The Untraceable Wife

Searching for Me Will Be Your Nightmare

Liam Sterling woke up at exactly 6:00 AM. It was a habit he’d kept for twenty years—no matter how much he’d drunk the night before or how many hours of sleep he’d gotten, he always woke up at six the next morning. Efficient, disciplined, unquestionable—just like all his demands on life.

He reached out to touch the bedside table, but what he felt was not the warmth of his wife’s skin.

He thought to himself, maybe Scarlett had the surgery yesterday. That minor procedure. She must be sleeping in the guest room so she wouldn’t disturb him.

He got up and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. The morning light of Manhattan gradually appeared, and the city below began to wake. This was his kingdom—the Sterling Group’s headquarters, just ten blocks away, with his office on the top floor of the building, offering a view of all of Central Park.

His phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was his mother, Victoria.

He answered, walking over to the bar to pour himself coffee. "Mother."

"Did Scarlett sign?" Victoria never wasted time with pleasantries.

"She should have signed last night. The lawyer is picking it up today."

"Good." Her voice was like a finely honed blade. "Remember, Liam, don’t let emotions interfere. That woman has outlived her usefulness—she’s kept up the image of your family for three years, now it’s time for her to step aside. Isabel is more suited for you."

Isabel Rogers. Only daughter of the Rogers Shipping dynasty, heir to a three-billion-dollar fortune, the social circle’s unanimous choice for "perfect wife material." Most importantly, she understood the rules of the game—marriage as a merger, love an optional clause.

"I know." Liam sipped his black coffee, grimacing at the bitterness. Scarlett always added a bit of honey, saying it would be "smoother."

"Also," Victoria continued, "we need to speed up the handling of those paintings at the foundation. Someone asked about the Rubens at the last auction, and I’m worried..."

"It’s already been handled," Liam interrupted her. "Scarlett authenticated it as a forgery. The insurance has paid out, and the original is in a Zurich vault."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. "She doesn’t know the truth, does she?"

"She thinks she’s helping the foundation avoid a scandal," Liam smirked. "The naivety of an art history PhD—always believing the truth matters more than profit."

After hanging up, he took a cold shower and changed into his custom suit. As he passed the guest room, he paused. No light slipped through the doorframe, and it was eerily quiet inside.

Maybe she’s still sleeping. She’d need rest after the surgery.

Downstairs, the housekeeper, Martha, had already prepared breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, fresh juice. Scarlett’s seat was empty.

"Where’s the lady?" he asked, unfolding the Wall Street Journal.

"Madam... didn’t come back last night, sir," Martha answered cautiously.

Liam looked up. "What?"

"After you left for the dinner, Madam called for a car. She didn’t take any luggage, just said she was going out for some air."

He put down the newspaper and picked up his phone, dialing Scarlett’s number. The call went straight to voicemail.

He dialed again. Still voicemail.

What game is she playing now? Trying to get attention by disappearing? Childish. Liam’s anger flared.

"Prepare the car," he told Martha. "I’m going to the clinic."

On the way to the clinic, he received a call from Isabel. Her voice was like melted chocolate. "You were great last night. Your apartment has an amazing view."

"Glad you liked it," he said, glancing at the speeding cityscape outside the car window.

"So... tonight, again?" Her voice dropped an octave, suggestive.

"I have a board meeting tonight. Tomorrow, though."

After hanging up, he remembered how Scarlett had never spoken to him in such a tone. She was always so serious, so earnest, so easily hurt. Like a delicate but fragile artwork, always needing to be handled with care—and that’s what he hated the most.

At the clinic, the receptionist recognized him. "Mr. Sterling! Your wife—"

"I know," he interrupted. "How did the surgery go? What did the doctor say?"

The receptionist froze. "Surgery? Mrs. Sterling... didn’t have any appointments yesterday."

Liam’s blood ran cold. "What do you mean?"

"I checked the records." The nurse quickly clicked on the computer. "Mrs. Sterling’s last visit was two months ago, for a routine checkup. She didn’t have an appointment or a consultation yesterday."

