Chapter 13
The sunlight caught in Isaac’s hair as he backed away, waving with boyish enthusiasm as the school bell rang again. His smile was infectious, his energy boundless as he jogged
backward toward his own classroom.
“See you at dinner!” he called, nearly tripping over a chicken that wandered into his path.
Charlotte found herself smiling despite the heaviness in her chest. There was something about Isaac–something bright and warm and utterly genuine–that made the world seem less complicated.
In that moment, with the Tanzanian sun illuminating his silhouette, Charlotte realized Isaac Wood shone brighter than any star in the New York sky she’d left behind.
The Peace Corps assignment was for two years, and as the weeks passed, Charlotte found
herself fully embraced by the fishing village community. The locals were extraordinarily
welcoming, inviting her to weekend fishing expeditions on the lake and teaching her
phrases in their dialect that weren’t in any textbook.
This simple life–teaching by day, watching spectacular sunsets by evening, falling asleep to
the distant sound of drums and laughter–was everything she’d secretly yearned for during
those suffocating years in the Delaney mansion.
Her dream had finally materialized, thousands of miles from where she’d started.
Meanwhile, in New York, Elias Delaney was being admitted to a private hospital for alcohol
poisoning.
The Scarlett debacle had shattered something fundamental in him. Regret consumed his every waking moment–regret for not listening to Charlotte’s explanations, for not seeing through Scarlett’s deceptions sooner, for a lifetime of arrogance that had blinded him to what was right in front of him.
But his epiphany had come too late. Charlotte was gone.
Whether by deliberate concealment or genuine ignorance, no one in their social circle admitted to knowing Charlotte’s whereabouts. The private investigators he’d hired returned
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Chapter 13
empty–handed. It was as if she’d vanished into thin air.
Elias had even considered she might have left the country, but exhaustive checks of international flight manifests yielded nothing. For the first time in his life, Elias confronted. the vastness of the world–how easy it was for someone to disappear if they truly wanted to.
So he turned to alcohol, trying to numb the crushing guilt. This wasn’t some minor transgression he could rationalize away. He had taken one of Charlotte’s kidneys–one of only two vital organs–for a woman who had manipulated them both.
His military colleagues visited him in the hospital, offering platitudes and encouragement, none of them understanding the true source of his self–destruction.
Only Isaac Wood knew the full story, and he felt zero sympathy for Elias’s suffering. In Isaac’s view, matters of the heart were personal choices, not moral battlegrounds. But Elias had weaponized his feelings, selfishly hurting someone who had only ever shown him loyalty and love.
Even though Elias had once been his friend, Isaac couldn’t defend him. This was karma,
pure and simple.
After three days of medical supervision, Elias was discharged. He returned to the empty
mansion, instinctively calling out as he entered.
“Charlotte?”
Only silence answered.
He remembered how, before all this, Charlotte would come running at the sound of his
arrival, her face lighting up as she called his name. Now there was only the hollow echo of
his voice in empty rooms.
Elias’s eyes dimmed as he gripped the banister, dragging himself up the stairs. He made his way to Charlotte’s bedroom, desperate to find some trace of the love she’d once felt for him.
Instead, he found only devastation. The framed photos of them together had been smashed.
The letters she’d written him–those earnest, heartfelt confessions he’d once mocked–had
been burned to ashes.
Just like Charlotte herself, every evidence of her feelings had been systematically erased
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Chapter 13
from his world.
For years, he’d repeatedly warned her to stop loving him. Now that she finally had, he found himself drowning in regret.
Perhaps this was exactly what he deserved.
Elias laughed bitterly at the irony, surveying the empty room where they’d once shared
rare moments of genuine connection. The pain that gripped his chest was unlike anything
he’d experienced before–worse than any physical wound from his military service.
As he slumped against the doorframe, his phone rang. The caller ID showed a number he’d almost forgotten.
“This is Hawkins Investigations,” a gruff voice announced. “We’ve located the person you
asked us to find.”
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