Chapter 5
This morning, Isabella was doing well. She had given him a kiss. she will be gone for a week, she informed him.
How? How did this occur?
He barely got inside the home before he passed out from exhaustion.
Like a tidal wave, reality swept over him.
She had left. He had lost his wife.
Between a sob and a roar, a strangled sound escaped his throat. His chest collapsed under the weight of it as his hands balled into fists.
The lady he had deceived, the one he had previously taken for granted, was no longer there.
Adrian Marsden also lost something he couldn’t get back for the first time in his life.
Isabella Marsden was mourned by everyone.
The socialite and philanthropist’s stunning abduction was covered by news outlets nonstop. Outside the Marsden estate, candlelight vigils were conducted, and passersby left flowers at the gate while muttering their sympathies for the ideal wife who passed away too soon.
Adrian Marsden, meanwhile, was falling apart behind those imposing gates and inside the walls of the mansion that had once been the epitome of opulence and power.
In sharp contrast to the man he used to be, he sat in his study with his shirt wrinkled and his tie unbuttoned. A man who has always held the reins. A man with a strategy at all times.
He had nothing now.
His normally immaculate office was in disarray. The desk was covered in papers. Beside him was a half–empty whiskey glass, the amber contents unopened for the past hour. He hadn’t shaved in days, and his scruffy beard had roughened his once–sharp jawline.
The low hum of the television was the only sound in the room.
Isabella Marsden, the well–liked philanthropist whose private jet vanished over the Atlantic two days ago, is still being searched for and rescued. Although debris has been discovered, authorities confirm that Mrs. Marsden’s body is still missing. The odds of survival, according to experts, are-
With a quick click, Adrian turned off the television.
Dead.
They were all saying the same thing. They wished for him to think that.
He didn’t believe it, though. He was unable to. Isabella had to stay.
”
Not the woman who had been there for him through it all. No one had ever loved him more than the lady who had.
His stomach turned at the thought.
It vibrated on his phone. One more call that was lost. His mother, his board members, and his assistant all demanded answers. All of them wanted him to continue.
However, Adrian was unable to proceed.
Not without her.
His fingers trembled a little as he combed through his tangled hair. The final morning they spent together was replayed in his thoughts as it yelled at him.
Her voice was quiet. His cheek was kissed.
Her parting remarks prior to leaving the room.
“I know.”
How could she have known?
What did she mean?
Did she have a suspicion already? Did she have knowledge that he did not?
He was plagued by the questions.
He grabbed his phone and looked through their most recent texts, trying to find anything. However, nothing out of the ordinary was present. Nothing that shouted farewell.
Nevertheless, she had vanished.
He gripped the phone tighter. This was unacceptable to him.
He had to locate her.
Isabella Marsden, meanwhile, had vanished from the world.
Standing in front of a mirror, she could no longer recognize her image.
Her long, dark hair, which had been painstakingly combed to perfection, was suddenly sleek, crisp, and shorter. Her once–warm brown eyes were now filled with something colder, and the once soft, delicate features that had been the loyal wife of Adrian Marsden had become hardened.
Something hazardous.
Observing the last change, she repositioned the collar of her fitted black coat.
Isabella Marsden was not the woman in the mirror.
Aria Laurent was her name.
Adrian no longer owned her. No longer belonged to the existence in which she had been only his property.
She was broken by him. However, he had produced something very different in the process.
A woman who had given up on him.
A lady who would ruin him.
Arla grabbed the envelope Keita had left on the table and turned away from the mirror.
Her new documents were inside. A fresh passport. A new persona. A fresh start.
She wasn’t fleeing, though. She was returning
Not as the distraught widow the public thought she was.
Chapter 5
However, as the lady who would inflict the same kind of suffering on Adrian Marsden that she had.
She grabbed her phone and opened the article about her disappearance.
The image showed Adrian’s face standing outside their estate, appearing completely demolished.
He was due for much worse.
She typed a message to Keira and closed the article.
Aria: Are things all set up?
There was a response a moment later.
Keira: In agreement. Are you certain about this, though? There is no way to go back.
A slow, purposeful smile formed on Aria’s lips.
Aria: It didn’t exist.
After putting her phone in her pocket, she went outside. She felt lively despite the cold air biting at her skin.
She was at last free for the first time in a long time.
However, freedom was insufficient.
She desired retribution. She would also receive it.
Adrian was sitting in the dark at the Marsden estate, holding a half–empty whiskey bottle.
The home was silent. empty.
He had sent everyone away. His mother had pleaded with him to pull himself together, but he had nothing left to pull together.
His world had broken. But deep inside him, something nagged at him.
Something felt odd. It wasn’t just grief–it was an emotion that wouldn’t let go.
A feeling that Isabella wasn’t dead.
Abruptly, he sat up and thumped the bottle down.
His thoughts were racing.
Debris was discovered by the search teams. But no body.
Why?
Why was there no sign of her?
And then… the thought hit him like a freight train.
Suppose that this wasn’t an accident.
What if Isabella had deliberately left?
His chest was smacked by his heart.
No. It was not feasible.
He had underestimated her, though, and he knew it deep down.
If Isabella had survived… Then, where had she gone?
Furthermore, what was she planning?
