Chapter 3 - The Empty Side of the Bed
The morning sun crept over the Greenwich hills at six-fifteen, casting long, golden fingers across the manicured lawns of the Moretti estate.
Inside the master suite, Dante Moretti woke up with the heavy, sluggish haze of too much bourbon and too little sleep clouding his senses. His arm instinctively reached across the wide mattress to pull me close, the way he did every morning out of quiet habit.
His hand met empty, cold sheets.
Dante frowned, his eyes snapping open.
The bed beside him was completely undisturbed. The pillows were neatly aligned, and the duvet was cool to the touch.
He propped himself up on one elbow, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked around the massive bedroom. The bathroom door was open, and the lights were off. No sound of running water, no scent of my herbal tea, no soft rustle of clothes from the dressing room.
Across the king-sized bed, Celeste stirred, rolling over onto her back with a soft, groggy groan. She blinked sleepily against the morning light, her dark hair tangled across the white pillows.
"Dante?" she murmured, her voice thick with sleep as she reached out to touch his chest. "What time is it?"
Dante didn't answer her. He pulled away from her touch with a sharp, abrupt movement that made her sit up in surprise.
"Where is Evelyn?" Dante demanded, his voice suddenly sharp, cutting through the morning quiet like a blade.
Celeste blinked, rubbing her eyes. "How should I know? Probably downstairs making coffee. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Without another word, Dante threw off the heavy duvet, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and strode across the room. He didn't bother putting on a shirt; he just pulled on a pair of dark sweatpants and strode out into the second-floor hallway, his bare feet hitting the hardwood floors with heavy, hurried thuds.
"Evelyn!" he called out, his voice echoing loudly through the empty corridors.
No answer.
He checked the guest rooms. Empty.
He checked the library, the kitchen, the sunroom, and the expansive ground-floor living areas.
The house was dead silent.
Panic—cold, sharp, and entirely foreign—began to twist inside Dante’s chest. He pulled out his phone from the nightstand drawer and dialed my cell phone number.
ringing... ringing... voicemail.*
"Damn it," he muttered, punching the number again. Straight to voicemail.
He strode toward the back doors that led to the patio and pushed them open, stepping out into the crisp morning air where Luca Ferretti was standing near the stone fountain reviewing a logistics tablet.
Luca looked up, seeing the raw, unmasked tension in his boss's face, and immediately lowered his tablet.
"Boss. Morning."
"Where is she, Luca?" Dante barked, his voice vibrating with suppressed fury and rising panic.
Luca frowned, looking confused. "Who? Mrs. Moretti? I haven't seen her come down this morning."
"Check the security logs," Dante ordered sharply, stepping closer. "Find out when she left."
Luca’s expression shifted from confusion to unease. He tapped a few buttons on his mobile device, bringing up the estate’s automated surveillance registry—the high-definition cameras that covered every perimeter gate and garage exit.
A few seconds passed. The silence between them stretched until it felt unbearable.
"Boss," Luca said slowly, his voice dropping an octave. "The front gate sensor logged an exit at 3:14 a.m."
Dante froze. "Three-fourteen? Whose car?"
"Her Audi SUV," Luca replied, reading the screen carefully. "Plate number ending in 492. The automated gate opened for her transponder. She drove out alone."
Dante stared at Luca as if the words were being spoken in a foreign language. "Alone? At three in the morning? Did she say where she was going?"
"She didn't tell anyone, Dante," Luca said quietly, choosing to drop formal titles for the first time in years. "And... according to the house manager, her personal luggage from the master closet is gone. Not just a weekend bag. Her heavy wardrobe cases."
Dante felt the ground drop out from beneath him.
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For the first time in his adult life, the untouchable, calculating head of the Moretti empire realized he had completely miscalculated the woman who shared his life. He had assumed my quiet devotion was a permanent fixture—something he could bend, stretch, and test without ever breaking.
He had been catastrophically wrong.
