LAWRENCE.
It has been six years since Theresa disappeared from our lives.
Six years of unanswered questions. Six years of searching shadows, chasing fragments of a past that refused to return. Not a single day passed without the weight of her absence pressing down on me, heavy and unrelenting.
The night before she vanished… I had asked to meet her. I remember it clearly—every detail, every second replaying in my mind like a memory that refused to fade. I had stood there, waiting, my thoughts restless, my chest tight with something I couldn't quite name at the time.
But deep down, I knew the truth.
She loved Leonard the most.
It was obvious in the way she looked at him, the way her voice softened around him, the way her presence seemed to orbit his without her even realizing it.
I saw it.
I felt it.
And I knew I couldn't compete with that.
Still… I tried.
I thought that if I told her first, if I laid my feelings bare before anyone else, maybe, just maybe, it would change something. Maybe it would shift her attention, even slightly, in my direction.
It was foolish.
But it was the only chance I believed I had.
We had fought two days earlier. Words had been said, sharp, careless words that left a distance between us. Because of that, I convinced myself she wouldn't come. That she would ignore my request, just as she had ignored me before.
Yet I waited.
Minutes stretched into hours, and my patience slowly began to unravel. What started as quiet anticipation turned into frustration, then into anger. My jaw tightened, my hands clenched, and still… I stayed.
Until I saw it.
Her Crest moon pin.
It struck the wooden frame with sharp precision, the sound cutting through the silence like a blade. I froze, my eyes locking onto it as it dropped and stilled.
My heart skipped.
Something wasn't right.
Theresa never parted with it.
I looked around immediately, my gaze sweeping the area, searching for her, for any sign of her presence but she wasn't there, not behind me, not ahead, not anywhere.
That was when it hit me.
Something was terribly wrong.
After that night, everything became a blur of urgency and desperation. My brothers and I searched endlessly, refusing to stop, refusing to accept that she could simply vanish without a trace.
Days turned into months.
Months into years.
And still, we didn't find her.
Until now.
After six long years, we finally tracked her down, but what we found… wasn't what we expected.
She had a new identity.
A different name. A different life. A version of herself that no longer belonged to us. And that was something we were not willing to accept.
But worst of all…She was married.
My brothers' voices echoed in my head, uninvited, loud and relentless, as though the past refused to stay buried.
"How dare he think of getting married to her?" Leonard had thundered the moment the report reached us, his voice filled with a fury I had rarely seen, his control snapping in an instant.
"The audacity," Lurgard added, his tone colder, sharper, as he looked away from the system, his jaw tightening. "We are going to make life miserable for him if he refuses to release her."
I remembered standing there, silent, my fists clenching tightly at my sides as their words settled heavily in the room. The tension had been suffocating, thick enough to choke on.
I thought she loved us.
Or at least… I thought she loved Leonard.
The memory stung.
Then why would she agree to marry someone else? Why would she take another man's name so easily, as though everything she had shared with us meant nothing?
The questions had burned through my mind, unanswered, leaving behind only bitterness and disbelief.
"We need to go get her back."
The decision had been made just like that, final, unquestioned and yet… beneath all the anger, all the certainty, there had been something else.
Something I hadn't voiced.
Fear.
A quiet, gnawing fear that settled deep in my chest.
What if she refused to come back?
What if, after everything, she had truly chosen someone else over us?
But when we arrived… what I saw shattered every expectation I had.
"How dare he try to hurt her?"
The anger had returned instantly, sharper than before, cutting through every doubt. There had been no hesitation after that.
The moment we saw her, fragile and barely standing, everything else became irrelevant. We had rushed forward without thinking, grabbing her before she could fall, taking her away from the danger without a second thought.
At the hospital, we stayed, without leaving her side for a single moment, as we kept waiting and watching.
Ready to protect her, to make Alex pay for whatever he had done, whatever he had tried to do. But nothing prepared me for what happened next.
When she woke up… she didn't recognize us. She looked at us like strangers. Spoke to us like strangers. Denied everything, her name, her past, us.
"I'm not Theresa."
The words had replayed in my mind over and over again since then, each time hitting just as hard as the first.
Did she really forget?
Or…
Was she pretending?
Was this her way of cutting ties completely, of erasing us from her life the same way she had taken another man's name?
The thought unsettled me more than I cared to admit. I sat at the table now, silent, composed on the outside, but my thoughts were anything but steady. My gaze drifted toward her again, almost involuntarily.
She sat there quietly, cautious, withdrawn, as though every movement she made had to be measured. There was no recognition in her eyes. No warmth. No trace of the woman I remembered.
And yet…I couldn't stop looking.
No matter how many times I tried to focus on anything else, my attention always returned to her. It was frustrating, how easily she drew it, how effortlessly she held it without even trying.
But one thing was certain, this situation could not continue. The divorce papers had to be sent to Alex as soon as possible, there was no other option.
Theresa could not remain tied to him.
She belonged with us.
No…
She belonged to me.
I thought, tightening my fingers around the spoon in my hands.
"Lawrence, are you okay?"
Bella's voice broke through my thoughts, soft but concerned. I turned slightly as she raised her hand toward my forehead, her brows drawn together.
"Come on, Bella. I'm fine," I said quickly, forcing a small smile onto my face.
She studied me for a moment longer before lowering her hand.
But even as I reassured her, my focus unconsciously slipped again.
Back to Theresa.