After 144 hours with his mistress, he finally remembered his pregnant wife, but what she left behind destroyed his entire empire.

"Damen, don't leave," Meline had pleaded that night, her hand clutching the edge of the mahogany dining table, her knuckles white. "Please. I have a bad feeling. My stomach has been cramping all evening."

Damen hadn't even paused to look at her. He was already slipping his bespoke suit jacket over his shoulders, his thumbs flying across the screen of his phone.

"Elena is at Mount Sinai," he said dismissively. "She might be having a miscarriage. I have to go."

"And what about your child?" Meline's voice broke, a sharp, ragged sound that echoed off the high ceilings of their townhouse. "What about our baby?"

"You're fine, Meline," he snapped, irritated by what he perceived as theatrical manipulation. "Stop competing with an emergency. Take your vitamins and go to bed."

The front door clicked shut. The heavy iron lock engaged.

He didn't know that three minutes after he pulled away in his Maybach, Meline collapsed onto the Persian rug in the foyer.

Now, six days later, Damen stood frozen in the pristine, empty hospital room at Lenox Hill, the thin piece of paper vibrating in his trembling grip.

*He never took a breath.*

The five words burned into his retinas like hot branding irons. His chest tightened until air couldn't pass his throat. He staggered forward, his knee clipping the edge of the adjustable hospital bed, and grabbed the tiny blue knitted hat. It was so small it could barely cover three of his fingers.

It smelled faintly of antiseptic and the lavender lotion Meline had worn since college.

"Where is she?" Damen roared, turning on the young nurse. The command cracked across the quiet ward like thunder. "Where did my wife go?!"

The nurse stepped back, pale, her jaw set against his intimidating aura. "I told you, Mr. Vance. She discharged herself at eight this morning. A private car picked her up."

"Whose car? What service?"

"She didn't say. She signed the AMA paperwork, took the release packet, and left."

"And the baby?" Damen's voice cracked, splitting open into a raw, hollow gasp. "Where is my son?"

"The infant's remains were released according to Mrs. Vance's written directives three days ago," the nurse whispered, looking at the floor. "She held him for seventy-two hours, Mr. Vance. In the bereavement suite. Alone."

A sickening vertigo struck him. Damen reached out, steadying himself against the cold metal bedside rail.

*Seventy-two hours.*

Three whole days. While Meline sat in a dark, refrigerated room rocking the lifeless body of their firstborn child, Damen had been eighty miles away at Elena’s family estate in the Hamptons. Elena hadn't been having a miscarriage; she had merely suffered from a mild ovarian cyst. But she had cried into his chest, clung to his waist, begged him not to leave her alone in the sprawling, shadowy house. She had whispered how vulnerable she felt, how much she needed his strength.

He had turned his phone on 'Do Not Disturb' so they wouldn't be interrupted during dinner on the terrace. He had poured vintage Pinot Noir while his wife bled out on a cold marble foyer.

Damen yanked his phone from his pocket. His hands, usually as steady as a surgeon's during multi-million-dollar negotiations, shook violently. He dialed his personal assistant and head of Vance Medical security, Bernard Cole.

The line rang once.

"Mr. Vance," Bernard answered immediately.

"Bernard, where is Meline?" Damen demanded, his voice thick with a strangled fury masking raw panic. "Find her. Track her phone. Track the cards. Send a team to the townhouse right now!"

There was a long, suffocating pause on the other end of the line.

"Bernard? Did you hear me?!"

"Mr. Vance," Bernard said quietly, the lack of customary deference chilling Damen to the bone. "I’m currently standing in the lobby of Vance Medical headquarters. You need to come here immediately."

"Did you hear what I just said? My son is dead! My wife is missing!"

"I know about your son, sir," Bernard replied, his tone devoid of warmth. "Mrs. Vance called my office six days ago when she was in the ambulance. She called you twenty-five times. She asked me to patch her through to your private satellite line."

Damen froze. "Why didn't you?"

"Because your mistress, Miss Courtland, answered your phone," Bernard said flatly. "She informed me that you were in a delicate closed-door meeting with foreign investors and gave strict instructions that you were not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Miss Courtland said your wife was simply being dramatic."

Damen felt the blood drain from his face. "Elena answered my phone?"

"Yes, sir. And that is only the beginning of your problems," Bernard continued ruthlessly. "Thirty minutes ago, an emergency courier delivered a legal injunction to the board of directors. Every patent underlying the Vance NeuralSync cardiac device—eighty percent of our market capitalization—has just been frozen. Mrs. Vance has revoked the family trust’s intellectual property licensing agreement."

Damen stared at the empty hospital bed.