He stood there, his sharp suit and billion-dollar persona suddenly feeling weightless, like the ground was shaking beneath him.

"But..." he tried to recall, "she told me she had the surgery here at three PM yesterday."

The nurse’s expression became complex, confused. "Mr. Sterling, I’m very sorry, but... are you sure your wife was actually pregnant?"

The world fell silent for a moment.

Liam turned and rushed out of the clinic, back into the car. He opened his mobile banking app to check their joint account.

Balance: Zero.

Not a portion transferred. The balance was completely wiped out. The transfer record showed that at 4:17 PM yesterday, a full transfer had been made to a Swiss account. The recipient's name was encrypted.

He shakily logged into the family’s security system. Last night’s footage showed: Scarlett returned home at 8:03 PM, went straight into the study. Ten minutes later, she emerged, carrying the canvas bag she often used for travel, and holding a velvet box. She didn’t go to the guest room, didn’t go to the master bedroom, didn’t even pause in the living room.

She stood in front of their wedding photo for a minute, then scratched the glass with something.

Then, she turned off the lights and left. The garage camera caught her driving off in the most inconspicuous Audi.

How long had she been planning this? From when?

His phone vibrated suddenly, a new email alert. The sender: Scarlett’s email.

Subject: Divorce Agreement

He opened it.

The body of the email was one line:

"All the answers you’re looking for are in the first lie you tried to hide."

An attachment was included. He downloaded and opened it.

It was a medical record. Date: Two weeks before their wedding, three years ago. Patient: Scarlett Anderson. Diagnosis: Carrying the Huntington’s disease gene marker, 42% probability of onset.

Huntington’s disease. A neurodegenerative disorder. 50% genetic probability.

His mother, Victoria, had died from complications of this disease.

And Scarlett, three years ago, knew she was potentially carrying the gene. She knew what marrying into the Sterling family meant—this family’s pathological obsession with "pure bloodlines" was akin to medieval royalty.

Why did she marry him?

At the bottom of the email, there was a small line:

"First piece of evidence: I married you because I loved you. I’m leaving you because I’ve finally learned to love myself."

Liam Sterling sat in the backseat of his luxury car, the streets of New York speeding past him. But suddenly, he felt as though he were standing in the center of a barren wasteland, and the only lighthouse, he’d just snuffed out himself.

His phone vibrated again. This time it was from the security company.

"Mr. Sterling, we detected an anomaly in your home security system. At 10:23 PM last night, someone remotely accessed the core system with top-level privileges and implanted a backdoor program."

"Whose privileges?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

There was a long silence on the other end.

"The access ID shows... it was you, sir. Biometric verification passed, password correct."

He remembered that Scarlett had been in the study for ten minutes yesterday afternoon.

Enough time for her to use his computer, his fingerprint, his iris scan, to install locks on his prison that she controlled.

"Can it be cleared?" he asked.

"We tried. But..." The security manager’s voice was full of confusion. "The program has a self-destruct protocol. Forcibly clearing it would trigger a system-wide collapse. The installer also left a message."

"What did it say?"

"Just one line: 'Searching for me will be your nightmare.'"

After the call ended, Liam stared at the phone screen. Scarlett’s chat app profile picture was still from their vacation in Tuscany last year—she was smiling, feeding him grapes, the sunlight turning her hair to gold.

He clicked open the conversation, typed, and sent: "What exactly do you want?"

The message failed to send. The system alerted: The recipient is no longer your contact.

He dialed her number again. This time, it wasn’t voicemail, but a mechanical voice:

"The number you’ve dialed has been disconnected."

Outside, the morning light of New York finally filled the sky. A brand new day.

But for Liam Sterling, something had frozen in time last night—at the moment Scarlett scratched the smile off their wedding photo, when he still didn’t know what he had lost.

He looked up at the driver. "Take me to the airport."

"Which airport, sir?"

"All of them." He said, his voice breaking. "Check all departing flights after 4:00 PM yesterday. Use all resources."

"Searching for Mrs. Sterling?"

Liam stared out at the city speeding by. No, he thought. Not searching.

Hunting.

And the prey had already set every trap, just waiting for him to leap right into it.