“Find out everything about Damien Vance,” I said, sliding an envelope of cash across the table. “His business, his contacts, his secrets. Leave no stone unturned.”
Weeks bled into a month. By day, I was Grace, the quiet translator. By night, I pieced together the puzzle of my husband’s life from Marcus’s reports. Vance Industries was a front, a complex web of money laundering, black market dealings, and ties to organized crime. Damien wasn’t a businessman; he was a kingpin.
Then came the photos. Damien with a woman—Katarina Croft, a sharp, ruthless lawyer known in circles where laws were merely suggestions. They were in Paris, at our Hamptons beach house, in his office. The intimacy was undeniable. Was this why he’d cast me aside? To make room for his queen?
“Is he in love with her?” I asked Marcus, my voice a whisper.
He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling between us. “With men like Vance, it’s always about power. She’s not a mistress, Amelia. She’s a partner.”
Fueled by a cold fury, I hacked into an old email account of Damien’s, one from our college days. The password was a painful joke: Amelia2005. Inside, I found it all. Coded messages with Katarina planning a massive shipment of illegal arms. My name, mentioned with contempt. Amelia is a liability. Too naive. And then, the final piece. An email sent a week before our anniversary: The party will be the end. She won’t see it coming. Once she’s gone, we’re free.
His public humiliation wasn’t a spontaneous act of cruelty. It was a strategy—a way to discredit me, to make my inevitable disappearance look like the dramatic exit of a heartbroken wife.
But the worst was yet to come. Marcus’s final report contained a file buried on a secure server. It was a contract. A kill order, with my name on it, dated for the day after the party. Payment had been arranged to make my death look like an accident. If I hadn’t left, I’d be dead.
The grief I thought I had buried erupted, hot and swift, but it quickly cooled into something harder: resolve. I wasn’t hiding anymore. I was hunting.
I flew to a remote town in Montana, a place of stark, silent beauty. The brutal winter mirrored the ice in my veins. There, I planned. I used Marcus’s contacts—disgruntled former federal agents—to feed an anonymous tip to the authorities.
Then, I returned to New York, a ghost in the city I once called home. I was no longer the woman who had stood frozen on that stage. I was forged in betrayal, sharpened by survival. Under the cover of darkness, I slipped into the waterfront warehouse where Marcus confirmed the arms deal was taking place.
From the shadows of stacked crates, I watched Damien and Katarina, their voices sharp with nervous tension. “She’s gone,” Damien said, a note of relief in his voice. “Good riddance.”
Katarina’s laugh was like shattering glass. “You should have done it years ago. She was always dragging you down.”
I recorded every word. Just as they signed the final papers, the wail of sirens sliced through the night. The warehouse doors burst open, and the building flooded with FBI agents. Damien’s face went white with shock; Katarina cursed, her mask of composure finally cracking. I slipped away into the darkness, my work done.
The next morning, I watched the news from a café in Paris. TYCOON DAMIEN VANCE ARRESTED IN MASSIVE ARMS BUST, the headlines screamed. My recordings, Marcus’s files, and the contents of the warehouse had buried them.
I was Anastasia again. Free. I bought a small apartment in Montmartre and started over, the ghost of my past a little fainter each day.
But a month later, Marcus called. “There’s a rumor,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “Vance’s people are still active. They’re looking for a woman. Blonde, glasses, last seen in Chicago. They don’t know it’s you, Amelia, but they’re asking dangerous questions.”
I stood on my balcony, the lights of Paris twinkling below, a new passport with a new name resting on the table beside me. Damien had wished me out of his life. He didn’t realize he had just set me free to become the one ghost he could never escape. The game wasn’t over. It had just begun.
