Chapter 22
“Still no news?” I murmured, the words barely escaping my dry, trembling lips.
The staff exchanged uneasy glances before one of them finally shook their head. “We’re doing everything we can, Mrs. Dorne. We’ve reached out to everyone, and the search teams haven’t stopped. They’re working around the clock.”
I nodded mechanically, their reassurances lost in the roaring torrent of guilt and fear inside me. Wesley had been missing for days now, and with each agonizing tick of the clock, the terror clawing at my chest grew stronger–more suffocating.
I retreated to the window, perched like a specter as the rain carved silvery veins down
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the glass. My phone was a lifeline I couldn’t let go of, gripped so tightly in my hand it felt fused to my skin. Message after message, prayer after desperate plea, had been sent into the void.
Where are you? Please, come home. I’m sorry, Wesley. Please, answer me.
But there was only silence. Black, crushing, unbroken silence.
The guilt churned in my stomach, an acid that burned hotter with every passing second. This was my fault. I should have trusted him. I should have believed him when he swore the video wasn’t real. Instead, I had pushed him away, my doubts becoming swords that severed whatever lifeline he’d tried to offer. Now… now he was gone. And the weight of that loss felt like a stone pressing against my ribs, relentless
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and heavy.
“I’ll fix this,” I vowed under my breath, the whisper trembling like the raindrops streaking the window. Somehow, someway, I had to make this right.
With nothing but my regret and mounting suspicion to drive me forward, I pursued the only thread left dangling in this unraveling tapestry: Thaddeus. I arranged for a DNA test, collecting the samples quietly, as if the very act of doing so would stir the ghosts haunting me.
When the results arrived, the envelope trembled in my unsteady hands. My fingers tore it open with a desperation that made the paper shred unevenly. I scanned the words, my breath seizing in my chest.
Match: Identical twins.
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I stared numbly at the page, the revelation thunderous in the silence. Identical twins. How was this even possible?
Thaddeus, who had been pacing nearby like a cagey predator, froze when I showed him the results. His shock mirrored mine.
“L… I don’t know what to say,” he stammered, running his hand through his dark hair, his voice ragged. “I grew up in an orphanage. No one ever told me I had a brother.”
Despite the storm of confusion that churned between us, Thaddeus’s resolve was swift and unwavering. “I’ll help you,” he said, his voice steel beneath the shock. “Whatever it takes to find him, I’m in. The media, the search… we’ll clear his name. Wesley doesn’t deserve this.”
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I nodded, grateful, though the chaos inside me threatened to drown any sense of relief his words might have offered.
The days that followed slipped into a blur, an endless loop of misery punctuated by unanswered questions. No leads surfaced. No updates came. The silence loomed, heavy and oppressive, suffocating in its vastness.
Late one night, as I sat curled into the corner of the living room, the weight of despair dragging me deeper, a sharp pain ripped through my abdomen. I gasped, clutching at my stomach as panic surged. The staff found me moments later, their frantic voices blending into chaos as my world dimmed.
When I awoke, everything felt… wrong. The sterile, rhythmic beeping of the monitors beside me was the only sound in the room.
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Yet the absence of something–something vital–settled like a hollow ache deep inside
- me.
“Where’s my baby?” The question tore itself from my lips, barely audible, but filled with dread.
The doctor met my gaze, her face a portrait of sympathetic grief. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dorne,” she began carefully, but the words slammed into me like a collapsing wall. “The stress… it was too much…”
I tuned her out, her condolences dissolving into a numbing void. My world–fractured already–shattered into pieces that I couldn’t imagine ever putting back together. The baby was gone.
Tears spilled unchecked as I turned my face away, unable to meet her pity. All I could
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see was a horizon of despair. Everything- everything I’d fought for–had crumbled into ash, slipping through fingers that could no longer hold anything together.
Hours later, a nurse entered quietly, carrying a package. She placed it on the bedside table and hesitated, her kind eyes flicking to mine. “This just arrived” she said softly before leaving me alone with the mystery.
I looked at it, dread coiling tighter in my chest, before forcing my unsteady hands to open the box. Inside, a bouquet of black roses lay nestled–a chilling, lifeless beauty in their deep, inky petals. My breath hitched as I pulled out the letter buried among them.
The writing was crude, scratched in vivid red ink, and each word stabbed deep:
You will never find Wesley again because he
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is dead.
The box dropped from my trembling hands, crashing to the floor as a guttural scream tore free from my throat.
“No!” The word ripped through me, sharp and raw as I clung to the sheets, my body shaking uncontrollably. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be gone.
But as the words from the note burned into my mind, the truth clawed at my chest. My grief spilled freely now, a torrent I couldn’t control as I lay there, broken.
A buzz interrupted the torment. My phone vibrated insistently on the bedside table, and I snatched it, clinging to it like a lifeline. Thaddeus’s name flashed across the screen.
“Iris,” he said, his voice frantic, yet urgent.
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“The police have a lead on Delilah. She was spotted at the airport trying to leave the country.”
My pulse quickened, a mix of hope and rage igniting in my veins. “Where is she now?”
“They’ve detained her,‘ he replied. “She’s in custody at the airport. They’re waiting for further orders.”
“I’m coming,” I said without hesitation, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. My body protested, weak from everything it had endured, but the fire in my soul burned past the pain.
“Are you sure you’re strong enough?” Thaddeus asked, concern threading through his tone.
I forced my voice to steady, my resolve
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hardened like steel. “Yes. I need to see her.”
The drive to the airport felt interminable, a cruel stretch of time where fury and desperation warred in my mind. When I finally arrived, the sight of Delilah sent a jolt of raw anger through my body.
She sat chained to a chair, a picture of unrepentant arrogance. Her perfectly styled hair and flawlessly applied makeup mocked the destruction she’d left in her wake.
The moment I stepped into the room, I couldn’t contain the fury trembling in my being. Storming up to her, I struck her across the face, the sharp slap echoing like thunder.
“Where is Wesley?” My voice cracked, my anger and anguish spilling over.
Delilah turned her head back with agonizing
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slowness, a malevolent smirk curling her lips. “Oh, Iris,” she purred mockingly. “Still as dramatic as ever.”
“Answer me!” I screamed, my entire body trembling.
She laughed, the sound cold and cutting. “Let’s just say… he’s gone underwater. Perhaps being eaten by a shark as we speak.”
Her words hit me like a knife to the chest, my knees nearly giving out beneath me. “You’re lying,” I croaked, barely able to speak.
Delilah’s eyes glimmered with cruelty as she raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”
Under the supervision of an officer, she reached into her bag and pulled out a phone. She tapped a few buttons, her eyes never
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leaving mine, before holding the screen up for me to see.
The video began, the sound of crashing waves filling the room. Wesley was on a yacht, his focused expression illuminated by flickering sunlight. The water churned violently around him as he pressed on toward another vessel in the distance- Delilah’s, I realized.
Then it happened.
The yacht slammed into something unseen. Wesley was thrown violently against the side and, in one heart–stopping moment, he disappeared overboard into the merciless swell of black water.
The video cut abruptly, leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing.
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“No,” I whispered, my hands shaking as tears poured down my face. Pain seared through me as the room tilted, my grief pulling me under, deeper than any ocean ever could.
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