Gabriel Vale had spent years convincing himself that loving Vivienne Laurent-Cassel was survivable.
Painful.
Humiliating.
Complicated.
But survivable.
He understood now that he had been wrong.
Because standing inside the Laurent-Cassel penthouse while his daughter was missing felt like slowly suffocating in a room full of people who still cared more about reputation than Clara.
Phones rang endlessly around him.
Lawyers shouted over damage-control statements.
Board members argued over stocks falling.
And somewhere in the middle of all that noise—
A six-year-old little girl was gone.
Gabriel stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, his hands braced against the marble counter so hard his knuckles had gone white.
He could still hear Clara crying in the video.
Could still hear the fear in her tiny voice.
The sound replayed in his head over and over until it became unbearable.
"Is he coming for me?"
God.
He should have fought harder years ago.
