Alexander’s POV
The elevator doors opened to the top floor.
I pulled at my silk tie, my temples throbbing with a dull, relentless ache.
Serena had kept me up almost the entire night. A "panic attack" over a waiter getting her order wrong. I had to hold her, coax her, and promise her a new diamond necklace just to get her to stop crying.
Now, I had to come back and deal with Vivian.
I pushed the front door of the penthouse open.
I already knew what I would see. Vivian curled up on the sofa, her eyes swollen and red, clutching her pregnant belly. She would look up at me, pitiful and needy, waiting for me to apologize. She always did.
But I had already made up my mind. I wouldn't coax her this time.
She needed to learn that throwing hysterical fits and faking injuries wouldn't work on me anymore. I was tired of her constant jealousy, tired of her dragging me down when I was on the verge of becoming a billionaire.
"Vivian," I called out, my voice flat and impatient. "I’m home. Stop the silent treatment. I have a major merger to sign today, and I don't have the energy for your drama."
No answer.
The penthouse was dead quiet.
I frowned and walked into the living room.
My steps suddenly stopped.
Last night, she had fallen right here. I remembered the sickening crack of her body hitting the floor. I remembered the dark red puddle of blood spreading across the white marble, staining her dress. I remembered her trembling hand reaching out to me, begging me to save our baby.
But now?
The floor was spotless.
The heavy Persian rug was perfectly clean. The ruined cream cashmere coat that Serena had spilled wine on was gone.
Not a single drop of blood. Not a single trace of a struggle.
"Vivian?"
My voice echoed in the empty room.
Did she clean it up herself? How? She was bleeding so heavily she couldn't even stand.
A spark of irritation flared in my chest. She must have called a cleaning service. She was trying to make a point. She wanted me to feel guilty.
I pushed open the bedroom door.
The bed was perfectly made. Not a single wrinkle on the sheets.
I walked over to the massive walk-in closet and pulled open her side.
I froze.
Empty.
Every maternity dress, every pair of shoes, every handbag. Gone. Only bare hangers remained.
I turned and strode into the master bathroom.
Her toothbrush was gone. Her skincare bottles, her towels, her hairbrush. All vanished. Even the faint, sweet smell of her vanilla shampoo had been completely scrubbed from the air, replaced by the sharp, sterile scent of industrial bleach.
It was as if she had never lived here at all.
I stood in the center of the bathroom, my irritation slowly shifting into something else.
"She packed her bags?" I let out a cold, mocking laugh.
With what money? I had frozen her accounts. She didn't have a dime to her name. She was seven months pregnant and bleeding. Where could she possibly go?
She was just trying to scare me. She wanted me to panic and go looking for her like a lost dog.
"Fine. Play your games," I muttered.
I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. I was going to tell her to stop this childish act and come home immediately.
The line didn't even ring.
The number you have dialed is no longer in service.
I stared at the screen. My brows pulled together tightly.
I dialed again. The same mechanical voice answered.
A strange, uncomfortable tightness gripped my chest. I opened the building’s resident portal on my phone to check the entry logs. I wanted to see what time she left and who helped her carry her bags.
When the lease agreement loaded on the screen, my breath caught.
Resident: Alexander.
That was it.
Vivian’s name, which had been on the lease since the day we moved in, was gone. Erased.
"What the hell?"
I immediately called the building’s head of security.
"Mr. Alexander?" The security head answered quickly.
"Where is my wife?" I demanded, my voice harsh. "Check the lobby cameras from last night. What time did she leave? Did someone pick her up?"
There was a short pause on the other end.
"Your wife, sir?" The security head sounded genuinely confused. "Sir, you live alone."
My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles turned white.
"Are you completely blind?!" I shouted. "Vivian! My pregnant wife! She has lived here for three years! Check the damn cameras!"
"Sir, please calm down. I am looking at the resident logs right now. There is no Vivian registered to your penthouse. Ever."
His voice was completely serious.
"And as for the cameras," he continued, "the system underwent a routine maintenance wipe at midnight. There is no footage from last night."
He hung up.
The phone slipped slightly in my sweaty palm.
I stood in the empty living room, the silence suddenly feeling suffocating.
This wasn't a tantrum. A woman with no money couldn't wipe a luxury building's security grid. She couldn't hack a lease agreement.
My hands started to tremble.
I opened my banking app and searched for our joint account. The one I had frozen to punish her.
Account does not exist.
Not frozen. Erased.
Panic, cold and sharp, finally pierced through my anger.
I dialed the number for the private hospital where she had all her prenatal checkups. My voice shook as I spoke to the receptionist.
"I need to check if my wife was admitted last night. Vivian Alexander. She was bleeding heavily. She's seven months pregnant."
I waited, my heart slamming against my ribs.
"I'm sorry, sir," the receptionist said mechanically. "We have no patient by that name."
"Check again!" I roared. "She's been coming there for seven months!"
"Sir, I am looking at the master database. There is no record of a Vivian Alexander ever being treated at this facility."
The line went dead.
I dropped my phone. It clattered against the spotless marble floor.
My legs felt weak. I stumbled backward, my back hitting the cold glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
I looked around the massive, empty penthouse.
She didn't just run away.
She had been erased.
Every trace of her existence, every footprint she left in my life, had been surgically removed in the span of a few hours.
