𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑊𝐼𝐹𝐸 𝐻𝐸 𝑇𝐻𝑅𝐸𝑊 𝐴𝑊𝐴𝑌

Chapter9.The boy who disappeared

VICTOR POV

Victor moved before he finished thinking.

He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and pushed past Vanessa without a word. The elevator felt too slow. He took the stairs instead, three floors down, and was in his car before his security team even registered that he had left.

"Call the school," he said into the phone while pulling out of the parking lot. "Find out when the driver dropped him off. Check every camera near the gate."

The school secretary confirmed what he already feared. Samuel had not entered the building. The driver had dropped him at the front gate at seven fifty-two in the morning. The gate camera showed Samuel walking toward the entrance, then stopping, then turning and walking away.

He walked away from school on purpose.

Victor gripped the steering wheel harder. His son was ten years old and had disappeared into a city of three hundred thousand people.

He called the house. The maid picked up. No, Samuel had not come back. No, she had not seen him since breakfast. He ate two pieces of toast and said nothing unusual.

Victor pulled over to the side of the road and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel.

Think. Where would Samuel go?

Samuel was not a complicated boy. He was his father's son in every way. He liked football, video games, and winning arguments. He worshipped Victor, believed everything Amanda told him, and treated his mother like she was invisible.

But last night, Victor had found that drawing on Samuel's desk.

I miss Mommy and Grace.

His son missed his mother. And his father had never once noticed, because he had never once thought to look.

Victor called his investigator. "I need you to find my son. Samuel Emmanuel. Ten years old, blue school uniform, black bag. He walked away from Westbrook Academy at seven fifty-two this morning."

"On it," the investigator said. "Any idea where he would go?"

Victor thought about it. Samuel knew the city only through school, football practice, and whatever Amanda took him to on weekends. He had never been to Evelyn's family estate. He did not know it existed.

But he had seen the news this morning.

The television in the kitchen had been on during breakfast. The maid always kept the morning news running. Evelyn's face had been on every channel.

Samuel had seen his mother's face.

Victor's chest tightened. "Check the areas near Williams Estate," he said. "And the park near our house where he used to play when he was small."

He drove toward the park first. Empty except for two women with strollers and an old man feeding pigeons.

He drove toward Williams Estate next, which felt like walking into enemy territory. The gates were tall and black, with security cameras that tracked his car the moment he slowed down.

He did not stop there. He could not walk in there without announcing himself, and he was not ready for that confrontation.

His phone rang. The investigator.

"I found him, sir. He is at the Riverside community garden. About two kilometers from your estate. He is sitting on a bench near the fountain."

"Is he hurt?"

"Does not look like it. Just sitting there."

Victor drove fast. He found the garden easily, a small public space tucked between two office buildings, with flowerbeds and a stone fountain that had seen better days.

Samuel was exactly where the investigator said. Small figure on a big bench. Blue school uniform. Black bag between his feet. He was staring at the fountain, not moving.

Victor parked and walked over slowly.

"Samuel."

The boy looked up. His eyes were red. He had been crying.

Victor sat down beside him. For a moment neither of them spoke.

"You scared me," Victor said finally.

"Sorry," Samuel said, but his voice was flat. Not sorry. Just saying the word.

Victor looked at his son's face. The red eyes. The tight mouth. The way his small fists were pressed into his knees.

"Talk to me," Victor said.

Samuel said nothing for a long moment. Then, quietly, "I saw Mom on the news."

Victor stilled.

"She looked happy," Samuel said. "She was laughing. I never saw her laugh like that at home." He turned to look at his father. "Why did she never laugh like that at home?"

Victor did not have a clean answer. So he said, "I do not know."

"Amanda said Mom did not love us. That she only stayed because of the contract." Samuel's voice was smaller now. "But if Mom did not love us, why does she look like that? Happy. Free." He stopped. "Amanda said Mom was glad to be away from us."

Victor went cold.

"Amanda said that to you?"

"Yes. Last week. She said Mom finally got what she wanted." Samuel looked at his shoes. "But that does not feel right. Mom used to sit outside my room at night when I had bad dreams. She thought I was asleep, but I was not. She would sit right outside my door and hum."

Victor closed his eyes.

"I was mean to her," Samuel said. "Amanda told me to be. She said if I was cold enough, Mom would stop being so sad all the time. That it would help her." A tear rolled down his cheek. "But it did not help her, did it? It just made things worse."

Victor put his arm around his son. Samuel stiffened, then went still.

"Your mother loved you," Victor said. "She loves you right now, wherever she is."

"Then why did she leave without me?"

The question sat between them like a heavy rock. Victor did not push it away. He let it stay there, because it deserved to stay there.

"Because I failed her," Victor said. "I did not protect her. I did not see her. And in the end, she had no choice."

Samuel wiped his face with the back of his hand. "Can I talk to her?"

"I will try to make that happen."

His son leaned against his arm, just slightly, the way he had not done since he was very small.

Victor looked out at the fountain and thought about what Evelyn's face looked like in that photograph. Radiant. Free. A woman who had remembered who she was.

He had taken that woman and buried her under ten years of silence.

And now his own son was sitting in a public garden, crying, because he missed a mother Victor had pushed away.

Samuel's phone buzzed in his bag. He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

His face changed.

"Dad," he said, voice strange. "This message is from an unknown number. It says... it says Amanda is not who I think she is, and there is proof. It says to ask you about the marriage certificate."

Victor's blood went cold.

Someone had sent that message to his ten-year-old son.