Victor
The first thing Victor hears is his phone ringing.
Then buzzing. Then dinging. Over and over like some kind of alarm that won't stop.
He opens his eyes and the sunlight feels like knives stabbing through his skull. His mouth tastes like stale wine and regret. He's still wearing his tuxedo from last night, lying face down on top of his bed in the penthouse.
He groans and reaches for the phone.
Twenty-three missed calls. Forty-seven text messages. His email is flooded with notifications. His social media is exploding. He doesn't need to read the headlines to know what happened. His body already knows. There's a pit in his stomach the size of a boulder.
He forces himself to sit up. Reaches for his laptop with shaking hands.
The video is everywhere.
There he is on screen. Standing on that stage. Holding that microphone. His voice slurred and angry and completely sober enough to know exactly what he's saying. He watches himself point at the crowd. Watches himself say Nora's name like it's an accusation.
"My wife married me for my bank account."
Victor's stomach heaves. He barely makes it to the bathroom before he gets sick.
When he comes back to the bedroom, he tries calling Nora. The number goes straight to a robotic voice saying the number is disconnected. He tries again. Same thing. He texts her. The message shows delivered but no read receipt. He calls again. Again. Again.
Nothing.
He looks at the time. Seven in the morning. He dresses in the first clothes he finds and heads straight to the penthouse garage.
The drive to their apartment takes twenty minutes. Twenty minutes where all he can think about is Nora's face last night. The moment she understood what he was doing. The shock in her hazel eyes right before she turned and walked away. He'd been so angry. So sure he was right. His mother had whispered those doubts in his ear for three years and last night they'd finally poisoned him completely.
He'd destroyed his own wife on live television.
What the hell is wrong with him.
The penthouse is quiet when he lets himself in. Too quiet. He can hear his own breathing echo off the high ceilings. The living room looks the same. Everything is in place. Except it's not. Something is missing. Someone.
He goes to their bedroom.
The walk in closet is half empty.
Victor stares at the empty hangers. At the space where Nora's clothes used to hang. All her dresses are gone. Her shoes. The soft cardigan she always wore over her shoulders when she got cold. Gone.
He pulls out his phone and calls her again. Disconnected. He searches her name online. Nothing new from her accounts. All silent. All dark.
She's really gone.
The realization hits him different this time. Not like anger or vindication. Like losing something so precious he can't even measure the weight of it.
He sits on the edge of the bed and tries to think. Where would she go. Who would she call. Her aunt in Connecticut? But Nora hadn't spoken to her family in years. They never approved of their marriage. They said she was marrying above her station. That it wouldn't last.
They were right and it's all his fault.
The front door slams open so hard the sound cracks through the penthouse like a gunshot.
Owen storms in. Victor's younger brother looks like he hasn't slept. His usually neat blond hair is messy. His eyes are red and wild. He's still wearing clothes from last night's gala, now wrinkled and disheveled.
"What did you do?" Owen's voice is ice.
"Owen, I can explain."
"Explain?" Owen strides toward him across the bedroom. "Explain what, Victor. How you humiliated your wife in front of five hundred people. How you called her a gold digger. How you ended your marriage on a microphone like some kind of reality TV drama."
"She married me for money."
"No." Owen's voice shakes with rage. "She didn't. And you know that. Everyone knows that. Nora gave up her entire life to be with you. She left her job to be Mrs. Kane. She smiled through Mother's cruelty. She defended you when people said you were cold. She loved you when you didn't even know how to love her back."
"Owen."
"Don't." Owen's hand comes up and he punches Victor square in the jaw.
The impact sends Victor backward. His vision blurs. He tastes blood. He doesn't try to defend himself. Doesn't try to hit back. He deserves this.
"I watched her face last night," Owen says, his voice shaking. "The moment you said those words, I watched her understand that the man she loved didn't love her. That you never believed her. That you'd rather listen to Mother's poison than trust your own wife."
Victor wipes blood from his mouth. "I know. I know what I did."
"Do you?" Owen looks at him like he's a stranger. Like his own brother is someone he's never seen before. "Because right now you're sitting here in your expensive penthouse and she's gone, Victor. She's actually gone. And I don't think she's coming back."
Owen turns to leave.
"Wait," Victor calls out. "Help me find her. Please. I need to apologize. I need to explain."
Owen stops at the doorway. Doesn't turn around. "You had three years to do that, Victor. Every time Mother made a cruel comment, you should have defended her. Every time she felt small in this world, you should have made her feel like a queen. Every single moment of the last three years you should have been choosing her. But you didn't. You chose Mother's approval over your wife's heart."
Then he's gone.
Victor is alone again in the penthouse. In the space that's supposed to be his home but suddenly feels like a museum of his own failures.
He walks through the apartment like a ghost. Through the living room where they used to sit together at night. Through the kitchen where Nora always made his coffee the way he liked it. Through the hallway lined with photos of them together, her face bright and smiling in almost every single one.
He stops in the kitchen.
On the marble counter, in the place where Nora always left him notes, is her wedding ring.
Just the ring. The platinum band with the diamond solitaire he chose. The ring she wore for three years. Now sitting alone on the cold stone like a tiny accusation.
Victor picks it up. The metal is warm, like she just took it off. Like she's still here somewhere.
His hands shake so badly he almost drops it.
The ring means something. It means it's final. She didn't just leave. She left on purpose. She took off the thing that meant she belonged to him and she left it like a message.
I'm not yours anymore.
And the worst part, the part that makes Victor's knees actually buckle, is that he understands. After everything he said. After everything he did. He understands perfectly why she left.
The question is whether she's ever coming back.
And if she does, whether he could ever earn the right to ask her to.