His stand-in bride

CHAPTER 1

"Amelia is missing? What do you mean you can't find her?"

My father's thunderous voice boomed through the grand hallway, causing the crystal chandelier to tremble, and sending a shiver down everyone's spine.

The maids stood frozen in fear, faces drained of color, eyes wide with terror.

No one moved, no one breathed. As my father demanded answers.

My father's lip pressed into a thin line, his eyes darkening with a cold intensity that spoke louder than any words.

His silence was more terrifying than his usual outbursts.

“Where were you when this happened?” His tone was deceptively calm, but beneath the surface, a menacing undertone threatened to erupt.

My mother, Lydia Mendes, turned her fury on the maid, her sharp eyes flashing with barely restrained anger.

“Where were you?”, she repeated, her voice cold as ice.

Maria,my sister's maid, trembled under her gaze, her eyes wide with fear. She shrank back, her hands twisting the apron she clutched as though it were her lifeline. Awaiting my parents' wrath.

“I-I was with her last night, ma'am,” she stammered, her voice barely audible. “She seemed fine…but this morning, her bed was empty.”

"Search every inch of this estate!”

My father's voice thundered, each word a crack of lightning.“I want her found, no matter the cost!”. He snapped at the security team that had gathered just outside the doorway.

His tone left no room for argument. The men, dressed in sharp black suits, nodded swiftly. The search party fanned out across the estate, their footsteps echoing through the halls like a drumbeat.

My father's gaze snapped back to Maria. “If we don’t find her, you’ll be out on the street before the day is through. Mark my words.” His words hung in the air like a challenge.

The maid whimpered, her eyes now filled with fresh terror, but she said nothing more, only nodding with frantic desperation.

I swallowed hard, my throat constricting as if an invisible hand had wrapped itself around my neck, squeezing tight.

I watched the scene unfold like a slow-motion car crash-horrifying, inevitable, and impossible to turn away from.

As much as I felt the weight of my father’s anger, my mind spun, considering a hundred possibilities of what might have happened to Amelia.

Had she run away? The thought gnawed at me. Amelia wasn’t impulsive, but she had been under immense pressure, especially in the past year. In the last year, my father's push for her arranged marriage had only added to her burden.

I couldn’t shake the memory of our last conversation, just a day ago.

She had smiled, but there was a weariness behind her eyes, something she hadn't told me.

Maybe I had been too wrapped in my own concerns to notice.

A sudden crash shattered the oppressive silence, a vase breaking somewhere above. I froze, every nerve on edge, as if the walls were whispering secrets I couldn't yet understand.

The tension was suffocating as the staff hurried the halls, fear etched on their faces. None of them dared speak out loud what we all feared: that Amelia was gone, and with her, our last chance of salvation.

Finally, one of the security guards returned, his face grim. The search had finally reached its grim conclusion, but the silence that followed was oppressive, heavy with unspoken fears and uncertainties.

My father’s head whipped around, his jaw clenched so tight I thought he might break a tooth.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Nothing, sir,” the guard said, his voice flat, controlled. “We’ve checked every room, every closet, every possible exit. She’s not in the house.”

My father’s face drained of color, his eyes widening as if the air had been sucked from his lungs. He swayed slightly, his grip on the chair tightening as he struggled to maintain his composure.

For a man who had built his life on control, this moment of helplessness was unbearable.

"That's impossible," my father spat, his voice low and laced with desperation, as if he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

"She couldn't have gone far. She wouldn’t dare." But there was no denying it now.

Amelia was gone, and with her, the fragile lifeline we had been clinging to had been severed.