no bank activity, no digital footprints.
She vanished like a ghost.
Some nights, the rage consumes me. I throw things against the wall, shattering glass, breaking frames—anything to release the torment inside. The sound of destruction is the only noise that matches the chaos within.
But then comes the exhaustion, the crushing weight of loneliness.
I find myself at the edge of the world, sitting by the window, staring out over the city that feels so empty without her laughter.
I clutch the framed photo from our wedding—the last moment I have where she smiled at me with trust and hope. The diamond ring on her finger glints in the fading light, a cruel reminder of what I lost.
I whisper her name like a prayer, like a plea.
"Lila… come back."
Tears spill without permission, and I let them fall, even though every drop feels like a defeat.
I'm a man who built empires from ambition and control, but I can't control this.
I can't build a bridge to bring her home.
I lost her.
And with her, I lost myself.
The nights stretch long, filled with restless dreams of what could have been — of apologies unsaid, of fights that never ended, of love that should have been enough.
I am broken.
And yet, a part of me refuses to give up.
Because if there's even the smallest chance she's out there, breathing, living…
I will find her.
Even if it destroys me.